Krystal Ball

So they feel that this is quite existential for them and I don't think that they're wrong about that.

So that's why they are now so committed

That they're the ones that went to the UN to try to pass this resolution through Security Council, which failed to open the Strait of Hormuz by any means necessary.

That was the provision they took, the resolution they took to the UN.

And then they've also said, which is why it is not at all unbelievable that they were behind these strikes, that they would join directly as direct combatants, not just allowing U.S.

use of their space and cooperating.

but actually directly joining themselves as combatants.

So that appears to be what may be happening right now.

Just with regard to Lebanon, the level of death and destruction here is just really horrifying.

The attacks on medics, the attacks on civilian apartment buildings,

the attacks on all the infrastructure there.

And it's worth keeping in mind the Dahiya doctrine, which many of you will have heard about.

This came because Dahiya is a Shia section of Beirut.

This comes directly out of Israel's war in Lebanon in 2006.

And the idea is that you bomb the hell out of civilian infrastructure and put pressure on them so that

Hezbollah, or in the case of Gaza, so that Hamas loses public support.

Now, this has not been effective in terms of a strategy.

It turns out to just be basically seeking bloodlust and to satiate a society that is increasingly genocidal.

But that comes directly out of Lebanon.

That appears to be very much what they're doing here as well.