MICHAEL YOUNG
Many Lebanese are playing a morbid game these days—assessing the probability that their country will be destroyed if Hezbollah enters the conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. On several occasions the Israelis have warned that in any future war with Hezbollah, they would send Lebanon “back to the stone age.”
The assumption is that once Israel begins a ground invasion of Gaza, the prospect of a Lebanon conflict will greatly increase. Backing this up are reports that Iran has warned Israel that if such an operation were to go ahead, Iran would intervene. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian was even more specific in his public statements, for example when he told Al-Jazeera, “If the measures aimed at immediately stopping the Israeli attacks that are killing children in the Gaza Strip end in a deadlock, it is highly probable that many other fronts will be opened. This option is not ruled out and this is becoming increasingly more probable.”
However, the real question is not whether Hezbollah will escalate against Israel if an invasion goes ahead, but how it does so and for what purpose. A southern Lebanese front has already been opened, though both Hezbollah and Israel are caught up in a sort of Kabuki dance, where each side is carefully measuring its actions and reactions to avoid a situation that may spin out of control and spread to the region.
So, can Lebanon dodge a bullet if Hezbollah responds to an Israeli entry into Gaza? Let’s answer with a question: Why has Iran supplied Hezbollah with between 150,000 and 200,000 rockets and missiles? The Iranians have used Hezbollah’s arsenal to deter Israel from attacking Lebanon, but more importantly to prevent Israel or the United States from striking Iran—the mother ship from which regional power and influence flows. While Lebanon is valued as the place where Tehran’s most effective proxy is based, it is not more important than Iran itself.
If we accept this premise, then we have to interpret Abdollahian’s comments in light of Iran’s strategy to use its regional proxies as shields to safeguard its own security. And doing so begs the following question: Is Iran willing to sacrifice Hezbollah in order to save Hamas, especially if a ruinous Lebanon war neutralizes Hezbollah’s deterrence capacity for a decade or even longer?
Why would that happen? Because there is very little support in Lebanon for a war against Israel in defense of Hamas. If Hezbollah were to enter such a war, Lebanon’s devastation would turn most communities, perhaps even large segments of the Shiite community, against the party for its catastrophic strategy of unilaterally hitching the country’s fate to the Palestinian cause. Given that Lebanon is still in the midst of a major economic and financial breakdown, it may be unable to emerge from a war as a functional entity. There are real risks that the country would not hold together and that sectarian strife could follow, which would cause an overwhelming burden for Hezbollah that lasts for years. This could severely cripple the party’s deterrence capabilities on behalf of Iran.
Assuming all this, and if we can agree that Hezbollah does not want to reach this stage, let’s imagine this scenario: Israel enters Gaza and is drawn into street battles in which it kills many more civilians than it is doing today, but also meets tough resistance from Hamas. What would happen then? Most probably, Hezbollah would raise the level of cross-border bombings, but still remain below the threshold of all-out hostilities by not targeting Israeli strategic sites, such as ports and airports, as well as cities. This may very well compel Israel to avoid doing so too. Why? Because the Israelis would probably face significant U.S. pressure to avoid provoking a regional conflict, even as they also understand the potential risks of fighting a two-front war, or possibly even a four-front war if Iran and its proxies begin bombing from Syrian territory and the West Bank erupts in its turn.
In fact, it’s highly probable that if there is an escalation, Iran and Hezbollah would widen the front by also bombing Israel from Syria. That two rockets were fired from Syria at the Golan Heights on October 24 was a sign of what may be coming. Carnegie’s Kheder Khaddour has told me that pro-Iran militias in northern Syria have been deployed southward for a possible confrontation with Israel. Israel has bombed Damascus and Aleppo airports several times, in anticipation that they might be used to resupply pro-Iran militias in a conflict.
The advantages to Hezbollah of widening the front are obvious. If Iran and its proxies use the Syrian front to escalate to higher levels than they do from Lebanon, this might hand them greater leverage over Israel, while also averting Lebanon’s annihilation. Syria, given its destructive conflict since 2011, is perhaps less vulnerable to the consequences of Israeli retaliation than is Lebanon. Moreover, it may not be as vital in Iran’s deterrence architecture.
Assuming that the cross-border fighting stabilizes at this higher level for a time while Israel pursues its advance into Gaza, Hezbollah’s main purpose would be to draw Israeli forces away from Gaza, rather than escalate to hitting cities and strategic targets. After all, missiles on Tel Aviv and Haifa will not halt a Gaza offensive; but creating an impression that Hezbollah might attack in Galilee would force Israel to divide its military, thereby easing the pressures on Gaza.
But what happens if Israel’s army reaches a stage where it actually poses an existential threat to Hamas? While many assume that this would be a turning point in which Hezbollah would resort to its big guns, this proposition merits investigation. It does so for precisely the reason raised at the outset: By provoking massive Israeli retaliation against Lebanon, Hezbollah could create an angry backlash in the country that ultimately leaves Iran without a protective Hezbollah shield, in that way making it much more vulnerable to Israeli or U.S. attacks.
Might Hezbollah go ahead anyway and reach the highest level of escalation? Perhaps. Miscalculation or recklessness is common in situations of passion like the one we are in. However, what we are seeing daily in southern Lebanon is the opposite. Both sides are strenuously respecting the established rules of engagement. Therefore, is Lebanon out of the woods? Certainly not. But it would mean that Iran and Hezbollah, if they eschew a full-scale assault against Israel, have injected flexibility into their so-called dialogue of deterrence with the Israelis, whose consequences or realities the other parties in the Axis of Resistance, such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, will have to consider in their future operations against Israel.
These realities may be based on a basic rule: Iran and Hezbollah will back you up for as long as they can, but not if this threatens their own survival, and not if it eliminates the shield Tehran has put in place to protect the Islamic Republic.
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