Another Israel-Hezbollah war?
Feb 26th, 2008 by MESH
From Michael Young
Another round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is certainly likely, but I don’t consider it inevitable, particularly in the short term. There are several reasons for this.
The first is that we have to understand the importance of Hezbollah in Iranian strategy at present. The party is not there to get caught up in repeated conflicts with Israel, let alone a new Lebanese civil war. It is mainly there to act as an Iranian deterrent against an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and more generally as a valuable lever in the Levant to use against Israel and the United States. In that context, war poses risks. With every conflict, the party loses some of its deterrence capability; at the same time, a conflict may impose unbearable human costs on the Shiite community, in such a way that Hezbollah’s ability to fight is further eroded. (Indeed, we are already in that situation today.) And, any new war will have deeply negative repercussions on Hezbollah’s domestic position, as a majority of Lebanese and Lebanese political forces reject the idea of again entering into a devastating war with Israel.
Add to that the time factor. Hezbollah is probably not yet ready to fight a war with Israel today, despite what Hasan Nasrallah has said in public recently. Shiites are deeply anxious about a new conflict a mere two years after the summer 2006 war; Hezbollah’s defensive infrastructure north of the Litani River appears to be incomplete; and the party cannot guarantee geographical continuity between south Lebanon and the southern and northern Bekaa Valley, though this is not essential for it to fight. These are all reasons why Hezbollah has to be careful in how it retaliates for the assassination of Imad Mughniyah. Provoking a major Israeli offensive is almost certainly not something Nasrallah wants to do today.
As for Nasrallah’s claim that the next war will involve an Israeli ground offensive, that’s not necessarily true. Israel has the potential to once again primarily employ air power to wreak the destruction it did in 2006—but also in 1993 and 1996—provoking a massive exodus of Shiite civilians and bombing infrastructure targets. This gruesome policy would create a humanitarian catastrophe that would mainly affect Hezbollah, and the party would find it difficult to respond in such a way that it could impose a balance of terror on Israel. Meanwhile, Lebanese anger with the party would have only heightened, further undercutting its support in society.
What about Israel? There may be a rationale for striking against Hezbollah before it’s too late. However, the Israeli priority today appears to be less Lebanon than Iran and its nuclear capacity. Lebanon is a sideshow—an important one, but a sideshow nonetheless. Paradoxically, Hezbollah’s reluctance to launch a war might encourage Israel to avert a conflict too. Why? Because both sides would calculate in terms of costs and benefits. Israel knows that it would be very difficult to score a knockout blow against Hezbollah in Lebanon. It does not want to risk getting caught up in a wider regional war via Lebanon. And a new Lebanon war would only make it more difficult to strike against Iran.
Given such uncertainty, each side is more likely to focus on its fundamental aims: Israel, on neutralizing Iran’s nuclear capacity; Hezbollah on partly deterring an Israeli attack against Iran. That means both may well try to avoid an unmanageable escalation in Lebanon.
Still, the most likely cause of war remains miscalculation. Here the risks are higher. Too devastating a Hezbollah response to the Mughniyah killing might provoke a fierce response from Israel. Conversely, another assassination of a Hezbollah official could prompt Hezbollah to react in increasingly less calculating ways, making a clash more probable. Even an Israeli offensive against Gaza may force Hezbollah to take steps in southern Lebanon to back its brethren in Hamas, and this may widen the conflict with Israel.
Then again, Hezbollah would have to calculate whether this might lead to a repeat of 2006, which also followed a Hamas raid in Gaza, the net result of which was to Hezbollah’s considerable disadvantage—all claims to a “divine victory” notwithstanding.
3 Responses to “Another Israel-Hezbollah war?”
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I completely agree with Michael Young’s opinion regarding the likelihood of a new conflict between Hezbollah and Israel. There is sure to be another round of fighting, true, but it likely will not happen anytime soon.
There are a few things worth highlighting, however, that Michael did not mention. On the Israeli side, the appointment of Gabi Ashkenazi—arguably the senior commander in the IDF with the most experience in southern Lebanon—was taken by many to be a sign that Israel was preparing for another round of fighting sooner rather than later. But just as surely as an IDF led by Gen. Ashkenazi would be better prepared to fight in southern Lebanon, someone with the general’s experience might be much more reluctant to embark upon a large ground offensive deep into the heart of the country from which he withdrew the IDF in 2000. Perhaps more than any other senior Israeli leader, Gen. Ashkenazi knows well the difficulties involved with large-scale operations in Lebanon.
In southern Lebanon, the addition of roughly 11,000 more troops to UNIFIL also changes the battlefield geometry. Analysts worry that UNIFIL’s mandate is too weak to effectively prevent another conflict, but they forget that Lebanon south of the Litani River is not a particularly large area. One of the things that has struck me in two visits south of the Litani River since the 2006 war has been how ubiquitous UNIFIL and the Lebanese Army have become. 13,000 UN peace-keepers—plus soldiers from the newly deployed Lebanese Army—take up a lot of space, and their presence must be accounted for in the plans of both Hezbollah and the IDF. In the event of full-scale conflict, it’s entirely possible that both Hezbollah and the IDF will simply fight though or around UNIFIL and the Lebanese Army. But regardless, they present a significant obstacle for commanders on both sides that was not present in 2006.
