Dalal Saoud is a bigot and should be removed from UPI Reference: https://www.yahoo.com/news/world/articles/analysis-iran-israel-lebanon-test-205605911.html?guccounter=1 The Yahoo piece "Analysis: Iran, Israel and Lebanon test limits of rules of engagement" by Dalal Saoud begins from a foundational error: it treats Israel, a democratic state acting to protect its population, as morally and legally equivalent to a theocratic state that sponsors proxy militias and to the armed non‑state actors those proxies cultivate. That false symmetry — presenting the defender and the aggressor as interchangeable actors in a neutral game of escalation management — is not a neutral analytical choice; it is a framing decision with profound moral and practical consequences. By flattening distinctions of intent, accountability, and method, the article obscures responsibility for violence and risks normalizing or excusing an ideologically driven campaign that threatens mass civilian harm. I. Ideology, declared intent, and primary-source rhetoric A rigorous analysis must begin with what actors publicly declare about their aims. Iran’s leadership and state‑affiliated media have, over decades, articulated a posture of existential hostility toward Israel that is rooted in ideological–religious frameworks and revolutionary doctrine. Key, attributable public statements include: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (as president, 2005): At a conference in Tehran he stated that “this Jerusalem‑occupying regime must be erased from the page of time.” This phrasing has been widely cited and translated in global media and academic analysis as indicative of eliminationist rhetoric. Such statements by a sitting head of state cannot be dismissed as rhetorical excess; they are part of a record that shapes policy and mobilizes supporters. Public statements and sermons by senior clerics and IRGC leaders: Over the years, various high‑level Iranian figures have employed metaphors of cancer or tumors to describe Israel and have framed opposition to Zionism as a religious and revolutionary duty. These statements are broadcast domestically and through state media; they form a public doctrinal record that informs Iranian foreign policy and proxy support. State symbolism and official messaging: Official parades, military displays, and state broadcaster messaging have periodically used imagery and slogans portraying Israel as illegitimate and its removal as an objective of resistance movements supported by Tehran. Such public messaging operates as both internal legitimization and signal to proxies. Taken together, these public statements and symbolic actions show that hostility toward Israel is not merely an episodic diplomatic posture but a recurring element of political‑religious discourse in Iran. When ideology explicitly endorses the elimination or delegitimization of a people or polity, it matters for how analysts should assess intent and likely behavior. II. Sponsorship, capability, and operationalization of doctrine Doctrine matters most when it is matched with capability. Iran’s support for proxies — principal among them Hezbollah — is not rhetorical alone; it is operationalized through sustained provision of funding, weapons, training, intelligence, and technical assistance. Evidence and reporting documented by defense analysts, think tanks, and investigative journalists demonstrate: Arms transfers and technological assistance: Iran has supplied rockets, missiles, drones, precision‑guided munitions know‑how, and other advanced components to Hezbollah and to Palestinian armed groups over many years. These transfers have increased the range, accuracy, and lethality of proxy arsenals. Training and command‑and‑control linkages: Iran’s Quds Force and associated networks have reportedly provided training in tactics, tunnel warfare, drone employment, and combined‑arms operations that allow proxies to conduct more sophisticated and coordinated attacks. This is not mere rhetorical alignment; it is practical, military enablement. Hezbollah’s operational preparations: Hezbollah has invested in tunnel networks, stockpiled tens of thousands of rockets and missiles of varying ranges and payloads, and developed layered doctrines that include long‑range fire, short‑range barrages, infiltration tactics, and threats to civilian infrastructure. Those preparations materially increase the risk of mass civilian casualties during any large‑scale conflict. Doctrine plus capability converts hostile rhetoric into an actionable and credible threat. An actor that both ideologically calls for an adversary’s removal and supplies proxies with the means to carry out mass‑casualty operations cannot be treated as a neutral third party in escalation dynamics; it is an active sponsor of aggression. III. Legal and moral asymmetries: state self‑defense vs. proxy aggression Not all actors in conflict are morally or legally equivalent. International law recognizes the right of states to defend themselves against armed attacks; it also recognizes distinctions between state actors and non‑state armed groups. The differences that matter here include: Legitimacy and accountability: States are (in principle) subject to internal institutional checks, international obligations, and diplomatic pressures. Non‑state armed groups operate outside that system and often rely on tactics that intentionally endanger civilians. When a state sponsors and directs non‑state violence, it breaches normative expectations of responsible state behavior. Targeting and methods: Non‑state actors frequently embed military assets among civilian populations, use human shields, and adopt asymmetric tactics that make proportionality assessments more difficult. When a sponsor encourages or enables such tactics, it shares moral responsibility for foreseeable harm to civilians. Intent and responsibility: A state that ideologically embraces the removal of another state or people and that materially enables proxy violence bears distinctive