Where We Are: ME Edition

Two developments today, both alluded to by Scott below. First, Israel has evidently determined to commit to some kind of ground operation in southern Lebanon:

The invasion, which the Israeli military confirmed early Tuesday, is aimed at crippling Hezbollah’s forces and infrastructure in an area of southern Lebanon that the armed group controls, and where it has been known to build underground tunnels leading into Israel.

The incursion comes after two weeks of intensive Israeli airstrikes and attacks against the Iranian-backed Lebanese armed group involving exploding pagers and radios. Israeli officials said the assaults were intended in part to eliminate the group’s leadership; an airstrike on Friday killed Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah. But officials had also suggested the attacks could remove the need for a ground invasion.

The reasoning is twofold; first, to reduce the impact of rocket fire on civilian population in northern Israel (some settlements have been depopulated) and second to avoid a repeat of October 7 on Israel’s other contested border. How someone could look at the fallout from 10/7 and say “hey, let’s try that!” mystifies me but this is the Middle East, so who knows?

The other thing that happened today appears to be a somewhat toned-down replay of the ballistic missile assault that Iran launched against Israel a few months ago:

Israel has now reportedly reopened its airspace, suggesting that the Iranian missile attack is now over.

The Israeli military has also told residents across the country that they are “permitted to leave protected spaces.” This comes around an hour after the first ballistic missiles arrived over Israel. The IDF provided the following statement:

“Following the situational assessment, it was decided that it is now permitted to leave protected spaces in all areas across the country. We request that the public continue to follow the Home Front Command’s guidelines.”

In his latest televised address, IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said there were no reports of injuries on the ground and that Iran is believed to have fired around 200 missiles.

Where is this going? Some thoughts:

• If you’re saying to yourself “Israeli ops against Hezbollah are pointless because decapitation never works,” hit the pause button on that comment, bro. The lit on decapitation is very long and none of it agrees much with the other lit, and in any case no country has ever decapitated a terrorist org to the extent that Israel has decapitated Hezbollah. So we’re in uncharted territory.
• The prospect of Israel getting bogged down in southern Lebanon is real. Hezbollah’s fighting power has certainly been undercut by the destruction of its leadership and its communications networks, but it’s always easier to fight on the defensive. That said, Israel at this point is probably willing to accept getting bogged down if it prevents a 10/7 style incursion from the north.
• Iran doesn’t appear to be able to do anything useful in the short-term to affect this conflict. Israel’s missile defenses are very tough to crack, and most of Iran’s other tools are of limited efficacy. If I were Israel I’d worry a great deal about the conversations in Tehran about “how do we restore our deterrent threat against Israel,” tho.
• The diplomatic fallout for Israel in this conflict has been limited by the fact that no one really likes the main targets of Israeli military action. Everyone in the region is neutral-to-happy about Israel damaging Iran, and no one has much affection for Hamas (Palestinian civilians are a different story) or Hezbollah. I don’t think that the US is seeing much pressure from Riyadh to yank the leash on Israeli activity in Lebanon, or against Iran, or against the Houthis.

I told my students back in the immediate aftermath of 10/7 that the Israeli response was going to be Bad. I wish that the conversation that day had been more about how Hamas was triggering what was likely to be the most catastrophic event for Palestinian national liberation since the Nakba, but many folks decided to go a different direction. At this point it looks to me that Israel is going to accomplish most of its goals (severe damage to Hamas, severe damage to Hezbollah, humiliation for Iran) at a cost that Jerusalem will regard as acceptable.