One year ago, in January 2024, I began this occasional blog by saying, “Israel is at war with the empire of Iran…” Not everyone understood that at the time, but we all understand it now. My last posting here, in September, was titled “Octopus Iran Loses Parts of Its Arms.” That was shortly after the devastating pager and walkie-talkie attacks on Iran’s Hezbollah and Israel’s killing of Hasan Nasrallah and the rest of the terror group’s most important leaders. Briefly, here’s what’s happened since.

Hamas men crowd in on frightened hostage for one more intimidation as they release her, January 19, 2025

On October 1st, Iran responded by launching 180 ballistic missiles at Israel, with little effect. We held our breath until the weekend of October 26th, when we saw Israel’s retaliation: an attack by more than 100 jets on 20 sites inside Iran, destroying missile and aircraft launching and manufacturing capacities without a single loss on Israel’s side. Its fighter jets blithely circled Tehran, demonstrating Israel’s complete air dominance and Iran’s impotence against it.

Iran vowed retaliation, of course, but three months later we have yet to see it.

In November, negotiations produced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran’s Hezbollah, which betrayed the promise it made on October 8th, 2023—the day it launched its war of aggression against Israel—to keep attacking Israel until there was a ceasefire in Gaza. Now it abandoned Iran’s Hamas, or what was left of it, to fight Israel alone.

So in one month, Israel crippled Iran and sent Iran’s Hezbollah on a massive ideological retreat and abandonment of its sworn allegiance. On November 26th, the same day the ceasefire began, rebel groups in Syria moved to fill the vacuum left when its tyrant, the unbelievably vicious Bashar-al-Assad, lost his two key allies, Iran and Iran’s Hezbollah. The rebels’ lightning war caused Assad’s army to melt away, Assad fled the country he and his father had so brutally ruled for half a century, and the rebels took power in the Syrian capital.

Israel, uncertain as to whether the victorious rebels would really abandon their Islamist terror tradition as they promised, proceeded to destroy the chemical, biological, and other weapons with which Assad had terrorized his people. Meanwhile the Russians fled and the Turks—no friends of Israel—moved in. Israel did not intend to remake the Middle East, but in the course of defending itself against terrorist aggression, it is on its way to doing just that.

Abandoned by Iran’s Hezbollah, Iran’s Hamas—reduced from an army to a guerilla band—agreed to a ceasefire with Israel on January 15th. Just one day before the end of the Biden administration and the start of the reign of Trump, who had vowed that “all Hell will break loose” if a ceasefire wasn’t reached before his inaugural, the ceasefire took effect with the release of three kidnapped women hostages and 90 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli.

In truth, Israel has been fighting not an Octopus but a Sextopus—an Iranian head with six arms. Three of them, or four including Iran’s terror forces in Iraq, have been greatly damaged. However, like octopus arms, sextopus arms, and even to some extent the monster’s head, can regenerate. And two more of Iran’s six arms are still in pretty good shape.

One, Iran’s Houtis in Yemen, is 1,000 miles away, but nevertheless sends Israel missiles and drones that in turn send Israelis scrambling for shelter. However, now that there is a ceasefire in Gaza, they say they will not attack all the world’s ships in the Red Sea, but only ships with some connection to Israel. On January 21st the legitimate (and yes, UN-backed) leader of Yemen urged the West to attack the Houtis now, while their backers and masters in Iran are weakened.

So Yemen would welcome decisive defeat of the Houtis, liberating their country. It’s not an easy logistical problem to target so distant an enemy, but Israel has attacked Iran and it can attack Iran’s Houtis. It has already damaged their ports and other facilities, while the US and the UK—to protect their own shipping—have carried out weak raids. This Iranian tentacle is still alive and well.

The sixth Iranian appendage is not 1,000 but zero miles away: Iran’s terror guerrillas in the West Bank—known to Israelis as Judea and Samaria. This hidden menace is the next major target of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), now that both Lebanon and Gaza seem to be quiet for a time. This near-to-home enemy is of necessity a high priority. The fact that the territory also harbors Jewish terrorists will not help in its pacification.

Many doubt that the ceasefire will hold, even for its first six-week phase when 33 hostages (about a third of those remaining, with an unknown number alive) could be released. No one doubts that as the IDF withdraws and unchecked (in both meanings) aid flows into Gaza, what’s left of Iran’s Hamas will try, body and soul, to retake the strip and rule by terror again. The mob of automatic-rifle-brandishing masked men that pressed in on the three young women, even as they were released, tells us all we need to know about the future Hamas.

As for the head of the sextopus, it’s regeneration would include becoming a nuclear-weapon state—an existential threat far more massive than Israel has ever faced. Recall that Iran, along with all its appendages, has sworn, literally to Heaven, to eliminate the Jews from the Middle East. Freeing the Palestinians would be for them a  nice touch, but it’s mainly political cover for their true and sacred ultimate goal: erasing the Jews.

Whatever plans people in the region have for themselves will soon confront the power of Donald Trump and his emissaries. What will happen? We will see.

With thanks to Dr. Misha Pless