This article was published by Haaretz on November 29, 2024

The cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah means that the war in Lebanon is almost certainly over for now. Hezbollah and its Iranian patrons are most certainly the losers. But that doesn’t mean Israel has won in any meaningful sense. The Israeli public has been told the country went to war for security. And it will now be told that security has been greatly enhanced, deterrence restored, the balance of power in the region corrected.

But that’s all a mirage. Israelis have obtained not security, but the illusion of security. None of the fundamental causes of the conflict have been resolved in any sense. Israelis may feel safer, but they are not safer.

The Israeli public is undoubtedly convinced the country went to war in order to ensure that the people of northern Israel could return to their homes in peace and safety. And, indeed, people on both sides of the border will go back to their homes at last, which is certainly a good thing. But Israelis need to reflect on the real reasons their leadership decided to escalate the conflict with Hezbollah at almost every stage since the Lebanese militants made the colossal blunder of pretending to join the post-October 7 war.
Neither Hezbollah nor its Iranian patrons wanted a war with Israel over Hamas or Gaza. They understand that Hamas is, for them, an essentially unreliable ally – a Sunni Muslim Brotherhood fundamentalist group that doesn’t fit organically into the almost entirely Shi’ite pro-Iranian “axis of resistance” network of Arab militia groups allied to Tehran.

Hamas, after all, broke almost entirely with Tehran and its Arab network over the war in Syria, when the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood was a key component in the early stages of the uprising against Bashar Assad. Hamas was forced to choose between its marriage of convenience with Iran and its Arab clients led by Hezbollah on the one hand and its Sunni fundamentalist identity on the other. Inevitably, Hamas chose its identity, and the group’s politburo leadership had to flee Damascus for relative safety but greater distance and less relevance to everything going on in its fiefdom in Gaza.

Once the Syrian war was over, with Assad remaining in power, both parties were able to restore their relations and pretend the whole thing never happened. But the strength of their bond had been tested and found wanting. The relationship rested only on common enemies rather than shared goals. That much had been established beyond all doubt.

Hezbollah and Iran also had no interest in risking everything for Gaza, a place that pulls at Palestinian heartstrings and also has significant resonance with many Israelis and some Egyptians. But beyond that, Gaza is a relatively insignificant area with no particular cultural, historical, religious or strategic significance for Iran, Hezbollah or pretty much anybody else.

But Hezbollah needed to do something in order to retain its revolutionary credentials and maintain its status as the de facto Arab militia leader of the “axis of resistance.” It sought to square this circle by initiating a limited confrontation with Israel, ratcheting up cross-border rocket fire but hoping to avoid an all-out conflict with Israel which offered nothing of value for Hezbollah or its Iranian masters.

Hezbollah’s leaders miscalculated badly, and their refusal to end the cross-border attacks as long as the conflict in Gaza persisted gave Israel the plausible reason and rationalization to call their bluff.

The organization ended up getting not only a full-blown war, but suffered a series of devastating blows, including the liquidation of most of its political and military leadership, the destruction of its command-and-control structures, and the severe degrading of its extensive arsenal of missiles, rockets and drones.

It also became clear how deeply Israeli intelligence had managed to penetrate Hezbollah. The precise targeting of so many of its leaders could only have been accomplished with significant human intelligence, and not by signals intelligence alone. It will take many years, if not more than a decade, to rebuild Hezbollah militarily, if, indeed, that can ever be accomplished. Israel has certainly established that it will not allow Hezbollah to dominate southern Lebanon in the same way it has in the decades since Israel was driven out in May 2000.

Israel went to war in Lebanon primarily to redress the strategic imbalance that emerged after the October 7 attack in southern Israel. By the early months of this year, both Iranian and Israeli analysts agreed that Iran and its axis were the big winners in the post-October 7 Middle Eastern strategic landscape.

Israel had suffered greatly and incurred significant damage, not least to its global reputation (with its leaders now facing arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court). Palestinians in Gaza were utterly devastated, living in a hellscape of death and destruction, with at least 44,000 people killed – over 70 percent of them women and children, according to UN estimates – and almost the entire population displaced, in many cases multiple times. But Iran and its network were relatively unscathed. They pocketed strategic gains at virtually no cost to themselves.

Israel was determined to change that equation, and Hezbollah provided Israel with every incentive and opportunity to do so, leading Iran’s most valuable regional asset to be attacked, overwhelmed and humiliated. The extent of the rout is demonstrated by the de facto terms on which this war is ending.

In effect, Hezbollah has agreed to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1701 by pulling back to behind the Litani River, some 25 kilometers from the border area, while Israel retains the right to keep violating Lebanese airspace and to intervene in the country militarily whenever it sees fit. That may not be explicitly part of the agreement, but it’s clearly the ongoing reality.

In the short run, Israel has got what it wanted in Lebanon. Hezbollah will be removed from the border area, and the organization is a battered remnant of what it was a year ago. Moreover, Iran’s national security strategy based on a forward defense provided by Arab militia clients led by Hezbollah has been exposed as fundamentally ineffective. The strategic landscape and balance of power in the Middle East has been redrawn, greatly in Israel’s favor and very much at Iran’s expense.

But if Israelis were seeking security, they certainly don’t have it. The war in Gaza grinds on, and has morphed into an open-ended insurgency that will increasingly favor the remnants of Hamas, which are playing a long game calculated for many years and even decades. And as long as the Palestinian issue remains unresolved, cynical actors such as Iran, or anyone else who wants to play this game, will have the ability to gain instant credibility with many people in the Middle East and beyond by pretending to champion the Palestinian people and cause.

