The war of the absent general

For nearly a year, the region has lived with the war that was sparked by the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation. Until last week, it also seemed that Israel had started to live with the “war of support” launched by Hezbollah within certain rules of engagement. The impression was that the US had succeeded in preventing the region from sliding toward a regional war that none of Iran, Israel or Hezbollah allegedly wanted.

A big explosion did not take place despite the two major blows that were the assassination of Hezbollah’s top commander Fouad Shukr in Beirut’s southern suburbs and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran itself. Many believed that the mutual fears of a regional war were preventing all sides from slipping into one.

However, in just a handful of days last week, Israel succeeded in reawakening the fears of such a war. The detonation of Hezbollah’s pagers was an unprecedented strike that brought the war to establishments and houses and led to deaths, as well as injuries to eyes and the amputation of fingers. The attack seemed like a deliberate invitation to Hezbollah to carry out a retaliation that Israel would then use as justification to replicate the scenes in Gaza in Beirut.

Israel was not done. It also dealt a fatal blow to Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, striking a building in Beirut’s southern suburbs where its leaders were meeting. The attack left scores of civilians dead. Israel accused the gatherers in the building of plotting to invade Galilee, meaning repeating the Oct. 7 scenario but from across the Lebanese border.

The detonation of Hezbollah’s pagers was an unprecedented strike that brought the war to establishments and houses

Ghassan Charbel

In just a handful of days, Israel reminded everyone of its technological superiority, how deeply infiltrated its intelligence is and how quickly its army can move to carry out a precise assassination. It was clear that Israel had left Hezbollah with no choice but to respond to what happened to it, because the security and image of the party — the backbone of the so-called Resistance Axis — are at stake.

Despite the calculated response, we can safely say that recent days have marked an escalation in the war and an expansion of its arena.

It has become clear in recent months that Benjamin Netanyahu has been resisting the Israeli army’s desire to reach a hostage exchange deal with Hamas. He wants to prolong the war until the US goes into a presidential election coma that will prevent its candidates from taking a firm position against Israel and its behavior. Netanyahu did not want to offer Kamala Harris and Joe Biden a present, especially after his friend, Donald Trump, bluntly said he would hold the Jews responsible if he was not reelected president, while believing that his victory would prevent the extermination of Jews in Israel itself.

In recent months, Netanyahu has not hesitated to reprimand generals and threaten to sack them. He has accused them of lacking their past fighting spirit, as if he were already blaming them for any failure in achieving Israel’s war goals.

He took a good step forward when he declared that returning the residents of the north back to their homes was now a war goal. Israeli politicians may be divided over the truce in Gaza, but they are unanimous over wanting to return the northerners back home. Netanyahu’s rivals themselves believe that achieving this goal is worth raising the level of the confrontation with Hezbollah for, even at the risk of sparking a tough war. So, Netanyahu has effectively thrown the ball into the military’s court, as if he were tasking it with destroying Hezbollah’s capabilities, the way it did in eroding Hamas in Gaza. It is no secret that the new mission is more difficult and more dangerous.

Observers believe that the Oct. 7 operation would never have been on the cards were it not for the groundwork done by Soleimani

Ghassan Charbel

Eroding Hezbollah’s capabilities through assassinations and strikes will be no less costly. Observers closely watching the developments stress that a war on Lebanon will be different to the war on Gaza. They explain that Hamas was a significant ally to Iran, but it is not a vital artery in the Resistance Axis in the region. Hezbollah is. They believe that Iran can play the long, patient game as Israel tries to destroy Hamas, but it will not tolerate Israel trying to break Hezbollah — its most successful experiment in the region.

Iran has been trying to avoid a regional war for a whole year. It views it as an Israeli trap to lure it into a confrontation with the US. But Iran’s ability to resist Israel’s traps will weaken when Hezbollah’s fate is on the line. Iran is the architect of the Resistance Axis, which was born after the ouster of the regime in Iraq. The axis is one of its most powerful cards that it uses to pressure, negotiate and escalate.

The observers believe that the Oct. 7 operation would never have been on the cards were it not for the groundwork done by slain Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani. They said Soleimani was the one who vowed to develop Hamas’ capabilities through an agreement to finance it and smuggle and manufacture weapons in the tunnels. Soleimani was interested in Hamas because it is the Palestinian arm of the axis and because it can fight Israel in its own home, meaning both Gaza and the West Bank.

Soleimani also saw to the development of Hezbollah’s arsenal, which grew to include precision missiles during the 2006 war, which the general oversaw from its very arena. Soleimani was the mastermind behind bringing in militias to save the Syrian regime and helping to provide guarantees for cooperation with Russia’s intervention in Syria.

Soleimani’s fingerprints were all over post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, especially in regard to the establishment, empowerment and arming of the Popular Mobilization Forces, which effectively holds the power of war and peace in the country the same way Hezbollah does in Lebanon. Soleimani was also the mastermind behind attracting the Houthis and training and allowing them to seize power in Yemen.

The past week brought to mind Soleimani, who was killed in a US strike in Baghdad. Rockets fired by Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and a drone launched from Iraq. The absent general will be present in any wide-scale war that engulfs the region.

• Ghassan Charbel is editor-in-chief of Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper. X: @GhasanCharbel

This article first appeared in Asharq Al-Awsat.