Does Hassan Nasrallah's killing mean regional war?

 

Even by the reckless standards set by Israel over the course of its war in Gaza, yesterday’s ratio of innocent victims to military target was gargantuan. The Hezbollah command bunker was located deep under several apartment blocks in Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahieyh. By some reports, Israel tried hitting the roof of the bunker in-between the buildings. By others, it just sent its bombs shearing through the buildings and the roof of the facility below. Either way, the tonnage was so vast that no one in the vicinity, above ground or beneath it, stood a chance. One account, relayed by security sources to Israeli journalist Ben Caspit, said a total of 85 tons - or 1700,000lbs - of bunker-busting bombs were dropped within seconds of each other. The apartment blocks simply evaporated; Lebanon’s initial account of 300 dead is likely to grow many times over, but the true number might never be known.

And yet, the significance of the one man for whom Israel staged this hecatomb was such that even within Lebanon, never mind outside it, almost all coverage and reaction focused on his fate alone.

For all its callousness, the killing of Hassan Nasrallah, perhaps the most iconic Arab figure since the end of the Cold War and one of the shrewdest and successful paramilitary leaders anywhere, represents a stunning intelligence and military triumph for Israel. (So far.)

It stands in stark contrast to the haplessness of Israeli response to the October 7 attack: both in terms of the depth of intelligence and preparation, and in terms of its ability to quickly build on each tactical success.

Up until last week, Israel appears to be as bound as Hezbollah by the rules of a dangerous tit-for-tat that saw Israeli repeatedly stage air raids in Lebanon even as Hezbollah lobbed missiles over the border, killing several doze civilians (including 11 children in one attack) and displacing tens of thousands of Israelis from the country’s north. But on 17 September, came the detonations of thousands of pagers, injected into Hezbollah’s supply chain via a multi-year undercover operation. Then, as Hezbollah scrambled to swap to walkie-talkies, these backup devices started blowing up, too. The immense casualty count and blow to Hezbollah image in morale was one goal; gathering further intelligence was another.

Having harvested granular information on the identities and whereabouts of the dead and wounded, Israel chose another prime target: Ibrahim Aqil, the chief of Hezbollah’s special ops unit. On 20 September, after being treated for his injuries in a pager explosion, Aqil checked himself out of hospital and convened a meeting of his most senior commanders in a small bunker they believed to be secure. Israel destroyed the bunker, wiping out Hezbollah’s elite command contingent in one swoop. Then came the attack on Ali Karaki, the commander of the entire Southern Front, just this past Tuesday. Karaki survived the attack - and arrived for a meeting with Nasrallah yesterday afternoon, in Hezbollah’s main bunker.

Tactically, this appears to be a string of unmitigated successes. Strategically, it all might well add up into a pyrrhic victory on an epic scale. If Iran decides to avenge the death of its most valuable proxy and/or try to restore its own deterrence by launching a major attack on Israel itself, these assassinations will end up plunging the region into a war between powerful states - with global powers, like the US, likely to join in too. This was certainly the operational assumption of many decision makers and analysts throughout the past year, not least to the notion of “unity of arenas” - the theorem, championed by Nassrallah, that held that Israel needs to come under continuous dynamic pressure by as many opponents as possible, including his own organisation, Hamas, the Houthis in Yemen and Iran itself.

This would certainly appear to be the most straightforward, linear forecast - and the one most consistent with three D’s of Israel’s own military strategy: deterrence, deterrence and deterrence. But despite its well-earned image of religious fervour and ideological rigidity, the Tehran regime has often proved itself to be the most unsentimental, considered and agile player in the Middle East. Whether or not a massive attack on Israel restores Iranian deterrence is an open question, given Israel’s proclivity to always and forever up the ante (perhaps a two more D’s should be added: disproportionate by default.); and as for avenging Nasrallah, it is important to remember that the relationship between a centre and its proxies is not at all the same as an alliance; proxies are meant to fight for the centre, not the other way around. Some in Iran’s leadership, starting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah 

At the same time, if rewards are uncertain, the losses in the event of all-out war are almost guaranteed. Intervening directly would almost certainly bring round a direct war between states, something the entire proxy system was specifically created to avoid. Moreover, rushing to avenge the crippling of two proxies (Hamas isn’t doing too well either) might lose Iran a third, the invaluable Houthis in Yemen, and their key leverage over the global oil economy via their vantage point over the Persian Gulf.

And then, of course, there is the timing: the newly elected reformist president of Tehran, Masoud Pezeshkian, has been at pains at the recent UN General Assembly to signal his country’s renewed interest in diplomacy, meeting not only with American officials but even Israeli academics. At the very least, a significant part of Iran’s government will try to hold back from a regional war until the American election in six weeks’ time.

So much for Iran’s considerations regarding for a regional war. The Israeli calculus may well be different. Netanyahu’s singular obsession in his career has been with Iran, whom he repeatedly caricatured as a new Third Reich - not least as a prop, one suspects, in his idée fixe of himself as Churchill. He came close to attacking Iran’s nuclear project in a spectacular fashion at least once before in his career, and the current chaos presents a deeply tempting opportunity to drag America in on his side as well.

But here, too, there are opposing forces.

First is Netanyahu’s own hesistancy; according to reports in the Israeli media, he had to be lobbied heavily by defence officials and ministers to give the green light to attack Nasrallah and to escalate the war, precisely because he feared a regional war happening on his watch but not on his own timeline.

Second is his uncertainty about the result of the American election, and the reluctance to alienate the new Democratic administration too early on - especially if he could wait a little longer for a much more pliable and excitable Donald Trump. And thirdly, the professional cadres of the Israeli army might have changed their position on a two-front war with both Hamas and Hezbollah - evidently - but they appear to be as circumspect and wary as ever of a direct war with Iran. This kind of recalcitrance has hobbled Netanyahu’s attempt to directly challenge Iran before, and might well do it again.

And finally, quitting while he’s ahead might well secure Netanyahu’s future in government: the war on Hamas has progressed better than anyone anticipated, the hostage issue has been effectively marginalised in the Israeli public sphere, and the decapitation of Hezbollah - Israel’s most feared, loathed and grudgingly respected enemy - is bound to translate into a polling bounce and perhaps prompt him to call a new election. Inviting a war with Iran that would, at the very least, pulverise Israeli cities even if Israel ultimately wins, might mean the death of his career just as it began, improbably, to recover. A costly ground incursion into Lebanon, however much he might be tempted to order it, may well mean the same thing. The success of the string of attacks in Beirut have created an improbable off-ramp - and if Washington decides, for once, to apply some formidable pressure, Netanyahu might be persuaded to start descending.

Anything could change in the blink of an eye here. Even the most rational actors miscalculate, and every escalation has its own dynamic; but counterintuitively, and at least at the very moment of writing, it seems that the path to de-escalation is almost as clear as the road to regional war. Whether the actors take it - and spare the rest of us - remains to be seen.