The Israeli military has launched a series of massive air strikes targeting Hezbollah’s underground command headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon. The strikes on Friday were reportedly launched after Israel gathered intelligence that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was present at the headquarters.
Hezbollah’s command center was built under residential apartment blocks, so civilian casualties are likely to be high. Yet while European nations and others will protest this strike, Israel knows that key regional partners, such as Saudi Arabia and the Sunni monarchies, will quietly be applauding what it has done. Those governments are concerned by the civilian casualties incurred by Israeli actions against Hamas in Gaza, but they share Israel’s hatred of Hezbollah.
Still, Iran is likely to launch a significant retaliatory attack on Israel if Nasrallah has been killed. If Nasrallah has not been killed, then Hezbollah is highly likely to attempt to launch major missile and drone attacks deep into Israel. This will likely precipitate an Israeli ground offensive into southern Lebanon.
Iran has stood largely idle as Israel has steadily eliminated the core of Hezbollah’s leadership cadre in recent weeks. The most likely reason for Iran’s caution is that it fears taking action that might precipitate a U.S. military response, which undermines its increasingly tenuous domestic base of power, and ensuing Israeli strikes against its nuclear program. Still, the successful elimination of Nasrallah would represent a dramatic shift in the balance of power in Israel’s favor. Coming on the heels of the devastation Israel has already imposed upon Hezbollah, Nasrallah’s demise would undermine Iran’s theocratic project and its presentation of power. It would likely be seen by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as a direct challenge to the power viability of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It would be a challenge requiring visible and direct reprisal.
Khamenei would likely fear that to allow Israel to eliminate Nasrallah with impunity would be to risk inviting direct Israeli action against his regime’s core interests. Interests such as the Iranian nuclear program, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps headquarters, and perhaps even Khamenei himself. At a secondary level, the Islamic Republic’s heavy theological emphasis on martyrdom and vengeance is also likely to motivate Khamenei’s proclivity for retaliation. Put simply, Khamenei would likely decide that the risk of action was now outweighed by the risk of inaction.
What might that mean for Israel and the region?
An Iranian missile and drone attack in April was largely neutralized by Israel, Jordan, the United States, and the United Kingdom. The U.S. military has significant forces in the region to enable a similar defensive operation today. But what makes the current situation different from that of April is the Biden administration’s growing frustration with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. Although Israel has skillfully undermined the Biden administration’s ability to condemn its strikes by targeting Hezbollah officers who are responsible for killing hundreds of Americans, the White House is desperate to secure an Israeli-Hezbollah ceasefire.
To be clear, robust Israeli action to force Hezbollah’s cessation of rocket and other attacks on northern Israel is justified. Tens of thousands of Israelis have been forced out of their homes as a result of those attacks. The challenge for the U.S. is that its interests and Israeli interests are not wholly aligned in Lebanon. Where the U.S. wants to see Israelis restored to their homes, it also wants to avoid a major conflagration that risks descending into another Lebanese civil war. This is a legitimate concern. The U.S. also has an even more important need to free up naval forces in the Middle East so that they can be redeployed to deter rapidly escalating Chinese aggression against the Philippines.
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Threading this needle if Nasrallah has been killed will become even more challenging.
But from an Israeli perspective, the last few weeks have brought very good news. The Jewish state’s most capable terrorist adversary has had its command-operations-logistics guts pulled out. If Nasrallah is dead, Israel will have eliminated a great nemesis.