Blaine Holt to Newsmax: Israeli Preemptive Strikes Saved Lives

Israel's preemptive strikes agains Hezbollah saved lives and kept the Iran-based enemy from doing "anything other than mess up some infrastructure and apparently a chicken coop," retired U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt said on Newsmax Sunday.

"This is a very responsible and focused military that has the backing of its civilian leaders to conduct operations where they need to," Holt told Newsmax's "Sunday Report."

Israel, he added, has always been ready for Hezbollah and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

"If they were going to go on a massive barrage of rockets that could overwhelm the Iron Dome system, they're not going to put up with that," Holt said. "Through indicators and warnings in their exquisite intelligence system, they saw that it was going to be the big night, maybe up to 8,000 rockets coming into Israel."

But the preemptive strikes stopped that, and now Nasrallah was ridiculed by the Arab world for only being able to take out a chicken coop, said Holt.

Israel fended off the launch of 320 Katyusha rockets Sunday in response to the assassination of Hezbollah leader Fuad Shukr last month. Hezbollah claimed to hit 11 military targets, but reports indicated it only managed to damage some chicken farms.

"This is is exactly where Israel needs to be in its existential fight, and it's going to separate this from any talk of cease-fires or peace talks," said Holt, adding that there will likely be some escalation coming as a result.

Retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, also on Sunday's program, said that because the results of Sunday's attack were embarrassing for Hezbollah, "I think they're going for beef next time."

"I think they're going to go for the full hibachi here," he said. "So with all kidding aside, they are going to ramp up the one thing that they're building on."

The Israelis also have effective control of their forces and allies, while Iran does not.
"What you're seeing here is that the inevitable kind of plodding response by the Iranians and their allies, in this case, Hezbollah, just kind of feckless," he said. "The other thing they have the Israelis have that we don't is a political will to win.

"That is necessary and important to any military outcome. You dare not show weakness at this critical time."

Holt also on Sunday dismissed the American hostages that are still missing in Gaza and said the current presidential election has "diminished the issue" completely.

"If we had chosen to stand by our ally with no daylight between us and our ally, we could have brought our forces to bear with Israeli special forces, and if we couldn't get the hostages out by negotiation, we would work on rescue missions," said Holt.

But he added that, based on discussions he's had with others, that the key hostages are no longer in Gaza, but may be in Lebanon or even Afghanistan or Iran.

"Instead, it's all eyes on some sort of Fantasy Island cease-fire agreement while Israel just goes on and takes care of business the way it should," said Holt. "We are all waking up this morning going, Wow, they were preemptive. No, they're systemically taking apart the weapons stocks of Nasrallah."

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