Beyond Mirrors LTD (00:01.486) Due to the themes of this podcast, listener discretion is advised. And I also wouldn't take this off the table where when I say Iran operates like a paper tiger, and this is kind of a big thing to say, just because you're kind of in that position doesn't mean you're not willing to sacrifice quite a bit to preserve what you think might be a more, and I put this in quotes, honorable position so that you can extract the most out of your enemy as possible. Lock your doors, close the blinds.

Change your passwords. This is Secrets and Spies.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (00:48.032) Secrets and Spies is a podcast that dives into the world of espionage, terrorism, geopolitics, and intrigue. This episode is presented by Matt Fulton and produced by Chris Carr. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Secrets and Spies. Today, I'm joined once more by Philip Smythe, a leading expert on Iranian -backed militias, to dissect the latest wave of conflict in the Middle East. Recent escalations already claimed the lives of a dozen Israeli civilians and two senior leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran and Hezbollah have vowed to retaliate.

which may have already begun by the time this airs, leaving the region once again on the brink of a potentially more widespread and unrestrained war. Philippe will shed light on who these two men were and what their deaths mean for their organizations, parse the delicate messaging and maneuvering behind the scenes, and offer his insights on what Iran and Hezbollah's imminent response might entail. Before we dive in, quick reminder, if you enjoyed the show, please leave us a five -star rating and review on your preferred podcast streaming platform.

It really helps new listeners find us. Also consider supporting us on Patreon at patreon .com forward slash secrets and spies. Links for all of that will be in the show notes. Your support is much appreciated and helps keep this podcast running. Thanks for tuning in and I hope you enjoy our conversation. The opinions expressed by guests on secrets and spies do not necessarily represent those of the producers and sponsors of this podcast.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (02:26.67) Okay, Philip Smythe, welcome back, bud. Thank you for having me back. Now that I've crossed the threshold of, what is it, more than five appearances, I don't know. Yeah, I think this is six. Is this six? Five. Yeah, I think it's six or seven. Yeah, I'll go back and check. But yes, you are above, you're in the five timers club solidly. All right, well, I'm waiting for my little gold plaque. And yes, so nice that you promised that to me. It's in the mail, it's in the mail.

You know, every couple months in the last, what, nine months or so, I sort of try to picture like you're at your homestead up in the Blue Ridge or something chopping firewood and then like a Black Hawk comes in and lands in a clearing and I step out. I have an eyepatch on for some reason, I don't know why, and I'm like, fella, we need you back in for one more job. And spoiler alert, it's never the last job. Told you, man, this was my last one.

Meanwhile, I'm chopping bamboo or something in the back. There's Burmese villagers that I've relocated. All right. So let me bring folks up to speed here with some of the background and then we'll just get right into it here. So on July 27th, a little over a week ago from when we're recording this on Monday the 5th, Hezbollah fired rocket struck a soccer pitch in Mazdal Shams, a Druze village in the Golan Heights.

The attack killed 12 children, the worst loss of civilian life for Israel since October 7th. Hezbollah immediately denied responsibility for the attack. I don't flag that to suggest that they didn't do it. They absolutely did, but there's some interesting PR there that perhaps we can parse through later. Several days later on July 30th, an Israeli airstrike destroyed an apartment building within Hezbollah's stronghold in Beirut's southern suburbs, killing Fuad Shakur, a senior member of the Shura Council.

He's been described in the press as the party's military chief of staff or even second in command to Hassan Nasrallah. Shakur was involved in the 1983 Marine barracks bombing that killed 307 US and French troops. The following day in Tehran, Ismail Haniyeh, the chairman of Hamas's political bureau, was killed when a hidden explosive device detonated in his bedroom inside a state -run guest house.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (04:47.362) Pania was in town for the inauguration of Iran's new president, Masoud Pesachian. Israel publicly denied responsibility for the assassination, but Mossad is widely believed to have been responsible. Since then, Iran's reportedly arrested over two dozen senior intelligence and military officials and staff at the guest house as it investigates the security breach. That brings us up to today. Like I said, Monday the 5th, Iran and Hezbollah have vowed to retaliate, which could come while we're recording this.

the Pentagon's deploying another squadron of F -22s, the Abraham Lincoln strike group, and another of other air defense assets to the region. The CENTCOM commander met with Israeli officials yesterday, and today I saw Sergey Shoigu, Secretary of the Russian Security Council, met with Iranian officials in Tehran. So Philip, where do you, where should we begin here? So many places. I mean,

I I think one of the big ones is not even necessarily Ismail Haniyeh. And again, there's a lot that's kind of clouded in mystery about how he was really killed. But I do think going to Fuad Shukur would actually be more interesting. I actually, interestingly enough, I have a lot of stuff on him because he's a very, very interesting character. And I would actually say people like him are far more significant in terms of command and control of what Iran is trying to build regionally.

than somebody like Haniyeh. As crazy as that might sound, given Haniyeh was technically a titular head of Hamas, but Shakur, he was a true old school Lebanese Hezbollah, like a Lebanese Hezbollah guy, the original cells that made up One of the OGs, yeah. Yes, and he had a long, long, very nasty career. So was he the head of Hezbollah's Jihad council?

It was an active member and yes, he was probably a figure. say probably a leading figure because this is what's really dripping out of Lebanese Hezbollah right now and other sources that are linked to it. But he was a big guy. So you have to remember he was in the same cell as somebody called Imad Mouniyeh. Imad Mouniyeh was killed in 2008 in a car bombing in Damascus and he was the man who was responsible for a ton of attacks. And we're talking the US Marine Corps

Beyond Mirrors LTD (07:03.246) 1983, US embassy bombings. are in 83, 84. He was involved in TWA Flight 847, the hijacking of that. And if anybody here has seen the wonderfully kitsch Delta Force movie, TWA Flight 847's hijacking was based on like if it was a positive outcome to what happened. anyway, that's like popular culture piece there. But it's the Chuck Norris

But anyway, he was actively involved in all of these different campaigns. I also actively involved in attempted bombings in Kuwait and a few other places around the world, targeting the Israelis, targeting the Americans. He was a really, really key leader. So you have to remember, Shakur came from that exact network. And you'll see the awards for, I think it's called the Rewards for Justice, which is US Department of Justice's page where

know, offer you cash if you find a terrorist or find somebody else and, they can operate off of it. I think it was offering something like $5 million, $5 million bucks. believe so. Yeah. So he, but he was involved with Marine Corps barracks bombing and the embassy bombings. and that was what at least was coming out publicly from the U S government, even from the Israelis. But it's interesting. I mean, you're having this old school network, that really just keeps pushing Lebanese Hezbollah.

And they were really the ones who were in the jihad council. They were really the guys who were getting stuff done. And the other interesting thing is it's easy to kind of compartmentalize these guys and say, no, they're, they're, they're just doing terroristic operations. That's what the jihad council does, you know, who cares? But when you look at it, it wasn't just, you know, it wasn't simply just the terroristic operations or, kind of more covert operations. They were talking in direct military affairs. So, so Shakur had an active role in Syria.

