All the indications point to an imminent Israeli ground operations into southern Lebanon.
The ‘decapitation’ campaign to kill Hezbollah’s top commanders, the ‘exploding pager’ attacks, the ramped-up bombing campaign against Hezbollah positions in the area, the defence minister visiting front-line Israeli units on the Lebanese border for a pep talk, and now the calling up of two key reserve brigades back into the IDF force structure.
Israel is either trying to frighten Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon – or drive it out as and when that doesn’t work.
Follow live: Israel calls up reserve brigades to Lebanon border
The IDF know this is all very dangerous, but they evidently calculate that Hezbollah has certainly been humiliated and severely weakened by their recent activity and may not be able to respond to a ground incursion with much impact.
More importantly, the IDF and the Israeli government seem to think they have also got Iran – Hezbollah’s essential backers – firmly on the back foot with recent events.
They calculate that both Hezbollah and Iranian leaders are pretty scared of them just now – however fierce and blood-thirsty the rhetoric coming out of Beirut and Tehran as they react to this growing Israeli offensive.
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The strategy of making the most of the situation when you have caught your opponent off-guard is a sound military principle. But the dangers of overreach and miscalculation are equally compelling military lessons.
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The IDF clearly feels they can keep pushing for a while. And Hezbollah will probably keep losing and being humiliated.
But it’s a stretch to see Hezbollah’s tactical and internal security failings as the root of a political collapse within the organisation, or its detachment from the Iranian commitment to it.
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Like Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah can keep losing but it will still be there as a political front of anti-Israeli hatred and genocidal intent. The best military forces in the world would be limited in what they can do about that.
It’s a political and strategic problem. And over the years – three invasions of Lebanon before this one in 1978, 1982 and 2006 – the Israeli government have never come close to solving that.
However good Israel’s military prospects look to those in Tel Aviv, its political prospects look pretty bleak to those everywhere else.
