The real deterrent to political murder or assassination, inside a state or between states is that it can come back to you.
No one can bring a head of state to justice from outside the state without a war. Like Iraq where we finally caught Saddam Hussein or Hitler in WWII.
Spain is trying to use courts to hunt Americans but we have said we do not care about them and will not allow that. The deterrent is if a foreign court grabbed an American is that we may take ultimate umbrage and bomb them.
To deter Syria and Hezbolla is really simple. They kill one of ours and Israel or we kills one of theirs. Israel can successfully kill and assassinate in Damascus. If they felt it was warranted they could put a hit order on the ruler of Syria. The down side is of course that the next ruler can be worse and governed by a need for vengeance.
Lebanon or the various sects’ needs to get a secret intelligence network that can do wet work. Hezbolla is already doing that along with bullyboys. It always comes down to that, who is most willing to kill their opponent and protect their own. The deterrent has always been that if you hurt one of mine I will hurt one of yours. Once you fail to respond then you cannot allow outside of fortified compounds any of your people that are not capable of fighting and surviving a gunfight.
American are stronger because we believe in self-defense and we cab be badder and meaner when we have to be. This attitude comes from the bottom up and not a top down attitude. Most Americans are capable and willing to protect their own, we believe in being armed. The reason for institution of justice was to prevent unending feuds between large families that can continue revenge for generations.
This is the same natural law that the Middle East is used to. Large family clans those are willing to kill other members of clans in revenge to protect or deter attacks on their own.
Western societies progress beyond that because we delegated justice to a third party and that third party delivered on the promise. When justice fails then people will take that power back and deliver it on their own. That usually makes a society more violent. If a family or clan fails to defend or provide revenge for a killing of one of theirs, that family will not survive. Simple law of survival. If the family calls out to its ally to provide justice and that ally only gives lip service, then the family must either get a stronger ally or do it on its own.
You can substitute a state for family since the same rules apply. We followed those basic rules after 9/11. Attack us and you get attacked. So we took out Afghanistan (Taliban) and Iraq. Because we are so scary a lot of other nations try not to annoy us.
Since Obama des not recognize the reality of kill or be killed in foreign affairs, his deterrent factor is low.
Weak countries should not depend on the US to help them when they will not help themselves. Israel knows that and will be willing to attack if need and wait for a better administration that knows the reality of kill or is killed.
I disagree that Israel will be worse off if they attack Iran. They have been attacked 7 times and have provided the lesson that they can hurt those countries worse than they are hurt.
The worse they will suffer is being attacked by their neighbors and they can threaten nukes to retaliate if need be. They can fight their neighbors conventional and win against any military. Besides who will attack Israel, Jordan or Egypt? No, I do not think so. Will Syria attack? Unlikely. Iran, probably since they have an irrational leader. So if they only country that are likely to attack Israel is Iran and that is who they plan to attack, so where is the downside? That war is coming anyway. This is not the Cold War where Russia or China will come openly on the side of Iran. Besides that could pull in the US with our full nuclear ability. So Russia and China will content themselves with providing arms and intelligence. That will not help Iran. Israel will suffer the verbal slings and arrows of Europe but how is that different from now?
If the attacks come via Hezbolla with suicide and bombings then they need to ramp up their intelligence and murder network and kill Hezbolla in Lebanon and Syria wherever they may be. Same thing they did with Hamas during the last conflict with Gaza.
The worse thing any one can do is to refuse to defend or attack for you own self interest because it informs other predators that you do not care enough to defend yourself or your family. In Obama case that family will mean America.
Other countries do have to factor that a President is only a temporary leader and if they hurt America enough the people will force another leader who is willing to attack or defend them. WE always understand that the power to delegate justice is also the power to withdraw that delegation and assume it ourselves.