He had a very active role starting in 2011. This is coming out from a lot of different sources where he was involved in recruitment of not just Syrian Shia, but also kind of building up different Lebanese Hezbollah style groups in the country. mean, I actively observed and wrote about a lot of this stuff earlier on, but he was a key player in kind of staffing the Lebanese Hezbollah trainers and people who were recruiting to get those groups working on the ground.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (09:26.35) The other thing is it's kind of like it's a bit like a mud mud near a mud mud near I don't know how many people remember this but he was kind of claimed by Lebanese has Bola to be responsible for the operation that led to what was then the 2006 summer war the has Bola Israel war he was the one who planned out that operation so there

They're not simply kind of in that one box of, this guy just bombs airplanes overseas and he attacks embassies and stuff. No, they are relatively skilled, very loyal, very experienced fighters and commanders. They've risen through the ranks over the past couple of decades since Lebanese Hezbollah's construction. They kind of rose along with the creation of the Islamic revolution in Iran. So there's kind an interesting parallel

And Shakur is a good example of this, actually a prime example that he had other command roles that made him quite a big player within Lebanese Hezbollah. Now also within Jihad Council, kind of the way that Lebanese Hezbollah is organized, are a number of different councils within the organization. They have a political council, Mohammed Erad, who's one of their parliamentarians, essentially runs the show with that one. Jihad Council is always very, very quiet. It's a relatively opaque.

type of arrangement for Lebanese Hezbollah. the fact, you you were saying before, and I almost actually put up a Twitter post about this, but I think it's better said here, but people will call him a number two. It's interesting. There are a ton of number twos in Lebanese Hezbollah, kind of like... Yeah, like Naim Qasem is still around and he's sort of, he's like officially the deputy secretary general, right? Yes. But remember, I mean, power isn't always through title.

And it's interesting, know, at University of Maryland, when I worked there, we actually were doing analyses of kind of the organization and Hezbollah was one of them. It was really interesting to see who may be a future secretary general for Lebanese Hezbollah after Nasrallah, or who might be kind of within military leadership. And again, quite opaque, you know, where are you going to go with that? But people within the Jihad Council, even if there were disagreements with Iran or even Lebanese Hezbollah in terms of Hassan Nasrallah.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (11:38.284) wielded an extraordinary amount of power and influence within these groups. Lots of oil fighters to them and they had a lot of influence when it came to what resources were delivered where and again, they unlike Nasrallah, they were not making a ton of film appearances or speeches or they didn't have kind of a role as a public official or a public figure. And because of that, you you, you, when you kind of observe them and then, you know, after it's announced that they've been killed,

It's very interesting to see how Lebanese Hezbollah takes that. And I think the signal the Israelis were trying to send initially with that killing was to Nasrallah, almost directly. If you think that you're safe, guess what? The guy who actually does the moving and shaking, we just got him and we got him in an apartment in Dahir that you said was secure and probably told other people was secure and maybe he's been using it before, who knows? I mean, I don't know the details on it, but that was kind of that first signal.

that the Israelis were doing the start of what could be considered a more pinpoint strike. I say a more pinpoint strike because there were some civilians that were killed in that attack. But again, I mean, you compare it to, you know, an operation that Hamas or Lebanese Hezbollah launches, you know, it's a markedly different approach. And that kind of, guess, brings us to Ismail Haniyeh, who when he was killed, now it's interesting, a lot of different reports about this. So one of the reports initially said it was an air launched missile

went into this residential complex that the IRGC was running. So the IRGC, which is Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, rather a relatively elite type of group. And I say that for some of the units that are there, the Quds Force is well known for running their overseas operations, essentially at Lebanese Hezbollah, number of Iraqi Shia militias, even the Houthis kind of are rolled up under the control, in some cases, of the Quds Force. But then you have a bunch of

IRGC elements and the IRGC technically has its own Air Force element. It has its own Navy. You know, it has its own armed forces. I mean, the Iranians also have our test, which is the Iranian army. So there's essentially a parallel structure that is ideologically loyal to the system that Ayatollah Khomeini created and then Khamenei eventually inherited and took over a more, I guess in a more consistent manner. so Hania was a guest when he was in Iran. Now imagine hitting

Beyond Mirrors LTD (14:02.698) a major Hamas figure as you're fighting a war against Hamas in Gaza and hitting him in the exact room that he's in. That's another intelligence feat that very, very clearly says a lot about the Israelis and also about who they can reach out and touch. And I think it's another, I mean, it's both symbolic and also real. I actually, tend to have a problem with this and a lot of reporting that, well, Haniya

was arguing for you know maybe a ceasefire maybe a hostage trade and maybe this and maybe that i think a lot of that was a lot of was fluff negotiations always end up happening in the wall is end up happening with certain key leaders within a group especially when there are a number of. Quasi splits in the group and kind of also different opinions but in general how mass is not really treated it's it's radical is more anything else and then the dv.

the thinking that there would be some magical deal i think is a lot of pie in the sky thinking i have any it was like the one behind it like me a break but anyway i mean i think a lot of that was coming out for other partisan political interests as opposed to actual analysis of his presence within hamas or within kind of the the conflict that involves him as israel and iran but going back to his killing there are other reports that then came out is interesting cuz i think it was ron birdman's

and he's written a lot about Israel's assassination programs. But in New York Times that said, no, there was actually a bomb planted inside of his room. And of course there was some other kind of more fluffy details that were in there. Like for instance, it was an AI controlled thing. throw AI into it and then it sounds advanced. anyway. Buzzword of the day, yeah. So I mean, was kind of stuff like that. But there's an AI controlled thing that also detected when he was in the exact room. What's fascinating is.

You had other representatives and the leadership of the Palestinian Islamic Shahad that were staying in the same building. Palestinian Islamic Shahad is more directly controlled by the Iranians, a very dangerous group. They technically launched the first, I guess we would consider it first true suicide operation. Not a suicide bombing, but the PIJ operative tried to drive a bus off a road and kill people and he actually didn't die doing it. So, suicide operation.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (16:21.378) But P .I .J. has been very, very big in terms of launching rockets, kidnapping people, killing people, suicide bombings, you name it. And they are markedly more beholden to the Iranians. And interestingly, their reps who were there were not killed, which once again, it's another signal. Ziyad Anakala is the head of Islamic Jihad. He was in the room next door. It was reported in the the Ronan Bergman article. Yes. But again, that's

Okay if you think we can't hit anyone exactly when we want that's this is the thinking that goes behind it i mean i'm sure there are people out there like why they just killed them all the building well that wouldn't send quite the same signal now what it. I think a lot of this you know you can kind of see how the iranians are reacting to it and i'm of the belief that iran exhibits a lot of paper tiger behaviors.

