The last but one article, unplanned and written in a hurry due to the momentous event that the fall of the Assad dynasty was, introduced the Joker – a metaphor for earthshaking unintended consequences. The Joker took centre stage in the events in Syria, emerging from the “turn inward” of the Iranian-Hezbollah axis, and the collapse of the military power in Syria of the Russian-Syrian alliance. But the motive force that exploited these factors and actually moved events, involved the actions of Turkish leader Erdoğan. Erdoğan was trying establish facts on the ground before a Trump inauguration to enable him to dominate in Syria, and this to make his return to power in Turkey constitutionally feasible as he faced a final term in power.

These events in Syria would in turn shape political events in Lebanon as Saudi Arabia took the opportunity there to confront Turkish ambitions in Syria. The Iran change of strategy that drew Turkey in, was a response to the needs of its domestic economy and to prioritise its developing role in the emerging Eurasian politico-economic complex. Thisis being formally cemented in Moscow today in a Strategic Partnership Agreement that will require Iran to pay increasing attention to – and coordinate with – the geopolitical stances of not only Russia but also China.

In other words, Iran is becoming a fully Central Asian power, shifting away from the Middle East and exiting the Arab World to leave Saudi Arabia with the room to establish a new hegemonic role in the region, beginning with Lebanon. The end point of the New Diplomacy that started with the peace deal in March 2023 will have thus been reached after successfully navigating the 2023/5 Israel-Gaza War. But within the frame of this new geopolitical restructuring, note carefully that Iran knows that Saudi Arabia – in the new understanding – has it back as far as potential future Israeli aggression is concerned, just as Saudi has Iranian guarantees over any potential threats from Yemen, a highly militarised and impregnable nation as populous as itself.

But even as Hezbollah and Ansar Allah are negotiating the new Iranian position, it will be Saudi Arabia that will have to face and negotiate the American-Israeli problem plaguing the peoples of the Arab World. While there are fears that the Saudis will just “sell the resistance down the road,” it is isn’t that simple. Such a policy would be totally incompatible with the Vision 2030 plan for the transformation of Saudi Arabia. Vision 2030 has so far depended on decoupling from empire, and is predicated on bringing peace to the region to which crucial goal the right-wing Netanyahu-Smotrich-Ben Gvir Israeli government in Israel poses by far the gravest threat.

If Saudi Arabia thus begins to exploit the current conditions and seek to establish a new regional hegemonic role for itself, it will have its work cut out. But once again, the Joker would seem to have come to the aid of establishing regional peace, rather than any carefully crafted political strategy. The California wild fires, ripping through the luxury homes of the American 1% stacked with priceless artwork (lead picture), and causing historic damage in excess of $150bn, is focusing Trump’s mind on domestic priorities and the need to save America. That is, to remind Trump of what he already knows should be his focus.

First, let us analyse the elements that caused the events in Syria.

What happened in Syria (1): The Iranian-Hezbollah axis.

Iranian strategy changed with the coming to power of ‘reformer’ Masoud Pezeshkian after Ebrahim  Raisi’s helicopter crash on 19 May 2024, due to pilot error. Iran under Raisi had already launched the era of the New Diplomacy after the March 2023, which has kept Iran and Saudi Arabia in close and cooperative contact throughout the Gaza/Lebanon wars that have raged since the 7 October Al-Aqsa attacks by Hamas. However, the fundamental (unspecified) logic of the peace deal which is momentous for having at one stroke eradicated the Sunni/Shia divide on which American imperial ambition in the Middle East region has so far been based, was that Iran would have to gradually cede back power in the Arab states to Saudi Arabia as the most powerful Arab state. While Raisi and his FM Hossein Amir-Abdollahian (who also died in the crash) were in power, material support (minus actual lethal support to the Houthis [Ansar Allah] Yemen, per the peace deal) to the Axis continued, although this was politely coordinated with Saudi Arabia at every turn.

With the coming to power of Masoud Pezeshkian, Iran would now prioritise domestic affairs. The Iranian régime had been shaken to the core by the riots that were sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini on 16 September 2022 in the custody of the morality police. The root cause of the explosion was unemployment, although Amini’s plight was the spark. Meanwhile, within the Axis of Resistance, Hezbollah and Ansar Allah had been seen as increasingly autonomous and able to look after their own affairs, having developed substantial local manufacturing capability in arms and associated skills. This would allow a decoupling of sorts. Pezeshkian’s ‘opening’ to the United States, however, was rebuffed when, even as he negotiated with US diplomats during the 22-25 September 2024 General Assembly of the United Nations, the Biden administration ordered the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah. There followed a flurry of interventions by Iran in the immediate aftermath, and Hezbollah’s quick return to effectiveness was supervised (although Hezbollah’s inherently solid organisation didn’t need much help to recover from the loss of its leadership).

