PDB Afternoon Bulletin | October 21st, 2024: Biden's Last-Ditch Push For Lebanon Ceasefire & China Spooks Japan With Provocative Flyby
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It's Monday, 21 October. Welcome to the PDB Afternoon Bulletin. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. Let's get briefed. First, Israel has reportedly presented the White House with its conditions for a diplomatic solution to end the war against Hezbollah in Lebanon. We'll discuss the proposal, which comes as President Biden's envoy makes a critical visit to Beirut to meet with Lebanese leaders.

Then, Japan was forced to scramble fighter jets after a Chinese bomber and a Chinese spy plane provocatively flew near their southwestern islands. Now, the incident follows China's large-scale military exercises around Taiwan just last week,

further escalating tensions in the Far East. It's almost like China's Xi Jinping is just looking to irritate everybody in the region. But first, our afternoon spotlight. We'll begin with Israel's ongoing conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon, where President Biden's envoy is making a last-ditch diplomatic push to end the fighting ahead of the U.S. presidential elections.

White House envoy Amos Hochstein arrived in Beirut on Monday to meet with Lebanon's acting Prime Minister Najib Mekati, along with the Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament and other senior officials. According to an exclusive report from Axios, Hochstein will be presenting a document from Israeli leaders outlining their conditions for a diplomatic deal that would end the current conflict against Hezbollah. He just, of course, needs to find a Hezbollah leader that hasn't been terminated yet.

Ahead of his arrival, Lebanese leaders said the visit would likely be the last chance to reach some type of ceasefire before the U.S. presidential election on 5 November, which promises, of course, to have wide-reaching geopolitical implications. Why, it's almost like election interference, if you think about it. And what I mean by that is...

The White House obviously thinks that they, or rather the Harris campaign, can benefit by getting a ceasefire deal done ahead of the U.S. election. So, co-opting foreign leaders to make a last-ditch effort for a deal, well, does, one could argue, have the slight whiff of election interference. What are Israel's conditions for a potential ceasefire with Hezbollah?

Sources who spoke with Axios said that the Israeli document centers on the full implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which was issued back in 2006,

following the end of the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah. In theory, the resolution bars Hezbollah from operating south of the Latani River in Lebanon. Now, it created a buffer zone between the two countries in southern Lebanon, which is or was supposed to be monitored by the Lebanese military and the United Nations interim force in Lebanon, also known as UNIFIL.

Well, that seemed to work well the first time around, didn't it? Oh, wait, no. Actually, it was fairly useless. That resolution, along with UNIFIL, have been criticized as being rather, let's use the word, toothless. Despite their mandate to keep the area free of weapons and armed personnel, UNIFIL

They actually, in reality, did almost nothing to prevent Hezbollah from building the area into a sprawling base of operations over nearly two decades. Given that failure, Israel is also demanding that the IDF be allowed to engage in what they're calling, quote, active enforcement of the region to ensure that Hezbollah cannot rebuild their military capabilities in areas close to the Israeli border. Furthermore,

Israel said that their air force must be granted the freedom to patrol and operate inside Lebanese airspace. An Israeli source told Axios, "...we are talking about 1701, that's the resolution, with increased enforcement. Our main message is that if the Lebanese army and UNIFIL do more, well then the IDF will do less, and the other way around."

U.S. envoy Hochstein acknowledged Monday that the terms of the U.N. resolution were never fully implemented, really, allowing Hezbollah to assert near-total control of southern Lebanon since 2006. But U.S. officials warned Israel's conditions are not likely to win support inside Lebanon or with international allies, who will argue that Israel's proposal would violate Lebanon's sovereign rights.

Ahead of Hochstein's arrival, Lebanese leaders said there's a consensus inside Lebanon around UN Resolution 1701 and that they would not accept any alterations to the original document that was passed in 2006. Still, Hochstein indicated that there is room to negotiate.

He told reporters Monday, "...we have to put things in place, in addition to the resolution, that give both sides the confidence that things will be different this time around. Public commitment to the resolution is not enough."