But the problem with that is, we tend to assume when you look at a paper tiger that, well, the minute you slap the paper tiger, you know, it's not going to try and bite. And what the Iranians have learned is, well, we're going to try and bite and we're going to just keep doing this anyway. And you know what? What the hell? We're going to throw this at it too. So I think there's some kind of, there could be some interesting reactions to this. However, I think a lot of them are a little bit

Blunted and I think the Israelis also understood that the potential that the Iranians could do X Y or Z But you know the more I'm looking at this the Israelis sent such a strong signal that I don't want to say that that the course of action and kind of the the status quo has changed I think that's a bridge too far because the Iranians clearly have Changed the status quo in terms of how a regional conflict is both treated by the West But also treated by themselves and also treated by the Israelis

and how it's recognized. They have a different seat at the table now, but the Israelis did regain some level of deterrence and it was a deterrence that I think was lacking since the October 7th attacks and really sent a very, very hard signal that, okay, you want to play, this is how we're going to do it. I want to put a pin in that sort of deterrent messaging around the nature of the targeting with these strikes here in a second. I have a question for you about that in terms

Beyond Mirrors LTD (18:39.15) what could come next up the escalation ladder, but dialing it back a bit to the Majdal Shams attack. So that is a Druze village in the Golan Heights, which was captured by Israel from Syria in the Six Day War in 1967. Druze are Muslims and most people, correct me if I'm wrong here, most people in the Golan Heights don't consider themselves to be Israelis. And I'll simplify this here.

Druze are one of Lebanon's four major ethnic groups. In the immediate response to the attack, Hezbollah denied it. I find something interesting in that. I wonder if the fact that they targeted a Druze village causes, even if accidentally, causes issues for Hezbollah within Lebanon. All right, so a few things. actually lived in a Druze village for a little bit when I was living in Lebanon.

I find absolutely fascinating. It's its own esoteric religion, to correct a few things. At times, they will consider themselves Muslim. They are technically descended from certain Ismaili types of trends within Shia Islam, but they're not Shia per se. They have their own belief system. Again, it's esoteric. When I say that, a lot of it is deliberately hidden. There is an initiated class of religious followers that are there.

The thing with the Druze is, and I don't think I'm being untoward when I say this, Druze are located, they're in Syria, they're in Lebanon, they're in Israel. And when you have groups like that, they often will align with the strongest actors to protect the community. That doesn't always occur. The Druze will often do what they need to do to protect the community. But that's often one of the kind of political structures that they will follow. And I think with keeping with this, it's interesting, Majd al

that village itself was right up until recently, know, protesting, no, we're going back to Syria. You know, we are not going to participate or deal with the Israelis. And I'm not saying you didn't have some protests actually against the Israelis as well after the rocket attack happened, because stuff like that did happen up there because people were angry. But in general, mean, Lebanese Hezbollah really put the kbash on taking any credit for this when they did. The classic is they actually did take credit for a rocket attack.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (20:59.278) And that was the rocket attack they were describing. All of their organs kept repeating. I you even saw this in El Mayadeen, which is a Hezbollah -aligned propaganda outlet, propaganda news outlet, where they said, we were targeting an Israeli military base. Yeah, well, that didn't happen. It hit a soccer field with a bunch of Druze kids playing soccer. But then they immediately denied it. And no one ever came out and said, well, it could have been this group. No, no one said

The rocket that was actually used was an Iranian type of rocket that's manufactured for Lebanese Hezbollah. nobody really believed it. No one bought it. And the Druze on the ground, there were many Druze on the ground who were like, no, we know who did this. You you guys didn't care. We could take this in a few ways. My more conspiratorial side would say, given how Lebanese Hezbollah is threatened by other sects within Lebanon, and they are, they're threatened by what could potentially happen within the kind of Christian camp.

The Druze, if you go back there, their general leader and again, there are other Druze leaders like Talal Arslan, but Wali Jumblot is considered kind of the biggest leader there. And Jumblot is, he's called kind of the weathervane of Lebanon. Wherever Lebanon's really going to generally go, then he's most likely going to kind of point in that direction. the Iranians are dominating it. Yeah, sure. I'll be a little bit more friendly towards the Iranians. Doesn't mean I like them, but I'll be a little bit more friendly towards them. But anyway,

There were some issues with Jumblot's guys and his party is called the PSP or the Progressive Socialist Party or Ishti -Raki as they're called in Lebanon. They're socialists. And there were some incidents where Lebanese Hezbollah trucks had rolled over. Like one of them a couple of years ago was in a Druze village and this caused a huge incident. There were a few other incidents that occurred with the Druze. Like in 2008, is when Waleed Jumblot really tried to pull out, really tried to pull out kind of

his strength and he really gave Lebanese Hezbollah a run for their money in the Shouf. These are the mountains that are to the south of Beirut and they kind of overlook Beirut. It's kind of the Druze stronghold. Yeah, it's the main heartland in Lebanon going out to Rasha 'a in southern Beqaa. So they're kind of there.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (23:19.202) So I mean, you have kind of instance like that. And by the way, just a side note, know, people always look to jambot, like what's he saying? And this is where the Druze are generally going to go. Well, in Jebel Druze, which it's called that this is in Southern Syria. They are protesting Bashar al -Assad, know, Lebanese Hezbollah's greatest ally who Lebanese Hezbollah bolstered for God knows how long. And, you know, they've actually been protesting quite heavily against the Assad people and against even Lebanese Hezbollah at times.

So you kind of have, you do have your own kind of relationships between the Druze and their specific communities and how they view things along a regional and kind of international landscape for the protection of the community and what exactly they want and how they push it. But anyway, with Jean Blot, Jean Blot was interesting because he was a little vague at first in terms of his response to this, but then also kind of doubled down on whatever the Hezbollah messaging was, which totally demonstrates

The Druze leader, meaning Jean -Blois, did not necessarily think that going along with a program to counter Lebanese Hezbollah was worth he or his community's time, because what could you really do? But I do think that Lebanese Hezbollah was very, very aware of what could have blown up. And I mean this in another sense. Within Lebanon, let's say they took responsibility for killing 12 Druze kids with a rocket and saying, yeah, but you know what?

They're Israelis because the Israelis annexed that and, screw them. One that would not work so many different levels. But I mean, one of the levels is, you know, technically this is in the Golan Heights. Now the Golan Heights were annexed by the Israelis. U .S. recognized that under the Trump administration. And I don't know if we've kind of backed away from that under the Biden administration. I think we kind of have. But it would be odd to kind of not recognize that as a first part of this.

The second part of it is not recognizing that the Druze as a whole, the Druze in Israel that are within the borders that the US kind of says, this is Israel, the Druze are very, very aligned and very loyal to the state of Israel. In fact, the Israelis use that as a talking point quite a bit, and this has been the case since at least 1947, 1948. So there's kind of an interesting relationship that kind of involves all these kind of sub communities. But Lebanese Hezbollah, think,

Beyond Mirrors LTD (25:38.508) You know it's interesting what was getting dumped out there by kind of their second order messaging people so one of them was it could be a jama islami which is the the lebanese muslim brotherhood very very close to hamas very very close to lebanese hasbullah but of course you jama islami never took responsibility for that even though they've launched a bunch of rockets before but it was interesting like that kind of stuff got peppered in they took responsibility for it no they didn't i went through all their stuff like i reached out to people no they

What could have been some other group yeah because how to cut another major shea faction is popping off rockets now that's that's not really the case. You so it's just a very very kind of odd approach everybody knew that lebanese has ball was lying lebanese has ball tried to double down using kind of the conspiratorial talk where all will can't you see you know it was a iron dome rocket that actually fell on the truth and i know actually they're manufacturing this to create.

