At Fault
Welcome to Home & Away. The Middle East has taken up a lot of space in this newsletter over the past year, so it seems only right that it takes up the lion’s share of this week’s newsletter given that we will soon be marking the one-year anniversary of the October 7 attack on Israel.
Fault Lines
The Middle East resembles nothing so much as an earthquake zone, one characterized by multiple fault-lines. This week, fighting increased sharply along one of those fault-lines, Israel’s border with Lebanon, and more specifically, between Israel and Hezbollah. This in turn triggered activity along another fault-line, as Iran retaliated in response to Israel’s actions against Hezbollah by launching ballistic missiles from its territory. Israel in turn vowed to respond severely against Iran. Less clear is what will come next, either along these particular fault lines or across the region.
What made Israel’s escalation against Hezbollah all but inevitable were rocket strikes by Hezbollah against Israel in the aftermath of October 7, Israel’s decision to evacuate some sixty thousand of its citizens away from the northern border so as to shield them from the risk of attacks similar to Hamas’ on October 7, and the mounting exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israel that made it impossible for those Israelis to safely return to their homes even a year into the war.
What enabled the emergence of this new front, however, is the reality that the situation in Gaza had reached something of a new equilibrium. Over the past year, Israel has sharply degraded the military threat posed by Hamas. Some ten to twenty thousand of its fighters have been killed and many of its leaders have either been assassinated or forced into indefinite hiding in Gaza’s tunnels. Israel clearly determined it could safely turn much of its focus away from Gaza to its north and to Hezbollah.
What Israel has accomplished thus far against Hezbollah and its leadership (now largely former leadership) is impressive. First by implanting explosives into pagers and walkie-talkies, then by targeted aerial bombardment, Israel decimated its senior leadership, including Hassan Nasrallah, its leader for over three decades, and also killed a significant number of Hezbollah fighters.
After Israel’s costly intelligence failures in the lead-up to October 7, these attacks against Hezbollah have revived the prestige of the Israeli security establishment by demonstrating its continued ability to gain precise intelligence about enemy groups and their leaders and then exploit that intelligence in a decisive fashion. The notion that Israel and Hezbollah had reached something of a standoff, in which Israel was sufficiently deterred from more forceful action by Hezbollah’s ability to unleash a missile barrage against Israel, has been debunked.
Israel followed up its covert operations and air attacks with a ground incursion into Lebanon of unknown extent and duration. Also unclear is the purpose. Eliminating Hezbollah is impossible, and the occupation of large swaths of Lebanon would be ill-advised given Israel’s failed history with such undertakings. Current Israeli policy seems designed more to discourage Hezbollah from further attacks, but this too may prove impossible. Although Israel has seriously weakened the organization, it still maintains a sizeable fighting force that remains a dangerous foe, especially in any war fought mostly on its home turf.
Hezbollah faces a decision as it installs its new leaders. It must decide whether and how to respond to Israel, understanding that the more it does in the way of retaliation, the more it will invite strong Israeli military action. All of which is to say it is far from clear where all this is leading.
One can be sympathetic to what Israel has done in Lebanon while critical of what it has done, and failed to do, in Gaza. Hamas, like Hezbollah, is a terrorist organization backed by Iran that seeks Israel’s destruction. But that is where the similarities end. Hamas is a national liberation movement that has support from elements of the native Palestinian population. Hezbollah, by contrast, is now primarily an instrument of Iranian foreign policy, one with little to do with the aspirations of the Lebanese or Palestinian peoples.
In addition, no country would countenance living with a threat that required tens of thousands of its citizens to vacate their homes and out of harm’s way. The Lebanese government also forfeits some of the normal advantages of sovereignty as it is not currently equipped to fulfill the obligation of ensuring its territory is not used by terrorists (in this case by Hezbollah) to attack another country.
For its part, Iran has reacted to these attacks on what was perceived to be its strongest proxy by taking what could be the fateful step of attacking Israel directly. I am frankly surprised that Iran did this, although it is possible its leaders felt compelled to do so lest they look weak. Or they may have thought they could thread the needle by acting against Israel without provoking a meaningful military response. But Iran has now provided Israel with the justification that it may have been seeking to retaliate, for instance by attacking nuclear sites and military targets, or even energy-related facilities central to its economy, steps Israel proved it had the capabilities to execute in April in the aftermath of an unsuccessful Iranian drone and missile attack.
