An Israeli victory over Hezbollah would change the strategic paradigm

In January 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton began negotiations with the Taliban. “You don’t make peace with your friends. You have to be willing to go to war with your enemies,” she said. explainIt was a blow to the elected Afghan government and an adrenaline rush for the Taliban insurgents. For Clinton, however, it was a matter of realism. As repulsive as the Taliban were, they were a reality. The United States could neither defeat the group nor make it disappear.

The same attitude toward terrorist groups is widespread, not only in Washington, but also in Europe and at the United Nations. After the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, which killed more Jews in a single day than the Holocaust, diplomats shrugged and called for negotiations. After all, Hamas controlled Gaza. That was a fact that could not be reversed. Removing it would be like using military force. Most members of the UN General Assembly agreed, and rewarded Palestinian terrorism by granting it membership in the state of Palestine.

The same observation applies to Hezbollah. On September 20, 2024, a British orientalist argued that the interests of Iran, Hezbollah, and in the long run Israel, do not lie in a war with maximalist goals, but in a state of coexistence that, however regrettable and cynical, includes everything but war.

Three factors explain this attitude. The first is the legacy of frequent rotations of diplomats and international officials. The Taliban’s sacking of Kabul in 1996 or the Hamas takeover of Gaza a decade later may have been shocking in their brutality, but diplomatic rotations every year or two have normalized them. To diplomats, the Taliban represented Pashtun culture and always have, and it was normal for terrorists to control Gaza’s health ministry.

Second, there is a lack of historical awareness and strategic vision. Islamism is simply the latest movement to invade the Middle East. The Arab nationalism of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser faded over time, as did the Islamist visions of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini or Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. It is also wrong to assume that ideology cannot be defeated. The Baader-Meinhof group disappeared long before the Soviet Union. This is true even when the ideological group controls the territory. Neither the West nor the United Nations compromised with the Khmer Rouge when it turned Cambodia into a battlefield. The group disappeared after the invasion of Vietnam to end terrorism. Military power has largely defeated the Islamic State caliphate, even as Erdoğan’s Turkey tries to keep it on life support.

Third, there is condescension, even racism and anti-Semitism. The United States and Europe may have a tolerance standard for terrorism on their borders, but the diplomats who dominate the State Department suggest that Israel and the Arab countries live by less stringent standards.

Israel’s September 17, 2024, operation, dubbed “Below-the-Belt” or, as the Hudson Institute’s Michael Doran called it, “Grim Beeper,” was tactically and strategically brilliant. It targeted Hezbollah and neutralized it with devastating effect. Israel’s follow-up attacks on radio stations and face-to-face meetings have left Hezbollah in disarray. Not since the group was founded by the Islamic Republic of Iran 42 years ago has it come this close to delivering the final blow. It’s time for Israel to deliver that blow.

In 2020, while on a road trip through southern Lebanon, I met current and former Hezbollah members in their stronghold. Sitting in a teahouse just outside Nabitiyeh, Lebanon, Hezbollah members, including one who had spent years in an Israeli prison, said they had had enough. Israel existed, Hezbollah was more of a mafia than a liberation movement, and they just wanted normalcy. The fact that Maximum Pressure had dried up Hezbollah’s resources only accelerated these conclusions. Many cursed Iran and saw the pre-2000 border trade with Israel as a golden age for southern Lebanon.

When Israel first invaded Lebanon in 1982, Lebanese Shiites cheered the Israelis as they drove the Palestine Liberation Organization out of their towns and villages. The honeymoon was short-lived, as Israel overstayed its welcome and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Syria each tried to fill the vacuum with groups loyal to Tehran or Damascus but hostile to Israel. Iran had won the Lebanese Shiite civil war in 1986, but 38 years later, Lebanese Shiites have had enough.

The Antony Blinkens, Jake Sullivans, Jeremy Corbyns and David Lammys may be trying to maintain the status quo, but Israel should not. Eliminating Hezbollah and returning full sovereignty to Lebanon would shift the strategic paradigm and change the prevailing diplomatic belief that it is necessary to engage with terrorists rather than devise strategies to defeat them.