This is a big, big story that doesn’t seem to be getting the sort of attention that a big story should.
An Israeli airstrike that demolished Iran’s consulate in Syria on Monday killed two Iranian generals and five officers, according to Iranian officials. The strike appeared to signify an escalation of Israel’s targeting of military officials from Iran, which supports militant groups fighting Israel in Gaza, and along its border with Lebanon.
Some clarification: Given the location…
…what Israel hit was not a consulate, but Iran’s embassy in Syria. An embassy enjoys certain privliges in international law, though generally those protections apply to the host country (in this case Syria) than a hostile third party (Israel). So let’s just throw this out there:
Since the war in Gaza began nearly six months ago, clashes have increased between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah militants based in Lebanon. Hamas, which rules Gaza and attacked Israel on Oct. 7, is also backed by Iran.
Israel, which rarely acknowledges strikes against Iranian targets, said it had no comment on the latest attack in Syria, although a military spokesman blamed Iran for a drone attack early Monday against a naval base in southern Israel.
Israel has grown increasingly impatient with the daily exchanges of fire with Hezbollah, which have escalated in recent days, and warned of the possibility of a full-fledged war. Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have also been launching long-range missiles toward Israel, including on Monday.
The airstrike in Syria killed Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi, who led the elite Quds Force in Lebanon and Syria until 2016, according to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. It also killed Zahedi’s deputy, Gen Mohammad Hadi Hajriahimi, and five other officers.
I note for the record that Quds Force is not currently designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, but that it’s parent organization, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is.
A member of Hezbollah, Hussein Youssef, also was killed in the attack, an official with the militant group told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with group’s rules. Hezbollah has not publicly announced the death.
By the rules of international law, hitting Iran’s embassy is the same as hitting a target in Iran’s own soil. Now, Iran has been funding and supporting terrorist attacks on Israel for decades, funding both Hamas and Hezbollah as part of a proxy war against Israel, and Israel has hit targets inside Iran before, albeit with covert actors rather than airstrikes. Even so, this would seem to be a significant escalation in the proxy war between Iran and Israel.
I don’t any of this amounts to anything close to a war crime. But it may amount to a mistake.
But, weirdly, the world at large doesn’t seem to be treating it as such. There are stories about it, but The All Powerful Algorithm doesn’t seem to be pushing them to the front page. You would think the Iran-loving Obama retread’s guiding Biden’s foreign policy establishment would have encouraged more outraged bleating, but if they have it seems pretty muted.
Likewise, there are no stories about it from conservative media in my inbox.
Even the dark “Biden is going to abandon Israel and side with Iran” muttering types don’t seem to have made much of it.
This is a dog that isn’t barking, and I don’t know why.
If you know what to make of it, feel free to note in the comments below.
Tags: Gaza, Hezbollah, Iran, Israel, Israel-Hamas War, Jihad, Lebanon, Media Watch, Mohammad Reza Zahedi, Quds Force, Syria
Israel will contend that Iran has violated Article 16 of the UN International Law Commission’s Book 25: ‘MATERIALS ON THE RESPONSIBILITY OF STATES FOR INTERNATIONALLY WRONGFUL ACTS’
https://digitallibrary.un.org/nanna/record/729218/files/book25.pdf
Article 16 of Book 25, titled ‘Aid or assistance in the commission of an internationally wrongful act’, entitles Israel to act against Iran for supporting Hamas’s 07 October 2023 outrage.
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The amusing thing, here? Who has called out Iran for its various and sundry transgressions against the various fictions of “international law”?
At this point? I really don’t care. Iran has more than earned whatever happens. Same as Hamas and Hezbollah.
And, any of the “international” wankers who go in to do “humanitarian” things for the victims of their own hubris, in Gaza. I could really care less about them, and frankly…? I think the Israelis should absolutely be targeting them. You want to provide aid to the population that elected and supported Hamas? You get what you deserve, which is death. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
I don’t particularly like Israel or Israelis. However, comma… I like the Gazan Arabs and their West Bank peers even less. Same with the rest of that entire loser culture, spread as it is across the Middle East. They’re not much good at anything, besides rape and slaughter of unarmed innocents. The human race would be improved by their removal.
“This is a dog that isn’t barking, and I don’t know why.
“If you know what to make of it, feel free to note in the comments below.”
