Cables From The Diplomatic Frontlines - a dangerous mix of incentives pushing for a wider conflict in the middle east.
As Israel adjusts its strategy in Gaza, risk of a wider conflict keeps rising.
Throughout November and December, these cables have advocated for the destruction of Hamas, whilst warning that indiscriminate nature of bombardment risked alienating the wider international community, and weakening Israel’s own hand in this conflict.
Since then, the international pressure had only built up, and almost all countries of note have unfortunately turned against Israel (the US was the only UN security council member that vetoed an unfavorable resolution calling for longer pauses in fighting) and South Africa even launched a case of genocide against Israel at the ICJ.
Against this background, (and an ever rising death toll - commonly agreed figure is 23k deaths - most of whom by Israel’s own admission are civilians (since Israel only claims 8k terrorists killed) there have been numerous reports that the Biden administration was pressuring the Netanyahu cabinet to wrap up the intense bombardment phase, and switch towards a more surgical ground campaign targeting the top brass of Hamas.
And it seems like the pressure campaign (in combination with the fact that not much is even left to bomb above ground in any case..) is working: Israel decided to withdraw five brigades from Gaza at the start of this year, and has announced a new phase of war - that will see less airstrikes and more targeted raids.
On the other hand however, the risk of conflict with Hizbullah has now only risen: approximately 80k Israeli civilians that were evacuated from the border regions are yet to return to their homes, Israeli rhetoric and threats against Hizbullah have intensified, and Israel (likely Mossad) had conducted a targeted assassination of a senior Hamas commander Saleh al-Arouri in southern Lebanon - areas controlled by Hizbullah (and killed another leader at al-Arouri’s funeral).
And even though Hizbullah is yet to respond with a proper escalation (they will certainly have to do something to save face - but it is not likely to be significant in spite of their rhetoric), and Iran is also largely uninterested in a general conflict, similar sentiments are not necessarily shared by the senior leaders of Israel.
Indeed, this was highlighted by the op-ed written by the former Israeli PM Naftali Bennet - openly calling for a joint US-Israeli move to target Iran and accomplish a regime change.
Naturally, there is nothing more toxic and politically self-defeating than calling for a regime change in the middle east - no matter how deserving of being toppled the regime in question is (and there is plenty of subject-matter for such desert when it comes to the Ayatollah regime).
Not only will this play into the globally aired and well-entrenched narratives of CIA-backed coups, but proposing a regime change to the American public is so politically tone-deaf, that it is astonishing that a former senior politician would even consider this (let alone publish).
But leaving the fantasy of the regime-change aside, there is actually a legitimate case for limited conflict with Iran - something akin to the air campaign of operation desert storm (1991 coalition against Saddam-led Iraq) could well fit interests of Israel - and very probably that of the US/UK and other major NATO allies.
Consequently, there are in fact powerful (and strategically justifiable) incentives for Israel to escalate this conflict, and drag both Hizbullah and Iran into this war.
In addition (as it will be discussed in the future Part II to this post), it may also be in the US interests to offer full backing for Israel to take out Hizbullah, and possibly, to even participate in air strikes targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities, military targets/capabilities, and industrial complexes that funnel weapons into Russia.
Part I: Why it fits Israel’s interests to escalate towards an open conflict with Hizbullah and Iran
1) A lot to gain.
For Israel, an excuse to attack Hizbullah, and to either wipe it out completely, or to significantly degrade Iran’s crown jewel of a proxy would be an accomplishment of extreme value.
Not only would the state of Israel secure its northern flank, but it would also impose an unpalatable dilemma for Iran:
a) Do nothing and lose credibility and prestige, or;
b) Escalate to the extent necessary to protect Hizbullah, and risk being hit by the US.
It is important to note that there are little gray areas here - not many in-between options in practice.
For example: theoretically, Iran could involve itself to the extent that a direct attack against Israel is avoided - so, no major ballistic missile strikes originating from Iran proper.
But even though this could fall under (just about) the threshold which would trigger a US response, in practice, by definition it would also be insufficient to save Hizbullah.
It is important to remember that for a number of reasons, if a proper war against Hizbullah was to begin, then on this occasion (unlike in 2006 - the only other major continuous war against Hizbullah), Israel would probably aim to go all the way.
And even if it didn’t - even if somehow Israel was to stop, it would likely be due to some political reasons to do with the failure to secure the backing from the US.
(side note: and Washington would be wrong to rein in Israel in a campaign against Hizbullah - that is, as long as the repeat of indiscriminate bombing against civilians is avoided/laws of armed conflict are observed).
Operating under this crucial (and probably, largely accurate) assumption then, any below-the-threshold response from Iran will simply not suffice.
Iran would end up with the worst of both worlds: a) it would fail to save its most valuable proxy, and it would suffer further attrition and loss of resources in getting involved with subpar levels of military aid.
So in effect, doing something (but not enough) would be tantamount to doing nothing - and there would be further loss of influence, prestige and threat display prowess that Tehran would have to absorb.
Its shiite militia proxies in Syria (like the Al Sefira Corps, Al Bagir Brigade and the Qatraji forces) and Iraq (like the Kata'ib Hizballah (KH), Harakat al-Nujaba, and Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq) would lose trust in the regime - their non-Iran aligned shiite and sunni militia enemies would be emboldened to go after them.
(side note: and Iran is already in a tricky situation, and is yet to respond to the recent US air strike that killed Abu Taqwa - leader of Iran-backed Harakat al-Nujaba. Iranian regime is accumulating a lot of ‘‘revenge debt’’ that it desperately needs to meet without triggering a major backlash from the US - something that they are clearly very fearful of)
2) Little to lose.
When considering losses, we need to look at three key areas: a)strategic/geopolitical losses, b) economic toll, c) direct military cost.
Strategic/reputational losses.
The indiscriminate nature of bombardment seen in Gaza has already caused massive reputational damage to Israel on the global stage.
Israel is isolated both at the UN security council (even states like the UK don’t block unfavorable resolutions now - full reliance only on the US), and the General Assembly.
And if it didn’t scale back its operations in Gaza, it was very likely that another country was bound to join South Africa in pushing for a genocide charge.
And so perversely, if Israel is to launch an attack on Hizbullah (and possibly, Iran), then it is far better to do so now - with little to lose on the world stage - than to wait for a later future date after a new Israeli government tries to recover from a reputational stain.
In other words, it is better to associate belligerence and reputational damage with the current Netanyahu government, and then try to shed this whole dark chapter with a new government.
Moreover, the perception of Israel could also change if it launches a war against Hizbullah (and especially if Iran backs the latter strongly).
The narrative of the war will change (even if slightly) from Israel using indiscriminate crude force to level Gaza in an attempt to eradicate Hamas (and causing mass civilian toll in the process) to Israel being besieged by terrorists on all fronts, and is fighting a general war against Iran’s proxies that surround its tiny lands.
The latter is a far more favorable narrative - one that also lends more sympathy to Israel’s otherwise crude application of power.
For if a nation is surrounded by terrorists on all fronts, its leaders lashing out indiscriminately is more indicative of a paranoia (rooted in legitimate existential fears) than a proactive desire to commit genocide (an already preposterous accusation that will weaken even further).
And beyond reputational losses (some of which will be recouped due to a change of narrative), there are little (if any) strategic/geopolitical costs.
On the contrary: Iran will weaken no matter how the war against Hizbullah plays out (either Hizbullah is wiped out and Iran suffers immense costs that stem from supporting them directly, or Hizbullah is degraded/wiped out and Iran suffers from reputational costs).
And this then means weaker Iranian leverage across the Middle East, and thus, less leverage to prevent Israeli normalization with key Arab states - since Iran’s capacity to inflict costs (both direct and indirect) will diminish significantly.
Moreover, with Iran weaker in the region, Israeli dependence on Russia’s tacit cooperation in Syria (Moscow closing its eyes, and shutting down its S-300 SAMs at the time of Israeli strikes on Syrian targets) will also reduce.
