Tag: Iran
The war Netanyahu wanted is at hand
Prime Minister Netanyahu has spent the 31 years since the Oslo accords seeking two principal foreign policy goals: preventing establishment of a Palestinian state and destroying the Islamic Republic of Iran. He is on the verge of getting a chance to achieve both. In the process, he is ending Israeli democracy, earning the enmity of much of the Arab street, and drawing the US into another Middle East war. I don’t like the result, but he is definitely stalwart.
Obliterating the idea of a Palestinian state
I recall in the mid-1990s a discussion at a mutual friend’s house with the then National Security Advisor to Vice President Gore. Leon Fuerth believed that Netanyahu would eventually come around to accepting a Palestinian state. I had my doubts. I still think I was right.
Netanyahu spent many years thereafter pumping up the idea that Israel was under siege, both by the Palestinians and the Iranians. The Second Intifada and the wall Israel built to isolate itself, successfully, from the West Bank boosted his credibility. Once Hamas took over Gaza from the Palestinian Authority in 2006/7, he worked hard to keep the two governing bodies separate. Dividing the Palestinians was one way to make sure they couldn’t get what they wanted.
Defeating Iran
Hezbollah is Iran’s most important ally/proxy in the region. Israel has now destroyed perhaps 50% of its rocket and missile supplies and killed an even greater proportion of Hezbollah’s leaders. The pager/walkie-talkie attack two weeks ago maimed thousands of its cadres. Israeli troops are now on the ground in southern Lebanon seeking to push Hezbollah forces north of the Litani River.
Netanyahu is imagining that regime in Iran is imminent:
He will be content with the results of yesterday’s 180-missile Iranian attack. Israel appears to have suffered little damage and no known strategic losses. Many of the missiles were destroyed before hitting their targets by US, Israeli, and other unnamed defenses.
Retaliation is nevertheless all but certain. Netanyahu has been looking for an opportunity to hit Iran for decades. The Israelis will likely aim for nuclear and oil production facilities. The nuclear facilities will be difficult to destroy, as vital ones are ensconced well under ground. The best the IDF can hope for is to block some of the access routes. The oil facilities are more vulnerable. Oil and natural gas are Iran’s major exports. If they don’t flow, the economy will deflate.
Restraint is not in the cards
The Americans and Europeans will be urging restraint on Israel. They don’t want a regional war. Netanyahu isn’t listening. His own political future depends on continuing the fighting and achieving a spectacular military success. Hamas has denied him that in Gaza. So far, Hezbollah has proven an easier target. Netanyahu knows President Biden will do nothing to Israel’s block arms supplies. And he wants to boost Trump’s chances of winning the presidency. So he has no reason to restrain an attack he has wanted to launch for decades.
Netanyahu’s governing coalition has only a thin majority in the Knesset. But his allies and his own Likud political party have given him a blank check in pursuing a regional war. The Arab states are protesting the war in Gaza but doing little to prevent Israel from attacking Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran. All of them are anathema to the Gulf monarchies. The Arab street is still sympathetic to the Palestinians, but it has little say. Restraint is not in the cards.
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It’s about Iran as well as the Palestinians
Israel is now conducting a different war in Lebanon than the one it has conducted in Gaza. As Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib (@afalkhatib) has noted, “Gaza is a war of revenge, not precision.” So far, the war in Lebanon has been far more precise and targeted, though of course it has also killed hundreds of innocent civilians.
The “precision” war
This is likely to continue. The Israelis know most Sunnis, Christians, and Druze in Lebanon do not trust Shia Hezbollah. There is no point in hitting them. Support for President Assad’s war against the (mainly Sunni) Syrian opposition and involvement in Lebanon’s corrupt sectarian politics have blotted Hezbollah’s copybook. Leveling communities that don’t like Hezbollah would make no sense.
Hezbollah opposes the existence of Israel, but it has done little for the approximately 200,000 Palestinians who live in Lebanon. The Israelis are letting it be known that they are contemplating a ground invasion, but that is likely to be unrewarding. The Israel Defense Force will prefer to continue to destroy Hezbollah large rocket and missile inventory from the air. Any ground incursion is likely to be limited to the south.
