re: U.S. and Israel reach joint plan to counter Iran

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They have us over a barrel. The people who say, let Israel deal with it are right about one thing, Israel CAN deal with it. But it's HOW they'd have to deal with it that would cause them to reconsider our being involved. Nobody wants mushroom clouds and Israel won't have much choice if it gets too bad. For them, this is about extinction. They're not walking into the showers passively this time.

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The Israelis have always reacted to threats with immediate force. They prize quick violent action, so their inaction on issues like Hezbollah and Iran should be telling.

They don't have an answer.

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Was Obama wrong to try and entreat with Iran?

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Look at the outcome of his “work” (or lack there of) and tell us.

Take a look at the massive protests going on in Iran. The people are demanding that support for foreign wars (Houthis, Hezbollah, and Syria) cease and urges that the clerics and president to step down.

If this protest, which has the makings of turning into a revolt, succeeds, suddenly, Israel won’t have to worry about Iran backing Israel’s enemies anymore. Hezbollah, cut off financially from their drug operations in the U.S. and from their puppet masters in the East suddenly becomes a much less formidable foe; same with the Houthis in Yemen.

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Do the protests represent Iran as a whole? Or a small section of the urban population?

How broad is appeal?

Iran’s Republican Guard and Secret Police will squash this. These protests, and the crack down, may breed an insurgent movement but it’s years away from being any position to oppose the power of this regime. Hopefully, we can provide some covert “help’in” if a movement starts.

The most successful example of this is probably OTPOR in Serbia and our efforts to topple Milosevic.

OTPOR had no idea that they were working for us, nor did the public.

Iran was never my thing, but I would be wary of interfering.

I don’t know what we’d get out of it - I don’t see where Iran poses a threat to us. And what happens if it blows up in our face? I see a potential downside without much of an upside.

I would let them sort it out themselves, on their own terms.

Time and the burden of govenance has tempered the Mullahs fervor. That process will continue.

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The Lebanese army was just approved to receive Bradley fighting vehicles from the U.S. This is big and just another nail in the Hezbollah coffin.

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Ah. You’re just trolling.

And I was being thick.

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If Iran falls, Hezbollah is cut off from their biggest financial/military backer. Then, if the Lebanese army is suddenly getting outfitted with better weapons, they can retake control of the country.

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This is something you want to be true.

It doesn’t make true though, and your chain of thinking relies on a number of ludicrous assumptions.

The Lebanese Army isn’t an army and it’s a hell of a lot more likely to shoot at the IDF than it is at Hezbollah.

Bradley’s would also be of little to no help in fighting Hezbollah.

Ultimately, they’d just be pretty toys in the hands of the Lebanese.

And that’s the thing about military aid, men fight for ideas, and all the military to military training, all the western weapons in the world, it doesn’t make up for that.

We may want the Lebanese to fight Hezbollah. That’s moronic. Why on earth would we want to restart the civil war. But that’s what we want, not what they want.

And so they won’t.

What would they fight for? Their sect, their faith, and perhaps for the Levantine people.

They do not like their neighbors to the south. So they might fight against them.

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This is something you want to be true

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No it's fact. Hezbollah will have no money or weapons now explain how you think they'll continue to be effective. The answer is they won't be. They are done.