Opinion Archives - CrossFireArarbia

Can Israel Create A Lebanese Buffer Zone?

CrossFireArabia
March 25, 2026

By Imad Rizk

Since last Wednesday, the Israeli army has continued targeting the network of roads and bridges that link Lebanon to its south. In addition to pressuring the Lebanese government to make concessions in Lebanon and possibly beyond, the Israeli army claimed that targeting the Qasmiyeh bridge and other bridges is intended to prevent the transfer of military supplies to southern Lebanon. However, military experts questioned this justification, noting that Israeli aircraft maintain intense air dominance over the routes leading to the south, which undermines the credibility of this claim. Sources believe that targeting infrastructure, especially bridges and roads, aims to isolate the southern region in preparation for occupying it and turning it into a “buffer zone”.

After the 1982 invasion, Israel maintained a buffer zone in southern Lebanon for 15 years. It was meant to prevent attacks but instead created local resistance and required constant military presence, ending with a unilateral Israeli withdrawal in 2000.

Buffer zones as a military solution in the region were tested between 1985 and 2000. In the 2006 Lebanon War, Israel avoided re-occupying Lebanon, relying instead on air power and UN peacekeepers (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon). Now, in 2026, Israel is returning to buffer zone thinking. Current discussions of a 10-15 km buffer zone show that Israel is returning to a doctrine it once abandoned as distancing itself from its enemy is more important than before.

Meanwhile, air raids continue to target the Lebanese capital, Beirut, and its southern suburbs. Residential areas and neighborhoods near Beirut and in the coastal city of Sidon are also being targeted under the pretext of assassinating figures and cadres linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

On the southern front, the Israeli army has been facing major difficulties in advancing and consolidating its positions since March 2. Hezbollah in Lebanon targeted Israeli troops at dozens of locations.

Ground combat tactics against the Israeli ground maneuver

Hezbollah carried out strikes against concentrations of soldiers and vehicles in different border villages. These attacks were carried out using rockets and artillery shells.

Operations extended beyond the border line, where Hezbollah support units targeted military positions and fixed barracks, as well as newly established sites in Jabal al-Bat and Nimer al-Jamal. Strikes also repeatedly hit the Avivim barracks, as well as Ramot Naftali, Branit, Hounin, Nahal Gershom base, and the Meron Air Surveillance Base.

Both Hezbollah and the Israeli army also carried out psychological and media operations associated with the ground maneuver, including threats, intimidation, low-altitude aircraft flights, and air raids conducted at night or at dawn. Settlers were also used in messaging to suggest that failure to negotiate would expose Lebanon to destruction similar to Gaza, or to incite Lebanese public opinion against a particular sectarian group and the environment that supports confrontation with Israel.

Overall assessment

In summary, the ongoing confrontation since March 2 reveals a gap between Israeli rhetoric and action. Despite statements about deploying three full military divisions, these forces rely heavily on air strikes to flush out Hezbollah fighters positioned inside villages and in the surrounding wooded terrain.

Hezbollah initially responded by targeting troop concentrations with rockets from outside the area south of the Litani River in the early days, and also struck D-9 bulldozers from areas far from the front line, while its special units advanced and seized forward positions. There was also discussion of advances along the Khiam-Marjayoun axis, with the understanding that the advance aimed to encircle the city of Nabatieh in the south and push through the Sahmar axis toward an unspecified town to reach Lake Qaraoun, similar to what Israel did on the Syrian front when it took control of the Yarmouk basin.

A notable development was the use of explosive drones similar to tactics used in Ukraine. On Friday, armed drones were used to strike a rear-area position on the Israeli side. This was considered the second major tactical surprise to enter the battlefield after the previous confrontation in 2024 during the “66-day battle.”

Israeli attacks on Iran and the entry of Iranian missiles targeting Israeli troop concentrations and fortifications around the town of Khiam suggest that the linkage of fronts — from southern Lebanon to Iraq and Iran — indicates that the Khatam al-Anbiya headquarters in Iran is directing a confrontation against Israeli destabilization and US military presence across a theater stretching from the eastern Mediterranean to the Gulf.

The author is the director of the Institute for Strategic and Communication Studies in Lebanon (Isticharia-ISCS). Anadolu

Opinion

Hamlet in The White House!