Ultimately, after the Israelis launched a full scale attack against Lebanon shortly afterwards on 1 October, Hezbollah stymied their attempt to invade, causing substantial losses among Israeli troops, terrorising Israel with its drone capability and finally targeting the centre of Tel Aviv with missiles which could not be defended against. All of this led to Israel actually asking for a cease fire, although hundreds of Israeli violations would follow, so that Netanyahu could appease his extremist coalition members, and keep them in place by pretending to them that he was only pretending to have a cease fire. The current Gaza cease fire deal which Trump envoy, Steven Wickoff bulldozed over the head of the Israeli leader, could well suffer the same fate: a ceasefire that doesn’t have the appearance of a ceasefire.

Hezbollah would accept the deal with Israel after a 66-day full-on war (as opposed to the skirmishing that had gone on for near-on a year prior to this), without demanding a parallel Gaza deal at the same time. This gave Netanyahu the ability to say that he had won the war because he had managed to sever the link Nasrallah had originally established between ending offensive operations and Israel ending its Gaza campaign. The Israeli army had actually gained no ground, had suffered severe losses in personnel and materiel at Hezbollah’s hands, and none of Netanyahu’s war aims, such as returning Israeli settlers to their homes in the north, would be fulfilled. But never mind, Netanyahu could pretend to his cabinet that he had won the war. The key element for new Hezbollah secretary general, Na‘im Qassem, however, was increasing domestic political pressure. Nabih Berri, speaker of the Lebanese parliament and leader of the Amal movement, which is Hezbollah’s ally in a bloc of 30 MPs in the Lebanese parliament referred to as “the duo” (al-thuna’i), needed support in confronting domestic pressures. Lebanon had been devastated by the collapse of its banking system in August 2019, by the extraordinary Beirut port explosion of the 4 August 2020, and by the fact that there had been no formal leadership since the end of President Michel Aoun’s term on 30 October 2022. That pressures for the election of a new president redoubled with Israel’s bombing and destruction of entire Lebanese neighbourhoods and infrastructure, led to Hezbollah’s acceptance of the 27 November ceasefire.

Iran’s new FM, Abbas Araghchi, flew in during the war, before the ceasefire (in October), to back Hezbollah’s promise of a rebuilding programme for the Shiite community in Lebanon, which had been devastated by Israeli raids. This was a continuation of the traditional Iranian policy that would end with the fall of Assad on 8 December. But, before then, the fact of the matter was that the ceasefire of 27 November made plain to political players in the region that Hezbollah (still an effective fighting force in Syria is has to be remembered) would turn inward now to face domestic issues, just as Iran was doing. That the Iran/Hezbollah presence in Syria was thus perceived to be softening, would embolden Turkey and its leader, Erdoğan, to attack Assad, for his own reasons. The deserved and overdue fall of the brutal Assad dynasty, with an image deceptively polished by Bashar’s gentle demeanour, would follow.

What happened in Syria (2): the Russian-Syrian alliance.

With Putin’s focus on Ukraine, Syria had become a dumping ground for incompetent generals, which this led the weakening of Russian capabilities in the country. This became painfully apparent when Turkey gave the green light for CIA funded Abu Mohamed al-Jolani (real name Ahmed al-Sharaa), the leader of ex-al-Qaeda Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), to attack Aleppo and Russian forces failed to stop their advance. The mistake is often made of interpreting the launch of HTS’ operation in the last days of November 2024, as an American-Israeli operation. Jolani and HTS have benefited considerably from Israeli support. Their total lack of interest in the genocide being perpetrated in Gaza, and lack of statements thereupon, given their supposed “Islamic” credentials, speaks volumes for the self-seeking ambitions of an untrustworthy organisation. Effectively, HTS was bottled up in an enclave controlled by the Turkish military. If Erdoğan hadn’t given it his green light, it wouldn’t have been able to exit the northwestern Syrian town of Idlib and carry out the campaign that ultimately toppled Assad.

