There are events which are immediately recognized as epochal ones, and the rocket attack launched on Israel in the early morning hours of Saturday when Hamas escalated conflict on the Jewish state was certainly that. This event may not have been foreseen but it was certainly foreshadowed by the cultural dissent and fragmentation in so many countries, not the least of which is the United States. Enter Iran, who has been busy for many years backing terrorist groups. If Israel is at war with Hamas, as Netanyahu says, it is at war with Iran. And I don’t think it’s coincidental that the timing of this attack happened the same week that the House Speaker was toppled, thereby underscoring the instability of America’s government. You don’t need to be Sun Tzu to know that a definitive strike in a moment of pure chaos is a powerful move to make.
Steve Schmidt sees the handwriting on the wall. Just the day before he had written that there is a danger that America’s enemies “will confuse the character of the American people for so many of our political leaders, and make a deadly miscalculation.” Who can blame them? If I was sitting in a conference room in Pyongyang or Moscow and watching the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene or Matt Gaetz or Lauren Boebert, or Tommy Tuberville, or Ron Johnson, I would be laughing my ass off. I would be pouring a vodka and toasting the shade of Khrushchev, “Nikita, you were right. We will take them over without firing a shot. We already have. Look at what a total mess they are.”
And right on point, Ronna McDaniel chimed in that the war in Israel was a “great opportunity” for the GOP to fight Joe Biden. At a time when the GOP of old would have joined with the Democrats as Americans and presented a united front to an ally, and the world, there was the hand of MAGA idiocy stirring the pot of dissension even further.
Our destiny is linked to Israel’s in more ways than one. In so many ways what has happened there is a tragic black mirror of what’s going on right now in the United States. Look close and mark Israel’s situation well. We have so many of the same things going wrong in our own culture.
What is it that Hamas saw in Israel over the last year? What did the Iranians see? Why did they pick this moment? Why now?
They saw division and chaos caused by the ego of one man, Benjamin Netanyahu. They saw the statements by the senior military, intelligence and government officials who decried Bibi’s attempts to cripple Israels’s democracy by neutering its independent judiciary. They saw the protests that began in January 2023, and have continued since, where an enormous percentage of Israeli society has taken to the streets to fight for democracy. They saw a society unnecessarily divided by its leader, whose selfishness and desire for power came before his duty to the nation.
What they saw was weakness and opportunity. They struck.
The surprise attack against the state of Israel by the terror group Hamas was unprecedented, savage and sophisticated. It is the greatest intelligence failure in Israeli history, but also a staggering failure of US and allied intelligence agencies, which were caught completely flat-footed. Twenty-three years after the 9/11 attacks, two failed wars and trillions of dollars in spending, the American intelligence community has failed again, utterly.
Israel was caught by surprise — unprepared, unready and unable to see the wolf at the door. It is the greatest failure of competence in the history of the Israeli state, and now there is war.
The coming war will not be between Israel and Hamas. It will be between Israel and Iran, which controls Hamas. There was rejoicing in Tehran tonight as Iranians celebrated the terror attacks in the street.
This is true. Hamas gets what it needs from Iran. And Iran did not get $6 billion in taxpayer money, which it then turned into a war machine. That is right-wing conspiracy. The $6 billion in question, which represents Iran’s own funds which were unfrozen by Biden in a prisoner exchange, is sitting in a bank in Qatar.
Those who are saying that this $6 billion that was part of the American hostage release negotiated by the Biden administration likely fueled the Hamas invasion are missing some key facts….None of the money has been spent yet. It remains in a Qatari bank under US Treasury watch.
— Jennifer Griffin (@JenGriffinFNC) October 7, 2023
The money was earmarked for “humanitarian purposes” and it’s still sitting there. But that doesn’t stop this.
Stop blaming Republicans. Joe biden sent 6 billion to Iran. Which funds Hamas. Joe Biden has blood on his hands. pic.twitter.com/JfsDNFQaU1
— Sassafrass84 (@Sassafrass_84) October 7, 2023
I’m going with Jennifer Rubin on this. The spectacle in the House and the coach cum senator who keeps blocking U.S. promotions and who didn’t know that General Milley had to leave his position the day his term ended, is what gives the rest of the world the clear impression of democracy in paralysis. The GOP can throw emotional excuses and conspiracy theories at an electorate that they believe too stupid to function with the truth, but facts are still facts.
Back to Steve Schmidt’s article, which goes on to say that Iran controls Hezbollah in Lebanon, Islamic Jihad and Hamas and that no attack of this scale took place without direct Iranian participation. Granted. And they were not using $6 billion in U.S. taxpayer money, nor were they even tapping into the $6 billion in the Qatari bank. Anyone saying otherwise is a conspiracy theorist and/or somebody high up in the GOP, including Trump. This is his conspiracy theory, one of many. Back to Iran,
They are also part of the Russian axis of power, and the supplier of thousands of drones to Putin’s criminal army in Ukraine.
The Chinese will be watching closely as well. Will they see an opportunity to move in the South China Sea? Will they assess this moment during which they are driven by domestic economic weakness to strike militarily?
There are military tensions in the Balkans, and a very unstable situation between Serbia and Kosovo and Azerbaijan and Armenia in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
The world can ignite in this moment. Israel was sleeping and caught asleep at 6:30 am yesterday.
The world has turned again. Things are not as they were before, and a new age is here — whether we are ready for it or not. America will not escape Israel’s Pearl Harbor. None of us will.
I concur. This epochal event has thrown the global political stasis off balance to say the least and we are as close to WWIII as we have ever been since the late 1940’s. And make no mistake: the dissension and idiocy of the past seven, eight years in American politics has been a contributory factor to what just happened.
We’re the laughing stock of the world now, with our only saving grace the fact that the White House and the Senate are controlled by the Democrats. The 2024 election will make an indelible statement about who we are and what we are as a nation. Let’s hope enough people don’t make the wrong mistake and a combination of conspiracy theory, culture war, No Labels, RFK, Jr., and the roulette wheel of the electoral college produces another Trump term. Or we are all in a world of hurt.
Well done, Ursula. And I agree. Every last word.
It makes sense. We’ve all been watching the American political scene like a hawk and so is the rest of the world. And we look weak, stupid and floundering right now — although with Biden in the White House we have some credibility. The GOP collapsing like it is, though, is not a good sign and everybody recognizes that.
Excellent article Ursula. I have to agree with everything there and it terrifies me.
We live in interesting times and in dangerous ones. I don’t know if anybody is stupid enough to start a nuclear war but the planet can be de-stabilized by conventional warfare, that much we see.
Sadly, this could very well devolve into WW3. You are to my fear, quite correct. I could give you details and scenarios, but I won’t. It’s just very, VERY bad.
Hamas has no idea where this will end. But I don’t think this will end where they hope or expect it will.
The problem with this is that it was foreseen many years ago. Faith in Netanyahu is basically non existent. I wish you would consider writing an article from the Jewish perspective for us, Bryan.
The paradox of this is that right now, because of the attack, Netanyahu has the best relationship he’s had with Biden. What.A.Mess.
The question I have is why the US supports, aids and abets Israel’s Apartheid.
At least three international human rights organizations have declared Israel an Apartheid State. Apartheid never has the right to defend itself so it, therefore, never has the right to exist. However, an oppressed, indigenous people who have had genocide, if not ethnic cleansing perpetrated against them do have the right to defend themselves and to exist.