sentiments within different communities in Lebanon to tear us apart and betray the resistance against Israel. think privately, I've had enough conversations with people to tell you this, privately, I don't think anybody in the Druze community, the Christians, even many Shia and many Sunnis, buy that line at all.

publicly you'll have one face and then probably internally tend to have another one but you lebanese has ball had to really tread on that very very carefully because it was a major major misstep because now you have the dreams they are also saying you know what now we're being targeted we don't buy the lines coming out of lebanese has balla and if the israelis don't retaliate i mean this is a big thing especially when viral where i'm in one of the the the village leaders i don't think it's the most are but it was one of the village leaders.

was saying, we need to retaliate, we need to retaliate hard, need to kill all these people, invade Lebanon. Like it's just a whole series of very, very, very vocal protests were going up. And I think, you know, from that, the Israelis were also worried that Lebanese Hezbollah may be trying to test the waters to see their resolve. Because if something like this happens, obviously the Israelis are also going to have to react in some way. Why is that? You know, if you have the largest loss of life after October 7th, and it includes mostly

Beyond Mirrors LTD (27:54.282) a loyal community within the state of Israel. And now this is technically there in an occupied zone and some of the people don't want to observe the Israeli state as being legitimate. If you let that fly, then that's kind of like saying, yeah, it is an occupied zone. And also we don't care about those people. It's just Arabs. Like that's, you know what I'm getting at? It's that kind of sense that I don't think the Israelis would want to engender. also means that, you know, right. Does this not count as much, even though you guys counted as part of the state of Israel. So you had to deal with that. The other thing

Let's say they didn't respond and then there's another kind of more geopolitical or realistic way of doing it. Okay. So Lebanese Hezbollah can launch as many rockets as it wants into Israeli territory and cause as many problems as they want, whenever they want. And even if it's a magical mistake in launch, there's going to be no recourse whatsoever. Well, that just demonstrates weakness for the Israelis. And I mean that just kind of in a more holistic sense. If you don't respond to that when there is death, then

What what good is having a military but i think this is kind of a it was a good it was a good direction if you're an israeli policy maker to take to. Kill many many big leaders like this to demonstrate the resolve but also say hey you guys may have the ability to launch rockets into our territory but meanwhile you're not safe in the safest locations that you guys have so hope that makes you feel good.

That brings up an interesting point here. So talking about the potential for escalation, and I know a lot of the Iranian statements and stuff in response to Heneas assassination have that, you know, asterisks at a time and place of our choosing classic thrown in there. But if I'm Nasrallah or another member of the Security Council or a senior IRGC officer in anywhere in the Middle East or even within Iran for that matter, and

looking at the options that I have in response to these two assassinations and the potential for the escalatory spiral that comes from that that could lead to the kind of like no holds barred regional war to say nothing of the you know thousands of my own men that could die in that war. What are the chances that I personally would survive it and right now if I'm one of those guys I don't know that I would feel too good that I would survive it and I just wonder if that calibrates into

Beyond Mirrors LTD (30:19.114) what Hezbollah or the Iranians are going to do next year? I'm sure it does. Look, personal survival always calibrates even into somebody who is a true believer of an ideological cause that says martyrdom is the greatest gift you can bestow upon somebody. I mean, that's certainly one of those cases. And the other thing is you also have to think of the integrity of the organization. One of the biggest losses that could happen to Lebanese Hezbollah would be the loss of Sayed Hassan Nasrallah.

his entire camp that he is really built up now again, Lebanese has Bola when it started out, had a number of different factions that were kind of glued together and made ideologically cohesive militarily cohesive it took many many years to do this and also you know there's a cohesion that was needed on the political realm as well. I mean they even had an issue with the so pit of a who was the first secretary general of Lebanese has Bola who got really angry about the direction that has Bola was going in.

I and decided to revolt against them that cause me that was an issue in the nineteen nineties the late nineteen nineties are made to late nineties so imagine you've had to kind of you had a possible salary who was killed by the israelis you had a number of incidents where key leadership and key figures who were around early in lebanese has ball's creation reader killed.

You had political issues with them. You had other sorts of issues that were going there. And by the way, I'll try to address kind of that, the number two ranking thing in how I'm talking about this. So you can't lose key leadership apparatuses like that. And with Nasrallah, when Nasrallah took control of Lebanese Hezbollah, one of his big things was to reorient the direction of, almost the geographic direction of the party. So he was from, he's from Southern Lebanon, from a village

It's outside of side like you got into the hills it's in jubilee but. He so he's from out in that area now a lot of has ball was started in the baca valley and there are some kind of geographic differences i don't want to overstate them but is it kind of a clear organizational difference and. The way he records a lot of his key people are from his family clans and his from his family village sometimes they have the name the soul attach to them in fact is really interesting to see.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (32:30.85) certain people who were sent over to Iraq, one of them who was killed was actually his, I think, nephew, was one of these guys who was killed fighting in Iraq as he was aiding Iraqi Shia militias, meaning that was a key major task that was given to Lebanese Hezbollah. So now you already know this guy is kind an elite fighter. He's already wrapped into something that's highly covert, and he's a Nasrallah. I mean, you think about it that way, it's kind of like, wow, I've now surrounded myself with people who are relatives.

who are close to me, who are loyal. They are generally not from the Bacal Valley, because I don't want to deal with the issues there. And we can still use them as kind of a feeder apparatus. They're still loyal. But I know where the bread gets buttered. If he was taken out, that would be a major, major deal. And the fact is, because of you had under his leadership, you had the 2000 withdrawal of the Israelis. You had the so -called Waddle -Saldic, the sacred promise.

of 2006 that he made and that still carries some level of resonance with some mostly has ball of supporters. But you still have that kind of attitude that's there. Imagine he gets killed and we're not just talking about the guys who are in kind of the guts and machinery of Lebanese has ball who are known to certain people. you know, again, opaque leadership there, but you're taking out this this person who's both a figurehead and actual leader and somebody with very, very close relations to Lebanese has ball law. Excuse me to to the Iranians.

I into the IRGC that's a that's a very very different very very different thing that happens and I can't imagine the group would be. All that happy to deal that now again you know he would probably put in somebody who both looks like him and then also is related to him. was the national dean and there's a few other people that are kind of in the running who might succeed him but they don't have the street cred that he's been able to develop for how many decades

So that's almost three decades of his leadership and structuring and kind of how things go. Don't get me wrong. I don't want people to think, okay, well, you just kill him and then magically the group goes away. That's not how it works. And in fact, if you look at a lot of the Shia militias that they've been structured along military lines where there will be responsible leadership that takes over for people who were killed and, in those skill sets and kind of make sure leadership still goes. But it would be quite a big move if something like that

Beyond Mirrors LTD (34:54.422) Now kind of addressing kind of who's the number two in Lebanese Hezbollah. Yeah, there are official leaders that are there like Naim Kalsim. Technically is the number two, but Naim Kalsim, I seriously doubt would ever be really elected as the secretary general. He had his chance many years ago and it just did not work out for a variety of different, you know, internal political reasons, reasons dealing with him. But there are a lot of very, powerful people that are within the group that might not even carry the title of number two. So

Nebel Kauk, so here's another figure who's there, was the commander for southern Lebanon for Lebanese Hezbollah for many, many years. He was also on a number of different councils within Lebanese Hezbollah. He's on the Islamic Resistance Council. did a bunch of different things that were very, powerful there. He's been a public figure, but he was also at a number of funerals in Tehran for killed IRGC leaders and killed...

