Hezbollah and Hamas left twisting in the wind

Iran has completely shielded itself from the war in Lebanon in the same way that it had isolated itself from the war in Gaza.

The escalation which the countries of the region and the rest of the world had feared turned into a “restrained” Israeli attack on Iran, ushering in a possible step towards appeasement.

The full picture of the attack, how it was carried out and what damage it has caused is not yet clear. However, what is clear is that the Israelis calibrated their response in terms of scope and timing in a way that would not elicit any Iranian response. It would be naive to assume that Israel, which used more than 100 fighter jets to carry out the military mission, feared an Iranian reaction after the attack. The fighter jets included the advanced fifth-generation F-35 stealth jets as well as fourth-generation F-16s and F-15s, were first developed and manufactured by the United States in the 1970s. The military aircraft struck targets deep inside Iran, including even some on the outskirts of Tehran.

The Iranian anti-aircraft missiles could not shoot down any of the Israeli warplanes and no Iranian fighter jets ventured to confront them at the end of their mission, refraining from using the ambush tactics any air-force is normally taught. The Israeli pilots safely returned to base.

Israel never worried about an Iranian counter-attack having seen the impact of two previous major barrages launched by Tehran.  Iran used drones, cruise missiles, regular and hypersonic ballistic missiles but caused virtually no casualties on the ground.

The Americans tried to disrupt the Israeli retaliatory attack. The leak of documents about preparations for the attack, which is the subject of an ongoing investigation in the United States, was nothing but an attempt to obstruct the assault by divulging some of its details beforehand.

After the attack, the Americans leaked statements by senior officials revealing that they had been in contact with the Iranians, which meant they had told Tehran in advance about the type of “restraint” which would mark the Israeli response.

Well before 24 hours had elapsed, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wasted no time to talk about the Israeli attack. It was clear from his remarks that Iran was not about to react. Israeli self-restraint was met by Iranian self-restraint.

But this self-restraint is bad news for Hezbollah. Hamas on the other hand is well beyond bad news. The Israeli campaign continued with Yahya Sinwar being killed but no one talked about an Iranian retaliation to avenge him. How could Tehran avenge Sinwar when it did not even react to the killing Ismail Haniyeh on its own soil?

But the situation is different with Hezbollah.

Israel has exhausted its bank of valuable targets. Hassan Nasrallah, the iconic leader of Hezbollah, was killed, and after him his lookalike and expected successor Hashem Safieddine was also eliminated.  Along with them, all the top leaders of Hezbollah were killed. Does the new secretary general of Hezbollah Naim Qassem, for example, expect Iran to avenge him if he is ever targeted by the Israelis? He is certainly not that delusional.

The bad news for Hezbollah is illustrated by the continuous heavy bombardment of south Lebanon, Beirut’s southern suburbs and the Bekaa Valley. In contrast to the situation in Gaza, where the displaced have moved from one dangerous place to another, even more dangerous part of the enclave, Israel is exerting pressure on Lebanon, which is a country offering many safe pockets for the displaced.

There are areas for Sunnis, areas for Maronite Christians, Orthodox Christians, Armenians and areas for the Druze. The displaced from the south have begun moving to such areas without fear of being targeted. What the Lebanese say to each other and to those they receive in their midst from the south or from the Beirut suburbs is do not bring Hezbollah leaders nor money with you, in order to avoid all Lebanese becoming Israeli targets.

The message in the Keserwan and Jbeil strikes was clear from this perspective. Israel helped the Syrian regime steer away from the conflict in Lebanon, when it carried out more than one strike on the official border crossings, thus preventing the cross-border escape of key Hezbollah figures into Syria and from there to Iran. The strikes also prevented the transfer of Iranian weapons through Syria.

In Lebanon, Israel relieved itself from the type of moral burden it had to bear in its criminal campaign in Gaza, by dropping notifications from drones and sending out text messages on Lebanon’s hacked phone network about targets in the South, the suburbs and the Bekaa Valley.

They called on residents of these areas to seek safety in Sunni, Christian and Druze areas, so that it could finish the destruction of the infrastructure in Shia areas. Israel wins twice with this strategy. It wins by not targeting the displaced who seek refuge in “safe” areas and by putting all Lebanese from all sects to the test of patriotism.