Saleem Ayoub Quna
March 24, 2026

By Saleem Ayoub Quna

There must be something very unusual going on in the head of the 47th President of the US, to the degree that it could be detrimental to himself, to his own people and to the rest of the world, as we know it since the end of WWII; a kind of a personalized erratic approach to reality, based exclusively, on the notion of profit and loss, of take not give, especially in monetary terms.

From his younger age, Mr. Trump was not just any ordinary successful business man who would tolerate a ceiling for his ambitions. He was an over-ambitious entrepreneur with multi-branched interests. As a leading real-estate developer, thriving in a culture built on competition and affluence in all aspects of life, sometimes at the expense of choosing between right and wrong, upholding justice, tolerance versus other ethnic groups, and adherence to basic moral standards, as preached by different schools of philosophy and ideology, Trump ventured into all sorts of domains such as wrestling, movies, TV shows,
casinos, resort hotels and so forth. He was an unstoppable adventurer with strongly-rooted instinct to win every bet he made, until a more challenging idea would click in his mind!

Mr. Trump was lured to politics from the early days of 1980s, but he never made a serious move until four decades or so later. There are some reasons for that long hold of course, but one consideration that must have played a decisive role, had to do with his awareness that working in politics would not make him richer!

But as time goes by, one gets older, wiser and less adventurous! Trump reached this stage during the second decade of the 21st century; He felt he is getting older and that made him boring and bored at the
same time! So one night, his nemesis pays him a sudden call and immediately he bows to it. As a result he puts on his new mantel as the Supreme Commander of the free world for one term (2017-2021) which
ends with a historical unprecedented incursion of the Capitol by his supporters, on the grounds that his winning opponent, Joe Biden, rigged the elections!

Four years later it’s the comeback of the wounded warrior! This time Trump has learned many important lessons of how to be a Supreme Commander, while openly tampering with the idea of a third term in
2028! Trump’s first move was to fortify his newly reclaimed fortress with completely obedient entourage, so he could release all his non-depletable genius and energy reserve.

Now it’s time for closing some old accounts; it’s time to play! Within days in office, Trump expresses his wish to welcome Canada to his empire as its 51 st state. Then he changes the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, because it is more beautiful! Later he targets US monuments such as the Kennedy Center, the International Airport in Virginia and Pennsylvania Station for the same purpose!

Another morning he wakes up to tell the world that the US should take over Greenland, one way or the other. While the ‘Venezuela’ over-night expedition was seen by many, including Trump himself, as a clip from an animated action movie, where the good cops with their IA run sophisticated machinery and technology, apprehends a notorious out-of-law gangster and flies him to jail!

Trump’s latest games which was clumsily suspended last year in June, is the same one, unfolding before our eyes these days with Iran. The latest update on this dangerous game was Trump’s devious
attempt to curb the unexpected financial repercussions in the world oil market and their consequent direct impact on his domestic rating versus the Democrats vying for midterm elections this coming
November.

For Trump this would be a red line that no one is allowed to tamper with. This is one of the bet games which he cannot lose: Who will control the House and the Senate next November? It is that kind of
situation that could make him quote Hamlet the Prince of Denmark, the legendary character portrayed by Shakespeare when he shouted; “To be, or not to be, that is the question”!

Hamlet was addressing a ghost!

Analyses Opinion

‘This War is Not Hours’

CrossFireArabia
March 11, 2026

By Dr Hasan Al Dajah

Events in the Middle East are accelerating, foreshadowing a comprehensive regional explosion. However, a deeper reading of the situation transcends the traditional narrative that attempts to portray the conflict as an “Arab-Iranian” or sectarian one that transcends borders. The reality emerging today from the rubble of burning military bases and oil facilities is clear: this war is not ours; it is a major strategic war led by Washington with direct Israeli planning, aimed at reshaping the region to serve absolute Western hegemony, even if the price is turning Arab capitals into arenas of destruction and settling scores in which we have no stake.

For years, the United States promoted the concept of “deterrence” and providing protection to allied countries in exchange for billions of dollars in arms deals and a massive military presence. However, Operation “True Promise 5” and the subsequent precise Iranian strikes have stripped away the fig leaf from these claims. Field reports indicate that US bases, once described as “impregnable fortresses,” have become vulnerable targets themselves, requiring protection. At Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, damage to the AN/FPS-132 early warning radar and the AN/TPY-2 facility resulted in a near-total paralysis of surveillance capabilities.