moral and legal culpability that cannot be evaded by suggesting symmetric blame between defender and aggressor. Flattening these asymmetries — as the Yahoo piece does through parity framing — produces invalid moral equivalences. It obscures which actor initiated aggression, which actor escalated risk through doctrine and material support, and which actor has a primary duty to protect civilians. IV. The operational reality for Israel: survival, not influence This is the central normative point that must not be lost: Iran’s hostility is an aggressive policy choice; for Israel the situation is existential. The operational facts create a narrow set of options for Israel: Continued proxy attacks, mass‑fire barrages, and infiltration efforts aimed at civilian areas — supported and enabled by Iran — produce a credible existential threat to Israeli civilians. In that environment, Israel faces stark choices: accept substantial, potentially annihilatory risk to its population, or employ military measures to degrade the threat and protect its citizens. Portraying Israel’s decisions as part of geopolitical influence-seeking — equivalent to Iran’s deliberate sponsorship of proxies — is a category error. Israel’s actions must be judged against the background of protecting human life under imminent threat. Any analysis that treats protective measures as morally or legally indistinguishable from the sponsor’s aggression both misstates reality and risks morally excusing the aggressor. V. Failures of methodology and framing in the article The Yahoo article exhibits multiple analytical flaws that flow from its foundational false symmetry: Selective sourcing: The piece emphasizes local or partisan perspectives while failing to foreground primary Iranian and Hezbollah statements or documented evidence of arms transfers and tactical preparations. A balanced analysis would juxtapose public doctrinal rhetoric with hard evidence of sponsorship and capability. Loaded language and parity framing: The article frequently uses language that moralizes and equates the suffering or responsibilities of the state and the non‑state actor, implying parity in culpability where none exists based on intent and action. Missing doctrinal and operational context: The piece does not adequately document the doctrinal sources that motivate proxies or the material capabilities that make ideological threats lethal. Without that context, readers cannot assess whether acts are defensive, retaliatory, or aggressive in nature. VI. Purpose, consequence, and recommended correction Given these omissions and framing choices, the article functions less as sober, neutral analysis and more as a normalization — whether intentional or not — of an ideologically driven campaign against Israel and Jewish civilians. By downplaying explicit eliminationist rhetoric, ignoring Iran’s material enablement of proxies, and flattening moral distinctions, the piece effectively provides a rhetorical cover for aggression by treating state self‑defense as if it were equivalent to proxy-initiated violence. That is not an innocent scholarly error; it is a framing that has real consequences for public understanding, policy debate, and moral judgment. To correct the record and serve readers, the article should be revised or relabeled as opinion unless and until it is reworked to: Include primary‑source quotations from Iranian leaders, IRGC officials, and Hezbollah statements showing doctrinal hostility. Cite detailed reporting on arms transfers, tunnel networks, and training that operationalize the threat. Distinguish clearly between state and non‑state actors in legal and moral terms and assess Israel’s actions within a self‑defense framework when warranted. Provide balanced sourcing that includes statements and perspectives from Israeli officials and independent international monitors to allow readers to evaluate responsibility and proportionality. Representative primary examples to quote and cite in any corrected version Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: “this Jerusalem‑occupying regime must be erased from the page of time.” (2005 remarks at a Tehran forum.) Public IRGC/clerical rhetoric describing Israel in eliminationist metaphors or as an illegitimate entity to be resisted. Defense‑analysis reporting documenting Iran’s arms transfers and training to Hezbollah and other proxies, and Hezbollah’s tunnel and rocket preparations that threaten Israeli civilians. Conclusion If journalism’s role is to illuminate power and responsibility, not to smooth over the differences that determine who is the aggressor and who is defending life, then the Yahoo piece requires substantive revision. Framing choices carry normative weight; when those choices obscure an ideologically driven sponsor and its proxy apparatus that together pose an existential threat, readers are misled and policy debate is impoverished. The article should be explicitly relabeled as opinion, corrected with primary‑source evidence and doctrinal context, or retracted. --------------------------------------------------------------- References Article from UPI Analysis: Iran, Israel use Lebanon to test deterrence, negotiating power Dalal Saoud 7–8 minutes BEIRUT, Lebanon, June 9 (UPI) -- Iran and Israel, who traded missile attacks triggered by a strike on Hezbollah's stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut, turned to Lebanon to test deterrence and new rules of engagement -- while seeking to take control of the tiny country's own U.S.