This is a dog bites man event. The Middle East is characterized by treachery and betrayal. How will Iran demand protection for its embassy staff when they themselves routinely target Israel’s embassies? Admittedly, the Israeli Air Force does a more spectacular job of it, making the event higher profile but it differs only in degree from what Israel has experienced at the hands of Iran.
In short, Lex Talionus.
It was a consulate, as in additional office space.
The embassy is next door. Untouched, except for broken windows.
If you look at the photos, the actual embassy building is to the left as you look from the street. The building with the Iranian flag in front of it.
Casus Belli, even if it was “just a consulate”. All of Syria is a war zone so not sure how legal niceties are upheld. The US bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade 1999. Really, it is up to the Iranians to decide how they want to procede. Lawfare is the easiest choice with the highest probable return.
Another in a long line of shining legacies left us by the sanctimonious Jimmy Carter, filth and suffering be upon his name.
The regime he enabled taking over Iran killed more people in their first month of operation than the Shah did in his entire post-WWII tenure. Since then? The follow-on effects from Iran being converted from staunch US ally into international menace? Death toll alone is in the tens of millions. So much of the disastrous things happening across the world would simply not have happened, without the mullahs being given access to the money and power of an entire oil-state. And, Carter is revered to this day as a moral giant, a hero.
That sorry POS is right up there with Stalin, Hitler, and Mao for the number of dead attached to his acts as head of state. And, he did it all while solemnly pronouncing on the moral grandeur of his actions… Sanctimonious little creep that he is.
I’m still convinced he was a catspaw for Saudi money… Nothing else makes sense to me or some of the former Iranian regime people I know. The orders to shut down Iran’s resistance to the so-called “revolution” came from the top, in the US. If you go looking at Carter’s finances for everything, it sure looks like he was well-paid for his betrayal of the American and Iranian people.
We’re still going to be dealing with the mess from this decades from now. Most of my military career was informed by the clean-up after the Iran-Iraq war, and I resent the hell out of that. No Carter; Shah remains in charge, no Iran-Iraq war in the first damn place. Also, no Afghanistan; the Soviets likely wouldn’t have bothered with the place, except for their fears about “Islamic Revolution” spreading into the various ‘stans…
Millions of dead? Let the nukes start flying, and we’ll be able to count the victims of Jimmy’s moralism in the billions, ‘cos if you think the oil fields in Saudi will somehow remain off the target list, you’re quite mad. Kiss goodbye to cheap fertilizers in Asia and Africa, followed by starvation and even more war.
That miserable prick deserves to be walked from coast-to-coast, being spat upon by all who will suffer. Truly a miserable human being masquerading as a saint.
Occam’s razor suggests that the CCP-and-KGB (and American and European assets) that are the powers that be don’t want Iran’s rather direct role running the war on Israel highlighted. That role undermines Arab support for the war against Israel, for Hamas, and even for Fatah.
The Arab street, the Sunni Turkish street, even the majority Sunni immigrants in Europe and the US don’t care to hear about how Iran controls several Sunni Arab majority territories- Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, large parts of Yemen. Noticing this creates cognitive dissonance that isn’t useful for the leftist aim of weakening America’s position in the MidEast by either/bth weakening an American Ally or creating dissent, distance and distrust between the Us and its sole reliable force projection base in the region (where Jordan, Qatar, Egypt and Saudi will flip to Russia-China at the drop of a hat).
Why would the IDF take a chance like this? Just an educated guess, but it seems like the IRGC was running the war from the Syrian embassy, no? That would certainly make it fair game.
That there would be Iranian blowback has to be worked into the decision. Israel knows that the Iranians would at least do something “memorable” in return and are willing to accept the consequences.
OTOH perhaps Bibi was just getting sick of the Demo’s two-timing with Iran, and escalates things in order to push the White House to firmly pick a side.
I’m going to vote for “this is a ‘brush-back pitch’ from Israel to Iran.”
IOW, if Iran thinks Israel won’t bomb them to de-proliferate them, they’ve now been put on notice that that is not the case.
Here’s an “October surprise” for you: Israel nukes Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities two weeks before the 11/5 election. When asked why, they say “the Biden Administration has made it clear that they won’t stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, so we had to do it.”
Given the Biden Admin’s efforts to get rid of Netanyahu, I can see no reason why Netanyahu wouldn’t try to return the favor
Like the way you think, Greg.
Makes sense. Wonder what other targets they’ll hit while they’re at it?