The Arab openness
The Jordanian Foreign Minister yesterday made the Arab and Muslim position clear:
This is not new for the Jordanians, who protect Israel’s security every day, in return for Israeli help with internal security. But “all of us are willing to right now guarantee the security of Israel” is a bold formula, even with the traditional conditions that follow. He was apparently speaking after a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, whose 57 members include the non-Arab Muslim states.
There is more Muslim and Arab acceptance today of Israel’s existence than at any other time since 1948. But Israel isn’t paying any attention. Why not?
Two reasons
The first reason is the one Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi cites. Netanyahu wants to prevent the formation of a Palestinian state. He has devoted the last 30 years to that cause. He is not going to give it up now.
Just as important: for him, the fight with Hamas and Hezbollah is about Iran, not only Palestine. The IDF is well on its way to destroying Tehran’s best deterrent, which was Lebanese Hezbollah’s stock of rockets and missiles. Tehran’s Syrian deterrent is already in tatters. Hamas isn’t destroyed but will need time to recover. So Netanyahu is clearing the way for an Israeli attack on Iran, focused on its nuclear facilities. I find it hard to understand how Iran would use a nuclear weapon against a place as small as Israel without killing a lot of Muslims. But Israeli prime ministers have been willing to do some frightening things to prevent neighbors from getting nukes.
The consequences
With its deterrent gone and at risk of losing its nuclear assets, Tehran will likely amp up its nuclear program. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps will no doubt see production of nuclear weapons as a necessary deterrent against an Israeli attack. An Iranian sprint for nuclear weapons will ignite Turkiye and Saudi Arabia rivalry. That would make four nuclear or near nuclear powers in the Middle East, with many complicated relations among them. It is hard to see how that will serve Israeli or American interests.
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Not only wider, but higher
Israel yesterday bombed Hezbollah headquarters in Dahiyeh, south of Beirut’s center, and killed its leader, Hassan Nasrallah. Israelis are celebrating:
So are anti-Assad Syrians in Idlib:
Decapitation ups the ante
This Israeli move signals that Prime Minister Netanyahu wants not only to widen the war from Gaza to Lebanon but also wants to up the ante. The assassination of an enemy leader forecloses negotiations and makes it harder to manage the conflict. Israel’s successful cell phone/walkie-talkie attack less than two weeks ago had already infuriated and discombobulated Hezbollah’s militants. The loss of its leader of more than three decades will cause further confusion and distrust in their ranks.
The impact of decapitation on insurgencies is a subject of debate. There is evidence that decapitation can shorten anti-terrorist campaigns, increase the odds of insurgent defeat, and decrease conflict intensity. Others think decapitation has greater chances of success in countering insurgency “when conducted by local forces against a centralized opponent in conjunction with larger counterinsurgency operations.” Those conditions were not fulfilled in yesterday’s raid. Local forces did not conduct it, Hezbollah is a networked opponent, and there was no “larger” counterinsurgency operation.
That said, Hezbollah will need time to regroup. The Israelis likely also killed some of Nasrallah’s lieutenants. A leadership strike of this sort requires inside intelligence. Somehow Israel knew where the Hezbollah leaders were at a specific time. Hezbollah depends a great deal on personal trust among its adherents. The choice of a new leader and the search for a culprit will disrupt that network for some time to come. That may not prevent retaliation in the form of rocket attacks, but those have been militarily ineffective.
Mixed reaction in Lebanon and the Arab world
Lebanese will have a mixed reaction: horror at the civilian lives lost in buildings in the capital, but also some Schadenfreude. Hezbollah has lost its heroic mettle for many Lebanese, both because it went to war against the Syrian opposition and because it is now part of a corrupt, self-perpetuating elite in Lebanon that has delivered little in recent years to its citizens. Even before the Beirut port explosion in 2020, the Lebanese economy’s wheels were coming off. The Lebanese pound has lost well over 90% of its value. Most of the population is impoverished, frustrated, and desperate.
