The road ahead for Israel, America, and everyone else

Victory for Israel may ensure the necessary demoralization of the next generation's Islamist fundamentalists.

President Biden left Israel Wednesday after publicly instructing Jerusalem to show restraint in their expected ground invasion of Gaza, while privately reportedly giving the Israelis more wiggle room to get the job done.

Now, even meaningless moral virtue signaling is pretty rich coming from the guy whose administration is responsible for the horrendously botched withdrawal from Afghanistan (despite it being absolutely necessary), the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline, and other incidents that helped to spark a variety of global crises.

Nonetheless, it appears pretty clear that despite the Biden “bear hug” smothering routine, Israel intends on following through with its mission to severely limit the operational capability of Hamas, the terrorist group responsible for the October 7 massacre of over 1,300 Israelis.

The Hamas attack seems to have ignited the possibility of a new era of global jihadism, following several years of relative global calm. Simply put, the continuing ramifications of the October 7 attack cannot be understated. It has sparked a fervor that may have a global spillover effect.

I’m going to put my foreign policy analyst hat on and tell you how I see the geopolitical landscape moving forward.

For a more tactical understanding of what’s to come, read this brilliant short essay from the famed strategist Edward Luttwak about the game plan for Israel’s operation in Gaza.

Now here’s what the satellite picture looks like.

Over the course Israel’s military campaign, there will be all kinds of chaos consuming the Palestinian Territories and the broader region. As we witnessed on social media Tuesday, with the attempts in the corporate media and elsewhere to blame Israel for a malfunctioning Hamas rocket smashing into the vicinity of a hospital, it’s not difficult to spark outrage in the Islamist world. This is especially true when it involves the “Zionists,” the preferred pejorative of the English speaking jihadi crowd, so as not to make their motives so obvious. So you can expect much more propaganda and fake news to come from the “Pallywood” apparatus, with the hopes to further activate Islamist fundamentalists and turn international sentiment against Israel and the West as a whole.

Several of the Levant and Gulf Arab states will be keeping a close eye on the Israeli operation in Gaza. Other than the Hamas harboring regime in Qatar, most regional players would be happy — or at worst, indifferent — to witness the end of Hamas as a political entity. Nonetheless, they remain concerned about internal political strife, threatened by the prospect of another “Arab Spring” resulting in Islamist revolts. The Arab states are in full batten down the hatches mode.

The Biden Administration and the Pentagon are attempting to dissuade Hezbollah from forcing Israel into a two front skirmish. I don’t have much faith that they can manipulate the intentions of the Tehran proxy force in Lebanon. However, Lebanon is in really bad shape, constantly teetering on the brink of collapse. The government is so incompetent and corrupt that they can barely keep the lights on. For both Israel and the United States, keeping the northern front closed is of utmost importance. In the event of a two front war, Israel would be forced to obliterate southern Lebanon, and a humanitarian crisis would undoubtedly unfold in both Lebanon and Israel.

In Syria, Bashar al-Assad is watching the war from his golden cage, unable to contribute much in the plus or minus category. If there is conflict on the Syria-Israel border, it will most likely come from Iran-backed forces, and not the official Syrian Army.

The mullahs in Iran have thus far succeeded in rolling back the Abraham Accords era of Arab-Israeli peace. They will seek to continue to spark internal revolts abroad, with the hopes to weaken Israel and the Gulf Arabs.

China and Russia have pursued an amoral approach to the Hamas-Israel war, with both signaling that they want a ceasefire and for the status quo to continue. Both countries have faced previous Islamist insurgent issues, and don’t want to be perceived as being unfairly favorable to Israel. However, neither party is showing much interest in kinetically disturbing Israel’s mission in Gaza. India, which deals with jihadist insanity on a daily basis, has been more publicly supportive of Israel’s continuing operation.

For the United States and much of Europe, the chief concern involves will readying its domestic law enforcement apparatus. So many Western governments, including the U.S., have excitedly imported droves of unassimilated individuals and families from the Islamic world since the events of 9/11/01. There is genuine concern that some of these people will form ideological “sleeper cells,” and seek to sow chaos in the name of fundamentalist Islam.

As we discussed in The Dossier last week, Israel will seek to restore deterrence against its jihadist adversaries, hoping to achieve a resounding victory that would result in the psychological crumbling of the jihadist invincibility complex.

There is a lot riding on Israel’s campaign to defeat Hamas. Success will mean a restored deterrent not just for the Jewish state, but for the entire Western world. We should all be rooting for Israel to teach Hamas a lesson for the ages, with the world watching, to stop the rise of a new generation of aspiring global jihadists.