Lebanese has Bolo leaders. So it also shows another link that there is also an old school Lebanese has Bolo leader. Now, where would you categorize them? You know, it's like when it also kind of reminds me of when the US was knocking off a lot of Al Qaeda leadership. And they're like, we got the number three today. And also, we got the number three today. And also, we got the number three today. Running joke for a while. Yeah, and the most dangerous job in the world is be al Qaeda is number three. Correct. Correct.

I mean, kind of you do run into that. It doesn't mean that they are not influential and powerful and everything else, the whole yada yada. But, you know, you do run into issues like that. Now, in a military sense, Shakur, going back to him, had an extraordinarily important military role, and he was very secretive about it to the point where I think the vast majority of people who were covering this, if they were not in the intelligence community, had no idea who he was at all before he got killed. So, you know, I

It's interesting kind of look at that way kind of in how the organization is built up structured i seriously doubt like let's say you kill this role if lebanese has balls so you know splinters off and there's a wing here there's a wing there there's a pro negotiation when that's not how the organization is gonna work but it would be a massive massive hit internally a big big hit to morale it'd be a hit to kind of the organization.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (37:10.862) internally and how things are run and kind of the trust based relationships and familial networks that are there. But I mean, that's that's kind of where I would go with that. Nasrallah must be aware that potentially his own life is on the line here. I mean, you don't get much closer to hitting him, Nasrallah himself than Choukour. Correct. Correct. That's it. And the other thing is it's not the same quality of killing, let's say that Imaad Borgni had in 2008.

He was in Damascus at the time. He was running a lot of overseas operations. He was not as locked in as Shakur. So I just, you know, I look at it and it's, it's a very, it has a very different feel to it. He was in Dahir. He was in, you know, the southern suburbs that are, you know, the Hezbollah controlled southern suburbs of Beirut. You know, that's, that's actually where he was, you know, to make fun of the news broadcasters when they talk about it. But that's exactly where he was. He was in the heart of Lebanese Hezbollah controlled territory.

You cannot get safer for somebody in Lebanese Hezbollah than that, especially if it's a safe house on top of a safe house in a safe building. It's the same kind of instance that you're seeing with Ismail Hani where they put them up. They didn't stick them up in the Tehran Hilton. No, they put him in an IRGC apartment complex that's used to house very specific leaders who were there for different events. You know, that is not, it's not just a random

So I mean, I think again, there's the messaging that's going forward with that was quite palpable and quite powerful. Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back with more.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (38:59.118) Iran and Hezbollah inevitably always do attempt a retaliation. They often respond on a timeline that may not seem sensible to most outsiders. The Iranians are still out to assassinate Trump and Mike Pompeo and John Bolton for the assassination of Qasem al -Mahni four years ago. Sitting here now roughly 1130 in the morning Eastern time on Monday,

What kind of shape do you think their retaliation is gonna take? You know, it's interesting. The more I monitor it, I get kind of annoyed by how a lot of people in the news business are handling this. it's the, and you know it's happen soon. Did you know it's also gonna, Matt, did you know it's soon? It's gonna happen soon. I talked to this militia commander and he said it's gonna happen soon. Okay, and, but it's also gonna happen soon.

I found that incredibly infuriating over the past couple of days. It's the laziest form of reportage that I've seen in addition to, we're going to use an advanced weapon system. Wow, really? It's almost like the Shia militias that Iran controls, including Lebanese Hezbollah, literally use this line for decades, you know, since their beginning about quantitative operations. obviously. I think a place to look, and again, I don't think this is completely hidden even from people who

are monitoring this and if you've been watching it since october eighth then you know it's pretty easy to see i've been highly focused on looking at what's going on in the realm of them using uavs and i've always found it fascinating in fact like one of the first articles i ever published i don't even know if it's still online was intriguingly was like on this this utilization of iran and uavs this was like back in 2005 2006 and they kept popping this stuff up it was just it was really really odd and interesting to me

There was a strike that actually happened when Haniya got killed and it just completely flew under the radar, pun intended, and it was in Iraq and it's been credited to the Americans carrying it off where four members of Qatab Hezbollah were killed and they were killed in Jurf al -Sakhar. Jurf al -Sakhar is essentially a mini fiefdom for Qatab Hezbollah and the Badr organization. These are two Iranian controlled organizations, Qatab Hezbollah being the most loyal.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (41:18.978) It was it was take the Americans took credit for it and kind of off the record comments to journalists. There wasn't really like a cent com release, but it was clear that probably a drone popped off these rounds and killed these guys. And the initial thought was, the Israelis do this too? But these really haven't really gone forward and said, yeah, that was us. That was us too. And they killed what Katabas Bola said afterwards. And it's interesting because they had mixed.

They had mixed reporting on who was actually killed. And I found that really intriguing because whenever that happens, you know that either A, more people have been killed or B, somebody secret and interesting was killed. And that clearly pointed out in this, this attack. But what the U S policymaker had supposedly said or somebody who was affiliated with, with launching this decision, was that these guys were readying for another attack. Well, the Iraqi Shia groups that the Iranians control have been.

I'm kind of relaunching their efforts and talking about more coordination across the region this has been a very very big thing since at least June you have the who these in iraq and i mean the who these are many answer a lot in yemen this is the same yemeni group they are they have a headquarters they claim to have headquarters in bed and they've been meeting up with a lot of iraqi she militia commanders who are you know on a lot of us f to list for interest organization less.

And doing a lot of operations in coordination with groups like the top is Bola. And it was intriguing because, know, there were some other reports that came out that said, maybe there was a Yemeni, UAV guy who was also there. That's intriguing. there may have been something else that was going on in terms of what they were testing. Cause Katabas Bola said, and of course Katabas Bola like rolls this into a narrative that like no one will buy. And of course makes them look like they're, you know, God's gift to humanity on earth, which

We are we were actually developing a surveillance UAV. think at this point they couldn't deny that they were doing something with the UAV out there. We were developing this system so that we could monitor Karbala, which is the Shia holy city. It's also a major city in Iraq. So we could monitor the area out there to prevent attacks from coming in.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (43:34.912) Okay, that's an interesting take you got there, but it's also really interesting that they admitted there was something UAV related and their cover for that was to say, we were actually doing something else, which sounds to me like some other kind of development was probably going forward. That's probably the more accurate picture of this. And they were probably going to launch some form of attack probably either on the Americans or on the Israelis or maybe on some other regional ally. But there were a lot of kind of moving pieces there that seemed a bit

And again, it hasn't really had its own level of coverage, but kind of going back to your main question, I would say that their utilization of UAVs, and you've seen this now also in Ukraine, the Shahad 129, which is an Iranian produced, quote unquote, suicide drone. I always hate that term, but that's a system that has been deployed there quite a bit. And it's interesting because you can tell the Iranians now with their proxy groups have been filtering.

Markedly more advanced UAV systems to them They've already been filtering markedly more advanced and guided missile systems and the Israelis have been trying to hit that stuff for years now But the UAVs they they have their own special quality To what they bring to the table and I think what we saw a couple weeks ago if you recall this there was a Houthi meaning on Sir Allah in Yemen a Houthi attack that targeted Tel Aviv and somebody even filmed it flying over flying over it was right near the

the well it's not technically the embassy anymore that branch office in Tel Aviv. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the consulate. Yes, but it's interesting. It was less than a block away. I mean, you want to talk about sending a signal that we can reach out and touch you. And that was a couple of weeks ago. Interesting that Haneeya would also be killed, get killed after this in the place that he was killed. And Shukar would also be killed in a very similar type of, I'm saying in a very similar type of way where

The messaging that's going back and forth is, and you'll see this even now with the Shia militia saying, we want to hit deep into Israel. Okay. Well, you were saying that before, as you were hitting deeper into Israel, the Iranians had said that. And now the Israelis have responded where, okay, you want to hit deep into this country. We're going to hit deep into Beirut and deep into Tehran, where you feel safest. It's a very interesting kind of back and forth that's going on there. That drone attack, it was reported to have come over the beach.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (45:55.694) because a consulate is right there on the beach and then went into a building like a block or so away, right? Where would the Houthis do you think have launched that drone? From Lebanon and came down the coast or how, like where, yeah, where would that have come from? Most of the reporting on it has said that it probably flew from Yemen and then went around. I think that, you know, there's always the possibility, meaning it went around, it flew over the Sinai and then flew around, made kind of a view, and then flew to Tel Aviv.

that would take a lot of a lot of range. That's just to demonstrate possibly that they have the range and capability to get a high size that. I mean, again, other operations that have been done like that have come from Syria. They have come from Iraq occasionally. They've also come from Lebanon, obviously. It's it's interesting the packages that the Iranians are able to kind of put together. And a lot of this is from, you know, stealing kind of technology when it's crashed around

You know, it's like there's been a number of US drones that they've been able to not only bring down, but also, you know, kind of adopt certain systems from the same thing goes with the Israelis. You know, they've shot stuff down from them. They just copied it. But the Hermes old UAV that they have, like they pretty much directly copied it. But what's interesting is it's this this kind of new, easy, cheaper, know, wonderfully asymmetric capability that they're trying to bring to the table and trying to demonstrate there's technical know how that goes beyond it that also now puts

the core of the Israeli population within their sites. It's no longer kind of the cool, sexy thing where it's the ballistic missile that gets fired off from somewhere in the Zagros Mountains and, the Israelis can shoot that down with an Arrow 3. It's markedly harder to actually counter a small unmanned aerial vehicle when it's flying below radar when it's about the size of, I don't know, three big screen TVs stacked next to each other.

and yet it's carrying enough explosives to really cause some damage. That is, it's quite a capability. And again, I think this is another reason why when you look at kind of the death lists of the commanders that were killed by these Israelis, I'm talking mid -level commanders, senior commanders, and lower level commanders, they're either all involved with rockets or with UAVs. And the same thing goes with, you know, who is targeting American forces in the Middle East, like who was responsible

Beyond Mirrors LTD (48:17.646) You know hitting kind of tower it was a tower 22 that was on the Syrian Jordan border. Well, that was, you know, a UAV attack that happened. And I think, you know, regional militaries, this includes the Israelis are noticing this going, wait, you know, now you have a group that the Iranians can outsource to that's controlled by them, obviously, but they are, they now have a capability to, know, to use the phrase I keep overusing.

reach out and touch someone and actually do it and have a capability that is far more advanced than even in 2013. just to kind of give you kind of a run through on this, when the Syria war started, and I mean in earnest with Lebanese Hezbollah and all the other Iraqi Shia militias, the Afghan Shia and the Pakistani Shia groups that were joining in with the IRGC, there were these kind of little instances where there were claims that, well, the Iranians have supplied us with this drone or we have a suicide drone, quote unquote, or we have

a drone that can launch missiles at a target. a lot of people, myself included, initially kind of laughed some of this off, but then kind of let it sink in for a little bit and said, yeah, this is the obvious progression for what would happen. Now that the Iranians have had their time in Ukraine, know, the Russians using their systems, they've probably learned new tactics, new strategies and how to use them. They probably learned since October 8th in how to use them a bit better in terms of targeting the Israelis and the Americans and also shipping.

It's interesting because very few comments on the USVs, the seaborne unmanned vehicles that are being used on tankers and other shipping in the Red Sea right now by the Houthis. Those are other systems that were both deployed and pioneered by the Houthis and the Iranians. But a lot of these are coming to the foreground as a way to match up a bit better with great powers and to really kind

stick it in their face and say well you know we still have a lot of power and we can we can get you anywhere and i do think it's interesting to kind of see that proliferation of newer markedly more advanced systems that are not only that but they're domestically made by the iranians and seeing them in heavy use in the conflict now they've now become kind of a regular a regular occurrence where you would not have seen i remember like 2007 ish in 2008

Beyond Mirrors LTD (50:39.81) when was a huge deal when Lebanese Hezbollah flew a drone and it was like a of a half -assed done drone that flew over the Galilee and the Israeli Air Force was tracking it. And that was a big deal. That was in the news for a while. remember like that. I remember that, yeah. I remember writing like two articles on this. Whoa, was like this drone and this could mean this and this could mean that. And now this is almost a constant. This is another piece of the kind of the new war and the new status quo that's coming. Just so I understand you here.

So for the dimension of the retaliation right now, you're saying look at UAVs, long range UAVs, and perhaps interior targets that haven't been hit before such as Tel Aviv or Haifa. Is that correct? Well, that's again, think hitting Tel Aviv, Haifa, I the threat has always been they're going to hit Dimona, which is where the Israeli nuclear site is. That would be insane. Yes, it would be, but I've got enough propaganda going back a couple decades about how

want to hit the Mona, but you know, it's it's hitting things like that. I wouldn't be surprised if they attempted. mean, even attempted to hit something in demona, not necessarily the base, you know, not necessarily the nuclear facility, just to kind of send a signal that right this here. But in the last in the last round of this that we did, what was that

In April, there were a couple sites in the Negev near Demona that were struck, right? Yeah, there were a few things in the Negev that were hit. And also, they've been hitting a lot quite a bit, which is kind of the port city. That's, know, Aqaba is on the Jordanian end. And then you've got down to the Sinai on the Egyptian end. That's essentially Israel's link to the Red Sea. So there were a number of targets that the Ansar al -Law, the Houthis, were trying to go after that were there. I mean, I think it's pretty clear that,

the Israeli geographic picture can be hit by pretty much anything the Iranians are bringing to the table. But it's also, you know, how do you target that and how do you, you know, send the signals using those things? I mean, this is another reason why I'm saying look at UAVs more. And I mean, I have a lot of good colleagues and good friends who follow the rockets and the missiles. I'm not really a rocket or missile guy. I mean, I've kind of, I'll focus on it when I need to. But in terms of looking at kind of a broader range.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (52:56.404) set of systems that can be used and developed. It's the UAVs and I can just see it from how they've been using it. say they, mean, Iranians, the Iranians in general and their proxies, how they've used it in Iraq, how they've used it in Yemen, how they've used it for a number of years now, how they're using it in Lebanon. It looks like it's the way forward for them to really cause some issues. And again, we saw this in April. I mean, they did launch a couple hundred UAVs, combat UAVs at the Israelis.

And I'm not saying they're not going to potentially launch missiles or something else, but I do see that as kind of another thing. the signal setting, again, I also have kind of an issue with this too. The telegraphing of what's going to happen and when, and we're going to negotiate for what the strike, it just, I think it's hit a period of just being kind of absurd at this point. know, it's just interesting. for the Iranians? I think absurd for every actor that's in the region.

You know of course for the iranians but it's the end and there's negotiations going on to make sure that the hit doesn't really hit like this and we're gonna play kabuki theater you know in terms of what's actually gonna happen what's interesting is if anyone actually wants to knowledge this if i'm the iranians the iranians have now been given a seat at the table where they can talk like big boys with united states with the israelis with the saudis with the jordanians.

And if they want to launch a little retaliatory operation, maybe three or four people get killed and you know, okay, but we did it. And then it's a response. And then there's a response to this. Even the language that's used about a response. You would not have seen it described in that way even 15 years ago, 10 years ago. So again, I mean, there is, there is a shift that I think a lot of people aren't really acknowledging on that front. Now, the other thing is there's another piece to this too. I think it comes down to disinformation and the games

the Iranians are playing right now. They essentially faked an embassy bombing. It never happened. They just posted about it. But of course, they were testing the ground to see what was happening. They claimed that they hacked into the Ben -Gurion airport computer and that actually didn't crash the system. Instead, it was people logging on to see if the Ben -Gurion website had been crashed. That's what crashed it. God. I'm looking at little things like that too where there's - Shrouding or cyber attack.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (55:13.334) Yes, that's the best way to describe it. But it's interesting how they are using, and again, they've talked about this quite extensively, the power of these media organs that they've created and the power of playing the influence game online to see where it goes. And it's really interesting to see who is carrying what and when and where it was coming from and who was launching these first claims that were going out. And then they get picked up by this and then you get picked up by this, but you knew the source of it.

I watched it happen in real time and I was busy, like I was writing something about it because I'm going, this is fascinating because this is, you know, it actually fits with kind of a modus operandi increasingly for the Iranians, which is, well, hey, we don't necessarily even need to bomb anything. And if we do bomb something, we weren't necessarily trying to kill anyone, but we did take, you know, 18 million dollars out of your coffers because we hit this thing. You know, they'll often claim stuff like that. They did it in Bahrain quite a bit. They did it in Iraq quite a bit where, you know, they would.

hit a american piece of equipment or they hit the fiber optic network they hit a network like that and they say look how much we cost the government mean the bachranis look at how much we cost them by destroying this and they did the same thing more recently in 2020 until recently are they reclaiming the bomb us us military equipment hey this cost you another four hundred and fifty thousand dollars and it cost us nothing and.

You the american evil empire is going to run dry and we're going to bleed it dry well it's interesting when you juxtapose that to the state of israel because the state of israel i would say not like the united states where we can run up billions and billions and billions of dollars in debt on defense programs and who cares if we lost a humvee with the israelis i'm not saying that it's necessarily the same kind of thing but it's if you shut down bengorian airport which was

Major threat. If you remember during negotiations with Palestinian negotiators, the biggest worry that they had was that rockets could hit Ben -Gurion airport and shut down the main traffic coming into into their country. Well, what's happening now? Well, there's a cyber attack that hit Ben -Gurion airport and we shut down Ben -Gurion airport. But you see kind of where that's going on that level. And it causes, you know, it's a much different effect, you know, having it on a on a country the size of New Jersey than, let's

Beyond Mirrors LTD (57:31.368) let's say on the United States, which is half a world away. So, I mean, there's some interesting little pieces there. But the other thing is, you know, there's also kind of this unspoken threat of what could also happen elsewhere. So, if you're already threatening a fake embassy bombing, well, what happens if they maybe want to try and pull off that for real? Now, they failed over the past couple of years where some of the guys that they've sent over in like Thailand and India have blown themselves up or they were caught by authorities or there was some other weapons cache that was found because

different intelligence organizations had so thoroughly penetrated the networks that were going abroad. But all you need is one success. I mean, you look at the the Burgos bombing, which happened in Bulgaria, where the cover for that, obviously like Lebanese Hezbollah and the Iranians were behind this. Yet they used a cutout individual who was trying to be like a Sunni jihadist who thought he was being given a suicide vest to kill Israelis, Israeli tourists. what a great target for a Sunni jihadist. Probably didn't know

Lebanese Hezbollah and the Iranians were running him. But it's interesting how that happened. it's kind of like the bit now. And I look at this, you know, we are dealing with larger geostrategic issues. And there was a report that came out, I think it was in the Wall Street Journal. And I think there's been a lot of commentary about this, about how the Russians may actually be assisting with the Houthis. And I always look for little touchstone points like that, where there are foreign countries that may not, you

Again, the Russians did fight alongside Lebanese Hezbollah and all these Shia militias in Syria, and they were quite close with them. What would really stop them from fighting alongside another Iranian backed group as they're trying to extract some pain from the United States and from other backers of the Ukrainians, especially as the Ukrainians are nailing every ship that they can put in Sevastopol. That would not surprise me if that's happening. mean, you also see it in a different level where there was the claim

know, Turoi rebels had run over these Wagner guys, you know, and, you know, and they were being supported supposedly by, you know, Ukrainian special forces. how does that picture of the one random white guy in the balaclava standing there with them? Yep. Yeah. It's it, but it's little things like that. And you know, it's no, I mean, I always love this where will the war become regional? It's been a regional war since October 8th. Like it's, this is not a surprise. This is not a shock.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (59:51.126) And now it's becoming a more hardened regional war with other external actors. We already have Western nations that are involved in this. I mean, we already have a lot of different countries that are involved. Well, okay. Now how are they fighting each other using different, not necessarily proxies, but also kind of operating with their allies in the region? How are the Russians operating with them? How are the Chinese operating with some of these guys? and what do they want from them? What are they testing? What are they analyzing? It's just another piece to this here that you kind of see, well, does that mean

there's a change in weapons systems that are being deployed. Does that mean there are far more deadly attacks that maybe occur when it comes to shipping? Does that mean that maybe a new anti -tank missile is somehow introduced to Lebanese Hezbollah is used once, but it really shakes everyone to the core when it's used? I mean, I think there's the potential for a lot of that because I mean, you think about it kind of like assassinations, know, it's, know, where is, you know, qui bono, know, who is, who is,

who might be benefiting from that and where might that go? And again, I mean, it would not shock me if the Russians were kind of down there playing their games because they've done that before. And they also have a much closer working relationship with a lot of Shia militias post -Syria war. But I think that's another kind of interesting piece to kind of add into the mix here. And I don't know if it's getting the acknowledgement that really it should. there any other parts of the analysis or discussion around this latest escalatory?

cycle, shall we say, that you think is being missed that should be discussed. mean, I, and again, I say this as somebody who tends to enjoy focusing on Iraqi Shia militia groups, but I think their piece in all of this is being quite ignored. And I think it's because everyone is caught up in, I mean, this is like how you, you, you look at books that are written about this stuff. Lebanese Hezbollah will have 526 books that are written about it. And then meanwhile,

The 60 plus groups that are in Iraq don't have, you know, Jack written about them. And oddly, you're now watching a development where certain key groups in Iraq are really helping guide Iran's policy. When I say helping guide it, I mean, militarily, because they're doing the heavy lifting on that side. And it'll be interesting to see when, how, or if they're actually utilized against the Israelis increasingly, or whether the things that they've learned targeting the U .S. will be used.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (01:02:13.12) I'm of the impression that the Iranians are also looking at outside the box kinds of solutions for not necessarily drawing blood from the Israelis, but getting what they want out of the situation. I mean, you have to look at, they're very good at pressure techniques and they've pushed a lot of pressure techniques on the United States, especially with, with us forces that are in, you know, in Iraq in particular in Syria.