The
The Arab world will likewise have a mixed reaction. Most Arab elites are allergic to Islamist movements like Hamas and Hezbollah. Before today’s event, they were protesting mistreatment of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank but doing little about it and nothing to defend Hamas and Hezbollah, which are Iranian allies. However, most Arab streets are sympathetic to the Palestinians and want the Gaza war to end (as do most Israelis). That was Hezbollah’s declared aim. It was rocketing Israel since October 8 of last year, it said, to get Israel to end the Gaza war.
It will be interesting to see now whether the Arab street gets agitated enough to change the Arab world’s relative quiescence (relative, that is, to its past military attacks on Israel). The Syrian exception (see video above) is due to Hezbollah’s fighting the opposition on behalf of President Assad.
The West won’t cry crocodile tears but needs to worry
The West won’t mourn Nasrallah, but many in Europe and the US will worry that his death will incentivize a major Hezbollah retaliation. While its rockets have so far caused little strategic damage in Israel, the Israelis would likely respond with further escalation. That will heighten the hostilities. Neither the US nor Europe wants a the wider war heightened.
The West will also need to worry about Hezbollah operations beyond Israel. Hezbollah has terrorist cells in many countries, including the US, which presumably supplied the large bombs that leveled Hezbollah headquarters. US embassies and government offices in Washington could become targets.
Iran is in a bind
Tehran has been trying to avoid war with Israel, which has demonstrated it could bomb Iran’s nuclear sites. Now two of its key allies have suffered a great deal of damage. Israel has not destroyed Hamas, but Iran needs to be concerned how long it will take for Hamas to regain its former military strength. Now Israel has decapitated Lebanese Hezbollah, killed other leaders, and injured thousands of its militants in addition to destroying a significant percentage of the rockets and missiles Iran has supplied.
Asking Tehran to continue to show restraint may be asking too much. Advocates of Iran’s nuclear program in Tehran will be emboldened. They will argue that Israel is looking for war with Iran and that only acquiring nuclear weapons will prevent an Israeli attack. That in turn could create incentives for Turkey and Saudi Arabia to get nukes. Their leaders have both said they will match Iran’s nuclear capabilities. The Middle East with four nuclear weapons states will not be a safe place.
There is another way out. Tehran could tell Hezbollah to withdraw north of the Litani River, as required by the UN Security Council, and end the rocket attacks. This would enable Israelis to return to their homes along the border with Lebanon. It would also give the US leverage in pressing Israel for a ceasefire and prisoner/hostage exchange in Gaza. The war there would be unlikely to end entirely, as Netanyahu needs the war to continue until he can declare unequivocal victory. But relative calm could allow far more humanitarian aid and early reconstruction assistance to flow.
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More and wider war is inevitable, unless…
Prime Minister Netanyahu sent a clear signal with the assassinations of Hizbollah military leader Fouad Shukur in Beirut and Hamas negotiator Ismail Haniyeh last week in Tehran. Israel is not interested in a negotiated end to the war in Gaza and wants to widen the hostilities. Hamas has now signaled with the naming of Yahya Sinwar as its overall leader that it too is prepared to continue the fight. Sinwar is a hardliner compared to the more pragmatic Haniyeh.
More war
Israel has been trying to kill Sinwar since the October 7 attack that he launched against the Israeli communities bordering Gaza. It has so far failed and will no doubt now redouble its efforts. Sinwar advocates killing Jews and retaking all of Palestine, which he regards as an eternal Muslim endowment (waqf), back from them. He is a firm believer in violence rather than negotiations. He has demonstrated little or no interest in the suffering of ordinary Palestinians in Gaza. To him, their suffering is necessary collateral damage.
We should expect Sinwar to continue to hide and the Israelis to continue to search for him. He is a maximalist and will not yield as long as he lives. Finding him in the Gaza tunnels will require either luck or months more destruction.