Striking Iran directly is something many Israelis would welcome, as they have grown weary of dealing with its many proxies. After years of indirect conflict, there is significant domestic appetite for “going to the source,” with the hope that doing so would persuade Iran to curtail its provision of support for said proxies. Some even appear to believe such attacks could trigger events that would bring about the downfall of the Iranian regime; indeed, earlier this week Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that “When Iran is finally free—and that moment will come a lot sooner than people think—everything will be different.”
While regime change cannot be ruled out, it is far from likely, much less assured. Also far from clear is what sort of government might take the place of the current one and whether it would be preferable from a U.S. or Israeli perspective. All that said, the current Iranian regime is more likely than not to weather whatever storm comes its way, find ways to attack Israeli and western targets through sabotage and terrorism, interfere with regional oil production and shipping, and, most consequentially, determine that it should expedite its efforts to develop nuclear weapons of its own to deter such attacks down the road.
In short, we may well be nearing a turning point in the Middle East. What we don’t know is where the turn would take us.
Disarray
Second, I want to highlight a thoughtful piece by Roger Cohen that appeared in the New York Times this past weekend. The article (full disclosure: I am cited in it) echoes the themes I put forward in my 2017 book, A World in Disarray. What is different today is that the world is even messier. There are more actors (state and non-state alike) with greater capacity and desire to disrupt the status quo, all too often in a destructive manner. Then there is the new alignment among China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia (something I wrote about last week) with the will and ability to challenge the United States and its allies throughout the world. And there is the reality that the United States and many of its allies are suffering from internal divisions that make it difficult for them to carry out a robust foreign policy able to meet the challenges of the day or play their historical role in maintaining order. Added together, this is a recipe for mounting disorder, disorder that would likely increase if Donald Trump were to be the next occupant of the Oval Office.
Lessons & Legacies
Third, a link to my piece on the lessons and legacies of October 7. As you will see if (and hopefully when) you read it, I look at the many lessons that ought to have been learned: that the enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend; the related danger of making assumptions about one’s adversary as to its intentions and capabilities; the need to pair military undertakings with political initiatives if the former is to have any chance of success; the risk of defining objectives in terms that cannot be met; and the limits to what attempts at persuasion can accomplish for would-be mediators. I also assess the legacy of October 7, including the further weakening of the already fading prospects for a two-state solution along with Israel’s (and America’s) loss of standing globally. It does not make for a happy story. Nor is there reason to believe we are remotely near this story’s conclusion.
Debate
The only vice-presidential debate of this election is now history. The good news for Democrats is that it is unlikely to have much impact as I expect the audience was relatively modest. I say this because, all things being equal, J.D. Vance largely outperformed Tim Walz. The latter came off as more nervous, out of his depth, and too quick to let his opponent off the hook for things he has said or refused to say. The welcome civility of the debate worked to offset Vance’s reputation for incivility. Still, the evening was not entirely successful for Vance. He may have done too good for his own good, as I think Trump will tire quickly of hearing how well his number two performed given his own poor debate performance last month. Plus, some might argue that Vance had more to prove than Walz given that he came into the debate with the lowest net favorability rating of any vice-presidential candidate in modern history. His refusal to acknowledge that Trump lost the 2020 election, evasive answer on abortion, and skepticism about climate change may also give many voters pause.
5785
This edition of Home & Away is being sent to you today and not Friday for a reason. The Jewish new year, 5785 to be precise, starts tonight at sundown, and I want to send this off before taking the next two days off. May it be a year of health and happiness for you and yours, both of which seem a tad more within reach than peace.
As always, some links to click on. And feel free to share Home & Away.
Richard Haass in the news
Monday, September 30: Andrea Mitchell Reports
Article
Wednesday, October 2: The Lessons and Legacy of October 7 (Project Syndicate)
Check out The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens