Playing with Fire: Lebanon: The New Theatre of War

Just barely thirty years after a famous written piece article by Professor Francis Fukuyama, “End of History and Last Man” (1992) that predicted a democratized world embedded in ruled-based order and the force of globalization seemed diminished and headed towards vanquished in the year of 2024. Undoubtedly, amongst all the chaos, violence, political polarization, and social upheaval, the war in the Middle East deserves the utmost attention due to the severity of security implications and humanitarian concerns.

Unfortunately, on Tuesday, the theatre of war shifted from Gaza to Lebanon following the announcement of Israeli Defense Forces about the ground incursion of South Lebanon with the mission of neutralization of Hezbollah, a powerful political and militant-backed proxy of Iran. Following the last Friday precise air strike at Berit that resulted in the killing of Hasan Nasrallah, an iconic and charismatic supreme leader of Hezbollah, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that his country had achieved one of biggest victories in decades by the assassination of Nasrallah. Nasrallah was among the most towering figures in the so-called Axis of Resistance backed by the Iranian regime.

Since the 7th October attacks Israeli Defense Forces killed more than 43000 people in Palestine, mainly living in the isolated Gaza strip, among them half were women and children. Schools, hospitals, refugee camps, activists, and human rights groups find no shelter for safe space in the name of the elimination of Hamas. However, many experts still questioned that Israel was not able to defeat Hamas despite such much reckoning of Gaza and unable to secure several hostages of the Israeli military and civilian population from possession of Hamas. Therefore, the Israeli government has failed to so-called ground invasion of Gaza; however, it only intensifies the already humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Back to Lebanon theatre, one can smell a rat of Israeli ground invasion of Southern Lebanon by trapping Iran directly into the conflict. In that way, Israel could enhance the theatre of war from Gaza to Iran once in all in the mission of neutralization of the axis of resistance and Iranian regime in the mask of elimination of terrorist networks and their perpetrators. Apart from the external and strategic compulsions of Israelis with such unprecedented adventurism in the region, Benjamin Netanyahu needed a wider war at home to uplift its ever-low approval rating among the Israeli general public.

Additionally, some other key insiders reported that a ground invasion of Southern Lebanon could also incorporate some territory so that the Israeli government could settle this occupied territory for settlement of the Jewish community as Israel has a great appetite for land; from occupation and settlement of West Bank to Gaza strip, Southern Lebanon territory could be used for further settlement of Israeli people in future, a compelling argument in that case.

Undoubtedly, Israeli maverick is a dangerous game for the entire Middle East and beyond and tantamount to playing with fire, although leaders from Global North and Global South asked Israel to take a pause in the ground invasion of Lebanon and re-negotiate a comprehensive ceasefire agreement with Hamas for temporal settlement of peace in Gaza, but none of among working at the moment.

The ruthless attacks of Israel in Gaza, Iranian proxies and other critically valued assets of Iran in the region put Iran in a tight spot. On the domestic front, to non-tangible response of Iran towards Israeli adventurism fostered the notion of weakness of the regime which is already on the backfoot due to the growing economic hardship of the country and rising inflation amidst global isolation. On the external front, the fragmented response of Iran also distracted, dismantled and demotivated the axis of resistance from Yamen to Iraq to Syria and Lebanon, including Houthis, Hezbollah and Hamas. However, in the case of a direct response from the Iranian regime, the USA would be involved in the aid of Israelis. Therefore, at the moment Iran is in a strategic dilemma to respond or maintain patience, in any case, Iran would be at a loss.

Additionally, following the escalation of the crisis by Israel, it proved its military superiority, human intelligence, technological advancement, and spatial intelligence in the form of satellite communication against its adversaries. Last month, the Pagers explosion was a clear example of that phenomenon where several electronic devices like phones, laptops and even solar systems exploded due to some known reasons; however, the prime Israeli intelligence agency was clearly behind it. In July 2024, Israel was able to strike an exact target at Tehran in the killing of the political boss of Hamas Haniyeh, without provoking a major escalation from Iran.

Moreover, tactical victories of the Israeli government in the killing of high-profile leaders don’t yield to the elimination of the ideology and spirit of Hamas and Hezbollah. Instead, history teaches us some other lessons as the vacuum of high-profile leaders of such organizations could energize spirit and influence. For example, the killing of Mullah Omar didn’t lead to the disappearance of the Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan, and even twenty years later, they were able to return to Kabul as rulers while Americans were leaving the country; Hezbollah who lost its iconic and powerful leader but would recover and regroup soon for its powerful ideology against the expansion of Zionism.

Additionally, despite Iranian weakness at the moment, Iran is not a paper tiger like other proxies such as Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthis. Interestingly, despite a clear military and financial edge, for almost one year, Israel has been unable to complete annihilation of Hamas, not to mention Hezbollah for a moment. And now Iran- having a greater population, equipped military, network of regional proxies, tough geography and backing of Russia and China- seems an unthinkable target. However, instead of real dogfighting with Iran, Israel may have another goal to instigate a revolution (regime change) inside Tehran by these provocations.

Nonetheless, the USA, which is the strongest ally of Israel, is clueless at the moment, due to several reasons. Form one hand, it is deeply committed to defending Israelis in doing so it has dispatched billions of funds in economic and military aid. It also defended Israeli adventurism in the United Nations Security Council by using veto power while voting against any resolution for condemnation of Israel at the United Nations General Assembly. Following the ground invasion of Lebanon, although the USA was against in expansion of war, the USA explicitly stated that it would join hands together with Israel in the account of the attack on Israel. Such a closed, entrenched and special relationship between the USA and Israel is mainly the result of the Jewish lobby of America that has great penetration in the White House, Congress, Pentagon and State Department, as per the analysis of John Mearsheimer.

On the other hand, America stands for a two-state solution to the conflict, a true mediator, American values of human rights, and its global reputation are also at stake due to the unabated support of Israel. On the domestic front, the USA has also seen growing support for Palestine’s self-determination and statehood which can’t be ignored by the American government for the long run. Therefore, the US administration is also in between a rock and a hard place in the unfolding crisis.

American administration also stands at the fence with the Israeli decision of ground invasion of Lebanon as officially Biden Admiration has opposed such adventurous and expansionist moves of Israel; however, to presence of a strong Israeli lobby in the American administration compels Biden to give the green signal for invasion of Lebanon on the prima facia of elimination and degrading Hezbollah.

As for the international community is concerned, major great powers like China and Russia are ardently antithetical to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon on the pretext of instability and chaos for such a disaster and reckless move. Both countries have also joined hands together in calling for the unabated support and approval of Washington is emboldened Israeli adventurism in the Middle East, which could lead to instability and war in the region and could ripple effects all across the world. Meanwhile, other countries of the Global South are also warned and showed much displeasure with Israeli new tactics of war, which only add to human suffering and instability in the region. Many countries, especially South Africa, have tried their best to put a halt to the genocidal campaign of Israelis in Gaza via the legal channel of the International Court of Justice; however, at some point, strong backing of the USA results in bypassing of international norms and legal jurisprudence as power is ultimate currency of international relations and diplomacy.

In a nutshell, the Gaza crisis now heading towards Lebanon by the Israeli government is a zero-sum game for all of the actors involved from Israeli to Iran whose natural outcome would eventually be instability, violence, war, chaos, mass killing and relentless displacement of a large population which don’t serve the any positive purpose to any of involving governments and actors.