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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.

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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.