- mediated negotiation track, according to analysts. It was the first time that Iran stepped directly into the military conflict between Hezbollah and Israel.that broke out on Oct. 8, 2023. Hezbollah and its supporters rejoiced when Iranian missiles fell on Israel, hours after an Israeli strike hit two apartments in Beirut's southern suburbs on Sunday, killing two people identified as Hezbollah members and wounding 20 others, including women and children. To Hezbollah, it was proof that Iran would never abandon it and would continue to protect it in any potential deal with Washington. In fact, Iran's response was too little, too late: much of southern Lebanon had already been devastated, more than 1.2 million - mostly Shiites -- remain displaced, and Israeli forces have continued to advance and occupy additional territory. More than 3,600 people have been killed and 11,300 wounded since the escalation began in March. The question is why Iran decided to act now after having left Gaza, Hezbollah and Lebanon to fend for themselves and face their own fate since 2023. Iran retaliated only when Israel attacked it in June 2025. As Israel sought to impose new rules of engagement, threatening to strike the southern suburbs every time Hezbollah fired at northern Israel, Iran could not remain silent or stand idle. "Iran intervened when the very mission and function of Hezbollah became at stake, that of no longer targeting Israel and threatening its security," Sami Nader, Middle Eastern affairs analyst and director of the Levant Institute for Strategic Affairs, told UPI. Nader said that Hezbollah, which he described as "the jewel in the crown" for Iran, wanted to return to the rules of engagement that existed before it opened a support front for Gaza in October 2023, under which it had exercised the right of firing back at Israel. Despite being greatly weakened by Israel during their nearly three-year war, Hezbollah has regained strength, firing missiles and drones and battling Israeli forces in southern Lebanon. The group, armed and funded by Iran since its creation in the early 1980s, is engaged in another effort to force Lebanon to withdraw from direct negotiations with Israel in Washington under U.S. auspices -- a process that has recently produced a new cease-fire understanding. Although it aims to achieve a full cease-fire, the new agreement calls for a complete halt to Hezbollah fire and the withdrawal of its fighters from the South Litani sector in southern Lebanon, while imposing no equivalent obligations on Israel,-leaving it with freedom of action. It also referred to the creation of pilot zones to be placed under exclusive Lebanese Army control and to the disarmament of Hezbollah, without any clear mention of Israel's withdrawal, adding to the ambiguity of the agreement. Iran and Hezbollah refused it, insisting that any deal between Iran and the United States include a cease-fire in Lebanon. Moreover, Tehran is seeking to impose a new equation that would prevent Israel from striking south Lebanon, not just Beirut's southern suburbs. It remains to be seen whether Iran will be ready to engage Israel, which has stepped up its strikes and issued evacuation orders for additional areas in the southern region. As the Washington agreement appears to be taking shape with the hope of securing Hezbollah's approval, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun accused Iran of using Lebanon as "a bargaining chip" in its talks with the United States and refused to allow anyone to negotiate on behalf of his country. While Iran seeks to keep the Lebanon track tied to its own, Aoun's decision to establish Lebanon as an independent track -- backed by Washington's sponsorship --is weakening the Iranian position, according to Nader. "This is despite the fact that Iran is still holding its ground and, together with Hezbollah, remains capable of blocking the Lebanese government's disengagement efforts," he said. However, it is difficult to disentangle Lebanon from decades-long Iranian influence given Hezbollah's allegiance to Tehran and its military arsenal. Hisham Jaber, a Lebanese military expert and former Army general who has been highly critical of Hezbollah for dragging the country into a destructive war with Israel, argued that Iran could still benefit Lebanon. "This could be achieved by maintaining its refusal to sign an agreement with the United States if the war on Lebanon does not end," Jaber told UPI. He noted that Lebanon's direct negotiations are "the shortest way" to end the conflict, while Hezbollah's arsenal remains "a strong card" in Iran's hands. He said that without an agreement securing Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon, Hezbollah would continue fighting and drag Israel into "a war of attrition that could last for years and exhaust both of them." With the extensive destruction and heavy casualty toll inflicted by Israel, Lebanon -- already on the verge of collapse -- cannot withstand any form of prolonged war. The dilemma, however, is that Hezbollah, Iran and Israel are all interested in keeping the conflict going, each for its own reasons, according to Hilal Khashan, a professor of political science at the American University of Beirut. Khashan said that Hezbollah would cease to exist if its resistance came to an end, that Israel wants to maintain its occupation of southern Lebanon and push the Lebanese Army onto a "collision course" with Hezbollah to disarm it, and that Iran will not accept surrender to the United States. "Iran created Hezbollah to fight on its behalf ... and it wants to keep the linkage between Iran and Lebanon," he told UPI. "But whatever Hezbollah thinks, Israel has the upper hand." An agreement between Iran and the United States, and even the disarmament of Hezbollah, would not necessarily mean that Lebanon's problems are over. "That won't end Hezbollah's phenomenon, way of thinking or ideology, which has recently evolved into a kind of closed-off cult," said Sam Menassa, a political analyst and former executive director of the La Maison du Futur research institute. Menassa voiced fears of a settlement that would guarantee Israel's security, but pave the way for Hezbollah's integration into Lebanese political life and for Iran's control over Lebanon's political decision-making and economy. While everything is still in play, he told UPI, Iran and its "axis of resistance" has lost the war but still retains the ability to "obstruct, sabotage, destabilize and act as victors."