Who is Going to Disarm Them?

While the United States and Israel attempt to civilize the uncivilized portion of the Middle East there remains particularly three main groups that present a challenge.  All three are funded and armed by Iran and those groups need to be disarmed or there will be no peace.  The question remains who will do the job?

Israel has had an on again, off again running battle for decades with two of these groups.  Hezbollah and Hamas are funded principally by a regime whose primary purpose other than self-survival is the destruction of Israel, which is Iran.

Since President Trump began his second term, he has set out to solve the puzzle of Iran and its surrogates.  He first stepped into the Israel-Gaza mess.  He wants to end the destruction of Gaza brought on by Hamas’ barbarous attack of October 7^th.   In the aftermath, Trump negotiated a 20-point Gaza Peace Plan in September 2025.  The first phase moved along fine, but the second phase stalled.

The second phase includes deployment of an International Peace Force and disarming Hamas.  This is where there is a stalemate because Hamas doesn’t want to disarm and as of this time no country wants to place their troops into this madhouse.  Hamas has a history of using civilians as shields then complaining about it when those civilians are murdered especially children.  The international force would have to be prepared to go toe-to-toe with Hamas which has given every indication they are willing to fight to the death.  None of these forces are trained in urban warfare. The best choice is Egypt, but their forces are only trained for desert fighting not rooting people out of tunnels.

Which country would be willing to assume this task especially when there is a legion of people in Europe and America willing to make them international pariahs for cleaning the place out of Hamas with the commensurate civilian casualties which by international analysis would all be innocent women and children.   Only Israel is willing and able to take on the task of disarming Hamas.

From the time President Trump buried Iran’s nuclear assets deeply under a pile of rubble there was a question of the next move to deter the leading promulgator of terrorism in the world.  The mass murder of thousands of Iranian protesters led to the annihilation of the Ayatollah and many of his top leadership brought discussions surrounding the possibility of change occurring.  It was believed the regime was ripe to fall.

We are still here four months later without a change in government.  It is believed by some President Trump should pursue a more aggressive military policy.  Some believe the Iranian regime is on the way to military, economic and political collapse.  That may seem so, but there is the challenge of what to do about the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that number between 150,000 and 190,000.  They are a radical military group exhibiting greater control than the current lay leadership and the military in Iran.  It is clear that these fanatics are for the most part willing to fight to the death especially someone else’s.  They are the major stumbling block to peace and a change of government.  President Trump is criticized for not finishing the job, but who is going to take on this huge force which most likely needs to be killed.  The U.S. is not going to. If it were anyone it would be Israel.

Hezbollah is a special case as it operates as a separate militia within a country which has a duly elected parliament, a president and a prime minister.  They hide amongst a civilian population and revel in the times when innocent people are killed when Israel counters the brutal attacks across their border intently aimed at their civilian populations.

Even though they are largely funded by Iran, Hezbollah has created their own source of revenue, the international drug trade and money laundering.  Though they deny it, their involvement has been well-documented not only by U.S. sources by European sources also.

Iran has such a high interest in protecting this murderous group it asserts that Israel counterattacking Hezbollah to protect its sovereignty is an elemental aspect of peace negotiations with the U.S.  Iran has asserted heavy pressure on the Trump Administration to link any negotiations between the two countries despite Lebanon having their own leaders.  This came at a time where some Israeli leaders like Defense Minister Israel Katz believed that Hezbollah was on the verge of collapse as its funds and armaments were running on empty due to the pressure the U.S. had asserted on Iran.

Hezbollah has exhibited that their leaders and members are willing to fight Israel to their death because of their single-minded mission of destroying Israel. There appears to be only one means of resolving the Hezbollah issue and only source to accomplish that – Israel.

Experts, real and armchair, are making claims against President Trump for not finishing the job.  There appears to be only one solution to dealing with these messianic armed forces and one possible source to do that.  No one else is willing to pay the price except Israel which understands its survival depends on it.

Bruce L. Bialosky is a former presidential appointee to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council.