Politics
How exploding pagers in Lebanon boost the risk of Israel fighting two full wars
To say that Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia in Lebanonhas gone through a rough couple of days would be a massive understatement. The group — which runs Southern Lebanon as its own personal fiefdom, boasts tens of thousands of hardened fighters and possesses as many as 150,000 rockets in its inventory — is confronting a degree of internal chaos that its leadership isn’t habituated to experiencing.
By Hezbollah’s own admission, the presumed Israeli operation was the ‘biggest security breach’ the group has ever witnessed.
On Sept. 17, thousands of pagers used by Hezbollah members across Lebanon exploded simultaneously in what is very likely an operation conducted by the MossadIsrael’s foreign intelligence agency. More than 2,700 people were injured, including Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, and at least 12 people were killed in the explosions. The next day, a second wave of attacks occurredthis time targeting the handheld radios Hezbollah uses in the field. The attacks caused panic in Lebanon; the country’s Ministry of Public Health told hospitals to remain on maximum alert status to cope with the injuries. U.N. personnel in Lebanon were advised to remove the batteries from their phones as a precautionary measure.
By Hezbollah’s own admission, the presumed Israeli operation was the “biggest security breach” the group has ever witnessed.
While information is still fluid, reports suggest Israeli intelligence agents intercepted a shipment of pagers to Hezbollah and tinkered with the devices(possibly by hiding explosive material into the pagers’ batteries) before allowing the shipment to continue on to Lebanon. When the pagers received a messagedisguised as coming from Hezbollah’s leadership, the phones exploded. It’s the kind of well-planned, highly orchestrated, technologically sophisticated covert action for which the Mossad is well known. And if anybody has any doubts, just ask the Iranians, who in 2020 watched as one of their top nuclear scientists, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was assassinatedby a remote-controlled machine gunas he was traveling down a highway. The entire thing feels like an old episode of”24,”the action-packed show starring Kiefer Sutherland from the early “war on terror” of the 2000s.
There’s little doubt that Israel has scored a big tactical success. Hezbollah, one of Israel’s fiercest adversaries since the group was established in the early 1980s, will spend the next days, weeks and even months cracking down within its ranks, preoccupied with internal security and investigating how two similar, devastating strikes could happen within 24 hours of each other.
But as fascinating as the nuts-and-bolts of the operation are, there are deeper and more consequential questions at stake.
First, how will Hezbollah react?
The fact that Israel hasn’t officially claimed credit for the explosions doesn’t mean Hezbollah will hold off on attribution. Indeed, the group already blames Israel and is vowing to exact a price.
Presumably, Hezbollah means what it says; as one of the Middle East’s most powerful anti-Israel resistance movements, it can’t afford not to respond in some way, shape or form, even if it’s only through some kind of symbolic strike on Israeli military infrastructure near the Israel-Lebanon border.
Despite what some foreign policy heavyweights assert, tactical success doesn’t automatically equate to a strategic accomplishment.
Recall that last month, after Israel conducted preemptive airstrikes against thousands of Hezbollah rocket launchers, Hezbollah retaliated by sending its biggest fusilladeof rockets and missiles against targets in northern and central Israel — 320, to be exact. Fortunately, both sides chose to de-escalate after the daylong exchange of fire and return to the pre-August status quo, in which tit-for-tat fighting was largely confined to the Israeli-Lebanese border area. The latest Israeli attacks, however, risk unraveling that arrangement.
At the same time, Hezbollah isn’t a rash, illogical actor. Although Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah won’t admit it openly, he understands that Israel has escalation dominance in this nearly yearlong struggle and could bring Lebanon into the Stone Age if it so desires. Hezbollah is therefore in a very tricky position — refusing to retaliate makes the organization look weak, impotent and compromised, encouraging even more daring Israeli attacks; but going too far on retaliation is liable to give Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the excuse he needs to conduct the full-scale military operation that many within his government are clamoring for.