Furthermore, it has to be remembered the extent to which the relationships between states and terrorist groups are ambivalent: support could always be a method of control far different from any idea of an alliance between the parties. When Syria’s Sunni majority rose against Assad during the Arab Spring in 2011, Turkey – notwithstanding that Erdoğan (Prime Minister at the time) had cultivated a close, personal relation with Bashar al-Assad – would back its (Sunni and anti-Alawite) cause. Turkey thus threw its weight behind the Muslim Brotherhood and sabotaged American efforts to create a secular opposition in Syria. What happened then was that President Obama changed direction, after an initial American project to transfer heavy weapons and groups of extremist Libyan fighters led by Abu Abdullah al-Sadiq (whose real name was Abdel Hakim Belhadj) to Syria to topple Assad.

Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State pulled the plug on the whole project, and Obama would encourage a strategy that turned the tables on Erdoğan, allowing Russian involvement, alongside Iran, in the protection and stabilisation of the Assad régime. Turkey maybe a NATO member but the United States considers its leadership too independent, which is why the US fosters the rivalry between Greece and Turkey that sees Greece provocatively arming its islands close to the Turkish littoral on the Aegean. Any kind of revival of the Ottoman Empire in virtue of Turkey’s shaping of a client state in Syria would be anathema to US decision-makers. In fact, a coup attempt was orchestrated by the clandestine organisation of Erdoğan’s onetime political ally, Fethullah Gulen, against the Turkish leader in July 2016. It failed, but Gulen would remain protected in his residential complex in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, by the United States from all Turkish government attempts at arrest and repatriation. Turkey would nevertheless pursue a ruthless domestic campaign against his followers, while US Central Command chief General Joseph Votel at the time complained bitterly that Erdoğan was rounding up people that the United States worked with.

This situation had not changed by 2024. Although the Assad régime was heavily sanctioned, there was no plan to topple Assad, who posed no threat to American or Israeli interests. If Syria formed a route for the supply of arms from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon, this was monitored by Israel, which had an agreement with the Russian forces based at Khmeimim, northern Syria, that it would have a certain degree of freedom to operate in the skies above Syria. In fact quite to the contrary, US forces were ensconced in northeast Syria and western Iraq, backing a de facto separate Kurdish entity that controlled Syria’s oil and wheatfields and that actually threatened Turkey with demands for a separate state on its borders that would claim parts of Turkey. It is this bigger picture that has to be borne in mind when considering the events of the end of November 2014. The fact is that HTS was protected by the Turkish military in Idlib, and its sudden emergence out of its sanctuary was Turkey’s doing. Turkey’s own direct proxy in Syria made up of Syrian rebels, the Syrian National Army, was smaller than HTS and it would follow closely in HTS’ wake as the assault on the Assad régime began.

Russia initially responded to the assault by launching airstrikes on HTS from the Khmeimim airbase. However, the response of the only troops on the ground defending the Assad régime, the Syrian Arab Army, would be to see its cause as lost and responded to the rebel advance by actually withdrawing without fighting, first from Aleppo and then from Hama and then from Homs. Assad secured promises of help from Tehran and Hezbollah in Lebanon to supply ground forces to back the Assad’s Syrian Arab Army, and both did in fact begin to mobilise. Erdoğan, however, called Moscow, Tehran and Damascus on 3 December to warn them that Assad’s army was in retreat from Aleppo and that there was little point in providing support, at which point all efforts stopped.

Even as the FMs of Russia, Iran and Turkey were preparing to meet in the “Astana” format in Doha on 7 December, Erdoğan was egging his forces on all the way to Damascus. Fresh from his meeting in Doha, Turkish FM Hakkan Fidan would meet with Ahmed al-Sharaa (Jolani), the de facto leader now ensconced in Damascus with whom he was seeking to establish a working relationship on a broad front that would provide Turkey with economic opportunities, allow it to repatriate Syrian refugee populations either in Turkey, or bottled up on the Turkish border in Idlib, and permit a direct resolution of its disputes with the Kurds. This was a Turkish coup, not an American or an Israeli one. Meanwhile, the insane kneejerk destruction by Israel of the Syrian Arab Army’s weapons and infrastructure all over Syrian territory has played directly into Turkish hands, as the new Damascus régime finds itself forced to contract for Turkey now to become its military overlord and protector.

What happened in Syria (3): the drivers behind the 2024 Turkish gambit.

