In a striking reflection on past miscalculations, Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, acknowledged the unforeseen consequences of a 2006 raid that sparked a devastating war. Today, as Hezbollah launches rockets in support of Gaza, it faces a fierce Israeli response that has severely weakened the group. With rising tensions and a deteriorating situation in Lebanon, Nasrallahās leadership and strategic choices are now under intense scrutiny, revealing a precarious path forward for Hezbollah.
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From The Economist, published under licence. The original article can be found on www.economist.com
Ā© 2024 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved.
The Economist
But neither side would gain from a ruinous and pointless war ___STEADY_PAYWALL___
Warlords are not known for their remorse, but Hassan Nasrallah offered some in 2006, weeks after a war that killed more than 1,100 Lebanese. The fighting began when Hizbullah, the Shia militia and political party he leads, abducted two Israeli soldiers in a raid. Mr Nasrallah said he was surprised by the ferocity of the response and called the raid a mistake. āIf I had knownā¦that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not,ā he told an interviewer.
This time was meant to be different. Hizbullah started firing rockets at Israel on October 8th to support Gaza, which Israel had begun bombing after Hamas, a Palestinian militant group, massacred more than 1,100 Israelis one day earlier. It did not force Israel to end its war, but it tied up soldiers and missile-defence batteries and forced 60,000 Israeli civilians to flee their homes. Anxious to avoid a two-front battle, the Israeli army responded in kind with short-range artillery and air strikes. Both sides followed these unwritten rules for months, neither stopping nor escalating.
Yet it now appears that Mr Nasrallah has miscalculated again. What was meant to remain a limited conflict has become much bigger. In the past two weeks Israel has dealt Hizbullah the harshest blow in the groupās four-decade history. Mr Nasrallah seems at a loss for how to proceed.
The shift in Israelās tactics began in July, when it assassinated Fuad Shukr, Hizbullahās military chief, in Beirut, retaliation for a Hizbullah missile that killed 12 children on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. It was also a chance to change the dynamics of a conflict that had seemed frozen for months. Hizbullah sought to hit back in late August, but Israel blew up its long-range missiles before they launched.
On September 17th Israel detonated thousands of pagers used by Hizbullah operatives; the next day, hundreds of walkie-talkies exploded. The sabotaged devices killed dozens, wounded thousands and wreaked havoc on Hizbullahās communications. The timing of the blasts may not have been dictated entirely by Israel: its spies worried that Hizbullah would soon discover the sabotage. But they were followed rapidly by a series of assassinations; one killed the commander of the Radwan force, Hizbullahās elite commando unit.
Then came a withering campaign of air strikes in southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa valley, both areas where Hizbullah has a strong presence. Israelās attacks killed almost 500 people in the first wave on September 23rd, the deadliest day in Lebanon since the end of its long civil war in 1990. As this story was published, Israeli jets were carrying out further strikes. Having mostly attacked missile-launchers in non-populated areas, it is now hitting ones in villages and other built-up areas.
Israeli officials insist this is not yet an all-out war. They have drawn up plans for a ground invasion, and troops have started training for it, but the army has not deployed them to staging areas. Nor has the air force started bombing vital infrastructure in Lebanon (the airport was one of Israelās first targets in 2006).
Unlike in Gaza, where they vow the total defeat of Hamas, Israeli generals acknowledge it is impossible to end Hizbullahās dominance in Lebanon. Their goal is narrower: to force Hizbullah to halt its fire on northern Israel and withdraw its men from the border. Mr Nasrallah insists that will not happen. In a speech on September 19th he vowed to continue fighting Israel until the latter ends its war in Gaza, a promise he has made often over the past year.
His militia has gradually used longer-range missiles, firing at cities like Haifa and Afula deeper inside Israel. On September 25th it launched a long-range ballistic missile at Tel Aviv, the first time in the past year that it had aimed at Israelās commercial capital. The missile was intercepted by Davidās Sling, an Israeli air-defence system. It was an escalation of sorts, but firing a single missile seemed mostly symbolic, a way for Hizbullah to demonstrate that some of its capabilities were still intactānot the debilitating response that many had expected.