And finally, I have previously written about Hezbollah’s preparations north of the Litani River to which Michael alluded. I suspect—but cannot be sure, of course—that these positions north of the Litani are either meant to shield some of Hezbollah’s medium- and long-range rockets (which the Israel Air Force largely neutralized in the opening days of the 2006 war) or, more likely, are meant to deny Israeli armor columns a key axis of advance into the southern Bekaa Valley.
What is most curious about these Hezbollah positions, however, is why Hezbollah—in both 2006 and in its preparations for a new round of fighting—is largely organizing conventional defenses in the face of a threat from the IDF. Military analysts are always confused when groups that have previously enjoyed success in guerrilla warfare—such as the Irish in 1919-21 or the Algerians in 1954-62—feel the need to abandon guerrilla tactics and organize conventionally, even if they cannot hope to match their enemies in conventional strength.
Finally, if you had asked me on July 11, 2006 whether or not I thought there was going to be a war in southern Lebanon that summer, I would have answered no, and I would have been wrong. Along the same lines, although I agree that war is unlikely anytime soon, I can’t bring myself to rule out the possibility. I think we are all waiting to see what the aftershocks of Imad Mughniyah’s assassination will be, and Michael Young is wise to consider the possibility that another war might not take the shape of the war of 2006. It could be something much different. What is sure, though, is that it can only result in more suffering for both the people of Israel and Hezbollah’s Shia constituents.
Andrew Exum is a member of MESH.
Michael Young’s post does well to convey the nuance of the uncertainty. The key, as he notes, is Hezbollah’s response to the Mughniyah assassination. Hezbollah no doubt doesn’t want another war right now. It would be terribly unpopular in Lebanon, and likely wouldn’t help Hezbollah achieve its agenda of electing a pro-Syrian president and securing a blocking third in the cabinet.
Nevertheless, given Hezbollah’s track record, retaliation against Israel seems a foregone conclusion. Earlier this week, Israeli intelligence chief Amos Yadlin said as much. But what kind of target will Hezbollah choose? Is it realistic to expect that Hezbollah can calibrate its attack so that it demonstrates what it considers to be an appropriate response to the killing of Mughniyah—one of the organization’s top three all-time martyrs—while at the same not provoking another war with Israel?
Although neither Israel nor Hezbollah necessarily wants another war, it’s going to be difficult for Hezbollah, after it retaliates, to avoid what Michael refers to as unmanageable escalation in Lebanon. Indeed, one only has to look to the 2006 war for the last time things spun out of control. Sincere or not, it’s useful to recall Nasrallah’s televised apology of August 2006:
The miscalculation, of course, was that the routine kidnapping of IDF soldiers—something that in the past more likely would have resulted in a more measured response—just happened to occur when Israel was fighting another war in Gaza. Some conditions have changed, but many of the variables remain the same: Israel still sees itself in a war with Hamas in Gaza.
For all of these reasons, and others mentioned by Michael and Andrew, I think a return to fighting is likely. But well have to wait at least another three weeks or so until the end Mughniyah’s arba’in (forty days of mourning) to find out.
David Schenker is a member of MESH.
I largely agree with what Michael Young has written and believe it is an incisive analysis, as are the comments by Andrew Exum and David Schenker. I, too, believe that it does not appear to be in Hezbollah’s interest to heat things up too much at this point, but also fully accept Exum’s caution. The situation is very fragile and can escalate easily.
I believe, however, that another round is highly likely, sooner or later, if only because the battle against Israel is Hezbollah’s raison d’etre. It has undoubtedly evolved into an integral part of the Lebanese political scene and is the primary provider of social services to the Shiite population, but Hezbollah is first and foremost a jihadist organization, an Iranian proxy, committed to Israel’s destruction. So another round is a matter of timing and the pretext will be found.
One of the possibilities that worries me is that the next round may take place a few years from now when Iran already has a nuclear capability, which will be an entirly different ballgame. The following is the opening paragraph of a study I recently published on the Iranian issue:
If I were writing this today, I might simply put it off by a year or two and ask whether Mubarak is still in power in Egypt, or whether an Islamic regime has taken over and also decides to join the fun and games.
It does seem likely that the Iranians wish to preserve the rocket arsenal as a massive retaliatory deterrent against Israel, to be used if and when either the United States or Israel attacks their nuclear program. Indeed, Defense Minister Barak recently stated that the rocket arsenal had been fully rebuilt and tripled in size since the 2006 war. Depending on whose estimates of the prewar arsenal one accepts, Israel’s or Nasrallah’s, that would now mean between 39,000-60,000 rockets! Having made the mistake of using it too early once, they may be more careful and hesitant to do so next time—or not.
UNIFIL makes it harder for Hezbollah to operate but is at best only a partial solution. Hezbollah has fully redeployed north of the Litani and is gradually doing so in the south as well. It appears to have fully restored its capabilities within the towns in the south—actually, far more than restored—but is limited in its ability to redeploy and build up its positions in the open areas in between, where UNIFIL patrols. Moreover, there are already signs that the contributing countries are getting tired and may reduce their forces. In any event, it does nothing to prevent the flow of arms from Syria and Iran, via the Syrian border.
Bottom line, sooner or later, Lebanon will continue to be a source of joy for the peoples of the Middle East and beyond.
Chuck Freilich, former Israeli deputy national security adviser, is a senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.