However, it is not clear that Erdoğan actually envisaged the actual fall of Assad. As late as December 5, when HTS took Hama, Turkey’s National Security Council called on Assad to come to an agreement with the Syrian rebel groups that stood as the legitimate opposition to the régime. Indeed, Turkey had been negotiating with Assad in the summer of 2024, trying to induce him to accept a return of refugees. Assad, however, would not contemplate any deal as long as Turkish troops remained in Syria. So Turkey may have decided to unleash HTS in the first place in order to exert pressure on him.  But other considerations in the background would also be drivers of the Turkish gambit in Syria: the coming end of Erdoğan’s presidency and the upcoming Trump presidency in the United States.

In late October last year, Turkish Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli called for Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned chief of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s (PKK), to attend the Turkish parliament to renounce terrorism and dissolve the PKK. For Bahçeli this was a stark volte face from his previous hard line position. But, although not formally taking responsibility, the PKK would appear to have responded to this extraordinary démarche by attacking Turkey’s state-run aerospace company, killing five and injuring twenty-two. Why did Bahçeli, who since 2015 has been the junior partner of Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), do this? In rescuing the AKP from a loss of parliamentary majority at that time, Bahçeli became kingmaker and essentially altered the AKP’s politics towards concerns of hypernationalism and security. But as Erdoğan is currently serving his second term as president, which is the limit under the revised constitution, and as the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) is currently gaining ground under its new popular leader, Özgür Özel, sunset looms for both Bahçeli and Erdoğan. However, Erdoğan could be returned to power under the rules of the constitution if early elections were called, and Bahçeli’s time in the sun thus continued; but this needs 360 votes out of a total of 600 in the parliament.

So another party is needed to either support a vote, or change the constitution. What, therefore, Bahçeli envisaged was a process of “democratization” within Turkey’s parliament of the Kurdish question that would see the Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party received into the fold as a full political partner, along with pardons and the release of all the various figures (such as Selahattin Demirtaş) imprisoned for their relationship with the PKK. This process would be conceived in a form less opaque than the 2015 AKP offer of a “Kurdish opening” to Kurdish political parties of a simple coalition to bring the AKP out of the awkward minority position it suffered from at the time. However, this opening was sabotaged by the PKK’s waging of a war with a series of lethal bombings that ended all efforts at a coalition that would have seen many Kurdish demands in the civil sphere met. The military wing of the PKK was not going to let Kurdish politicians steal a march on the latter-day “maquis” hiding out in the Qandil mountains of Iraq. After that, MHP would come to Erdoğan’s rescue, and bring about Bahçeli’s rise to power.

With the October bombing of Ankara’s aerospace industries, the PKK returned the standard answer to the political openings of late 2024 just as it had given in 2015. All that was left was to engage in a large scale military operation against the PKK in Syria, if only US protection could be lifted. Trump’s previous 2019 ordering of US troops out of Syria, eventually countermanded by deep state elements around figures like Brett McGurk, who has been Biden’s National Security Council Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa until now, gave Erdoğan the idea that reinforcing his position in Syria with a new administration on the way in might give him a final crack at the intractable Kurdish problem.

With the fall of Assad, Turkey has taken the opportunity to use carrot and stick methods to encourage the Kurds in Syria to distance themselves from the PKK and join the Damascus government in one form or another. However, what Trump will do with US troops stationed in Syria and Iraq, who support the Kurds with heavy weapons and thus embolden them, after January 20, will be decisive. There is no space in this article to deal with the details of the current Turkish-Kurdish standoff.

What is more immediately important is the response of Saudi Arabia to the new level of Turkish influence in Syria now that Iran has pulled back.

Saudi Arabia’s bid for regional hegemony and the formation of the new Lebanese government.

On 3 December 2024, Nabih Berri, head of the Amal movement and speaker of the Lebanese parliament called for elections for a new president of Lebanon on the following January 9. According to the Lebanese constitution, the president has to be a Maronite Christian, just as the Prime Minister has to be a Sunni Muslim and the Speaker of the parliament, a Shiite Muslim. Head of the Lebanese army, Joseph Aoun and head of the Marada movement (Tayyār al-Marada), Suleiman Franjieh, were leading candidates among numerous others. It is usual for foreign powers, especially the United States and in a subservient role to the United States, France, to stick their oars into Lebanese political affairs. Lebanon is a small country which has got itself into financial trouble and has traditionally been used to relying on aid from abroad. The United States wanted Joseph Aoun to be president, given that it funds the Lebanese army and controls the nature of the weapons the army possesses in such a way that it cannot possibly defend itself against Israel, should Israel ever attack it. This is the reason why southerners in Lebanon formed heavily armed groups independent of the army, and there are several such groups besides Hezbollah.

