Hussein Ibish: “During a year of conflict in the Middle East, Israel and the Palestinians have bled while Iran and its regional allies have benefited at virtually no cost. Now Israel appears to have reshaped the landscape with its devastating war on Iran’s most powerful proxy, Hezbollah, in Lebanon. Hezbollah’s leadership is decimated, its command and control in disarray, and its intelligence and inner workings thoroughly penetrated, exposed, and vulnerable. Its personnel and heavy equipment are being degraded on a daily basis. Tehran’s strategy of relying on Hezbollah and other militant groups to provide an Arab-forward defense against Israeli or American attacks on Iran’s homeland or nuclear facilities appears to be failing, potentially decisively. [https://theatln.tc/DCS9tXwM](https://theatln.tc/DCS9tXwM)
“Hezbollah is entirely a creature of Tehran, unlike Hamas and the Houthis, which, though backed by Iran, were not founded under the Islamic Republic’s tutelage and have religious and political differences with it … As such, Hezbollah has defined its regional role almost entirely around Iran’s objectives …”
“Under Hassan Nasrallah, the leader killed in an Israeli strike on Friday in Beirut, Hezbollah became the driving ideological force within Iran’s so-called Axis of Resistance in the Arab world … Nasrallah coined the phrase ‘unity of fronts’ to suggest that the various Iran-backed militias would all act together in relative harmony and coherence, or at least mutual support, even when their interests diverged.”
“As useful as this framing has been, it may also have proved to be a fatal miscalculation—literally—for Nasrallah and other Hezbollah leaders since October 7. Some reports suggest that, in the summer of 2023, Hamas officials floated the prospect of an offensive against the Jewish state to Hezbollah and Iranian leaders. Hezbollah and Iran apparently took the conversation as aspirational and vague rather than as a specific plan. When Hamas attacked southern Israel from the Gaza Strip on October 7, Hezbollah therefore faced a crisis.
“Nasrallah’s rhetoric of unity, along with Hezbollah’s longtime encouragement of Hamas’s fight against Israel, left the Lebanese group vulnerable to Hamas’s demand for assistance in the new war. But this was not Hezbollah’s assignment from Iran. Gaza has no strategic, religious, historic, or cultural significance for Iran or Hezbollah. Hamas, a Sunni group, fits very awkwardly into Iran’s otherwise almost entirely Shiite alliance …”
“In the past year, even the most cautious Israeli leaders began to see advantages to a major offensive against Hezbollah. By degrading and humiliating the Lebanese group, Israel could inflict a heavy price on Iran and its regional network. Israel’s willingness to court a broader conflict gave it ‘escalation dominance,’ the ability to control the pace and intensity of the confrontation. When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared at the United Nations General Assembly meeting last week that Israel is ‘winning,’ he was alluding to this dynamic. At least in the short run, Israel has achieved its goals of inflicting a heavy price on Iran and restoring the reputation of its own security services, which had been publicly discredited by their failure to prevent the October 7 attack …”
“Hezbollah is now caught in a trap of its own making.”
“Israel’s willingness to court a broader conflict gave it ‘escalation dominance,’ the ability to control the pace and intensity of the confrontation.”
This is so underrated, and an advantage typically left to the aggressor (terrorist) forces. One of the great advantages of an insurgency force is the ability to strike when and where they want.
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Hussein Ibish: “During a year of conflict in the Middle East, Israel and the Palestinians have bled while Iran and its regional allies have benefited at virtually no cost. Now Israel appears to have reshaped the landscape with its devastating war on Iran’s most powerful proxy, Hezbollah, in Lebanon. Hezbollah’s leadership is decimated, its command and control in disarray, and its intelligence and inner workings thoroughly penetrated, exposed, and vulnerable. Its personnel and heavy equipment are being degraded on a daily basis. Tehran’s strategy of relying on Hezbollah and other militant groups to provide an Arab-forward defense against Israeli or American attacks on Iran’s homeland or nuclear facilities appears to be failing, potentially decisively. [https://theatln.tc/DCS9tXwM](https://theatln.tc/DCS9tXwM)
“Hezbollah is entirely a creature of Tehran, unlike Hamas and the Houthis, which, though backed by Iran, were not founded under the Islamic Republic’s tutelage and have religious and political differences with it … As such, Hezbollah has defined its regional role almost entirely around Iran’s objectives …”
“Under Hassan Nasrallah, the leader killed in an Israeli strike on Friday in Beirut, Hezbollah became the driving ideological force within Iran’s so-called Axis of Resistance in the Arab world … Nasrallah coined the phrase ‘unity of fronts’ to suggest that the various Iran-backed militias would all act together in relative harmony and coherence, or at least mutual support, even when their interests diverged.”
“As useful as this framing has been, it may also have proved to be a fatal miscalculation—literally—for Nasrallah and other Hezbollah leaders since October 7. Some reports suggest that, in the summer of 2023, Hamas officials floated the prospect of an offensive against the Jewish state to Hezbollah and Iranian leaders. Hezbollah and Iran apparently took the conversation as aspirational and vague rather than as a specific plan. When Hamas attacked southern Israel from the Gaza Strip on October 7, Hezbollah therefore faced a crisis.
“Nasrallah’s rhetoric of unity, along with Hezbollah’s longtime encouragement of Hamas’s fight against Israel, left the Lebanese group vulnerable to Hamas’s demand for assistance in the new war. But this was not Hezbollah’s assignment from Iran. Gaza has no strategic, religious, historic, or cultural significance for Iran or Hezbollah. Hamas, a Sunni group, fits very awkwardly into Iran’s otherwise almost entirely Shiite alliance …”
“In the past year, even the most cautious Israeli leaders began to see advantages to a major offensive against Hezbollah. By degrading and humiliating the Lebanese group, Israel could inflict a heavy price on Iran and its regional network. Israel’s willingness to court a broader conflict gave it ‘escalation dominance,’ the ability to control the pace and intensity of the confrontation. When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared at the United Nations General Assembly meeting last week that Israel is ‘winning,’ he was alluding to this dynamic. At least in the short run, Israel has achieved its goals of inflicting a heavy price on Iran and restoring the reputation of its own security services, which had been publicly discredited by their failure to prevent the October 7 attack …”
“Hezbollah is now caught in a trap of its own making.”
Read more here: [https://theatln.tc/DCS9tXwM](https://theatln.tc/DCS9tXwM)
“Israel’s willingness to court a broader conflict gave it ‘escalation dominance,’ the ability to control the pace and intensity of the confrontation.”
This is so underrated, and an advantage typically left to the aggressor (terrorist) forces. One of the great advantages of an insurgency force is the ability to strike when and where they want.