As part of any diplomatic deal, the White House reportedly wants to see the wide-ranging deployment of at least 8,000 Lebanese troops in southern Lebanon, along with an expanded UNIFIL operation. The Biden administration also wants to expand UNIFIL's mandate to focus on preventing armed groups like Hezbollah from re-establishing bases of operation in the region. Really? Well, well,

Well, that would seem rather obvious. I don't think that you need to be an envoy or a diplomatic wizard or a national security advisor to reach that simplistic conclusion. Given UNIFIL's inability to fulfill the core components of their mandate since 2006 and their relative silence on Hezbollah's ongoing missile and rocket attacks on Israel since last October, it would seem that Israel has little reason to trust their ability to contain the threat from Hezbollah.

And again, this apparent rush to get a ceasefire done just before the U.S. election so that, you could argue, that the Harris team can take a victory lap, well, it seems like the domestic politics tale wagging the national security dog. While degraded and in a state of relative disarray, reaching a ceasefire now with Hezbollah does leave the group breathing,

and still well armed and certainly capable of rebuilding with the full support and assistance of the Iranian regime. So, in reality, it would be no better than putting a band-aid on a sucking chest wound.

Coming up, Japan was forced to scramble fighter jets after a Chinese bomber and a Chinese spy plane provocatively flew near their southwestern islands on Sunday. We'll discuss this latest military flex from China's Xi Jinping and what it means for security in the region. I'll be right back.

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Welcome back to the Afternoon Bulletin. Japan sent fighter jets scrambling on Sunday after detecting a Chinese bomber and spy plane flying over waters near its southwestern islands. The aircraft, which flew from mainland China through the Miyako Strait and Japan's air defense identification zone, known as ADIZ, or A-D-I-Z because everybody loves a good acronym,

once again increases tensions in the region. For background, the air defense identification zone begins where sovereign airspace ends but is still within international airspace, allowing Japan, in this case, to monitor potential threats.

Covering the Miyako Strait, a critical location between the islands of Miyako and Okinawa, it's part of the first island chain, and that's part of a U.S. defense strategy to contain China's military expansion in the western Pacific.

The Chinese aircraft involved included an H-6J bomber and a Y-9 spy plane. The H-6J, a maritime strike variant, boasts six weapon pylons, allowing it to carry supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles. According to a Pentagon report, this bomber is capable of striking targets as far as the second island chain, which stretches from Japan to Guam, emphasizing its role in China's area denial strategy.

These capabilities aim to keep U.S. aircraft carriers at bay during potential conflicts, particularly, as you might imagine, over Taiwan. Sunday's flights followed China's large-scale military exercises around Taiwan last week, where Chinese warships and combat aircraft conducted drills simulating blockades of key ports. These maneuvers have, of course, raised regional tensions yet again with Taiwan at the center of Beijing's ambitions.

Japan's Joint Staff Office reported that after crossing into the Philippine Sea, the Chinese planes turned back toward the East China Sea, returning to mainland China through the Miyako Strait.

This flight mirrored a similar mission in March, indicating a growing pattern of assertive military actions near Japan's southwestern islands. Japan has remained vigilant. Between 1 April and 30 September, Japanese fighter jets scrambled 358 times in response to foreign military aircraft, primarily Chinese aircraft.

Although the number of scrambles is down from last year's 424, China remains the most frequent violator with 241 of the incidents, compared to 304 from last year. Adding to Japan's concerns, Russian air activity around the region increased to 115 times in the same time period, up from last year's 110.

Last month, Russian Tu-142 reconnaissance planes were spotted circling Japan, marking a rise in the Russian military presence. And on 12 September, two Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew a mission around Japan,

signaling a more complicated security landscape, of course, for the nation. And that, my friends, is the PDB Afternoon Bulletin for Monday, 21 October. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at pdbatthefirsttv.com. And of course, to listen to the show ad-free, should you be hankering for an ad-free experience, well, become a premium member of the President's Daily Brief Network.

by visiting pdbpremium.com. I'm Mike Baker, and I'll be back tomorrow. Until then, stay informed, stay safe, stay cool.