Wider war
The wider war has been going on now for months. It includes rockets, drones, and artillery fire across the Lebanon/Israel border as well as rocket and drone attacks from the Houthis in Yemen against shipping in the Red Sea, US navy ships, and Israel. This wider war will continue and likely intensify.
No Arab states have indicated an inclination to join in the military offensive against Israel. Turkish President Erdogan has made some vague threats, but he is unlikely to make good on them. The US has pledged to help defend Israel if Iran attacks, but not to attack Iran in retaliation. So the wider war is not as wide as it could potentially get.
No doubt a less visible, less military war is ongoing as well. That war involves intelligence agencies, proxy forces, and individual saboteurs and assassins. The Iranians are particularly good at the proxy forces element. They have used Hamas, Hizbollah, and the Houthis to harass Israel. They seem far less adept at the intelligence piece. The Israelis have killed and sabotaged Iranian assets repeatedly for many years.
Negotiations are at an impasse, but…
The Americans continue to hope for a negotiated end to the current fighting in Gaza. They hope that would tone down, if not eliminate, the Hizbollah and Houthi attacks. It would also provide an opportunity to exchange prisoners/hostages and perhaps begin reconstruction.
They are likely to be disappointed. So long as Netanyahu and Sinwar hold power in their respective communities, the Gaza war will continue. They both need the conflict to survive. Nor is it clear that Hizbollah and especially the Houthis would stop their attacks on Israel if the Gaza war ends. The Middle East is now fighting a long war, not a short one.
The solution lies with the people of Gaza and Israel. If they decide the time has come, Sinwar and Netanyahu can be brought down, as Sheikh Hasina was in Bangladesh in recent days. Gazans show little inclination to topple Sinwar, not least because it would be risky for anyone trying. The situation in Israel is more promising. Most Israelis want to see an end to Netanyahu’s reign. They need to figure out how to make it happen.
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Read this to not be surprised
A few challenges today to the accepted wisdom:
- Iran and its allies will not necessarily attack Israel with missiles and drones.
- Whatever they do may not come soon.
- The prisoner exchange with Russia was a good thing, but it will have bad consequences.
- The American election outcome isn’t as uncertain as the current polling suggests.
The impending Iranian attack may not be what you think
I have no inside information, but I won’t be surprised if Iran chooses something other than an air raid to attack Israel. While such a raid could do a lot of damage if it gets past Israeli defenses, it would not be a mirror image of the Israeli attack that killed Ismail Haniyeh. It would also likely cause a lot of civilian casualties, including among the 18% of Israel’s population that is Muslim.
The Iranians may instead try to kill a Israeli high-ranking target. Assassinating a negotiator or general in Jerusalem would create real fear among Israelis. But it would not give much reason for the US to join in a strike against Iran, which is what Prime Minister Netanyahu wants.
In the meanwhile, the Iranians are enjoying the massive and expensive deployment of American assets as well as the mobilization strain on the Israelis. Without striking, Tehran is forcing its enemies to run up their bills and exhaust their soldiers and sailors. The longer Iran waits, the higher the costs.
Exchanging prisoners creates a moral hazard
The exchange of prisoners last week between Russia and various Western states has to be counted a good thing. It freed a lot of innocent people.
But it also freed some dreadful criminals, including a Russian assassin. That will have the unfortunate effect of encouraging President Putin to take more hostages that he can exchange for still more Russian miscreants. I’ve been to Moscow three times (1974, 1994, and 2014), so twice when it was the capital of the Soviet Union. I would not go again now. While the risk to any individual American might be small, Putin’s Russia is more likely to arbitrarily arrest Americans than the Soviets.
Russia isn’t the only country I would hesitate to visit these days. China also poses much greater risks than in the past. Iran specializes in incarcerating mainly Iranian Americans. Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Yemen, Afghanistan, Egypt, and Mozambique also hold Americans for less than good reasons. Something like 40 Americans are still unjustly held abroad, despite significant successes.
It goes without saying that Americans traveling abroad should take care to follow the local laws. But even if you do, there is an increasing likelihood of unjust detention. I wouldn’t visit Russia, China, or Iran today without some guarantees, which would not be easy to get. I even hesitate to go to Serbia, which I visited more than a few times during the Milosevic regime. But President Vucic is a student of President Putin. And Vucic knows who I am and what I write.
