Waking up to New Terror in the Middle East
Pager explosions in Lebanon underscore how feeble the U.S. policy in Israel really is
It has been a tremendously brutal week in the Middle East. The war in Gaza continues apace with no ceasefire in sight. Meanwhile, thousands of Lebanese have been injured and at least 32 killed after pagers and other electronic devices reportedly connected to Hezbollah members exploded on Tuesday and Wednesday across the country.
It is still not clear how many civilians and bystanders were among those killed and injured. According to the New York Times, current and former defense and intelligence officials who were briefed on the attack say the Israelis were behind it, describing the operation as complex and long in the making. While vocal supporters of Israel are calling the “Trojan Horse” attack “impressive” and “targeted,” others say it was sophisticated boobytrapping which is not only illegal under international law, but simply terrorism.
Meanwhile, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia said this week that the kingdom would not normalize relations with Israel until the Palestinians have their own state, joining Oman in throwing cold water on President Biden’s “grand bargain” for the Abraham Accords.
And in Iraq, a new deal to bring U.S. troops home for good is running smack into headlines that ISIS is enjoying a resurgence in the region, possibly due to the war in Gaza and upheaval in the region overall.
I Invited my Quincy Institute colleague Adam Weinstein to talk about all of this and more this week. Aside from being a very astute analyst of Middle East geopolitics, with a particular expertise in Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan, Adam is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, having served in an Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company in the Afghanistan War in 2012.
More from Adam:
Troops in Peril: The Risks of Keeping U.S. Troops in Iraq and Syria
Shame: Afghanistan withdrawal politics miss the point of everything