This is the last thing Hezbollah wants, if only because such a war — which would likely include an Israeli ground invasion to carve out a buffer zone in Southern Lebanon — would produce an economic and humanitarian catastrophe that would make the monthlong Israel-Hezbollah conflict in 2006 look like child’s play. Another war doesn’t serve Hezbollah’s interests.
Second, what is Israel trying to accomplish with these operations, exactly? It’s difficult to know. Some accounts suggestthat the altered pagers and radios were meant to be used during a war with Hezbollah, but that the trigger had to be pulled early because Hezbollah became suspicious that something was wrong with the devices. Viewed in this way, the Israelis decided to speed up the plot’s execution, lest all the time and planning they put into the operation proved to be wasted.
Regardless of the explanation, one wonders what Israel’s end-goal is with these operations.
Despite what some foreign policy heavyweights asserttactical success doesn’t automatically equate to a strategic accomplishment. Hezbollah, for instance, will evolve its own tactics, policies and procedures by battening down the hatches and ensuring its communications infrastructure — or what’s left of it — is better prepared to withstand similar technological feats. As a consequence of being utterly embarrassed on the international stage, Hezbollah will now be far more careful with how it communicates and enforce more discipline within its ranks, limiting the amount of information that Israel’s intelligence services will pick up.
Finally, what does this entire episode tell us about the U.S.-Israel relationship today?
Bluntly put, this week’s covert action underscores that Israel is going to do what it’s going to do, notwithstanding U.S. reservations about a particular course of action or whether it undermines U.S. diplomatic initiatives in the process.
This is particularly the case if Washington continues to refuse any conditionality on the relationship. One day before pagers exploded in Beirut, U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein was in Israel, trying to maintain some degree of calm between Israel and Hezbollah and trying to convince Netanyahu’s government that a wider war in Lebanon — particularly when Israeli troops are still fighting in Gaza — wasn’t in anybody’s interest. Despite the low odds, Washington hopes to strike a diplomatic arrangement that would avert conflict and allow hundreds of thousands of people in both Northern Israel and Southern Lebanon to return to their homes. Needless to say, that already difficult job has gotten a lot more difficult this week. Netanyahu knows this but doesn’t care — ultimately, he has concluded that the U.S. will offer unconditional support regardless of what he does.
Which leads to one more question that should at the very least be debated: Is it time for the U.S. to disabuse Netanyahu of that notion?
Daniel R. DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a syndicated foreign affairs columnist at the Chicago Tribune.
WASILLA, Alaska — Three weeks out from Election Day, President Donald Trump took a helicopter to a plane to another helicopter to a motorcade to an ice hockey rink in Alaska’s Matanuska-Susitna Valley, traversing nearly 4,000 miles over more than eight hours to turn out his base here to help Republicans defend the Senate.
But Trump’s trek might not be enough to save Sen. Dan Sullivan, who’s running in a tougher-than-expected race against Democrat Mary Peltola in a state where the president’s approval rating is underwater and independents outnumber both Republicans and Democrats.
Alaska strategists and voters who spoke to Blue Light News acknowledged that Sullivan faces a difficult path to reelection, despite Trump’s time investment and the outside money pouring in.
“Very conservative MAGA voters can’t vote for you harder,” said Scott Kendall, a veteran political strategist who worked on two of Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s campaigns and was chief of staff to former Alaska Gov. Bill Walker. “Donald Trump’s support in this current climate is both a blessing and a curse.”
Even some Trump supporters at the Tuesday night rally admitted the outlook appeared bleak.
“I think Alaska’s turning blue,” said Matt Niessink, a 45-year-old general contractor from Wasilla. He said he had voted for Trump three times and planned to support Republicans this year.
What did he wish the president would do differently? “I wish he’d shut his mouth sometimes and not be such a pompous ass,” Niessink said.
The president was in Wasilla — population 10,556 — because the outlook is darkening for his party in a state he carried by 13 points just two years ago. In a midterm year defined by the cost of gas and groceries, the Last Frontier has been hit particularly hard, with the average price of diesel nearing $7 per gallon. In the Senate race, Peltola is flush with cash and leads Sullivan in most polls. MAGA Inc., the cash-rich Trump-aligned super PAC, is increasingly focusing on Alaska as one in a slate of states that can help Republicans hold the Senate.
Enter Trump, who has been spending the cycle’s crucial final weeks holding rallies in red states to juice support among his base, which tends to see depressed turnout in years when he’s not on the ballot.
“That was a lot of flying,” the president said at the top of his remarks. “In fact, they were thinking about canceling. They said, ‘Sir, you’re very busy, this is very tough.’” But, Trump continued, he refused to cancel for a state he won three times.
Echoing his comments at other red-state rallies, Trump asked the roaring crowd for “one big favor” — to “pretend that I’m on the ballot, because every time I’ve been on the ballot, we win.” He repeated his promise that Americans will receive $5,000 dividends if Republicans hold both chambers.
“What this is about is getting out the vote,” Sullivan told reporters before Trump’s speech. “A rising tide of enthusiasm lifts all the candidates.”
Unlike some other Republican candidates in tight races, Sullivan has shied away from distancing himself from the least popular aspects of Trump’s presidency.
Sullivan proclaimed on stage at the rally that “the conflict in the Middle East is temporary. The true forever war is the national Democrats’ war against Alaska oil and gas and our jobs.” And although a campaign aide released a statement condemning Trump’s move to import Russian diesel, Sullivan did not join four of his Republican Senate colleagues, including Murkowski, who called on Trump to reverse the decision.
Art Hackney, a veteran Republican strategist in Alaska, said that “most of the people who support” Sullivan “think that he should” break more with the president.
Hackney, who runs a pro-Sullivan super PAC called “We Stand with Dan,” attributed that choice to loyalty — but suggested the president’s demand of fealty, and treatment of frequent dissenter Murkowski, could also be part of Sullivan’s calculus.
“A lot of his longtime supporters and the people who are in the industries that would benefit from that wish he would be more blunt,” Hackney said. “But with what Murkowski has done, if Dan did something considered a disrespectful trigger or something, what do you think would happen? It could well have implications for things that affect Alaska’s economy.”
Like this content? Consider signing up for Blue Light News’s Playbook PM newsletter.
Some top congressional Republicans have privately concluded that it is likely impossible for them to keep control of the House of Representatives in the midterm elections, and they are now focused on limiting the scale of the defeat and salvaging the party’s Senate majority.
Five senior Republican lawmakers, all granted anonymity to speak candidly about their party’s dire position, told Blue Light News the House had all but slipped away.
One senior House Republican said the GOP’s goal at this point was to “save as many Republican seats as we can.” The president, this person said, was not helping.
“President Trump has made this election all about himself,” the lawmaker said. “Now we have to survive that political storm.”
A second Republican member of Congress said the movement of campaign advertising made plain which side was in control of the midterms. This lawmaker predicted Democrats would pick up about 10 seats, more than enough to take control of the chamber.
Even in newly redistricted red states like Florida and Texas, this person said, Republican candidates were “hanging on with their fingernails.”
Republicans have already fallen back from several contested House districts that they feel are no longer winnable, including those held by Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa and Tom Kean Jr. of New Jersey. Trump carried their districts just two years ago. The party last week gave up on an Omaha-based district held by retiring Rep. Don Bacon.
Trump officials and other top GOP operatives say more candidates may be cut off in the coming days, in order to shift advertising money to races where it can make more of a difference. Republican groups have already given up on multiple races where they once hoped to unseat Democratic lawmakers.
The Republican Party is under extreme pressure across the Midwest, where it is now spending heavily to defend Senate seats in once-reliably MAGA states like Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas.
Bacon, a maverick often at odds with the White House, said there was no mystery in his party’s political tribulations.
“I’ve talked to some who are making these decisions: The biggest problem is the president’s polling numbers and unfavorables,” Bacon said.
White House officials insist they’re not giving up on either chamber of Congress. In a statement, White House spokeswoman Liz Huston said Trump remained “committed to maintaining Republican majorities in both the House and Senate.”