Harris is winning
The past two weeks have exhibited a remarkable outpouring of pro-Harris sentiment in the American electorate. She is beating Trump in national polls, and has drawn even in battleground states. The horse race isn’t over until November, but if she can keep rising in the polls, Trump is done.
I expect Harris to own this month. She will pick a good vice presidential candidate, likely today. All six candidates are far more experienced and more moderate than J.D. Vance, Trump’s big mistake. The Democratic Convention August 19-22 in Chicago will display a unified and mobilized party determined to win, even if the risk of unruly pro-Palestinian demonstrations is real.
A lot depends on whether the economy is landing hard or soft from the COVID-19 recovery. But I am still hoping the Fed will get it somewhere near right, despite yesterday’s big stock market retreat.
The outcome of an American election is happily unpredictable. But Harris can win. I’ll do my best to try to make that come true. I’m inclined to relocate to Atlanta, where I have a house down the street from my older son’s family, for much of October. I’ll volunteer to get the vote out and ensure proper election administration. I vote in DC, not Georgia, but more than 90% of DC will vote for Harris. Georgia is one of the battlegrounds. That’s where I would like to be.
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When you are in a hole, stop digging
The world awaits retaliation against Israel for its assassinations last week. Both were relatively surgical affairs that killed the military commander of Lebanese Hizbollah in Beirut (as well as some women and children) and the political spokesman of Hamas in Tehran. Expectations for retaliation focus on a large missile and drone attack from all directions.
I doubt that. If successful, such a raid might mobilize the US to join Israel in a further escalation. That is something the Iranians don’t want.
It need not be an air raid
Israel has seemed invulnerable for decades. Its sophisticated air defenses have prevented thousands of missiles and drones from reaching population centers.
Iran and its partners might be better served to assassinate one or more major Israeli political or military figures. That would be a symmetrical response that some might argue does not justify further escalation. It would also strike fear into the hearts of every Jew in Israel. The only major Jewish figure murdered in modern Israel was Prime Minister Itzhak Rabin, killed by a Jew.
The Israelis have demonstrated that they can track and strike major figures in the capitals of their adversaries. Is it really possible that the “axis of resistance” has not developed a comparable capability inside Israel?
The capability need not necessarily be technologically sophisticated. Knives, guns, and grenades can be smuggled and murderers deployed or hired. Targets of opportunity should not be difficult to find in a small and relatively open society.
Iran has assets it doesn’t want to lose
The Iranians will decide. Hizbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis may have been relatively free to do what they wanted since October 7, but no doubt Tehran is now coordinating the retaliation.
Iran has reached nuclear threshold status. It is able to build a nuclear bomb within weeks with material in its possession. Prime Minister Netanyahu is looking for an excuse to damage that capability. In April, the Israelis demonstrated their ability to reach Iran’s nuclear facilities with drones that went undetected. Iran may want to hide its hand in the retaliation, mirroring Israel’s refusal to confirm its hand in the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
Netanyahu wins, Israel loses
A successful assassination or two, or a successful air raid, will put the Israelis again on the spot. President Biden has already made clear to Netanyahu that the US will not back further escalation. If Netanyahu pays heed, the cycle will end. If not, it will continue.
That said, Netanyahu has already accomplished several of his own goals. The Gaza talks can go nowhere until the escalation ends. He does not want the ceasefire/prisoner exchange that Washington is insisting on. The Democrats risk a major war during the election campaign, giving advantage to Trump, whom Netanyahu favors. The crisis will enable him to stay in power at least until October, when the Knesset returns from recess, and likely beyond.
Israel is the big loser. The ferocious October 7 attack was far from an existential threat, but Netanyahu and many Israelis have characterized it as such. That justified the ferocious response in Gaza that has in turn led to the assassinations and potential war with Iran and its partners. That really is an existential threat. When you are in a hole, stop digging.
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