An octopus can regenerate its wounded or even amputated arms, although it takes months—not much time in the greater scheme of things. Over the past year, Israeli armed forces have slowly all but amputated Iran’s Hamas arm, which Hamas brought on itself with its October 7th attack—one of the largest, most vicious, and most depraved mass murders since World War II. It succeeded in its aim, which was to provoke Israel into an unprecedented air assault and ground invasion. Unfortunately for Hamas, Israel only killed a fraction of the numbers Hamas wanted to sacrifice, since the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths (contrary to countless blood libels and big lies) has been low to moderate compared to major modern wars. There are easily enough Hamas recruits left to regenerate this arm, if Israel and the world allow it.
The late Hassan Nasrallah, terror boss
One day later, on October 8th, another octopus arm, Iran’s Hezbollah, began an unprovoked convergent attack on the Jewish prey, which has been fending off this second arm and mildly damaging it for almost a year. The exchange of harm has been mostly balanced, but the tit-for-tat began escalating a month or two ago. Iran’s Hezbollah, the tail that wags Lebanon, could have stopped any day and Israel would have stopped, but this second octopus terror arm vowed to keep it up until there was a ceasefire in Gaza; this, under the terms of Iran’s Hamas, would be a victory for the Gaza terror group, the Lebanon terror group, and of course for Iran itself. As long as the Iran-initiated Hezbollah attacks continued, 60-80,000 Israelis evacuated from their homes would stay evacuated.
Imagine that the Drug Cartels got wider control of Mexico and began firing Russian rockets at the US, forcing the people of southern Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California to flee their homes, then having those homes destroyed by the Cartels’ continued rocketing. What would our government do? What would we expect it to do?
About two weeks ago, Israel met its people’s expectations and escalated its defensive war against Iran’s arm in Lebanon. It (or someone) started by pressing a button that caused many pagers only used by the Hezbollah terror group to explode at once, injuring 2,750 people, including a small number of children. The next day someone did the same with 350 or so walkie-talkies. Call it subterfuge or treachery, it resulted in (by far) the lowest ratio of civilian to combatant casualties of any military action in centuries. Of course, the world press talked more about two children who were killed than about the thousands of terror soldiers killed or injured. Tragic, yes, but compared to what?
Israel has not claimed credit for those attacks, but it has taken credit for the recent killing in airstrikes of almost the entire leadership of the terror army, all of these strikes focused narrowly on high-ranking terror commanders. Today it was announced that the last and most important terror lord, Hassan Nasrallah, who has been building and running the terror army for 32 years, was also killed. Dancing in the streets in Syria reminds us that this vicious thug has not had only Israeli victims. Iran’s Hezbollah, led by Nasrallah, and Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad were joined at the hip in killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. If Americans were more knowledgeable and Lebanese less afraid of the Iran-run mob, those countries would be dancing in the streets as well, since both have lost many, many compatriots to Nasrallah.
It is not a coincidence that Brigadier General Abbas Nilforushan, the top leader of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard—its most elite troops—was killed in the same strike as Nasrallah. Both deaths have been confirmed by their respective bereaved terror colleagues. And of course, their simultaneous elimination completely confirms what Israel, the US, and others have always known: Hezbollah and Iran are one entity, and Hezbollah’s claimed independence has always been a fairy tale. In fact, one of Nasrallah’s most important accomplishments has been maintaining Hezbollah’s vassal status in relation to its Iranian masters.
If Octopus Iran’s Hamas arm is mostly amputated, its Hezbollah arm is mostly intact, although without its most important bosses and with hundreds to thousands of rocket and missile batteries and weapons depots destroyed. However, it was at least ten times as large, strong, Iran-trained, and organized as Hamas. It is a wounded arm of the Octopus, but it will regenerate, although it is much less of a threat to Israel right now than it was two weeks ago. There will be more damage, and just how much more will depend on whether Iran orders the wounded Hezbollah to lash out or at least keep attacking Israel. Octopus Iran may be willing to lose and regenerate one arm after another; everyone knows it is willing to fight until the last Gazan, Lebanese, Yemeni, Iraqi, and Syrian has been sacrificed to its fanatical imperial and genocidal aims. But what may hold it back now is the fear that sooner or later the Israelis, the US, or someone finally realizes that the Octopus will yield only when its head, not just its arms, suffers serious damage.