In Bahrain, home to the Fifth Fleet, the destruction of satellite communications stations led to a loss of centralized control over naval vessels. In Kuwait and the UAE, the casualties and the destruction of F-15 fighter jets revealed that advanced US technology was incapable of countering waves of drones and missiles that disrupted even civilian air traffic and struck vital facilities at Jebel Ali Port, reducing military installations and oil depots to ashes.

This resounding failure raises a fundamental question about the viability of relying on a “security umbrella” that has failed to protect its own perimeter and has become a security burden, attracting attacks rather than repelling them. This is no longer mere political analysis; it has become a public admission emanating from the corridors of Washington. What Senator Lindsey Graham recently revealed represents the pinnacle of terrifying candor. He confirmed that the true agenda is not about spreading “democracy” or protecting allies, but rather about embroiling the Gulf States as the military front and human cannon fodder in a direct confrontation with Iran. This is a prelude to seizing oil wells and managing the region’s wealth for Washington’s benefit, thus paying the price for the American presence, while simultaneously imposing full normalization and strangling China’s energy lifeline.

The United States’ recent attempt to seek refuge in French bases in the UAE, such as Al Dhafra Air Base and Camp de la Paix, is nothing more than a desperate effort to spread losses and hide behind the European umbrella after the deterioration of the original American bases. However, even these shared bases have not been immune to attack.

The strikes have proven that any facility supporting Western operations is a legitimate target in this zero-sum confrontation. The effects of this war extend beyond the military arena, striking at the very heart of daily life. The threat to the Strait of Hormuz has triggered seismic repercussions in global markets. The price of a barrel of oil jumped to around $116, an increase of more than $38, while gas prices in Europe rose by more than €25, and oil shipping costs soared by over 90 per cent, foreshadowing an uncontrollable wave of global inflation.

The United States, which today expresses its “displeasure” at Israel exceeding expectations in striking Iranian fuel depots, is not acting out of a desire for peace, but rather out of fear that the economic game will backfire on it and on oil markets, which cannot withstand the loss of Gulf supplies, especially given the 11 per cent increase in gasoline prices in America and the 70 per cent increase in jet fuel prices. What is happening in Jebel Ali, Manama, Doha, and Kuwait is not a struggle to defend Arab sovereignty, but rather a settling of scores between major powers that want to use Arab land as a chessboard.

The American bases that are groaning today under the weight of the strikes have proven to be a “paper tiger” when it comes to protecting allies, and that their presence is nothing but a magnet for crises that drains Arab capabilities for the benefit of foreign agendas that do not take into account Arab national security.

Arab capitals must realize, before it’s too late, that the “illusion of protection” has completely evaporated under the weight of missiles and drones. To be drawn into Israel’s desire to destroy the region, and to accommodate American ambitions to seize energy resources to finance its expansionist policies, is strategic suicide by any measure.

This raging war is not our war, and staying out of the inferno of this manufactured conflict is the only way to ensure that our wealth and the future of our generations do not become fuel for the schemes of Netanyahu, Trump, and the war profiteers behind them.

The time has come to seriously seek a self-reliant regional security system, one that originates from within the continent and is based on the shared interests of the region’s countries, far removed from foreign bases that today lack even the most basic military effectiveness and have become a strategic burden that itself needs protection after its defensive vulnerabilities have been exposed.

False American promises only increase our subservience and dependence on a modern colonial project that sees Arabs as nothing more than insignificant figures on its debt list, or mere cheap tools in its proxy wars. The true protection of homelands begins today with disengaging from these destructive agendas, and with the explicit acknowledgment that bases that have failed to protect their own walls and platforms will never be a shield for others.

Hasan Al-Dajah, a Professor of Strategic Studies at Al-Hussein Bin Talal University, is a columnist in the Jordan Times.

Opinion

The US General Who Swallowed His Own Truth

CrossFireArabia
March 6, 2026

By Jassem Al-Azzawi

General Dan Kaine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, delivered a confidential warning to President Trump with the utmost candor—the kind of candor that democracies rely on and empires routinely ignore. He said: “We don’t have enough ammunition to win this war. It’s not going to be pretty.” This warning wasn’t born of cowardice; it was the last vestige of institutional integrity that still flickers within the halls of American military power.

