In recent months Israel stunned the world by demonstrating that it was able to take out, almost at will, the heads of Hamas and Hezbollah, the top political and military leadership of the two groups, a number of senior Iranian generals advising them, and as well, detonating thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies carried by Hezbollah terrorists causing widespread death and injury. And while all this was going on, as The New York Times reported, Israel “mount[ed] one of the most intense and deadliest bombardments in modern warfare.”
It is telling that through all of the immense damage to their interests, neither Iran nor its proxies made determined efforts to retaliate. Even, Iran – which is the sponsor and the presumed the protector of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis – pulled its punches after the Haniyeh assassination and effectively told Hezbollah to lose its number after the Nasrallah assassination.
Thus, The New York Times reports that Iran’s Supreme Leader, who regularly interacted with Nasrallah and had been deeply shaken by his death, instead of lashing out at Israel, issued two restrained statements, praising Nasrallah as a leading figure in the Muslim world and saying that Iran would stand by Hezbollah. But he also signaled that “[i]t will be Hezbollah, at the helm of the resistance forces that will determine the fate of the region.”
He was echoed in this by General Hossein Salami, the commander in chief of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, who said that it would be “Hezbollah, Hamas, and other Palestinian militants” that would deliver the retaliatory blows to Israel.
Interestingly, The New York Times reports that four Iranian officials told them in telephone interviews that “news of Mr. Nasrallah’s death cast a pall of shock and anxiety over senior officials who wondered in private calls and during emergency meetings if Israel would strike Iran next, and if Mr. Khamenei would be its next target.”
Sanam Vakil, the director for Middle East at Chatham House told The New York Times that the Iranians “are completely checkmated by Israel at this moment…. Khamenei’s statement is indicative of the gravity of the moment and the caution; he is not publicly committing to anything that he can’t deliver.”
As we see it, Israel has not only shown that it is even beyond the cutting edge in the areas of military skills, intelligence, technology, and innovation. It is now also clear that Israel has figured out how to counteract Hezbollah’s vast rocket arsenal, and the threats posed by Iran and its other surrogates as well, by compromising their security apparatuses, degrading their military infrastructure, upending their communications systems, eliminating their leadership and credibly putting their leaders in constant fear of their lives going forward.
It has also cowed Iran and its surrogates such that Israel is now positioned to once again attract its Arab neighbors into an Abraham Accords alliance in opposition to Iran in which Israel would serve as the military, economic and technological linchpin. And once again, Israel has demonstrated its great value as an ally in promoting U.S. and western interests in that part of the world.
To be sure there are those who will argue that what is really in play is the fear of U.S. involvement and the knowledge that the U.S. would never allow Israel to go under even if it did not support some bold, provocative actions on Israel’s part. Yet Israeli prowess here was nothing short of astounding and certainly the necessary predicate. And, of course, the U.S. now has an incentive to rejuvenate its push for the expansion of the Abraham Accords.
Hopefully the Biden Administration and Saudi Arabia will get past their Palestinian state obsessions and recognize what happened these past few months in the Middle East for the great opportunities they present.
