Israel’s Strategic Win

From a purely technical view, the rippling blasts of thousands of exploding pagers in the hands of Hezbollah represented an extraordinary piece of sabotage—one of the most remarkable in the history of the dark arts. For Israel—if that’s who was behind the attacks—to have so penetrated the Iranian and Hezbollah supply chain, on such a large scale, and with such violent effect is simply astonishing.

The question, as always, is, to what strategic effect? How will this act of violence, however spectacular, shape the ongoing war between Israel, Hezbollah, and Iran? It might very well lead to the cataclysmic battle that many have warned against, as Hezbollah rains down tens of thousands of rockets on Israeli cities, while Israeli armored divisions plunge into Lebanon, causing hundreds of thousands, or even millions, to flee northwards. The ensuing destruction and the civilian death toll might be immense.

Or it might not.

It has long been clear that neither Hezbollah nor Iran are currently spoiling for such an apocalyptic fight—after all, they could have chosen to have it at any time in the last few years. If Hezbollah is battered the way Hamas has been, Iran stands to lose its most effective ally against Israel and by extension the United States. And to seek open war, Hezbollah would have to be willing to sacrifice the population of Lebanese Shi’a from which it has emerged as well as its own cadres of fighters. Both Iran and Hezbollah have to know that Israel now believes itself to be fighting an existential fight, with a different set of rules.

Within Israel, it is striking that so many, including on the dovish end of the spectrum, believe that a large war of this kind with Hezbollah is not only inevitable but necessary. Many Israelis view the status quo, with tens of thousands of Israeli civilians displaced from the border zone, that zone itself depopulated, and a constant, lethal rain of missiles from the north as unacceptable. So it is. The war along Israel’s northern border, or at least the phase of war that Hezbollah initiated after October 7, had nothing to do with immediate Israeli behavior, but everything to do with claiming credit for participating, belatedly, in the campaign launched on that day from Gaza. It is part of a strategy, conceived in Tehran but executed from Beirut, of grinding down Israeli morale and the will to fight, with a view to the extirpation of the Jewish state.

If a much larger war comes now, that is a risk that Israel’s leaders have decided to take, and they will not encounter a great deal of opposition from their population across the spectrum if they fight it without restraint.

In many other ways, however, this is a strategic win for Israel. Set aside the thousands of Hezbollah operatives disabled or killed by these explosions and consider the psychological effect. Hezbollah members will now be unlikely to trust any form of electronics: car keys, cell phones, computers, television sets. Myth and legend, no doubt reinforced by an information-warfare campaign, will magnify Israel’s success in getting inside black boxes no matter how big or how small. An army skittish about any kind of electronics is one that is paralyzed—an individual leader, like Hamas’s Yahya Sinwar, can communicate without a phone, but an entire organization cannot.

Iran, already reeling from the assassination of the political head of Hamas in a Revolutionary Guard Corps guest house on the day of the inauguration of the new president, now has much to wonder about as well. How, they must ask themselves, did the Israelis penetrate the supply chain? How did they get access to the pagers? How did they know that this batch was going to Hezbollah? How did they manage to foil whatever security precautions had been taken?

From a failure so large, witch hunts will follow—no doubt fed, again, by a solid information-warfare campaign. Organizations looking for spies and saboteurs, particularly after such a disaster, are unlikely to be forgiving or measured, and so a spiral of accusations, torture, and executions will likely ensue. War is an affair of the mind as much as anything else. By showing its extraordinary reach, Israel will breed internal fear and suspicion that can be more paralyzing than fear of an enemy.

The Middle East is witnessing a war of coalitions. Israel’s silent partners here include Arab states such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Jordan. For them, this coup is a confirmation that Israel can be a capable partner. The German word bündnisfähig captures a quality of being worthy to be an ally; in this case, the cloak of mystery and surprise, playing to Israel’s existing reputation for successful skullduggery, makes Israel bündnisfähig indeed.

For an Israel that has suffered a grueling year-long war, punctuated by the deaths of soldiers and, even more poignantly, the murder of hostages shortly before they could be liberated, this will be a tremendous morale boost. That, too, is an important benefit of this operation, and one not to be underestimated.

There is something of a message here for the United States and other countries, as well. The Israelis have learned the hard way to ask for forgiveness rather than permission, to act on their own when necessary. Ironically, a reputation of that kind increases the leverage of an ally with its superpower patron, giving it greater incentive to take the smaller partner’s concerns into account.

Finally, there is a large community which is and must remain in the shadows, that is cheering the Israelis on. In 1984, Hezbollah kidnapped William Francis Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut. For 15 months they tortured him, before handing him over to a Palestinian group for execution. A tape of his shattered body and mind found its way to Washington. The CIA has never forgotten that. Other intelligence agencies around the world who work against Hezbollah and against Iran have not either. As professionals, they approve of daring and well-executed attacks against that organization, and the resulting good will is not to be despised either.

No one knows where all this may lead. There may be a very large war, or, as after the Shukr and Haniyeh assassinations, Hezbollah and Iran may resort to ineffectual or symbolic responses. Some will no doubt think that this is another reckless Israeli act, or deplore violence as being ineffective, but they are wrong. All indications are that this was a considered act—and extensive yet focused violence, whether we like it or not, can yield results. By this act, among others, the balance of fear has shifted—however much and for however long—in the Middle East. For Israel, a country dwelling in a very hard neighborhood, that is a good thing.