Israel: 3-2-1 on to Lebanon

Plus: Harris rolls on in the lead, and what that means

History may record Israel’s exploding pager and radio caper as perhaps the most precisely targeted military operation ever. The only way Israel could have gotten more precise would be to have some technology that stops the hearts of Hezbollah terrorists, and even then some people would complain about “the residual trauma to people who had to watch them drop dead in the streets.” (Credit Noam Blum for that.)

Hezbollah pager

As many have pointed out, there was the potential for innocent bystanders to be injured by 5,000 mini-bombs going off in hands and pockets simultaneously. The whole operation was incredibly ingenious, and is being compared to the Stuxnet hack that sabotaged Iranian centrifuges, setting back their nuclear program several years. I think the complaints about innocents being injured are hugely outweighed by the facts.

Hezbollah ordered the encrypted pagers for use by their personnel. The pagers only received messages from Hezbollah leadership—they were not commercial retail devices you buy off the shelf. Almost nobody buys pagers for personal use anymore. The pagers were procured because they only receive, and therefore are immune to Israeli signal intelligence tracking their location, like with cell phones. The only people issued those pagers were Hezbollah terrorists, full stop.

In any case, the 40-50 grams of explosive that can reasonably fit into a pager case is not enough to injure a crowd of people; collateral damage by any calculation would be limited to those unlucky enough to be in very close proximity to someone holding the pager. It’s unfortunate that some of those people were children. It’s not surprising that one of them was the Iranian ambassador to Hezbollah—one of the requirements of that position is to be a member of the IRGC. Being blown up is an occupational hazard that comes with the job.

Before exploding, the pagers received one last message, designed to look like it was from Hezbollah leaders. This would have caused many to raise the device to their face to read the message. The detonation was timed to allow for this, to maximize damage to hands, eyes, and faces. (The Iranian ambassador reportedly lost an eye, and the other eye was heavily damaged; leading to a conclusion that he was either reading the message or very close to the pager.) Hezbollah was visibly, palpably damaged by this attack.

I’ve read that the decision was “imposed” on Israel because some Hezbollah operatives discovered that the devices had been tampered with. If that’s true, Israel was faced with the choice of not activating the pagers and then having their plot discovered, which would have been embarrassing and potentially revealing of its intelligence sources and capabilities. No nation wants that. Therefore, if the report is to be believed, Israel had no choice of the timing.

I do not place a lot of confidence in the report. When reports like this come from “high-level regional intelligence sources,” it has many of the earmarks of a planted story. It would be in Israel’s interests for others to report that they had no choice in the timing and execution of this attack. This creates doubt in the minds of Israel’s enemies as to its intentions.

On its own, the pager operation sends a strong message to Hezbollah. I wrote a few weeks ago that Israel is inside Iran’s and Hezbollah’s “OODA loop.” The degree to which this is true is fully demonstrated by the pager operation. Israeli intelligence had to know that Hezbollah was in the market for pager tech. They had to know where the group would look to procure that product. They had to set up enough phony fronts to allow their own personnel to have access to the devices as they were manufactured.

They had to have complete access to the schematics, manufacturing, and software on the devices. And they had to do all this without letting Hezbollah learn of the operation. Frankly, that’s an astounding feat of intelligence and sabotage, worthy of any of the stories of British intelligence in WWII that spawned the James Bond series.

Hezbollah leaders, and their Iranian masters, now have to question every link in every supply chain. They are going to look at every device, every computer, every software program, every chip, every guidance system, every drone, literally everything, with suspicion. If they launch a large-scale drone and missile attack on Israel, will the missiles turn back and hit their own targets? Will video cameras and microphones used to record messages suddenly explode or become weapons? They have to ask the craziest questions because they know Israel is deeply inside their heads.

The question the pager operation begs is: what else does Israel have up their sleeves? And by begging the question, I mean it’s a sure thing they have something else up their sleeves. But what?

Wednesday, another wave of explosions hit Lebanon and Syria. This time it was radio devices, such as handy-talkies used for voice communication. Perhaps Israel can claim that since the pagers were a forced decision, then it would only be natural Hezbollah would look at their handheld radios next and discover more sabotage. But I don’t necessarily believe the report that Israel had no choice.

