Why Israel’s war against Hezbollah could backfire — on the US

Who is winning the expanding conflict between Israel, Iran and its proxies? In his fiery United Nations speech, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defiantly justified his expanded war against Hezbollah and boasted that Israel was winning. The rhetoric from the other side, from Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, is little different, celebrating the costs their “resistance” is inflicting on Israel and its allies.

I spent many of my 34-plus years in the CIA’s clandestine service living in this region, meeting our Iranian, Hezbollah and Palestinian agents, and working with Israeli and Arab counterparts. And among the most enduring lessons I learned is that measuring winning and losing in the Middle East is often not readily apparent in the moment. The consequence of any single event sometimes unfolds over generations.

Iran’s recent attack on Israel featured some 180 to 200 ballistic missiles and caused minimal damage, according to Israeli claims. Yet in the midst of this same attack, eight Israelis were killed, and at least seven seriously wounded, when two Hamas gunmen opened fire in the normally tranquil, tree-lined area of Jaffa. Even as we await what could conceivably be further large-scale direct attacks between Israel and Iran that might further draw in the U.S., the Jaffa attacks show that Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, are adapting and likely steering toward what foreign policy types call a more “asymmetrical” strategy.

Here’s what that means. Israel’s adversaries glorify losses as triumphs and revere their shahid, their martyrs. And when they find their traditional capabilities overmatched, their solution has long been to use the guerrilla tactics employed by China’s Mao Zedong, Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh, or the terrorism leveraged by Jihadist groups, including suicide bombers and complex attacks against soft, unprotected, civilian targets.

This is a shift that is already underway and in many ways, it poses more danger to the United States than to Israel. In the 1980s, Hezbollah blew up our embassy in Lebanon, massacred our Marines, kidnapped Westerners, tortured our CIA station chief to death, and hijacked commercial flights. Hezbollah’s 1994 attack on Argentina’s Jewish Community Center killed 85 and, supported by IRGC and Hezbollah trainers and explosives, the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia killed 19 U.S. service members. Through those attacks, Hezbollah and Iran succeeded in expelling America’s military presence from Lebanon without needing missiles, drones or standing armies.

Today, those calling for Washington to unilaterally, or in collaboration with Israel, conduct a major attack against Iran, might be dismissing lessons from the past. It’s worth remembering that the U.S. has facilities, people and property, in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere across the Middle East that Israel does not — namely embassies, military bases and significant numbers of American businesses, organizations and citizens. Iran and Hezbollah have many more American than Israeli targets to choose from in locations across the Middle East and elsewhere, where they have capabilities and advantages — and where the U.S. has limited defenses.

Terrorist organizations traditionally have small footprints and little to lose, apart from their leaders and covert operatives who blend into their environments. But in recent years, Hezbollah evolved into a large military and political organization and that had political, economic and military benefits for it and its Iranian patrons. But that evolution also created what intelligence analysts call “equities” — that is to say, tangible investments, be they physical, political or economic — and with it, vulnerabilities from which they were previously free. Today, Hezbollah not only has more to lose, but has made it relatively easy for its own enemies to come find them, as Israel has proven with its extraordinary recent success.

The war is also making it far more likely that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, will approve weaponizing his country’s nuclear program. And his choice becomes easier and relatively less costly the more Iran incurs disproportionate damage from its engagements with Israel and the United States. While Iran would likely aim to keep its decision, and plans, to weaponize a secret, I expect U.S. and Israeli intelligence capabilities would discover it in short order. And then what?

If the U.S. lives up to its preexisting rhetoric, one underscored by Israel, that Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons will not be tolerated, a major military conflict seems unavoidable. Iran and the U.S. would each have backed itself into a corner from which there’s little likelihood of a face-saving escape. Khamenei could not politically afford to surrender by changing course, and Washington would be pressed into taking military action.

As for the current fighting, there’s no need to ponder whether it will escalate into an all-out war; it already has. We are not witnessing miscalculations fueling unintended escalation, nor should we presume the belligerents share a mutual interest in limiting escalation. Israel is fully engaged in war and causing Iran and Hezbollah to do the same. For Netanyahu, what might have begun as a decision driven by the desire to defer the political reckoning he might otherwise face for the Oct. 7 attacks has turned into something far larger.

Israeli officials have portrayed their country’s recent, unprecedented and escalating measures as reactive, inspired by self-defense and aimed at restoring deterrence. But they acknowledged that they were tracking Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah for some time before killing him. Similarly, the attack on thousands of Hezbollah members through sabotaged pagers and walkie-talkies was years in the works; anonymous Israeli officials told journalists that they decided to detonate the modified pagers out of concern that the group had exhibited suspicions which could expose the operation.

And while there was logic and precedent to suggest that Israel, which might have killed Nasrallah earlier, had long been satisfied to leave him in place — “better the devil you know” — the tipping point was likely Netanyahu’s decision to dismiss possible consequences, at least those in the short-term, as manageable. The Israeli leader decided he didn’t need to maintain diplomatic options, and it suited him to expand the conflict with Iran, particularly if it forces the U.S. to join. And with weeks until the U.S. elections, Netanyahu had little to worry about in provoking consequences from the White House. What could President Joe Biden really do to exact any costs on Netanyahu weeks before the presidential elections? Any punitive actions would be a gift to Republicans who already claim the president has been soft on Iran and its proxies. Only the Democrats’ progressive wing might take solace, but at the potential costs of votes among the party’s majority, not to mention independents.

But Israel’s all-out warfare will neither destroy nor deter Iran and its proxies, and future threats might prove more difficult to preempt militarily or resolve diplomatically. Emotion, vengeance and keeping face, not logic and pragmatism, often drive the region’s cycle of violence. Tehran’s repressive, clerical regime requires imposing fear at home and maintaining a commitment toward Israel’s destruction and resistance against the U.S. for its legitimacy and political survival. Terrorist groups branding themselves as “resistance organizations” must perpetually resist in order to be legitimate and relevant. For them, “losing” a conflict just reinforces their mission.

In this context, for the U.S., Israel’s tactics matter. With the enormous Lebanese and Palestinian casualty count and physical devastation, Israel has created additional pressure for would-be allies among regional Arab states to turn away from Israel, and quite possibly the United States as well. That’s despite the fact that such countries have no love for either Hamas or Hezbollah. Egypt’s military junta deposed a Muslim Brotherhood leadership, like that from which Hamas came; Jordan expelled Hamas leaders a quarter of a century ago — dispatching the Palestinian Liberation Organization at bayonet point some 30 years prior to that — and recently saw a Muslim Brotherhood party make major parliamentary gains. And the Gulf Arab states’ monarchies have historically suffered Hezbollah attacks and viewed Muslim Brotherhood organizations internally, and Iran externally, as their greatest threats.

But given the images of the past year and the past weeks, those nations cannot possibly expand the Abraham Accords negotiated during the Trump administration nor be seen in league with Israel. With every new battle and its images of apartment buildings in ruins, rescue workers pulling the bodies of women and children from the concrete and rubble, the chances of a Saudi recognition of Israel grow more distant, and with it, the hopes of a broader settlement of the conflict. And why is that so important? After all, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have all established diplomatic — and commercial — ties with Israel. It’s importance rests in Saudi Arabia’s central place in the Arab world owing to its custodianship of the two great mosques in Mecca and Medina, and its enormous petrol resources and wealth which equates to power and influence. Saudi recognition as part of a grand bargain in which Israel recognizes Palestinian statehood in a legitimate “two-state” solution, would enable progress toward a transformational change in the region, and with it, the world.

Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman has no love for Hamas, a product of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, and Iran and its proxies are the kingdom’s principal external threat. Moreover, unlike his father, it’s arguable whether MBS, as he is known colloquially, has any sentiment for the Palestinians, or their cause. But his acrobatic adjustments since essentially taking power in 2017 concerning his previous saber rattling with Iran, his war in Yemen, and social reforms in the kingdom, reflects pragmatism. MBS would be inclined to make a deal with Israel, with which he and his predecessors have long sanctioned discreet security cooperation, and who makes a formidable ally versus Iran. But doing so could trigger a violent backlash among his people.

This regional war also has implications for the U.S. in another area: global strategic competition. The war could yet draw in Iran and the U.S., setting the stage for a major power confrontation via proxy with intervention, direct or covert, by Russia and China as well. Moreover, the inability of the U.S. to influence Israel is already undermining American credibility and utility with other Arab states, which extends well beyond the conflict and across a host of issues that include strategic competition, energy, the economy and climate.

Washington cannot abandon Israel’s defense but must restore American influence by stopping the carnage and escalation, despite politically difficult choices, by better leveraging the stick, as well as the carrot. Washington might find greater results by trying to achieve these goals in the shadows. Military strikes and Israel’s hardly deniable assassinations of Iranian scientists, IRGC officers and visiting Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyah politically required Iran to respond militarily. By contrast, the Stuxnet cyberattack against Tehran’s nuclear program — not publicly exposed until 2010 — Imad Mughniyeh’s 2008 assassination, and al-Qaeda deputy Amir Abu Muhammad al-Masri’s 2020 murder in Tehran appear, on the other hand, to have achieved greater impact, and without the same level of carnage, or forcing Iran’s, or Hezbollah’s hand.

The ability to successfully strike militarily to defend one’s country is enshrined in the internationally accepted right of self-defense. And while it is at times a necessary tool to assure a country from an external threat, bloodshed is always an unfortunate consequence, which brings with it visceral, generational grudges. And when done to excess, such carnage comes with diminishing returns. During my long CIA service, I witnessed, supported, and participated in U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Libya and the Balkans, not to mention occasional American strikes against Iran in the late 1980s. The U.S. won most of the battles, but arguably, with the exception of the first Gulf War that liberated Kuwait, and American leadership in ending the onslaught against Bosnian Serbs, we lost most of the wars — despite possessing superior military capabilities.

Israelis, and for that matter Americans, need to decide what they consider security and what attainable, long-term solutions exist at the most reasonable cost. Military tools, and of course intelligence, are key components, but require balanced implementation that bears in mind second-order consequences. Killing the enemy and winning battles does not, alone, win wars, at least not today. There are better ways for Israel and the U.S. to defeat Hezbollah and neutralize Iran that preserve options for enduring solutions. But if Netanyahu doesn’t shift his tactics, and Washington is unable to decouple itself from them, the costs will be borne not just by Israelis but by Americans.