Hezbollah may fund its operations with its overseas empire, but the main front is southern Lebanon to attack Israel. What will Israel do to prevent Hezbollah from attacking Israelis again?
This CSIS report describes the situation Israel faces with Hezbollah illegally dug in throughout southern Lebanon in their own proto-state that defies Lebanese control. It describes four main options for Israel to cope with Hezbollah's far larger rocket and missile threat:
There are at least four options: (1) return to the pre–October 7 status quo and emphasize deterrence, (2) start an all-out war with Hezbollah to destroy the group’s capabilities and force it to comply with Israel’s demands, (3) engage in a limited war with Hezbollah to put pressure on the group and push its forces further from the Israeli border, and (4) use coercive diplomacy to better implement UNSCR 1701.
The report goes into more detail.
What are the implications of these options? Let's go through them.
Deterrence.
I don't rule this out. Because despite screwing the pooch in 2006, Hezbollah has been relatively quiet since then. I have to believe they were hurt despite boastful talk. Further, Hezbollah was bloodied after being ordered into Syria to defend Assad's regime. And Hezbollah has not answered the call to arms from Hamas to join the war--and I thought it was unlikely Hezbollah would join in--even after nearly six months of war in Gaza. Hezbollah might see what Israel did to Hamas and Gaza when enraged and decide, at least in the short term, that being as quiet as church mice is the best option.
The Biden administration would certainly be happy if Israel stood down and followed this path. And the administration might punish Israel by withholding military aid for failing to rely on deterrence. Ultimately, Israel can't afford to alienate America. Occasional rough patches are survivable. But the Democratic Party coalition has developed a sizable and fanatical constituency that would prefer Israel be wiped out. Israel has serious problems if support for Israel is partisan and relies on who wins American elections. Israel might have to rely on nukes--even actual use--to maintain their security in the medium term. But that would guarantee enemies will pursue nukes, alienate America and the West, and ultimately require Israel to expand and use nukes to prevent hostile states from going nuclear.
Or accept the inevitability of defeat and escape to the West. Which is looking shaky as sanctuaries as anti-Semitic and ... ah ... "excitable" migrants from Moslem areas increase their presence and coercive influence on Western governments and societies, you must admit.
I don't even rule out that Hezbollah is evolving into a criminal organization--that overseas financial empire has effects--that values cash more than it values killing Jews. Killing Jews might be more of a brand slogan than a practical objective.
Further, after the pain of dealing with smaller Gaza--pain that is not over yet--will Israel prefer even a faux peace along the Lebanon border? Israelis could conceivably think they should solve the long-term problem of Gaza after major ground combat operations end before throwing their military into an even bigger and costlier war. After all, while talk of Hezbollah being "next" is in the air, a lot of people claimed the Iraq War was just the first of a series of wars Bush 43 planned for the region. I thought that was nonsense. But if true, the cost of winning in Iraq--yes, we did, and I hope the Biden administration defends the win against the love of its life, mullah-run Iran--obviously derailed such plans. That could be the reality of this war against Hamas. You know if the effort to "de-Nazify" Gazans fails or falters in the future, many will rightly or wrongly claim Israel got "distracted" from Hamas by turning against Hezbollah. America experienced that false claim, too.
My guess is this is the most likely course of action for Israel in the near term.
All-out War.
The seeming emphasis on air power with ground forces limited to the border region seems to exacerbate the limits of Israel's Iron Dome defenses. With longer range and even precision weapons, even an all-out war in a limited theater might be doomed to fail. Can America sustain Israel's fight given Ukraine's needs and the need to build up American ammunition stockpiles? Would Biden punish Israel by withholding resupply of even Iron Dome rockets? Already in the smaller Hamas War, the Biden administration is putting pressure on Israel to stop their offensive short of battlefield victory. Biden has even raised the option of withholding military aid.
But perhaps the shock of the October 7, 2023 Hamas slaughter, rape, and kidnapping invasion makes enough Israelis resolved not to endure that again. Perhaps Israelis think the time to deal with Hezbollah is now or never. Perhaps the failure of the Biden administration to derail Iran's nuclear weapons drive makes Israelis think a nuclear-armed Iran under the mullah nutballs might rule out a major effort to end the northern threat. The nutballs might not be deterred by Israel's nukes.
