Cables From The Diplomatic Frontlines - Fluid dynamics following Hezbollah assassination & Iran's ballistic response: implications and next moves.

• A lot has happened in the past week: Israel killed Hezbollah leader Nasrallah (and apparently Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced that a senior IRGC general, Abbas Nilforushan was also killed in the strike), Israel launched a ground invasion of Lebanon and Iran launched around 180 ballistic missiles targeting Mossad HQ and air bases in Israel.

• We will look at Israeli options, Hezbollah’s impossible trilemma and pressure facing Iran.

1) Netanyahu’s hand is stronger than ever before in the past 12 months.

• Immediately after the October 7th attacks, there was a state of emergency.

• Hezbollah launched rocket attacks (in solidarity with Hamas) the very next day, and in spite of an astonishingly severe security breach that resulted on October 7th attacks taking place on Netanyahu’s watch, for now, his role as a PM was secure.

• A war cabinet was quickly organized to deal with the possibility of a two-front war.

• No matter how bad his government had failed in preventing this attack, now (early October 2023) was not the time to air the dirty laundry in the open.

• Thereafter, Netanyahu survived the departure of high-profile members of his cabinet (like Benny Gantz) and a showdown with the far-right (over the military conscription of the ultra-orthodox Jews) did not end his tenuously-held ultra thin-margin majority government in the Knesset.

• Since then;

• 1) Hamas has been severely degraded, (approximately 17k combatants killed - that would likely be around 60% of the starting force);

• 2) senior IRGC commanders have been killed - both in April in Damascus and also in the air strike that killed Nasrallah: General Abbas Nilforushan, the deputy commander for operations for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was also killed (yet another reason for Iran to feel the pressure to respond (more on that later below).

• 3) Hamas political leader Ismayil Haniyeh has been assassinated in Tehran - on the very day that he attended the inauguration of the new Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

• 4) Hezbollah was humiliated in the pager/walkie-talkie attacks and its senior leadership - including Nasrallah was taken out.

• Netanyahu was on the roll even before the current onslaught of Hezbollah which culminated with Nasrallah’s own assassination - something that Israel failed to accomplish in the 2006 war.

• (side note: the FT has a great report on what it took for Mossad to accomplish this hit. Very advanced sensors and data gathering effort (aided with hi-tech satellites, drones and other hackable recording devices) allowed Mossad to map out precise movements of key Hezbollah leaders. In addition, Hezbollah’s involvement in the Syrian civil war, and opening up to new recruits and having to deal with more corrupt Syrian regime security forces/intel led to gaps in security quickly exploited by Israeli spooks. More fascinating details are in this report).

• He recovered most of the lost political support and his party (Likud) was back to polling strongly.

• And that was before Nasrallah killing - the boost to his popularity will now surely heighten.

• Moreover, Netanyahu has now expanded his coalition to 68 members by bringing in right-wing hardliner Gideon Saar, likely solidifying his government’s stability until 2026.

• Which means two things: 1) If he wants to, he can be more flexible on concessions to the US/West on softening up Israeli policy on settlements or the more extreme aspects of his war in Gaza, and 2) If he wants to go all in, then he will now benefit from stronger political capital and an increased majority to pad his way forward, 3) he can escalate fully against Iran and use domestic power base and political capital to resist any external pressure.

• Israel’s next steps: