US defence chief says Iran will face ‘serious consequences’ if it attacks Israel
In a call with his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant, the US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Washington supported Israel in the “necessity of dismantling [Hezbollah] attack infrastructure along the border” with Lebanon in order to prevent “October 7-style attacks on Israel’s northern communities”.
Austin also warned Iran of the consequences should it choose to fight with Washington’s key ally. “I reiterated the serious consequences for Iran in the event Iran chooses to launch a direct military attack against Israel,” he said.
Austin also said the US military is “well-postured” to defend “US personnel, partners, and allies” in the region in the “face of threats from Iran and Iran-backed terrorist organisations”.
I spoke with Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant today to discuss security developments and Israeli operations. I made it clear that the United States supports Israel’s right to defend itself. We agreed on the necessity of dismantling attack infrastructure along the border…
— Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III (@SecDef) October 1, 2024
Oh, that's about the same reason Putin gave for his 'special operation' in Ukraine. Feeling threatened, acting out of self-defense...
US shifts position to support for Israel’s ground operation in Lebanon
The only official statement that we have at the moment is the army statement that announces the start of what they are saying is a limited and targeted ground operation aimed at dismantling Hezbollah infrastructure from along the border.
We are going to have to wait and see whether that is the case.
They say in that statement also that basically, this is going to be carried out in phases, and these phases have been approved by the political echelons. That was the security cabinet that met on Monday evening.
That gives an indication that there is a plan. That there are objectives. Again, this is something that there has been a lot of concern about. The Americans had said, “We do not want a ground invasion”. Well, now we have the Americans approving it.
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin talked to Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defence minister, saying that we [the US] support Israel’s objective of dismantling Hezbollah infrastructure along the border.
Israel seems to have a list of targets and it is seizing on this momentum to [tick] every single box it wants to tick, who it wants to take out. Because it is not going to get the opportunity [again] that it has at the moment.
US ignores ‘bigger goals’ in region of Israel’s ‘extreme right-wing government’: Analyst
Nabeel Khoury, former US diplomat and senior fellow at the Arab Center in Washington, DC, told Al Jazeera that Israel is not limiting its goals in its current conflicts to targeting individuals.
The “extreme right-wing government in Israel” has bigger goals in the region and the US appears to be ignoring that fact.
“I think what the US is ignoring, and perhaps deliberately so, is that you have a religious, extreme right-wing government in Israel and their goals are not limited,” Khoury said.
“Militarily, they could select certain targets and kill certain people. But their goals are much broader than that. They are going in with a broad design for Gaza, for the West Bank, and now, clearly, for Lebanon,” he said.
“So I don’t expect this to be a short swing through [Lebanon] and it certainly won’t be a cakewalk for the Israelis. It will be difficult. And the resistance to them in Lebanon will probably cause them to stick around whether they want to or not,” he added.
US officials says Netanyahu ‘talked down’ from full invasion of Lebanon
The official line is that the US supports this operation.
And that could be because we have heard from officials that they managed to talk Prime Minister Netanyahu into not launching a full-out invasion, and managed to talk him down to this “limited” incursion.
So that is the official line.
The other official aspect of this is that the US supports Israel and it supports its right to defend itself.
But there is a split between those who feel that this is good, Hezbollah could be degraded. And those who are concerned that this could drag into something a lot larger … this could lead into an all-out and bigger conflict, which obviously the United States does not want.