My view is that if Israel goes big, it needs to go all the way to the Bekaa Valley to seriously rip apart Hezbollah's infrastructure and kill Hezbollah fighters plus their logistics and command personnel to make it harder to rebuild the threat to Israel after Israeli forces pull out of Lebanon.
I think the chance of this course of action is very low in the near term.
Limited War.
This also stresses Israel's Iron Dome and costs a lot with the air strikes and artillery fire needed. It has the advantage of being less costly in the short run because it has lesser objectives. And it has the advantage of initially--but wrongly--seeming like a more restrained and therefore more compassionate and less costly approach to defeating Hezbollah.
But it will achieve less. Hezbollah will retain longer-range weapons north of the Litani River. And Hezbollah can save its assets by retreating north of the river into a sanctuary. Hezbollah could fire at Israeli troops in southern Lebanon and leave irregulars and insurgents behind while Israel conducts operations; and bombard Israel itself with longer-range weapons from the sanctuary. And it will be easier for Hezbollah to claim a glorious victory over the Israelis with rocket attack proof of not just surviving Israel's wrath but by continuing the mission statement of killing Jews.
That might compel Israel to remain in its narrow theater longer trying to erase the image of successful Hezbollah "resistance". That will trigger the exposure of the false compassion of restraint I described above. And it will make it less likely that all-out war can be decisive because it will have wasted time and any Western patience if that even exists after the Hamas war. And because by letting Hezbollah retreat to the sanctuary, make it harder to trap its forces and administrators who are closer to a better sanctuary in Syria.
I think the chance of this course of action in the near term is in the low-to-medium range.
Coercive Diplomacy for UNSCR 1701.
The main problem is that the current mission under UNIFAIL essentially sides with Hezbollah--for the survival of lightly armed UN personnel if no other reason. If coercion is going to be used to create an effective UNIFIL to keep Hezbollah from remaining in southern Lebanon where Hezbollah has amassed a large rocket force, it seems like the first three options are the means to achieve that.
What lesser means--which Israel has presumably at least implicitly used the last 18 years--can get the UN to do more? In the face of Russian or Chinese UN Security Council vetoes? In the face of propaganda that America will fall for to rescue Hezbollah as America is doing in Gaza by pushing for and carrying out logistic support for Hamas humanitarian aid?
I mean, if Israel chooses to focus on deterrence, it might tell itself it is also going to use coercive diplomacy to get Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon. But that will be a soothing fantasy designed to conceal that Israel won't try to de-fang Hezbollah.
I think the chance of this course of action alone is low.
I think the chance is high that it will be claimed under the deterrence option but doomed to fail.
I think the chance is certain it will be tried with either all-out or limited war as the hammer that makes coercive diplomacy more effective.
But I suspect the West will ultimately rescue Hezbollah from coercive diplomacy by treating them as victims rather than terrorists who occupy portions of a sovereign member of the United Nations and undermine its sovereignty in order to be able to kill Jews. Germany set the template after World War I. It works. Under certain administrations.
So there you go.
I have no real idea how Israel will judge its options. But Israel must consider that Iran is now willing to openly reach out to its proxies to support Hezbollah:
A series of senior Axis of Resistance officials have met with senior Iranian officials—including the supreme leader—in March, likely to coordinate and prepare plans for their reaction to a wider Israeli operation into southern Lebanon.
Absent other considerations, I'd consider all-out war as I described it (which would really be a large-scale, deep raid) the most likely Israeli course of action. But it is not something that will be weighed in isolation. The Hamas war has happened and that complicates the issue. Unless Hezbollah makes the decision for Israel by initiating large-scale rocket attacks against Israeli civilians.
Whatever Israel chooses, it can't afford to make jihadis look like the "strong horse."
Have a super sparkly Middle Eastern day.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
NOTE: I'm adding updates on the Last Hamas War in this post.