Before beginning a ground invasion, the first thing a military wants to accomplish is to disable the enemy’s C3I—command, control, communications, and intelligence. The second thing is to disguise or obscure intentions as to timing, location, and assets used in the coming attack. Israel cannot really obscure large military movements; it’s a small country. For example, we know that Israel has moved its 98th Division from Gaza to the north. Now, the IDF has both the 98th and the 36th divisions deployed in the north, including Paratroopers and Commando brigades.

The best Israel can do is obscure its real reason for the buildup. They claim it’s to protect against potential Hezbollah escalation and retaliation from the pager operation. But it would seem Hezbollah is not in a position, after suffering a few thousand senior personnel out of action, to escalate or retaliate. And after the rout the IAF threw at Hezbollah as they prepared a large-scale missile and rocket strike, I think they’d question the efficacy of anything they might try.

The Knesset, and the Israeli war cabinet, have added one war goal in the north: to return evacuated Israelis to their homes. This means stopping the daily barrages of rockets falling on the north. To do this requires a military operation—a boots on the ground, large-scale invasion to remove the rockets and defeat Hezbollah. I believe this is what Israel is intending, and they’re in the last phases of preparation before the “go” signal.

I think the “imposed” story may be a ruse. Of course, I have no way of knowing, but I strongly suspect it’s a ruse. I think there might be one more “surprise” that Israel has brewing, perhaps against Lebanon’s cellular network, or its Internet service, and then the IDF will move into southern Lebanon. When Israel prepared to go into Gaza, Internet and phone service was cut off—mostly this was to prevent journalists (many of whom are in Hamas’ pocket) from reporting Israeli troop locations and staging horrific scenes for the world press to repeat.

Israel may follow the same plan going into Lebanon. They’ve severely handicapped Hezbollah. They’ve demonstrated their intelligence and technical advantage. Israel’s biggest hurdle will be to ensure the West Bank does not explode into a third front, while also smoking out any terror plots that might erode citizen resolve. The Shin Bet (Israel’s version of the FBI) uncovered a bomb plot targeting a former senior IDF official just the other day.

One wave of pager bombs is an intelligence coup. A second wave of radio bombs is the beginning of an invasion. When Russia went into Ukraine, their first blow was against Ukraine’s encrypted satcom. If it were not for Starlink, Ukraine’s C3I would have been completely devastated. Russia’s second blow was against Ukraine’s Internet and computer infrastructure. If not for Microsoft, that would have succeeded. Hezbollah has neither SpaceX nor Microsoft in its corner. Israel is on the countdown to invasion.

KAMALA’S POLLS UP. We’re 46 days from Election Day, and some states (Pennsylvania) are already into early voting. The latest polls are still close, but the RCP average has Harris up in most battleground states. Trump still leads in Georgia, but he is not gaining anywhere.

I think the public is tiring of people trying to take potshots at Trump. It’s not heroic at all. Trump continues to say things that nobody can dispute, would be properly called “dangerous” to democracy. Whether it’s proper to call Trump himself a “danger to democracy” is arguable. I think we can cool the rhetoric and let the facts speak for themselves. Harris isn’t giving a lot of interviews because (a) she’s not good at it, and, (b) she doesn’t need to. Trump is talking himself into a loss, and his VP pick is damaging the MAGA brand.

The pundits and models are all claiming that we won’t know the outcome of the election on Election Day. That may be true. But unless events intervene, I think we all see where the trend is heading, and there’s really no time to change the momentum swing, even if Trump decided to act in a more rational way. Trump is banking on a deus ex-machina to win him the election, but I don’t know if it will happen.

One thing this highlights to me is exactly how bad a candidate Hillary Clinton was in 2016. Look at it—they guy who camped out for 12 hours at Mar-a-Lago to take a shot at Trump voted for Trump in 2016. Ryan Routh’s book (yes, he wrote one) described himself as a liberal hawk: “we all move forward as a collective unit.” What does it take for someone like that to vote against Clinton?

She was a disaster, and now Trump has shown he can’t beat a 50-year government hack in Biden, and likely can’t beat an unlikeable political polymorph, a former attorney general who didn’t even serve a full term in the senate. This is the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City all over again, played out in politics. Except Hillary was so bad even as the house she couldn’t win. And now Trump is the house and can’t win.

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