And it would be interesting to see if they try to use that in tandem with something to eventually oppose the Israelis and win over after taking such huge losses, huge public losses. I mean, you have to look at it kind of as, you know, what are you trading to get? that would, I mean, that might be for them a soft underbelly, particularly as, you the US launched, supposedly launched that attack in Jiffy L'sukur, you know, a couple of days ago.

You know, it would be interesting to me to see where that goes. And I think it's just not getting the attention it really deserves because a lot of lessons are being learned from the Iraqis. A lot of things are being done with them. And I don't think that's going away. I also think you're going to increasingly see if something really devolves into a conflict, how the Iranians are going to try anyway, say things are devolving into conflict. They're already got it. It's like, sorry. The terminology for this is is fraught with with issues.

But I would say this, think you're gonna start increasingly seeing claims of foreign fighters, and I'm talking non -Lebanese Hezbollah getting killed in Lebanon or in Syria. Not that that would be a crazy instance or a crazy kind of happenstance. But you're gonna start seeing that because the Iranians, these guys may very well be dying, but the Iranians also might wanna sell the image of we are still extraordinarily strong.

We can deploy these guys anywhere where you thought, you might not find a Huthi fighter fighting in the Golan, but my God, you know, we shipped a bunch there. I just, get the sensation that that might become another kind of messaging technique that's rolled into a lot of whatever happens if something larger happens. And I also wouldn't take this off the table where when I say Iran operates like a paper tiger, and this is kind of a big thing to say, just because you're kind of in that position doesn't mean you're not willing to sacrifice quite a bit.

Beyond Mirrors LTD (01:04:27.064) to preserve what you think might be a more, and I put this in quotes, honorable position so that you can extract the most out of your enemy as possible. And I do wonder how far they're willing to go. again, I get the impression that they have to kind of rely on very key loyalist elements here they don't want to have all these guys killed off. But I just get the impression that we shouldn't immediately exclude that as a capability or possibility for them to do.

I just, you I don't want to overstate it in the way where a lot of commentators do. it's like, this is going to be the next, my God. And what's going to happen? Well, no, you need to take that for what it can actually be. You know, again, it would thoroughly smash a lot of their, a lot of their, forces that they've, they've developed. and that's, know, for us policymakers, for Israeli policymakers, not necessarily a terrible thing.

but it does demonstrate some resolve and metal and also positioning where they view themselves in the region. And I I think that really boils down to how the United States has been dealing with the Iranians for a couple of decades now. And I mean, I would hope that somebody would kind of look at that and say, God, there have been a number of major missteps out of Washington in terms of how to really, you know, make things work in the region and who really deserves a seat at the table. I mean, I doubt that that will ever happen, but yeah, it's just me.

Yeah, I don't want to get too far ahead of our skis in terms of, I don't know, predicting what the next steps are going to be because who knows? I mean, by the time this is out, there may have already at least been a first round of that retaliation. But yeah, I'm sure you'll be back at some point before this is over. Part of me is kind of hoping that no, you won't need to have me back at

yeah, at least not to talk about this, something else, or maybe we talk about it in hindsight. Yeah, remember when? Remember in August. It is odd given it's one day away from the anniversary of Hiroshima. And it's always interesting talking about potential, quote unquote, retaliatory hits from a theocratic nation that has a lot of murder seeking individuals that it's employing. I didn't even notice the

Beyond Mirrors LTD (01:06:41.486) the Hiroshima date. Yeah, that's odd. by the way, on a side note, they have factored that into so much propaganda. It's like reading a Howard Zinn book, meaning the Lebanese football guy. Like they used to have one which is, it was like America's the Great Satan and then you'd see like the atom bombs going off in it. Like, well, I guess that's demonstrative of US being evil when we ream a jigger the solution here. Yeah. You have no idea. Like it's a totally different world. Yeah, that's odd.

All right. Well, thank you, my friend. We'll have links to your social media and where folks can read your work and everything in the show notes. guess stay tuned. We will see how this one shakes out. Thanks, Philip. Well, thank you. And again, hopefully, hopefully there is some level of stability and the bad guys cannot win on this one again. Yeah, I've I noticed a pattern with these guys in the last few years that they have a very loud bark, but

break a couple of their fingers and they do tend to calibrate in a way. And I think back to like what Nasrallah must be thinking about his own personal life and well -being in terms of what he does next. mean, Shukor, it's reported, was at an apartment visiting his mistress. So these guys aren't total religious zealots who don't enjoy the pleasures of the earth here. Like that has to be factored into what they do.

You know it's interesting that you say that I think two things that are contradictory can be totally true. So for instance yes a lot of these guys have girlfriends yes a lot of these guys have bad habits yes a lot of these guys do some. You know really horrific stuff and yet will continue to push for that that paradise on earth and also kind of securing their presence in it it's a bit like the islamic state guys you know the islamic state guys a ton of them are drug addicts and all sorts of other.

social ills came with them as they were doing x y and z and then meanwhile you have to realize that of course they were gods agents on earth i don't know if i really buy the report that he was with a girlfriend because there was an IRGC guy killed in the same complex with him and it was an IRGC guy where the only photo that was that was released of him this was like the main photo initially until they started releasing

Beyond Mirrors LTD (01:08:57.58) Was him sitting at a conference table with a lash cars in a being flag now some other little side details on that that's the pakistani shia section of the IRGC coulds force that's essentially trying to make it into its own like its own militia kinda like the body organization in iraq or even like a lebanese has ball but it's under market the more control by the IRGC QF and also pakistan would not allow them to kind of like run their own thing within pakistan but anyway.

It was just an interesting thing to see go up because that's one of those those younger IRGC QF guys who's a coordinator who clearly, you know, literally and figuratively has a seat at the table. It's interesting to see how that kind of shook out. don't know. I think a lot of interesting reports happen when ever somebody major dies. But again, I wouldn't put it past anybody to have kind of their own little their own little secret lives going on. And that does happen even with, you know, your most vicious theocrat. It's the same thing like think Cardinal Richelieu.

guy was a cardinal but meanwhile he had a lot of he was a cardinal who was you know pushing for a lot of nasty stuff when it came to Protestants and also aligned with the Protestants so yeah I don't need the hugelots but I like the Dutch yeah all right well we will leave it there for today thank you my friend until next time all right talk to you

Beyond Mirrors LTD (01:10:44.6) Thanks for listening, this is Secrets and