Israel’s military successes haven’t done anything to resolve the essential causes of the October 7 attack or Hezbollah’s botched effort to stage a limited confrontation, but not an all-out war, in the name of Palestinian solidarity.

The Israeli government won’t even discuss a “day after” scenario for governance in Gaza, which of course leaves the Israeli military in charge of the territory wherever it is operating and Hamas essentially in control everywhere else. It’s the worst of both worlds. And while Hezbollah couldn’t have done a worse job playing its hand, nothing in this outcome will help Israelis avoid the future conflicts that are inevitable as a direct consequence of the disenfranchisement and ongoing occupation of nearly six million Palestinians and their land.

A narrow-minded, short-term perspective could allow many Israelis to feel victorious. But this would be a huge miscalculation on their part. The Lebanon war happened because the October 7 attacks happened. And that ghastly attack was the predictable and virtually inevitable consequence of the Palestinian predicament.

When people are put in cages with no hope or means of liberation, they will periodically break out with savage fury. Israel successfully called Hezbollah’s bluff in Lebanon and has made good on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pledge of October 7 to exact a “mighty vengeance” in Gaza.

But as the dust settles, Israelis emerge surrounded by people on all sides, except the Mediterranean Sea, who are outraged at their conduct and determined to keep fighting until Palestinians obtain their basic human and national rights. If this is security, it’s hard to imagine what insecurity would possibly look like.

This article was published by The Globe and Mail on November 29, 2024

One of the most unexpected consequences of the Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon is the sudden resurgence of the Syrian rebels led by Sunni Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Late last week the rebels overran the major city of Aleppo and appear to be advancing. The Syrian war, which appeared to be effectively over when government-backed forces took eastern Aleppo from the rebels at the end of 2016, is back in earnest.
The main factor is the decimation of Hezbollah from devastating blows delivered by Israel this year. The recent ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel leaves the Lebanese Shiite Islamists profoundly weakened.

Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad was rescued by an intervention in the fall of 2015 organized by Russia and Iran. Hezbollah was tasked to lead the ground forces in key missions, backed by Russian air power.

Hezbollah’s disarray provided the crucial opening for the rebels to re-emerge as a serious threat, not merely in remote areas but in key parts of the country the government deems “necessary Syria.” Aleppo has always been the most heavily contested key city, and its fall demonstrates the important consequences of Israel’s reshaping of the Middle Eastern balance of power by devastating Hezbollah. And while Iran and Russia are attempting to increase their engagement in Syria now, the Ukraine war and Iran’s confrontation with Israel led both powers to take their eye off the ball in Syria. If they can once again make a decisive difference remains to be seen.
First, Sunni radicals are big winners. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham was once closely allied with Al Qaeda, although it broke with the internationalist jihadists in 2017. The two groups came to blows on several occasions. Nonetheless, HTS continues to work closely with several more extreme jihadist factions and retains a good deal of Al Qaeda-like ideology. Their resurgence indicates that this ideology continues to be functional in war-torn parts of the Arab world and remains a serious threat, not just in Syria but regionally and even internationally.

Second, Turkey is another big winner. The revival of the war in Syria also announces that Ankara may be resuming its hegemonic ambitions in neighbouring parts of the Middle East, not merely including Syria but also in Iraq and elsewhere. Turkey officially considers Hayat Tahrir al-Sham a terrorist organization, but the Turkish military and Turkish-backed militias in Syria have a love-hate relationship with the group, sometimes co-operating and sometimes checking each other. The new offensive, however, bears all the hallmarks of Turkish involvement, with Ankara-backed militia groups once again fighting alongside Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
Third, the weakening of Hezbollah and, consequently, its patrons in Tehran, does not correlate to a more stable Middle East. The region’s political and strategic landscape functions like a kaleidoscope, with the whole pattern shifting as each piece rearranges itself with every major twist. As one side weakens, another moves to take advantage of the sudden opening. That’s why such developments can be unintended yet logical and even predictable consequences of seemingly unrelated actions.

Fourth, the shifting politics make strange bedfellows. Israel has finally admitted to having armed radical Syrian rebels in the areas surrounding the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, which Israel purports to have annexed. Moreover, former adversaries of Mr. al-Assad, most notably the United Arab Emirates, have rallied to the Syrian dictator, vowing support in his battle against Islamist radicals. The struggle for security and power, and over ideology, can lead to alliances that appear otherwise inexplicable, especially to outsiders.

Fifth, Washington continues to suffer from the lack of a coherent Syria policy. The U.S. still maintains troops in Syria, most notably at a small but crucial base at Al-Tanf. This sits a few kilometres away from the Al-Walid border crossing into Syria from both Iraq and Jordan. Control of this highway and proximity to the crossing allows U.S. forces to prevent either Islamist terrorist groups or Iran and its proxies from controlling the crossing and the highway, and has been the most important barrier to the creation of an Iranian-controlled land route linking Iran through Iraq and Syria into Lebanon with Hezbollah and the Mediterranean Sea at its potential terminus.
Despite maintaining this presence, the U.S. does not appear to have any broader strategic goals in Syria, leaving its forces and the U.S. backed, Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces militia effectively stranded and surrounded by enemies.
The resurgence of the war in Syria and revival of radical Islamist groups there bodes poorly for long-term stability in the Middle East. Most of all, it demonstrates that simply weakening Hezbollah and Iran does not make for a more stable or manageable region. Others, arguably even more dangerous, are always ready to step into any void.