re: Hezbollah: Saudi Arabia offered Israel money to attack Lebanon

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But that’s not a fight the Israelis will win.

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What's your definition of win?

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SA is being purged of these people

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SA is a long way from purging those people. The Wahhabis are still the most popular sect in SA and Qatar by some ways. It's going to take a generation or two for any reforms to bear fruit.

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It amazes me how naive Americans are about Israel

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it amazes me how little leftists actually know about the history of Israel's creation and the conflict in the middle East

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Sure, but I don't think that's practical. They have no leverage over the government in Baghdad, and they're not about to go to war over the issue.

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It isn't practical, but I'm sure they would demand it, especially in light of some PMU's talking about carrying their fight outside of Iraq and Syria.

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Yes, going to war would be a mistake, but countries make mistakes all the time.

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The mistake here is thinking that Hezbollah's new found strength post-Syria is something that will remain for a long time. It might, but the reactive nature of all this makes me think it is saber-rattling and nothing more.

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It isn't practical, but I'm sure they would demand it, especially in light of some PMU's talking about carrying their fight outside of Iraq and Syria.

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Why make demands you can't enforce?

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The mistake here is thinking that Hezbollah's new found strength post-Syria is something that will remain for a long time.

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Nothing lasts forever, but why would it change? What would shift the balance power?

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They will come crying for our help

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Or beg Pakistan to bail them out.

Isn’t it great when all the military or vets say the KSA military is shite

Yet the civilians argue otherwise

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Why make demands you can't enforce?

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I can think of many political reasons, mainly to play into the Anti-Shia bigotry that is becoming mainstream in the Islamic world.

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Nothing lasts forever, but why would it change? What would shift the balance power?

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Plenty of things. Western commentators typically see the Shia groups as monolithic, often because they end up acting monolithically, but I think it is a matter of this particular circumstance. For example, Iran between 2005 to 2013 was plagued by in-fighting by a variety of factions. One of Rouhani's moves was toward consensus building within the elite, especially when dealing with the West. I think Rouhani detailed his method of consensus building in his book National Security and Nuclear Diplomacy. That consensus building has been a feature of Iran's foreign policy moves, but it isn't without its discontents. There are signs of Hezbollah-Iranian tension (as in Hezbollah has offered more resources in Syria with Iranian direction) as well as Iranian-Iraqi tension (Sistani is a committed Iraqi nationalist) that show the relationship in the "Shia Crescent" isn't without its problems.

In my view, what happens when Sistani dies will determine quite a bit. Iran also has annoyed some neighbors, as the Iranian leadership have been careful to commit as few men as possible lest the mood toward the Syrian conflict change back home. There are numerous things that could change the balance of power, from a strong Iraqi state to infighting between Iranian factions.

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So how would Hezbollah survive, without Iranian support?

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Well this is an issue of some contention. The pre-Syria situation between Iran and Hezbollah involved less overt funding, but more funding through foundations. The post-2012 situation has strengthened ties between the two, but Hezbollah is also extending its arms internationally, specifically in the Latin American drug trade. LINK

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The Iranians are also a critical arms supplier, so how would they function without that?

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Cutting off arms is one critical avenue, but there are always willing sellers if the money is there.

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If you look at it from the Hezbollah perspective, this has to be an issue they worry about. You don't want to be fully dependent on your sponsors. What happens when you disagree on something and they walk away? That may explain why they're building a domestic rocket industry. It may also explain why they've worked so closely with Damascus. They need options.

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The situation is two-fold. Iran is also the spiritual ally, and the power of very charismatic ayatollahs to organize responses very quickly (see Sistanti's fatwa on the PMU) to threats can't be underrated. So they will be linked in that respect. At the same time, there were rumors that Hezbollah fighters resented having IRGC commanders lead them, and Lebanese Shia resented their men coming home dead.

The Damascus angle is very interesting. The Syrian Ba'ath's supported the Iranians during the revolution and the war with Iraq, but one of the overt reasons for Iranian, and broadly Shia, support was to protect shrines in the area. This was also the stated intent with Iran's interference in southern Iraq. Damascus gives both groups a convenient outlet to work out issues as well.

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But if they can't follow through and enforce them, they'll look weak.

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I think they are looking for a sort of "soft isolation" rather than hard enforcement. This article goes over Anti-Iranian feeling in North Africa, at a time when Iran is seeking trade partners. LINK

In this sense, what they want to do is to be looked at as the sane counterpart to Iran as Iran attempts to normalize relations, and as the PMU attempt to integrate back into Iraqi society, while at the same time participate in politics. They literally have no reason to stop the Anti-Shia rhetoric when it seemingly has resonance in areas where the amount of Shia are very small.