We need an international coalition to save Lebanon

Hezbollah is a threat to global stability. This is how the world can respond.

While Israel has every right to respond to the unprovoked aggression on its northern border since October 7, 2023, it would be a strategic mistake to leap head first into a war in Lebanon without first pausing and issuing an appeal to the nations of the world to lead the fight. Because Hezbollah’s very existence threatens the region as a whole far more than Israel’s existence as a State.

It is critical to emphasize that the war against Hezbollah is separate and distinct from the war against Hamas. As important as it is to secure our Northern communities and bring life back into the Galilee, this is not an existential war for Israel. Israel will survive even the worst attacks by Hezbollah. Thousands may die, billions in property losses may accrue, but as a first-world country of nearly ten million people with strike capabilities that can destroy vast geographies, Israel will live to fight another day. Lebanon, Syria, and even Iran’s Tehranian core will not. That is why it is time for the world to dedicate itself to ending Hezbollah.

The ending of Hezbollah is a prerequisite to peace in the Middle East. Hezbollah affects far more than the inhabitants of Israel’s northern border on both sides: its strength destabilizes the government of Lebanon, its military subsidizes the research and development of the Iranian-Russian axis, its fighting force keeps the dictatorship of Assad in power in Syria. Its revenue requirements fuel the market for illicit substances from Asia to South America. Its intelligence service has become a source of expertise and training for fanatic militias around the world and gives most other state services the run-around. It is a threat to the US and Europe. Bottom line, it isn’t just Israel’s problem and it is high time it be addressed with utmost seriousness.

So long as the world considers Hezbollah Israel’s problem, the people of Lebanon will bleed, Iran and Russia will grow stronger, drug cartels will impose reigns of terror across South and Central America, and Assad will continue to massacre the peoples living in the cradle of civilization. The UN will not be able to enforce its own resolutions on the region – namely, that of 1701– until member nations do away with Hezbollah and the violence it perpetuates. There is no rescuing Lebanon or stabilizing Syria or building stable over-land trade relations between the Levant and the East until Hezbollah has either laid down its arms or closed its doors.

It is a mystery why the international community somehow made peace with Hezbollah’s existence as a rogue actor rooted within Lebanon. When the Islamic State conquered far less consequential swaths of territory from failed states, a global coalition dedicated itself to its destruction. Yet Hezbollah, a movement no less dedicated to the destabilization of the non-Muslim world and the conquest of non-Muslim lands, a movement baptized in the blood of American and French forces during the Lebanese civil war, a movement with an independent fighting force that rivals those of many European countries, has somehow been legitimized. It is time for us to call on the international community to act by any means possible.

It’s time for us to call on our allies to demand:

1. An end to the existence of two different militaries in Lebanon, the Lebanese Army and Hezbollah.
2. The complete withdrawal of any non-Lebanese Army forces from the areas patrolled by the UN peacekeeping forces to end the pantomime of UNIFIL, which at present does more to put international troops at risk than keep the peace.
3. The application of Westphalian rules on Lebanon, holding the government responsible for any violence conducted in or out of its territory, and thereby holding the Lebanese responsible if they allow a pyromaniacal organization to flourish in its midst.

Israel should not carry the whole burden of the fight against Hezbollah, especially given the current state of world opinion and the arms embargoes and trade slowdowns that have resulted. There is no doubt we can inflict major damage on Hezbollah. But so long as Israel acts alone, we will at best be delaying another inevitable showdown. We will win battles but not the war.

Until the world takes Hezbollah seriously – which will require deft diplomatic maneuvering by Israel to surface the recognition that Hezbollah is not its problem alone – humanity as a whole will remain under threat. The international community will be proven impotent. Armed gangs of religious fanatics will be emboldened. The international order will remain challenged. Israel can fight alone, and it may have to, but it shouldn’t so long as it has a chance to mobilize its allies to take this fight to its end. Until the stability-dedicated powers recognize that it is in their best interests to end Hezbollah, and that it is worth their investment to do so, Israel will be left alone carrying the burden and we will not know peace.