Lonely leader
Mr Nasrallah has never been so isolated. He has lost many trusted lieutenants, some of whom had been members of Hizbullah since its founding in the 1980s. Those who remain are probably suspects: Israel could not have carried out extensive sabotage and assassinations without inside help. His communications are disrupted, and some of his missiles have been destroyed.
Hizbullahās reputation is in tatters. Its Shia constituents long saw it as a mighty protector; now they have doubts. Among the wider population, many are furious with Mr Nasrallah for dragging the country into a fight he cannot win. Lebanon is still grappling with one of the worst economic crises in modern history. Since 2019 its currency has lost 98% of its value and GDP has dropped by half. It can ill afford a long war, let alone the reconstruction bill after one.
The displacement of tens of thousands of people from the south and east is already straining basic services, with long queues at bakeries and petrol stations. Social tensions are rising too: some landlords are charging vast sums to rent homes to evacuees or refusing to accept them at all.
All of this is important to Hizbullahābut arguably none of it matters so much as the opinion of Iran, its main sponsor. The Islamic Republic invested billions of dollars to build up Hizbullahās missile stocks, including a concerted effort in recent years to upgrade their accuracy. They were meant to serve as an insurance policy against a direct Israeli attack on Iranās nuclear facilities. Now Iran is watching in dismay as those same missiles are blown up.
It seems unwilling to help its proxy. Abbas Araghchi, the foreign minister, tweeted that Hizbullah could defend Lebanon with āits own capacitiesā, meaning that the group was on its own. That fits a pattern of inaction over the past year: Iran worries about inviting more attacks on its own soil, and that it too has been penetrated by the Mossad, Israel foreign intelligence service. It has yet to retaliate for Israelās assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas, while he was in Tehran for the inauguration of Masoud Pezeshkian, the new Iranian president.
When he arrived in New York for the UN General Assembly this week, Mr Pezeshkian announced that his country did not want war with Israel. He seems to have the support of Ali Khamenei, the hardline supreme leader, to pursue diplomacy with the West. Some officials in Lebanon muse that Iran might seek to use Hizbullah as a bargaining chip: it could offer to restrain the group in exchange for a deal that eases sanctions on Iranās battered economy.
The Biden administration says it will not support a ground invasion of Lebanon. But after months of warning Israel against escalation, it now endorses Israelās tactics. āWe very much see them in the context of trying to create conditions for people to be able to return home,ā Jon Finer, the deputy national security adviser, told NPR, an American broadcaster.
Mr Biden has also largely abandoned his push for a ceasefire in Gaza, which he long argued was a prerequisite for calming the Israeli-Lebanese border. Neither Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, nor Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, is eager to make a deal.
Pick them off
Instead America seems willing to let Israel test its belief that Hizbullah can be pounded into a separate truce. Their optimistic scenario is that the group discreetly agrees to implement un Resolution 1701, the agreement that ended the 2006 war, which called for Hizbullah to withdraw its forces to the Litani river, 30km (19 miles) north of the Israeli border.
Whether Mr Nasrallah will agree is open for debate. Backing down would boost his standing among Lebanese: āHe could say he did it for the good of the nation,ā says one diplomat. Iran probably wants him to hold his fire as well, although it may not give such an order directly.
Yet to do so would be humiliating for Mr Nasrallah. He has spent years touting a concept he calls the āunity of the arenasā, the idea that Iranās proxies across the region could coordinate joint military action against Israel. For Iranās strongest proxy to abandon the fight under Israeli fire would be to admit that the concept has failed.
If he digs in, the fighting could get much worse. Hizbullah has lost some of its arsenal to Israeli bombardment but still has tens of thousands of rockets and missiles. Israel could expand its strikes in Hizbullahās stronghold in south Beirut, a neighbourhood it reduced to rubble in 2006. Neither side would achieve its goals: Israel would not end its war in Gaza, and residents of northern Israel would not feel safe to return home. A truce might be embarrassing for Mr Nasrallahābut the alternative is a ruinous and pointless war.
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