Saurabh Kumar Shahi, researcher and journalist specialized in West and South Asian Affairs.
Right in front of our eyes, a great churn has begun. Those who are part of it often fail to perceive the churn. It is called a boiling-frog syndrome. However, zoom a bit out and you will realise that the old order is crumbling. Someone once rightly said that the collapse of the Western Order is quite a bit like the collapse of the Roman Empire but with the luxury of watching it on the internet in real-time.
As I write this, the Settler Colonial regime in Occupied Palestine has started its ground invasion. However, it has failed to confirm the invasion officially; only calling it “the expansion of ground attack.” This is a tad disingenuous in that the Zionists know that they need an exit strategy if and when this invasion fails to achieve its stated goals. They can then always deny that a “proper” ground invasion of Gaza was ever attempted.
However, let us look at the bigger picture. I will return to the smaller picture later in this article.
The United States-led international order is in its dying throes. NATO has fought Russia with some fervour in Ukraine often at the cost of common Ukrainians. That war is now all but lost. It will ensure that the so-called deterrence of the Western Power can never be established in Eurasia. In a few years, the alliance will be marred by fratricide and will turn into a rump.
However, that is not all. The same fate awaits it in the Middle East. Biden Administration is under the impression that everything shall be hunky dory after the operations in Gaza. It will be anything, but. First of all, the Resistance in Gaza is not the same entity as it was 15 years or even nine years ago. This new Hamas is sharp, perceptive, calculative and forward-thinking. It has been trained by those who are among the experts of resistance. Those rooted in the Revolutionary Ideology of 1979.
Hamas, in many ways, is like Hezbollah now; disciplined and unemotional. Take for example the raids Hamas did inside Occupied Palestinian lands on 7th October. It was not merely a raid to kill and capture soldiers. It was a raid to blind the Zionist Regime. The famed Gaza Division that had put a stranglehold on the population of Gaza for years got a bloody nose it will scarcely recover from. Sources say that the attack was meant to destroy this Division’s intelligence and kinetic capabilities. It becomes obvious when one takes so much as even a cursory glance at the numbers. For example, IDF’s losses inside Signal Intelligence units were paralysing. Unit 414, the Nesher Battalion, lost 19 persons Killed in Action (KIA) and around 30 soldiers wounded and captured. Their intelligence apparatus at Camp Urim was laid to waste. Its Signal Battalion Commander was liquidated at Camp Reim along with the commander of the Ghost Unit.
The story was the same with the 933rd Nahal Infantry Brigade where the commander and his two deputies were liquidated along with a couple of dozens of soldiers. This has now blinded the Division as these were the guys who knew the geography of Gaza and maintained human intelligence assets.
On the kinetic capability front, the premier Special Operations Forces unit Sayerat Matkal, Shayetet 13 Naval Special Forces and Shaldag Air SOF all lost various commanders KIA. In no previous conflict did the regime suffer such blowback. It will never recover from it.
Returning to the larger picture, the whole deterrence that the regime and the US thought it could implement is gone. Sample this. The US sent the strongest of possible warnings to Ansarullah in Yemen. It did not dither and has all practical purposes declared war on the Zionist Regime. France, Germany and the US all warned Hezbollah to sit quietly. It has responded by liquidating over 130 soldiers and destroying several intelligence-gathering bases of the apartheid regime worth scores of billions of dollars. The US also warned the Resistance groups inside Syria and Iraq to abstain and they have responded with as many as 34 attacks on the US’ illegal bases in both countries.
The biggest loss for the US and the Zionist Regime is this absolute mockery of deterrence that the Resistance Axis has made. There is no going back from here.
Talking of the larger picture, the Resistance has also permanently destroyed the conspiracy by some of the Arab elites and collaborators to maintain a status quo ante where they collaborate and expand their relationship with the Zionist Regime at the cost of the occupation of the Palestinians. The Western hubris is broken now. The massive pro-Palestine protests across the United States and Europe symbolise that the ruling elites here cannot continue to put the interests of the Zionist Lobby over the will of their population. And while it will take time to break the stranglehold of the Zionist Lobby, one thing is sure there is no going back to the old ways now. We will slowly start to see the clamour grow inside the Western elites to bring justice to the Palestinians.
The iron grip of the Zionist Lobby has already started to develop fissures. The way some of the current and previous ministers and officials from European Countries have come out in support of the Palestinian cause—including but not limited to Spain, Greece and Ireland—has rattled the lobby. They realise that whatever the endgame in Gaza; whatever the operational realities of the invasion, the status quo ante cannot be maintained now.
The men and material damage to the interests of the United States will further hasten this process. The Americans must feel the pinch. Luckily, the Resistance in both Syria and Iraq is capable of serving it to them.
However, the time has also come for the financial blow. Years of dollar-printing have saddled the American Economy. However, rather than managing it, the Americans have become addicted to it. It should also be mentioned that the US Govt. will add another $10 trillion on top of its $34 trillion debt within 3 years at current deficit levels. Annual interest costs will reach $1.5+ trillion while major economies move away from the US dollar in trade. There’s no soothing this pain. The US is doomed.
Understandably, many people are not perceptive enough to see all these changes happening around them. This brings me to what I mentioned in the first paragraph; the boiling frog syndrome. If you put a frog in the boiling water, it will jump out. However, if you put it in cold water and then slowly bring it to a boil, the frog doesn’t perceive the temperature rise and dies. The United States and the Zionist Regimes are that frog.
(The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Khamenei.ir.)
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