A wider war carries huge risks for Israel, but also opportunities (original) (raw)

A year has passed since the horrific Hamas massacre of Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023. Approximately 100 Israeli hostages remain in Gaza, with dozens presumed dead and the fate of others unknown. Tens of thousands of Hamas terrorists and ordinary Gazans have been killed, along with hundreds of Israeli soldiers. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is accused of perpetuating the war with no strategic end point; terrorist chief Yahya Sinwar “has become fatalistic after nearly a year of war in Gaza,” the New York Times reports. “His attitude has hardened in recent weeks, U.S. officials say, and American negotiators now believe that Hamas has no intention of reaching a deal with Israel.” Jews are reeling from a surge of violent and virulent antisemitism in the United States and around the world. Matters could hardly have appeared more bleak.

And then Israel launched a daring assault on Hezbollah, which had forced more than 100,000 Israeli citizens to abandon their homes in an ongoing downpour of missiles (a war crime) fired from Lebanon. First Israel blew up the terrorists’ pagers, then their walkie-talkies, wiping out scores of fighters. Subsequent strikes decapitated Hezbollah’s leadership, knocking out the group’s infamous chief, Hasan Nasrallah, as well as an estimated half of Hezbollah’s arsenal. A limited Israeli ground operation and airstrikes continue.

It would be a gross understatement to say that the regional balance of power has vastly changed in the last year. The devastation of its most heavily armed proxy comes as a shock and humiliation to Hezbollah’s patron, Iran. Its feckless and limited airstrike on Israel signaled that it has neither the capacity nor the will for an all-out war with Israel, which is poised for a counterstrike. The Biden administration has encouraged Israel to be selective in its response, avoiding, for example, Iran’s refineries. But if we have learned anything over the past year. it is that Israel, a sovereign nation, makes its own decisions, sometimes taking U.S. concerns into account and sometimes defying them.

The “wider war” that the Biden administration tried to prevent is well underway. More death and destruction will follow as the hostages (however many remain alive) languish in Gaza and their loved ones, indeed the entire Israeli population, agonize.

Follow Jennifer Rubin

Yet despite this dismal state of affairs, the widened hostilities create opportunities to change the dynamic in the region. Along with the risk of a devastating full-blown conflict with Iran, “unexpected opportunities will also come — to undermine Iranian malign influence in the region, for example, by actively impeding its efforts to reconstitute Hezbollah,” Jonathan Panikoff, director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council, told the New York Times.

As for Lebanon, Middle East negotiator Dennis B. Ross observed, “Hezbollah has ruled Lebanon and turned it into a failed state. It was responsible for killing Hariri, the Port explosion, no president since Nov. 1, 2022. With Nasrallah and the leadership of Hezbollah gone, it is time for Lebanese gov. and military to take back the state.” President Joe Biden has expressed the same sentiment.

Regarding the other players in the region (i.e., Iran, Israel, Hamas, Palestinian civilians), a cessation of hostilities seems more elusive than ever, but events have transformed the conflict. First, after Israel’s recovery from the devastating military failure of Oct. 7, its strategic offensive against Hezbollah has reestablished its deterrence, dealt a seismic blow to Iran and given Netanyahu a political boost.

Paul Salem of the Middle East Institute writes, “The current rout of Hezbollah leaves Iran profoundly vulnerable. Much will depend on what Iran and Israel do next. For the Iranians, their primary and narrow option is to try to find a way to de-escalate, slow or stop the Israeli onslaught, and effectively buy years of time — to review and revise their overall strategy, and to rebuild Hezbollah’s leadership and capacities.” The alternative “would be to build a more powerful deterrent, which would be a nuclear weapon; but it might be too late for that. If Iran tries now to make a run for it, Israel — with backing from the U.S. — will undertake airstrikes on as many Iranian security facilities, nuclear and otherwise, as it can manage.”

Second, Sinwar’s hope that a wider war would improve Hamas’s position has been dashed. He has no means of achieving anything that looks remotely like victory. Perhaps, with talk swirling that Israel may consider a deal to end the hostilities that includes allowing Sinwar to go into exile and the hostages to return, he will finally end Gaza’s misery and simply leave.

It is still conceivable, if one squints and strains, to imagine a positive outcome: Hezbollah a shadow of its former self and no longer terrorizing Israeli civilians; Iran rebuked and unenthusiastic in the short term about rearming its proxies; and an Israel-Saudi deal for recognition with some generalized path to Palestinian self-determination. But the chasm between realizing that sunny outcome and the current multi-side hostilities is vast. Much will depend on whether Netanyahu’s political horizon has been extended due to Israel’s success against Hezbollah, and the results of the U.S. election.

A second Donald Trump term in the United States and an invigorated Netanyahu in Israel would be a recipe for endless war; a new Israeli government and a Kamala Harris administration, however, might open opportunities for compromise and reconciliation. In the Trump-Netanyahu future, the wider war probably would bring the risk of regional conflagration, drawing the United States further into the conflict; with Harris and a new Israeli government, the result of the wider war might actually be at least a cessation in fighting, a time for recovery from the trauma of the last year and then something better, something other than the prospect for more death and suffering.