The current status quo of Russia growing ever closer to Iran and Iranian proxies remaining intact and operational, (and so, their threat to Israel remaining alive and well) is naturally far less favorable than the scenario where Israel gets to wipe out key Iranian militias - starting with Hizbullah.
Economic toll.
Will not be insignificant: as an example, in the 1973 Yom Kippur war, drafting 200,000 army reservists (15% of the labor force) brought Israel close to a financial brink - when a devastating GDP loss of 15-20% was softened by generous US financial grants.
And even a single year of intifada/Palestinian uprising ended up costing 3.8% of Israel’s GDP in 2002 - when the war was far less intense and thus, significantly less demanding on resources.
And as of right now, the war with Hamas is already very demanding: 360k reservists called amounts to around 8% of Israel’s workforce.
And even though Israel disbanded 5 brigades involved in the operations in Gaza, a new war with Hizbullah/Iran will surely take a far higher economic toll.
Israel is already running a very hot economy - with only 3.2% unemployment rate and around 200k Palestinian workers frozen out from being able to work in Israel.
These are prime conditions for a cost-push inflation.
Government spending is also on track to rise significantly: even before any war with Hizbullah, in 2024, Israel’s primary deficit will rise from 3% to 8% of its GDP.
For comparison, prior to movements in favor of relaxing rigid rules, the EU had a primary deficit standard at 3% of GDP.
And the expectation of the US primary deficit reaching 7.3% of the GDP is seen as a major fiscal crisis.
And once again, all of this is already taking place right now - even before a major-scale conflict with Hizbullah and/or Iran that will surely last much longer (and be more intense) than the war with Hamas.
High deficits are dangerous: additional debt accumulation and the increased servicing cost of these debts, will devalue Israeli government bonds and force the yields on these new bonds to move higher - creating a vicious cycle as future borrowing and investment becomes ever more costly.
With all that said however, the short-to-medium economic costs will necessarily have to be weighed against the potential of eradicating Hizbullah, and thus increasing the long-term political and economic stability of Israel.
In other words, a short-term pain may well be worth it to ensure the longer-term economic stability/viability of the country.
Direct military costs.
Hizbullah is certainly no longer an amateurish militia that Israel had to confront in its last major conflict with the terrorist group in 2006.
For a start, the total number of fighters has likely tripled since then.
Precise numbers however vary, with Hizbullah leader previously (and relatively recently in 2021) claiming the existence of 100k fighters (likely a significant exaggeration that also includes ordinary non-combatant members and reservists).
More realistically, and according to the military balance 2022 report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Hizbullah had up to/around 22k fighters under its command.
But how well are these soldiers armed?
According to the 2020 Congressional Research Service report (that based its assessment on Israeli intel), Hizbullah was believed to possess around 150k missiles and rockets.
It is not clear how many of these are precision-guided missiles that can cause the most damage by targeting Israeli command & control centers, key logistical nodes and tube artillery assets.
It is more likely that the vast majority of Hizbullah’s arsenal consists of unguided and shorter-range rockets like the Falaq-2s (with an approximate range of around 10 miles).
And according to the INSS - a premier Israeli national security & defense think-tank, Hizbullah has additional 40k Russian Grad rockets with a range of around 25 miles, and even some longer range missiles like the Iranian Fateh-110s (with a range up to 130 miles).
But most of these are quite heavy - weighing between 200-400kg per rocket.
This precludes the viability of transporting them on foot.
And the reliance on pickup trucks to transport/launch them comes with a significant risk of being spotted and quickly targeted by Israeli drones.
On the other hand, Hizbullah is likely in possession of 107 and 120mm rockets launched by variants of Chinese type-63 multiple-rocket launchers.
These are certainly much lighter and easier to transport - but as a corollary, they do carry a much smaller payload (and thus, capacity for damage).
It is also commonly believed that Hizbullah has a large stock of RPGs, anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs), mortars (with a very limited range) and most definitely, Iran-designed and (likely) locally assembled attack drones.
Once again, the number and quality of these is unknown.
And unlike Iran-backed militias fighting on behalf of Syria’s Bashar Assad, Hizbullah does not operate heavy armor/tanks.
