Will Israel and Iran go to war before Biden is sworn in?
Could a conflict [between Israel and Iran] erupt before President Donald Trump leaves office?
Reports have indicated that Iran appears to think a conflict is possible and the region is on edge. However, history illustrates that these kinds of tensions often blow over.
Certainly possible, as I recently wrote:
Does Israel go in to occupy the rocket-launching sites shortly after the new year to avoid immediate Biden retaliation? I've been expecting this for some time, but Israel knows that Biden will not be friendly to Israel and may be hostile the way Obama was.
I mean, as long as Hezbollah is telegraphing its intent to hit Israel and America, why wouldn't Trump green light and bolster an Israeli military mission to tear up Iran's vassal force Hezbollah before Biden can marshal full punishment of Israel for getting in the way of Glorious Iran Reset 2.0?
And I've been expecting a clash focused on Hezbollah for a decade now. But no war has broken out. So yeah, these kinds of tensions often just simmer--not quite flow over, I think--rather than blow up.
But now the front would likely be broader than just Lebanon and include Syria where Iran is burrowing in, exploiting their help to Assad in the multi-war there.
It is difficult to predict these things. Obviously. But the reasons for war continue to exist. If things don't change, eventually somebody decides that war is the way to go. That could be Israel trying to disarm Iran's proxies or Iran determined to use their proxies against Israel.
And I don't rule out that Israel will go big and seek to damage Iran's nuclear infrastructure. After all, Israeli intelligence knows a lot about the Iranian plans to focus their strikes; and has a lot more Arab cooperation, especially with Saudi Arabia.
Heck, would the nuclear targeting be focused enough with that intelligence to also allow economic strikes that I recognized might be an alternative?
Would the Biden administration retaliate against Israel and Saudi Arabia?
As long as I'm speculating. Would Israel and Saudi Arabia use the threat of combined military action against Iran--which sane people would not trust--to get Biden to privately commit to not trying to restore the horrible Iran nuclear deal?
UPDATE: Interesting:
Israeli military jets carried out several low flying flights over Beirut as reconnaissance drones also buzzed overhead Sunday in what has become a daily occurrence.
Are the Israelis doing this to dull Hezbollah reaction should the Israelis pull the trigger and go in?
I'll add that UNIFIL is noted in the article. If UNIFIL was doing its job Israel would have no reason to go into Lebanon where Hezbollah has built a huge rocket and missile arsenal whose sole purpose is to kill Israeli civilians.
UPDATE: Warnings:
In the south (Golan Heights) Israeli aircraft continue to drop thousands of leaflets on Syrian villages near the border warning residents to stay away from Iranian or Hezbollah bases near the border. The civilians know where these bases are and some will do business with those in the bases. These leaflets made it clear that Israeli airstrikes on these Iranian bases and camps would be a regular occurrence.
It can, of course, simply be warnings for the now-routine air campaign against Iranian assets deployed to fight Israel.
But as the post notes further down, Russia is encouraging Israel and Assad to make peace at the expense of the Iranians who both want out of Syria.
Would Assad look the other way if Israel tore up the Iranians in Lebanon and Syria, leaving Syria and the Russians to clean up the survivors in Syria? Israel surely would deal with Assad-run Syria which is going to be weak for a generation.
UPDATE: Lebanon will protest to the UN about Israeli flights. Perhaps if Lebanon had complained to the UN about UNIFIL's failure to control the Hezbollah state-within-a-state in the south this protest wouldn't be necessary.
UPDATE: Israeli jets hit Iranian targets in eastern Syria where the Iranians hope they are less vulnerable. It is hard to say whether this is routine or shaping the battlefield for a major operation. They certainly blend and provide options. Prior to the Iraq War our routine no-fly zone enforcement intensified to battlefield shaping, I'll note. In related (?) news, Iran initiated a naval exercise in the Gulf of Oman.
