Israel-Hezbollah Escalation Could Pull In Iran, US

Such strategic myopia, they argue, disregards Israel's need to retain positive relationships with its regional and global allies, first and foremost with the United States.

Instead of devastating Gaza after the October 7 massacres by Palestinian militants, Israeli leadership could have used the war to strengthen its relationship with majority-Sunni states in the Middle East and capitalize on its alliance with the US to ensure regional support for the Jewish state.

But the Israeli government's adamant refusal to entertain any ideas about constructive political engagement with the Palestinians is leading to a drastic erosion of Israel's ties with the regional actors that otherwise would be willing to align with the Jewish state again Iran.

A full war between Israel and Hezbollah would likely set the entire region on fire, involving Iran and its proxies. It could also drag the US into direct confrontation with Tehran – a terrifying scenario that President Joe Biden has been trying to prevent since October 7.

Unlike the war against Hamas – in which American support for Israel is restricted to diplomacy and arms supply – a war with Hezbollah may compel the US to provide concrete combat aid , as it did in April in a counter to retaliatory attacks by Iran and its proxies on Israel.

Hasan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's secretary general, has even extended the geographical scope of the conflict by threatening Cyprus , declaring that his organization would target the island if it cooperated with Israel during the war.

Washington is clearly very worried about the consequences of Israel-Hezbollah fighting escalating. Since the early days of the Gaza war, the US has been trying to negotiate an Israeli-Lebanese agreement that would involve the withdrawal of Hezbollah's forces from the border zone and their replacement with international forces and the Lebanese army.

In exchange, the American proposal suggests, Israel and Lebanon would form a boundary commission to address once and for all Lebanese and Israeli grievances over the location of their shared boundary line.

But as the Hezbollah-Israel war of attrition drags on, it is making any such deal harder.

In Israel, the pressure from conservative and religious sectors and from residents of the north to go to war with Hezbollah is mounting . Recent polls suggest that the majority of Israeli Jews would like the Israel Defense Forces, or IDF, to go to war against Hezbollah“with full force.”

The IDF, on the other hand, is sending mixed messages. Its spokesman recently delivered a belligerent message that the moment of truth is fast approaching in regards to the decision to go to war. Meanwhile, senior generals, including the chief of staff, have noted that after nine months of fighting, the IDF is overly stretched and worn out , and the opening of a front against Hezbollah cannot occur before the army is reenergized and regrouped.

As for Netanyahu, the once cold and risk-averse political realist is now risking a scenario that might lead to the country's total strategic defeat, undermining the security and viability of an Israel integrated in regional politics. There has been grave concern since January that if Netanyahu thinks that a full war with Hezbollah would serve his narrow personal interests, he could force Israel into that war. We may be advancing toward the moment of truth of this fear.

Hezbollah, on the other hand, continues its pressure on Israel, increasing the gamble of full conflagration, recognizing that Israel is potentially at its most vulnerable moment – perhaps since the 1948 war.

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In fact, given Iran and Hezbollah's long-term strategic goals of eliminating Israel, the continuation of this war of attrition is paying off, even if the price is the continued economic and political spiraling down of Lebanon.

The Americans along with the French – Lebanon's former colonial creator and master – have been working hard to offer diplomatic ways out of this crisis. From the very beginning, Hezbollah has said it would cease its cross-border fire if and when a cease-fire agreement should be reached in Gaza.

But at this stage, neither Israel nor Hamas leadership seems eager to reach that point. Rather, it seems as if the scenario that Hamas hoped would be realized after October 7 – that its allies in the so-called Axis of Resistance would join the war and attack Israel across multiple fronts – is only more likely.

In short, the Lebanon-Israel border is at present a combustible front at risk of explosion.

Of course, continuous mutual deterrence between Israel and Hezbollah may hold both sides back the way mutually assured destruction – or MAD – held back the US and Soviet Union during the Cold War. And US-led efforts are also aggressively seeking to tamp down the flames.

But without any major diplomatic breakthrough, the situation will certainly continue to fester and could erupt into a far deadlier war than even the one that has been going on since October 7.

Asher Kaufman is aprofessor of history and peace studies at the University of Notre Dame .

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .

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