As he departed on Tuesday to campaign in Alaska for embattled GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan, Trump professed optimism about the midterms but acknowledged that sitting presidents typically see their party lose seats in the off year.
“But I’m doing a tour right now and I’m doing rallies,” Trump added. “The level of enthusiasm for the Republican Party is way up.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson went even further, flatly declaring during a campaign stop in deep-red Texas that “the polling is wrong” in showing his party on the brink of a broad defeat.
Yet at a tactical level, the Republican Party’s moves to shift money away from defending the House and toward saving the Senate are clear enough. In recent days, the Congressional Leadership Fund, the top super PAC for House Republicans, canceled advertising for key House candidates in Nebraska and Iowa and allowed the Senate Leadership Fund – a Republican group focused on the upper chamber – to swoop in and claim the airtime to support Nebraska Sen. Pete Ricketts and Rep. Ashley Hinson, who is running for Senate in Iowa.
“These are not the moves of a party that’s going to keep the House,” a third Republican lawmaker said.
In statements to Blue Light News, both CLF and the National Republican Congressional Committee said they had no intention of giving up on the fight for control of the House.
NRCC spokesperson Mike Marinella said districts are won “one by one,” and that the GOP has “the financial firepower and ground game needed to win.”
Chris Winkelman, president of CLF, said his group would keep moving money around to maximize the impact nationally.
The goal, he said, was to “keep the pressure on the most vulnerable Democrats and preserve a path to 218 seats.”
Former Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a Florida Republican who lost his swing seat in Trump’s first midterm election eight years ago, said his former colleagues were clear-eyed about where the election seemed to be headed.
“The environment is about as tough as one could expect,” Curbelo said. “There is no one who has privately stated that they believe Republicans can hold the House — not in recent weeks, anyway.”
Megan Messerly, Lauren Fedor, Lisa Kashinsky and Myah Ward contributed to this report.
Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff said Tuesday he will not run for president in 2028 and committed to serving a full six-year Senate term if reelected.
“I have zero interest in running for president. I’m not running for president. I’m running for reelection to the Senate,” Ossoff said during a Georgia Senate debate against Republican Rep. Mike Collins.
Asked by Greg Bluestein of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution whether he would serve his full term if he wins in November, Ossoff replied: “Yes, I will.”
The remarks are Ossoff’s most forceful rejection yet of a potential 2028 presidential bid even as his name has repeatedly surfaced in national Democrats’ conversations about possible contenders for the party’s nomination. His public commitment to a full Senate term on Tuesday is the latest of his campaign’s many efforts to tamp down that speculation.
Ossoff gained national attention this year given his strong fundraising numbers, his consistent lead in public polling against Collins and his ability to generate viral moments on the campaign trail, particularly through his attacks on President Donald Trump. Democrats are bullish about Ossoff’s ability to hold onto his Senate seat — so much so that the Democratic-aligned Senate Majority PAC said Tuesday it was removing its ad spending in Georgia for the week.
He’s also taken steps to boost the state Democratic party in Georgia, a perennial battleground that has been and will be key to winning the presidency. If November brings historic wins up and down the ballot, Ossoff will get some of the credit — and he’ll have confirmed his status as a leader in the swing state.
-
Politics2 years agoFormer ‘Squad’ members launching ‘Bowman and Bush’ YouTube show
-
Uncategorized2 years ago
Bob Good to step down as Freedom Caucus chair this week
-
The Josh Fourrier Show2 years agoDOOMSDAY: Trump won, now what?
-
The Dictatorship2 years agoPete Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon goes from bad to worse
-
Politics2 years agoFormer Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron launches Senate bid
-
The Dictatorship2 years agoLuigi Mangione acknowledges public support in first official statement since arrest
-
Politics2 years agoBlue Light News’s Editorial Director Ryan Hutchins speaks at Blue Light News’s 2025 Governors Summit
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoMike Johnson sums up the GOP’s arrogant position on military occupation with two words