(Toronto Star-Canada) Rosie DiManno - It is a fallacy that ideas can't be defeated. Received wisdom has it that unless root causes are addressed, no conflict can be resolved. The same sophistry asserts that Israel can't conquer Hamas even if it annihilates the internationally designated terrorist entity militarily. Of course it can. Hizbullah has just come crawling to a ceasefire agreement with Israel. Its ballyhooed status as the most powerful non-state actor in the world has been stripped away in the aftermath of Israel's targeted campaign against its leadership, followed by a full-scale invasion of southern Lebanon. In its 13-month war with Israel, in solidarity with Hamas following the Oct. 7, 2023, atrocity, Hizbullah has been defeated. The regional alliance of militias, funded and buttressed by Iran, has been proven a chimera. Iran can't come to the rescue of any of its proxy states because Iran itself has been having a very bad year. Its barrage of 300 missiles and drones against Israel on Oct. 1 was ineffective and humbling, undermining the credibility of Iran's axis of resistance, and upending regional dynamics. Some are lauding the ceasefire as a rare win for diplomacy in the Middle East. But it would never have happened if Hizbullah hadn't been shaken to its combat boots, just as every overwhelmed and fractured warmongering side has only come to the negotiating table when its very existence came face-to-face with extinction. All of this leaves Hamas isolated and clinging by its fingernails, with 18,000 of its fighters dead, and much of its vast tunnel network destroyed, Gaza reduced to a lawless, chaotic mess, with tens of thousands of Palestinians dead, hundreds of thousands displaced, and Yahya Sinwar burning in hell. That war grinds on, Hamas's violent ideology still intact, but its sphere of potency is shrunken and its raison d'etre delegitimized.
2024-12-03 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive