Ever since Vladimir Putin sent his troops to defend the vulgar Syrian tyrant Assad against his people in September 2015, the hordes of the so-called "Resistance Axis" (محور الممناعة) declared that Russia is now a full-fledged member of their Axis, going so far as to give Putin a nom-de-guerre, Abou Ali Putin. Indeed, Russia has air bases and marine bases along the Syrian Mediterranean coast, and the Russian might was unleashed mercilessly against most civilian areas and cities across Syria. The destruction of Syria was the job that Russia carried out specifically to protect, not Syria itself, but the Assad regime. One brutal criminal protecting another brutal criminal.
However, the Resistance Axis, which includes Iran, Assad's Syria, the Iraqi "Popular Mobilization Group" (الحشد الشعبي), the Yemeni Houthis and more importantly Hassan Nasrallah's Hezbollah, has noticed that Israeli officials paid numerous visits to Moscow since 2015 leading to drawing red lines and understandings between Moscow and Tel Aviv over their rules of engagements in the Syrian war zone.
Not one Israeli attack in Syria against Iranian and Hezbollah positions was ever opposed by Russia. Not one. Israeli jets fly over the Mediterranean and strike positions, weapons depots, and convoys of the Resistance Axis, then return safely to Israel. Neither the Syrian cowards dare to defend themselves or respond, nor the Russians care much for these attacks as long as their interests in Syria are preserved.
But the most hilarious of all this is the posture of Hezbollah and its strongman Hassan Nasrallah who has claimed that his gazillion sophisticated rockets pointing at Israel from the Lebanese south have deterred Israel from wantonly attacking Lebanon. While the deterrence, if any, goes both ways (since Hezbollah has refrained from attacking Israel since the 2006 war that left Lebanon in ruins), Israel continues to fly over Lebanese airspace, including occasionally when it is attacking Hezbollah and Iranian targets in Syria, and it continues to occupy the Shebaa Farms which Hezbollah claims as Lebanese territory and as a pretext for its continued "resistance". So what kind of resistance is this that drags on for two decades WITHOUT FIGHTING THE ENEMY?
No one should forget that Hezbollah sent its hordes to fight alongside the Syrian regime throughout the Syrian war, and it has lost thousands of fighters there. So the question is: Why has Hezbollah failed to confront the nearly daily Israeli attacks against its own forces and positions in Syria? Where is the deterrence it claims to have established? The Syrians themselves don't bother either with responding to the Israeli attacks. So what gives?
The answer is that Hezbollah's resistance is a pile of horse manure. Hezbollah doesn't give a damn about Lebanon, its supposedly occupied territory in the south, or about any of the sublime objectives it has claimed for itself. Hezbollah is simply an Iranian tool implanted in Lebanon. With Iran nearing collapse after years of sanctions, it is clinging to tiny shreds of hope for a resolution of the nuclear stalemate with the West, which would liberate its confiscated funds and relaunch its economy. And because of that, Iran has ordered Hezbollah to lay low, take the blows, ignore the resistance BS, and wait for its marching orders from Tehran.
But the hoodlums of the Resistance Axis are itching for action, despite their orders from Tehran. So they have now unleashed their frustration on Vladimir Abou Ali Putin because he is not confronting Israel's attacks near his bases in Syria. Of course, Putin is probably feeling gloomy and hesitant to open another front with the West; he is reeling from the sanctions, he is losing ground and retreating in Ukraine, and given the well-known Russian racism, he is not going to sacrifice his troops for some cowardly Syrians, Iranians and their proxies in Yemen and Lebanon.
Finally, Hassan Nasrallah's eyes are also fixed on his share of the potential windfall from a successful agreement in the indirect Israeli-Lebanese maritime border negotiations. Everything points to a positive development in the gas extraction process off the Israeli and Lebanese offshore platforms, if only for one reason: Europe desperately needs Israeli gas (and potentially Lebanese gas, which is lagging behind), and it will put all its might into a successful outcome of the maritime negotiations. But Putin's ambiguous position vis-a-vis Iran and the Resistance Axis might turn either way. He might try to throw kinks in the Israeli-Lebanese maritime negotiations in order to deprive Europe of an alternative source of gas, which would be to his advantage, but not to Hezbollah's advantage. Which could explain the sudden anti-Putin turnabout in the Resistance Axis ranks. Gotta blame someone else for your own failure.
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