Expand ‘New Order’ to the broader region, to safeguard a global one.

On September 17th 2024, Hezbollah pagers began exploding simultaneously across Lebanon, but also Syria, Iraq and Yemen. These pager explosions were then followed by similar Walkie-Talkie explosions, exposing high-ranking Hezbollah members such as Hassan Nasrallah, Ibrahim Aqil and others to Israeli Air Force strikes. This series of consecutive blows has escalated tensions between the Iran-backed group and Israel, which had been in a war of attrition for the better part of the last year. As far as many analysts, commentators and foreign policy officials are concerned, these events have undoubtedly led both sides to all-out war, with Hezbollah having sought to avoid such a scenario since it began firing missiles and rockets towards Northern Israel on October 8th, displacing tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes. For many in Israel, including well-respected Israeli journals’ editorial boards, now is the time to move troops into Southern Lebanon and root out Hezbollah militants from the area. Whilst this may be tempting, and whilst a wider armed conflict is indeed necessary to preserve long-term Israeli security and to ensure that Western regional interests prevail (as ironic as that may seem), it can be argued that these concerns would be better served by a direct war against the Iranian regime and its nuclear weapons program which would provide Tehran and its proxies the deterrent needed to continue threatening regional stability, and thus the redefinition of the Middle East’s strategic landscape. In essence, their ability to hamper the creation of a “new” Middle Eastern order.

Firstly, in regard to Israel, a war with the objective of setting the regime’s nuclear weapons program back years can be considered more enviable than a full-blown war with Hezbollah. Two factors in particular can account for this, notably the facts that a war with Iran would undoubtedly take the form of a large aerial campaign- avoiding an incalculable number of deaths- and would be backed in full by the United States’ military might. This would reduce the amount of Israeli soldier and civilian lives lost, inflict more damage on Iran’s “axis of resistance” as they would not have a nuclear deterrent to fall back upon as a lifeline, and could see regime change if the Iranian populace were to seize the opportunity and overthrow the Ayatollahs in Tehran. However, that is not to say that a potential coalition should attempt regime change, that is a perilous endeavor which has led the US-led international order as a whole into uncharted territory as a result of the disastrous second Gulf War. The US would willingly join the war effort against their old foe in Iran, seeing it as an opportunity to ameliorate their strategic posture in the Middle East but also in the world at large as they could target weapons caches and factories which produce armaments for Iranian proxies and other hostile state actors, including Russia and Venezuela. A victory against Iran and its nuclear program would also send a strong message to China; Washington can and will deal with revisionist threats wherever they may be. The US would be able to effectively pivot away from the tumultuous Middle East, as it would have reestablished deterrence against rogue actors and would have avoided the risk of a regional arms race that would have come about as a consequence of a nuclear-armed Iranian regime all while ensuring that Beijing cannot step in to fill the role of foreign heavyweight that Washington has occupied since 1967. Moreover, on a military level, a destruction of Iran’s program would mean that proxies, from Hamas and Hezbollah to the Houthis would not be able to evade Israeli retaliation for any future disruptive actions.

Despite these valid points, Israeli and US officials (although tacitly in the latter’s case) decided to go for the second option it seems, pursue Hezbollah directly. The thinking surely goes: “why engage ourselves in a costly war against Iran when an eradication of its most powerful proxy could weaken its standing to a sufficient level, and on top of that, if there is no such proxy to threaten Israel and Western interests to such an extent that Hezbollah now does, who apart from Iran itself will fall back onto the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) in case of a nuclear armed regime?” That is a reasonable assumption. Hezbollah could be severely weakened, alongside Hamas in Gaza reducing the specter of various threats and severely degrading Tehran’s capacity to utilize the “ring of fire” strategy to its full devastating potential. The regime stripped of its crown jewel in Lebanese Hezbollah would see it weakened to such an extent that Tehran would have to go back to the drawing board and reconsider its strategy that it has put in place for the last three decades now. Unless any major battlefield surprises were to occur, such as a lightning quick offensive that were to destroy Hezbollah’s capacities to pose a significant threat to Israeli civilians in the north and elsewhere, it is clear that a ground incursion to push Hezbollah back to the Litani river (in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1701) would be devastating, especially considering that the Shia group has at its disposal far more firepower than Hamas and far more tunnels in the southern valleys similar but yet deeper underground compared to the “Gaza metro system.” Of course, considering recent developments, it is clear that Israel had far more intelligence on Hezbollah and its operations than it did on Hamas pre-October 7th, partly explaining why Israeli services have been able to deal successive major blows to the group in a matter of weeks when it has taken months to eliminate high-ranking Hamas figures such as Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh but also to start gaining tactical successes in Gaza. Yet even with their capabilities degraded and the more favorable battlefield terrain for the IDF (open valleys being easier to navigate than narrow urban streets), the Iran-backed group can still inflict heavy damages on both Israel and Western interests in the region; it’s estimated 150,000 rocket and missile supply can strike at the heart of Israel, overwhelming the Iron Dome, and its militants still in Syria and Iraq can carry out attacks against US and French bases and personnel. More US and Western losses, adding on to the three lives lost to an Iran-backed Iraqi militia drone attack in Jordan in January, could potentially encourage a future White House administration to hastily and chaotically pull its forces from the region, a victory for the Mullah’s “axis of resistance” but also for the global “axis of upheaval”— as Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Richard Fontaine dubbed the emerging coalition in a recent Foreign Affairs essay— as Washington will seem weak and vulnerable to the eyes of Khamenei, Putin, Kim Jong Un and Xi Jinping.

In spite of these concerns, the IDF seems poised for a ground incursion in southern Lebanon (and by the time of publication may have already launched its assault). Israel, as it has proven throughout these last few weeks, has learned its lessons from the 2006 war, entering the country better prepared and with numerous advantages. Foreign policy thinkers and officials such as former US National Security advisor John Bolton have signalled their support for both a ground incursion into Lebanon and a broader offensive against the Iranian regime, however as history has shown, hubris must be avoided. Lessons in failed Middle East policy for Israel, the US and the West at large must be heeded, notably Operation Iraqi Freedom and the refusal to go into Syria after having set a clear redline for the Assad regime. In case of a broader offensive against Iran, Washington in particular should make sure that by preventing a regional arms race it does not involuntarily trigger a global arms race by convincing regimes in Caracas or Pyongyang that they should develop large, long-range, nuclear arsenals to secure their hold on power. In sum, a war, whether against Hezbollah, Iran’s sadistic tyrants or both must be both calibrated but also firm, adapting to lessons learned and allowing for Israel and the West to safeguard their regional and global interests in countering an emerging axis with the goal of toppling the unipolar world order and the peace dividend which has prevailed since the end of what may soon be considered as having only been Cold War I.

(NOTE: SUBMITTED BEFORE THE IRANIAN BALLISTIC MISSILE ATTACK ON OCTOBER 1st)