Hezbollah and the Amal movement (Ḥarakat Amal) are the two most powerful Shiite groups in southern Lebanon and they form a strong and cohesive block of 30 MPs in the Lebanese parliament, which has 128 seats and 24 parties represented, although there are hundreds of political parties actually registered in Lebanon. Hezbollah and Amal have until recently been part of the governing coalition, called the March 8 alliance, that includesthe Sunni Dignity Movement (Tayyār al-Karāma), the secularSocialist Ba’ath Party (Ḥizb al-Ba‘th al-‘Arabī al-Ishtirākī), the SunniIslamic Charity Party (Jamʿīyah al-Mashārīʿ al-Khayrīyah al-ʾIslāmīyah), the Sunni Union Party (Ḥizb al-Ittiḥād), the Christian MaroniteMarada Movement (Tayyār al-Marada), the secular Armenian Revolutionary Party (Hay Heghapokhagan Tashnagtsutiun) and the Christian (not Maronite) Free Patriotic Party (at-Tayyār al-Horr).

The most powerful and vocal members of the organised opposition are the Christian (not Maronite) Lebanese Forces (al-Quwwāt al-Lubnānīyah), the SunniFuture Movement (Tayyār al-Mustaqbal) and the Maronite Phalange Party (Ḥizb al-Katā’ib al-Lubnānīya). This opposition, especially in the person of Samir Ga‘ga‘ of the Lebanese Forces has been seeking American support to exclude Hezbollah from the political process, on the basis that the group has been defeated by Israel. Hezbollah and the majority of the Lebanese political class however recognise otherwise. Hezbollah has survived intact despite an unprecedently massive attack by Israel with the help of the United States on its leadership which dropped ‘up to three times as many weapons in one night’ as was used in the entire Iraq war in 2003, and despite 66 days of continuous Israeli bombing of civilian targets in the south. Meanwhile, it was the massive damage Hezbollah caused in Israeli with its missiles and drones, especially in central Tel Aviv that caused Israel to demand a ceasefire.

Hezbollah certainly maintains that by surviving with all of its heavy weaponry intact, now shifted to the north of the Litani river as per the conditions of the ceasefire agreement (i.e. abiding by UNSC resolution 1701), and denying Israeli forces entrance to Lebanese territory, it has won the war and deserves support for establishing a Lebanese deterrent.

All the manoeuvring around the election of the Lebanese president and the appointment of a Prime Minister has circled around this issue: can the “duo”, Amal and Hezbollah be “excluded” from the Lebanese political process by the Lebanese Forces in conjunction with the United States? It doesn’t look like it. The first round of voting gave Josef Aoun 71 votes in parliament although Suleiman Franjieh withdrew from the race, leaving the head of the army alone. But this was not sufficient. It took meetings between Amal, Hezbollah and Aoun to be able to get Aoun across the 86 vote threshold. Joseph Aoun’s inauguration speech subsequently implied that Hezbollah deterrent was essential for the good of the Lebanese state to prevent future Israeli aggression. This in fact reflected the customary stance of the Lebanese army in the past which, despite materially being a creature of the United States, has always morally supported Hezbollah’s (and Amal’s) independent armoury.

The next stage of the political process – the appointment of a Sunni prime minister – took a different turn. Although, Joseph Aoun had been the American candidate from the start and Suleiman Franjieh the candidate of the Shiite “duo,” it would be Saudi Arabia that would suddenly take the lead in the fraught political confrontation. The fall of Assad at Turkish hands had spooked the Saudi leadership. In view of the fact that Turkish ally, Qatar, had, furthermore, suddenly offered to fund the reconstruction of Lebanon whilst proposing Lebanese intelligence chief Elias al-Bayssari as a compromise candidate (between Joseph Aoun and Suleiman Franjieh), a robust Saudi drive to dominate both the Lebanese political process and the future reconstruction of the country followed. Both Franjieh and Bayssari were encouraged not to stand, leaving Aoun as the sole candidate.

However, when Aoun proposed acting PM Naguib Mikati (backed by the “duo”) as his future prime minister, the Saudis gathered support for ICJ Chairman Nawaf Salam instead. His appointment by the Lebanese parliament came as a surprise both to Aoun and the “duo” on the back of intensive lobbying of Lebanese MPs by the Saudi ambassador Walid Bukhari. Although Salam’s acceptance speech emphasised the same theme as Aoun’s inauguration speech – the importance of abiding by UNSC 1701, the importance of deterring Israel and forcing the retreat of its army from the Lebanese border, the importance of rebuilding and so on, in a nod to Hezbollah, Samir Ga‘ga‘ and others took the opportunity to interpret the rejection of Naguib Mikati as a sign that it would be open season on Hezbollah. Subsequent to meetings yesterday between Nabih Berri and Salam this was confirmed not to be the case and a cabinet is now envisaged that will respond to the demands of the “duo.”

The most significant aspect of all of this is the return of Saudi Arabia to supporting Lebanon after a number of years of absence resulting from the disappointment on the part of the Saudi crown prince (MBS) with the extraordinary corruption on the part of previous Lebanese leaders (Sa’ad Hariri in particular). This had required strong armed tactics to redress. Saudi Arabia’s bid for regional hegemony comes as a naturally corrolary to its need to ensure the kind of stability in the region required for the success of Vision 2030 . Saudi Arabia clearly has its work cut out on that score. If on that score, Syria remains in the balance, establishing stability in Lebanon becomes essential. To that end it likely Saudi Arabia will encourage a “national” pact there that will include the Shiite “duo.”

The California wildfires, Gaza and the future of Israel.

Saudi Arabia will also be key to Trump’s strategy for saving America. America is not only falling apart because of climate change (which Trump denies) but also because of the ageing of its infrastructure (about which American media is in denial). Miriam Adelson may be demanding a return for Israel’s right-wing agenda on her donation of $100m to Trump. But Trump doesn’t need her money. The Adelson factor is marginalised, as Trump now finds himself  swamped with donations from cryptocurrency magnates and others. It is also Trump’s last term. He has two years before the coming mid-terms to make the impact that will make him the “great president” he dreams of being.

If he betrays his donors, it won’t cost him anything. He has already gone in this direction by pushing for the Gaza ceasefire. Although Biden announced the deal as his own, saying he proposed it seven months ago, if it hadn’t been for Trump, the deal wouldn’t have happened. Trump faces a US Congress that doesn’t like tax rises, doesn’t like cuts in defence expenditure, and a US government that faces extraordinary interest charges in excess of $1trillion (more than defence) on it debt. Trump’s American transformation will need funding and the kind of money needed will not come from the chickenfeed money that Trump’s donors are offering him. Hundreds of millions of dollars are meaningless: hundred of billions are needed. So serious money from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries for these purposes. Saudi now has leverage to achieve its aims on its own terms: its priorities will have to count. This doesn’t bear too much thinking about for a President in a hurry. Trump’s decision on Gaza therefore doesn’t promise to be a temporary aberration, although as long as Netanyahu remains alive, it may not look like a ceasefire.

Israel: In a late postscript to the last article on this site I compared Israel’s unbridled, bloody and basically aimless regional aggression to a “supernova.” Now that we have a ceasefire in Gaza as well as in Lebanon, and a new senseless and costly military commitment to an occupation of Syria that will engender the very threats that the brainless occupation is supposed to thwart, Israel will unravel. The supernova metaphor I felt an apt description of what was happening. A supernova is the explosion of a dying star. After the explosion, there is always a backdraft. Israel will now have to look in the mirror and count its massive losses. It is dying along with its leader who, apparently, has third stage cancer. Israel’s bloody response to the fateful and astonishing 7 October al-Aqsa attack by Hamas hasn’t achieved any of Netanyahu’s goals for his year and three-month long war. Hamas won the war. It’s that simple. Indeed, in fact, the Gaza resistance looks like it has recently been reconstituted.

The short-termism of Netanyahu’s political survival strategy has, for the duration of his rule, not only killed all chances for peace, but also involved grasping the 7 October attacks, despite their obvious gravity, as just another chance to prolong his rule; instilling fear and loathing in an Israeli population essentially suffering from Stockholm syndrome. As the war for his survival now hits the buffers, his options are few and his chickens will inevitably come home to roost. Even if slow, it will be the ugly end to an ugly rule. Even today as his cabinet sits to approve the Gaza deal, the Champion Liar will lie to his ministers about the terms of the deal he has just signed off on.

It is unlikely Netanyahu would have signed off on the terms of the Gaza ceasefire, which are basically the same terms Hamas agreed to over seven months ago, if it hadn’t been for Trump’s envoy, Steven Witkoff, who bulldozed this final deal through. So the announcement of the Gaza deal by an inarticulate Biden flanked by a flustered Tony Blinken and a limp Kamal Harris seeking to take credit for the breakthrough is sheer black comedy. Genocide Joe and his team will always own the Gaza nightmare. Kamala Harris lost the election because of Gaza.