War on the Axis: Final Breath of a Dying Empire
It is clear the goal of the US and Zionists is elimination of the Resistance Axis, even though on both a practical and divinely-ordained level, they are doomed to fail. The question remains is what tactics will they use in pursuit of this dead-end goal?
During the period of the supportive front between the Al-Aqsa Flood operation and the beginning of the war in Lebanon, there were many conflicting opinions regarding the purpose of the operation and the calculations of the Palestinian Resistance. While the genocide itself was condemned by many around the world, it also caused observers to question the rationale of Hamas and even the capabilities of the Resistance Axis. These speculations intensified as the genocide progressed and the results of the war in Palestine were more apparently unsettling.
Similar speculations were heard when the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon decided to support the Palestinian Resistance. Hezbollah had no prior knowledge of the Al-Aqsa Flood operation, yet it joined as a supportive front with three main objectives: (1) to attend to its religious duty of defense when the genocide began; (2) to ensure the Palestinian Resistance is not defeated in its war; and (3) to weaken the Zionist military which intended on waging war on Lebanon afterwards. These three objectives were successfully fulfilled.
Throughout that period, the situation was crystallizing. The war began its shift to Lebanon in mid-September with the terrorist pager attack and assassination of several prominent Hezbollah commanders. At this point, there was hardly any doubt that Hezbollah had been correct in its assessment. It became clear that the forces of global arrogance, led by the US, had taken the decision to dismantle the Resistance Axis. This was more assertively on the agenda since the July War of 2006, as remarked by Robin Wright who wrote: “For the United States, the broader goal is to strangle the axis of Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria, and Iran.”
It was indubitable that the US was not only ‘complicit’ but was in fact spearheading the entire project. The Zionist entity was – contrary to narratives which aimed to absolve the US of its criminality and thorough sponsorship of the genocidal expansionism taking place – a power tool; an extension of American arrogance from the ideology of exceptionalism at its core to its role in America’s systemic accumulation of security and economic control through imperial policies. But they had a fair share of help from America’s client-states in the region, which is also more transparent today than ever before.
Now, it has become clear that the region is more divided on the Palestinian cause than the media previously could afford to admit. There is not much of an argument regarding the legitimacy of the Palestinian struggle, but there is obvious disagreement on how to approach it. Most states in the region were and remain of the view that Palestinian liberation is not worth the war upon which it is contingent. These states include Turkey, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, new Syria, and others. They recognize that the more convenient alternative is collective normalization. The only ‘problem’ preventing this is the Resistance Axis; and therein lies the greater context.
The previous center of the campaign against the Axis was Syria, but now that it has fallen in the hands of the pro-normalization camp, Lebanon is the focus. The current situation in Lebanon is as follows: the US and its client-states are attempting to impose a transformation in the identity of the Lebanese state and society by forcing Lebanon to join the movement for normalization or face the consequences of the region’s geographic reconstruction. In other words, the Lebanese government either wages an internal war against Hezbollah to disarm them by force, or this task will be given to Zionist forces at the Southern border and the terrorist mobilizations of new Syria at the Northern border.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah will not accept full disarmament – not only because that is not part of the ceasefire agreement but also because it knows the dangers of doing so. Hezbollah understands the political psychology of the Zionist entity, it maintains ideological and historical grounds for its identity as an Islamic resistance, and it sees through the Lebanese government’s misplaced confidence in the possibility of the US protecting Lebanese sovereignty at the entity’s expense. Whether this will lead to a clash with the Lebanese authority depends primarily on the latter’s willingness to preserve Lebanese independence from American overreach.
Although the Resistance Axis has taken strategic setbacks and is currently dealing with several inconveniences after the wars in Palestine and Lebanon especially with the social and political chaos which has transpired in Syria, this does not mean the Zionist entity is not in a fragile position. In fact, the entity’s current fragility is unprecedented, and this represents a direct threat to American strategic interests. The US is well-aware of this, which is the reason for its current transgressions against Yemen and warmongering tone towards the Islamic Republic of Iran.
While the U.S has succeeded in weakening the Resistance Axis and thereby placing Iran in a more isolated position, the underlying message when the Trump administration says it is looking to bring peace to the world and ‘Make America Great Again’ is one of fragility. What it means is the US has no choice but to deal with ‘straight power concepts,’ as encouraged by George Kennan in 1948. The US now has no choice but to wage war on enemies and opponents who challenge its global hegemony because it acknowledges the losses caused by its failed soft-war political and cultural conversion policies and long-term leverage-gaining projects.
All eyes are currently on the Resistance Axis. There are many unknowns, which only time will bring to light. Can the Palestinian Resistance regroup? How much of Hezbollah’s military capacity has been rebuilt? How capable is Yemen of withstanding the American storm? Will the U.S wage war on the Islamic Republic of Iran? How safe is Iraq with the complex changes in the region, especially along its border with Syria? But also, on the other hand, what will it take for an awakening in the Sunni world? Is the expectation that the sectarian worldview and prioritization of economic gain will be overcome in the Sunni world still strategically sound? These are some of the questions which come to mind.