But this is surely by design (and not necessarily a handicap) - hiding such prime targets from Israel would be a logistical nightmare - incompatible with highly mobile urban warfare.
Hizbullah’s strategy is based on guerrilla tactics and mobility.
But beyond the actual quality & quantity of Hizbullah’s missile inventory, there is also the question of how many of these can Hizbullah actually fire at Israel per day?
And the survivability rate is also crucial here - how many launchers/crew members will be destroyed/eliminated once Israel spots the launch sites?
The bottlenecks here will be: a) actual launchers (that need to be protected and maintained), and b) enough fighters trained & capable of launching these rockets and missiles.
And here, the Israeli army estimates that Hizbullah has a capacity to fire 2.5k missiles per day.
For comparison, it is estimated that in the 34 day war in 2006, Hizbullah fired approximately 120 rockets per day (many of which were carrying a smaller payload, and were significantly shorter-in range).
So this would be a significant improvement in capacity - but once again, Israeli tech has also improved since 2006 - many loitering and First-person suicide drones will likely saturate Hizbullah strong points and will surely be able to take out the launch sites much faster than in 2006.
With that said, Hizbullah’s capacity improvement has its limits, and there are couple of important points to note:
1) If Hizbullah was to actually fire 2,500 rockets a day (with an unrealistic assumption that their launchers/launch sites would remain functionally viable without significant attrition caused by Israeli counter-fire), and if we were to generously assume that Hizbullah has around 150k missiles, then it would necessarily follow that at such a rate of intensity, Hizbullah would run out of missiles in only two months..
2) Back in 2006, 4k missiles fired by Hizbullah led to the death of 44 civilians.
But more than 80k civilians have now been evacuated from Northern Israel, and combined with the fact Israel’s advanced surveillance and drone warfare capabilities will take out a lot of launch sites pretty quickly, the casualty to civilian life would be pretty minimal.
3) Since 2006, Israel has increased the number of Iron Dome batteries available to defend its skies.
Israel’s long-term goal was reaching 15 batteries - an objective it has likely either already achieved or is very close to doing so.
Each Iron-dome battery has up to 4 launchers, with 20 ready-to-fire interceptor missiles per launcher.
Iron dome has a famously high (90%+) success rate in interception of incoming missiles.
However, we should not discount the context that most of these were fired in fairly low-intensity battles overall.
It is possible that a massive barrage could overwhelm a few batteries.
On the other hand, Iron Dome is a smart system - it doesn’t waste missiles on incoming projectiles not deemed to be dangerous (missiles that the system expects to land in remote/unpopulated areas).
Overall, it is tough to evaluate how much real damage Hizbullah would be able to inflict in 2024.
But it cannot possibly be 10x that of Hamas.
Taken at its highest, even if we assume that Hizbullah proves to be 3-4x as lethal as Hamas, the cost to Israel would be tolerable.
For context, IDF losses are 3.7 deaths per day of fighting against Hamas in Gaza.
Even if those ratios were to triple, and the most intense period of war with Hizbullah was to last say, twice as long, then in 6 months, Israel would lose around 2k troops.
This is most definitely a very heavy toll, but in return for (effectively/practically) eliminating/incapacitating Iran’s most powerful proxy militia on its northern borders, and ensuring safety of the civilians of Northern Israel, even such a high (and still very unlikely) toll could be an acceptable price to pay for the long-term security of the nation.
And certainly, the timing may not be any better if the availability of the US support is in question: America is likely to be absorbed more and more by the ever-brewing crisis over Taiwan.
None of this is to say that the war with Hizbullah is likely - for its part, the Biden admin seems to favor de-escalation, and is actively pushing for it.
But if the war does take place, one can certainly see the powerful logic behind it: if the eventual conflict with Hizbullah is likely to take place in any case, the overall context and timing may favor a decisive action now vs decision to leave it for another day.
*In part II, we shall discuss the potential US (and even EU/NATO) interests in escalation, and the possible costs to Israel if Iran was to launch (an unlikely yet still possible) direct attack against Israel.