A prominent general in Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard died in an Israeli airstrike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, Iranian media reported Saturday.
The killing of Gen. Abbas Nilforushan marks the latest casualty suffered by Iran as the nearly yearlong Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Stripteeters on the edge of becoming a regional conflict. His death further ratchets up pressure on Iran to respond, even as Tehran has signaled in recent months that it wants to negotiate with the West over sanctions crushing its economy.
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Nilforushan served as the deputy commander for operations in the Guard, a role overseeing its ground forces. What he was doing in Lebanon on Friday wasn’t immediately clear. The Guard’s expeditionary Quds Force for decades has armed, trained and relied on Hezbollah as part of its strategy to rely on regional militias as a counterbalance to Israel and the United States.
Wow, so weird that Iranian officials somehow keep getting killed in these targeted attacks against people coordinating terrorist attacks.
Hezbollah is as much a terrorist organization as the Asov battalion is.
That is to say, you may not like their politics, but they’re resistance groups formed to fight against an occupation.
To that end, Iran is their sponsor, so of course their is coordination between the two, especially at the highest levels.
The irony, is that you’re saying this not even two weeks after thousands of consumer electronics were turned into bombs, and detonated inside Lebanon, and then multiple residential buildings flattened via airstrikes, both actions taken by the Israelis.
I guess to you, any civilians killed in those instances were just collateral damage, and definitely not victims of terrorism.
“Terrorist” is the worst defined, most expansive and arbitrary applied legal term. It essentially means “non-state actor hostile to us or our friends.”
A big part of fighting a proxy war is having deniability. Iran is really struggling with that right now.
Deniability is not the primary driver for, or purpose of, proxy wars. They are a means of escalation management for great powers, and post-WWII, a way for nuclear armed states to go to a version of war, that doesn’t carry a high risk of nuclear war.
And even in situations where deniability is a factor, that doesn’t apply here. Iran has always been Hezbollah’s primary benefactor, since the organization’s formation, and it’s not a secret that they serve as a proxy force.
The only deniability is the face saving kind, to again, help escalation management for the great powers.
The US has supported Ukraine through the whole invasion, but if Russian attacks started killing US officers in close proximity to Ukrainian officials it would be problematic. It would give Russia cause to further escalate.
That’s what is happening here. Iran is getting caught being overly involved. It opens them to more direct action against them, which is the whole point of a proxy war, not having direct involvement.
Iranian officials are frequently assassinated while they’re with meeting with elements of their proxy forces, additionally, this didn’t happen on a front line or in an active war zone.
You’re claiming that somehow Iran his risking escalation because Israel is assassinating their military leaders in civilian areas, that aren’t active war zones. Which is like saying your risking escalation if you attempt to defend yourself after someone breaks into your home, and murders your family.
Technically, I guess that’s true, but it removes the onus from the person actually doing the home invasion and murdering.
Also, your analogy is wrong. Russia killing US officers would not give Russia more cause to escalate, but the reverse…
Regardless, none of that has to do with your original comment about Iran losing deniability in this proxy war.
This is Israel trying to force an escalation, because they want to draw out a wider regional war that forces US naval assets (including marines) to intervene in.
Hezbollah is at war with Israel, their general getting killed near Iranian officers is problematic. Just as it would be if a Ukrainian general was killed by Russia while meeting with a US Colonel.
Your analogies keep leaving out location, which is very relevant here.
A more accurate analogy would be Russia bombing a meeting between Ukrainian and American officers, that was happening in Warsaw.
I don’t disagree that this is a significant event, I just disagree with your analysis and attribution.
Your analogy requires a powerful faction of people in Poland directly shooting rockets at Russian-occupied Ukraine. Still a significant event, but this descent continually shows the problem with analogies.
It’s not my analogy, and I’ve already pointed out how bad it was, but they keep insisting on using it.
But yes, I agree, it’s a shit analogy.
Warsaw would make less sense. This was a strike in Lebanon against a Lebanon based terrorist group or political party if you prefer. That parties primary action has been from within Lebanon. There was no third country here.
ITT: liberals not giving a shit about terrorism
But it’s not like y’all have had any coherent beliefs in the first place so not a huge surprise.
Shoutout to the lib down there going “so what?” To the fact that Israel has killed 200,000 civilians with their terrorism and just committed a 9/11 scale attack.
But you libs don’t give a fuck. You’re the only non-propagandized people in the world, the US state department would never lie to you.
The thread really is amazing. The average American (and Westerner’s) understanding of and utilization if the term “terrorist” is probably the greatest feats of social engineering, legal warfare and propaganda in the 21st century. It’s an essential rhetorical tool to legitimize monstrous violence against civilians by one side, and delegitimize all “violence” (decontextualized of course) by the other.
Commit a genocide in Gaza? Counter-terrorism.
Attack Israel with the demand that it stops the genocide? Terrorism.
It’s gotten to the point where Americans refer to the Beirut barracks bombings as “terrorism.” Here’s a logical exercise: who gets stationed in barracks, civilians or on-duty soldiers?
I know it’s not the point, but it’s weird to call things “9/11 scale attacks” when you consider how many buildings were leveled in Gaza.