Trump’s response was that of a circus clown, not a commander-in-chief. Through his “Truth Social” platform—that distorted mirror of American political life—he dismissed the warning with the arrogance of a street vendor, saying: “Oh, no, no, no. If we do it, we’ll win easily.” Thus, a sober assessment became mere publicity, and caution a lie.

But the biggest lie came later. When Kaine’s warning leaked, Trump not only rejected it but completely reversed it. With the confidence of a man who has never been held accountable for anything, he told the American public the general had said the exact opposite—that the United States had plenty of missiles, munitions, and everything else. “That’s not what he said at all,” Trump declared, putting words of false victory in the mouth of a man who had offered only warnings.

And General Cain remained silent

This silence is not just a footnote in this story; it is the story itself. By remaining silent, Cain allowed the American public to absorb the falsehood as truth. He did not say: “No, Mr. President, that’s not what I said.” He did not invoke his oath, nor the soldiers who would pay with their lives for the gap between political rhetoric and logistical reality. He chose the safety of silence over the danger of truth, and in doing so, he betrayed not only himself but the Republic. This is the rot at the heart of American militarism.

As historian Andrew Bacevich has long warned, the professional military has become more of an instrument of imperial ambition than a defender of democratic values, with senior officers more concerned with their next post than with the Constitution they swore to uphold. Kaine’s silence was not a mere slip of the tongue; it was a symptom of a deeper malaise.

The logistical picture Kaine described in private was not theoretical; the calculations were unforgiving.

Current stockpiles of interceptor missiles and precision munitions could not sustain a prolonged air campaign against a country three times the size of Iraq. The Wall Street Journal documented a “worrying gap” in U.S. missile stockpiles, noting that reserves were “far below” the requirements of intensive and sustained operations. Pentagon contractors were instructed to “double or even quadruple” production of Patriot, SM-6, and precision-strike missiles—a tacit admission that the arsenal built for Cold War scenarios is inadequate for the war being fought today.

Consider Gaza: Israel, the most heavily armed military power in the Middle East, with complete air and naval dominance, has turned a tiny coastal strip into a moon-like landscape of devastation over two and a half years, yet it has not broken Hamas. Gaza is only 37 kilometers long. Iran, on the other hand, is a nation of 90 million people, with mountainous terrain, strategic depth, fortified infrastructure, and a combat-hardened Revolutionary Guard. The idea that it will collapse under a few weeks of American airstrikes is not strategy; it is wishful thinking. “God help us if this continues, if it gets to four weeks,” Colonel Daniel Davis warned on the Deep Dive podcast. He was speaking in military terms, and the same prayer applies. Politically.

When Trump now raises the prospect of sending ground troops, he is not escalating from a position of strength, but rather improvising from a position of denial. Admitting that air power and missiles alone cannot achieve the political objective is an admission that the original objective was never honestly assessed. This is the pattern of American wars at the end of an empire: Glittering promises, disastrous calculations, and then a grim and horrific reckoning paid in blood by those who had no seat at the table where the lies were told.

The costs are already piling up—not just in the currency of munitions and riches, but in the currency that empires always ultimately spend and regret most: credibility. America’s word, already devalued by two decades of contrived justifications for war, is getting cheaper by the day.

Democracies can tolerate miscalculations, and they can tolerate bad presidents, but what they cannot long tolerate is the institutionalization of a culture where the truth is whispered behind closed doors and swallowed whole in front of cameras. When the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff allows his words to be weaponized for propaganda — when the man in charge of counting missiles refuses to correct a president who pretends they are plentiful — something far greater than military credibility collapses.

What is crumbling is the social contract between the governed and those who send them to their deaths.

Caine’s silence was not cautious; it was complicity. And in an imperial machine suffering from a shortage of ammunition and a shortage of truth, complicity is the only resource that seems inexhaustible, because when the missiles finally run out, slogans won’t replace them.

Reality will.

Al-Azzawi is an Iraqi writer who contributed this piece to Al Rai Al Youm which was translated and appeared in crossfire.com

Opinion

‘They Don’t Know Iran’s Military Lexicon’: First Six Days of The Aggression

CrossFireArabia
March 5, 2026

By Abdul Bari Atwan

They truly don’t know Iran. By this, I mean the Israelis and the US, and even some Arab leaders, none of whom dared to condemn the aggression. But the aggression entered its sixth day without the regime falling, and/or the new interim leadership rushing to the nearest negotiating table to surrender. The following factors need to be considered.

The battlefields:

First: The downing of an advanced American fighter jet, the F-15, by Iranian missiles in the west of Iran, a firstever development. This suggests the Iranian military leadership may have developed new missiles capable of achieving this feat, or they acquired them from their Chinese and Russian allies, or both, particularly the Russian S-400 and S-500 missile systems.

Second: The entry of Hezbollah’s ballistic missiles into the arena, striking deep inside Israel, specifically Tel Aviv and Haifa, for the first time after 15 months of restraint and the rebuilding of its military arsenal, and/or what was destroyed during the Israeli aggression. This means that no area in the Zionist entity will be safe.

Third: The fiery speech delivered by Sheikh Naim Qassem, Secretary-General of Hezbollah, containing strong unprecedented tone statements most notably: “We will not surrender and we will defend our land, no matter the sacrifices and despite the disparity in capabilities. We will not surrender.”

Fourth: The introduction of the fastest “infiltrating” drone into the Iranian Air Force for the first time. Named “Hadid 110,” it has a speed of 517 km/h and, according to Western military experts, is considered more efficient than its sister drone, “Shahed,” which performed well deep inside Israel. Its production costs only $35,000, while shooting it down costs $4 million.

Fifth: Every day of resistance by the Iranian army and people costs the occupying state approximately $1 billion. As for America, the costs of the war has already nearly spiralled to $160 billion in the first six days. These preliminary estimates are likely to rise, especially after the bombing of aircraft carriers and the destruction of warships, the increasing number of dead and wounded, the largest military buildup since the Iraq War, and the rise in energy prices.

Sixth: The fulfillment of the promise to close the Strait of Hormuz, which means delivering two fatal blows. The first is to the Western economy because oil and gas prices would likely reach record-breaking figures, and the second, for the Arab states who host the US military bases. Closing the Strait means preventing their oil and gas exports from reaching global markets, and the losses will increase while oil and gas revenues decrease depending on the war’s duration and developments.

The Iranians wanted from the outset a regional war of attrition with no end in sight in direct opposite to the new American warefare military doctrine, which aims for short, swift, and clean wars (without American casualties). The Iranians resolved to bomb all those cooperating with the aggression in the region. This new Iranian theory was best and most clearly expressed by Sheikh Naim Qassem when he called on the Israeli army to prepare for many days of fighting with all available means.

Defeat, surrender, and raising the white flag, individually or collectively, have no place in the Iranian military and political lexicon. In the first six days, the Iranian army launched 500 hypersonic missiles with multiple cluster warheads and more than 2,000 drones, resulting in the displacement of more than 7 million settlers to shelters and tunnels, and the destruction of large parts of Tel Aviv and Haifa.

Neither the 47-year-long starvation siege, nor three Israeli-American aggressions within a few years, nor the incitement of popular protests and the planting of spies among the protesters, nor the deployment of aircraft carriers and warships, nor inflation and the collapse of the national currency, succeeded in defeating the mighty and unwavering Iranian will, and consequently, in toppling or changing the regime.

Our proof is they baffled the Americans in negotiations that lasted more than two years in Vienna and in several other Arab and European capitals, and they never conceded. They rejected all American conditions, starting with halting enrichment and handing over 460 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, and even refusing to allow the inclusion of the Iranian missile industry or severing ties with resistance factions on the negotiating table.

Yes, arrogance, conceit, and the unfortunate complicity of some Arabs blinded them to the true nature of Iran, and they will pay a very heavy price, the most prominent feature of which will be the destruction of all Israeli gas infrastructure. In the Mediterranean, water and electricity stations, and the lack of distinction between settler and soldier, many assumptions have changed after the massacre of the children’s school in southern Iran… and time will tell.

This opinion was written in Arabic by the chief editor of Alrai Al Youm Abdul Bari Atwan and translated for crossfirearabia.com