Economically-devastated Lebanon is drowning in more than a million internally-displaced people whose flight is wreaking havoc on the already-dilapidated infrastructure in the Sunni, Christian and Druze areas.  This is likely to fuel more discontent and heap pressure on Hezbollah’s constituencies, which will be pushed to revolt against the party whose decisions have caused the dire predicament they now face.

Even Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is no more; and is in a place where he cannot be blamed nor called upon for help. In the meanwhile, Iran has completely shielded itself from the war in Lebanon in the same way that it had isolated itself from the war in Gaza.

In military tactics, major combat units at the level of brigades, divisions and corps set up smaller units to serve as advanced detection and disruption companies and regiments, usually dug in blocking trenches. Their mission is to monitor enemy attacks and disrupt them until it is decided whether or not to send larger combat units, either pre-emptively or as a calculated manoeuvre.

The commanders of the major military formations are prepared for losses among these smaller forward units in order to shield their most important units. Anyone who has followed the Iraq-Iran war, for example, knows that the smaller forward units put soldiers and officers in the worst positions imaginable, given the constant depletion of their ranks and the awareness of their senior officers that they will inevitably lose, either by being ordered to withdraw to cut losses, or facing martyrdom and capture.

For a moment, Hamas acted as if it was part of a smaller forward unit and that Iran was coming to its rescue. For about a year, Hezbollah acted as if it were part of smaller forward unit which the Israelis would not dare assail for fear of an Iranian counter-attack.

After the first year of the “Al-Aqsa Flood,” there was nothing left of the Hamas as a forward unit that could be considered a military force, as Israel destroyed the group’s military infrastructure and then killed their political and military leaders.

The same scenario is being repeated with Hezbollah, but with the difference in capabilities available to the Lebanese militant party, on which Iran spent billions in armament, organisation and training.

Hezbollah had imagined that it could withstand the impact of a showdown with Israel. But when the latter completed the destruction of Gaza and turned to the northern front, it ended up inflicting catastrophic damage on the group, not only by killing Nasrallah, a cataclysmic move in itself, but also by killing and wounding thousands of the party’s fighters and cadres in the dramatic pager-walkie-talkie attacks.

By all accounts, the blow directed at Hezbollah was more severe than that which targeted Hamas.  Now the party’s capabilities are eroded and there is no hope of rebalancing the front line since the Supreme Leader Khamenei has decided to limit the Iranian response.

The scene in Lebanon is turning into something similar to that of Gaza with the existence of safe areas. The Europeans are unable to do anything to stop Israel, and the Lebanese themselves know that neither the United States nor Israel will accept a return to Resolution 1701. To add salt to injury in the case of Hezbollah, no one is taking the initiative of talking about truce negotiations in Doha, Cairo or anywhere else.

Hezbollah is now left to its own fate. It is also the first to realise that breaking the glass widow of Netanyahu’s bedroom with a drone strike will not prevent the Israelis from continuing their destructive onslaught. All the talk about a Syrian front, an Iraqi front or a Yemeni front has no meaning in the face of merciless strikes bringing down the buildings of the Beirut suburbs one by one.

Perhaps the starkest irony in this war is that Israel had provided Hamas and Hezbollah with the opportunity to retreat and accept defeat and hence be able to salvage whatever power or influence they had left.

Israel killed the main leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, especially Haniyeh, Sinwar, Nasrallah, and Safieddine, who would have found it difficult to climb down from their rhetorical thunderings against Israel. Their successors would argue that the fate of Hamas and Hezbollah is at stake, and even Iran itself may think this way, and that they must accept any offer as long as it prevents Israel from completing their destruction.

Iran itself stands to lose yet further with a likely surprise turnabout from Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and with the realisation that not all Iraqis are a Popular Mobilisation Forces members and that not all Yemenis are Houthis. A resounding defeat is in offing, and accepting it will be psychologically and politically painful. But has Israel left Iran, as well as its erstwhile protective belt and its fallen forward units any other option?

Haitham El Zobaidi is the Executive Editor of Al Arab Publishing House.