A tectonic shift in the Middle East

The killing of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah along with the rapid degradation of Hezbollah’s power over the past two weeks signals a tectonic shift in the Middle East.

From 2000 until two weeks ago, Iran, through Hezbollah, had appeared to establish a balance of power and deterrence with Israel. Hezbollah had pushed Israel out of Lebanon in 2000, fought it to a standstill in 2006, maintained a balance of deterrence between 2006 and 2023, and held it to a draw over the past year, since Oct. 7. Over the past two weeks, however, the Lebanese group lost its charismatic leader, most of its leadership, hundreds, of its fighters, much of its internal communications, and hundreds of its supply, launch, and command centers; the Israeli attacks remain in full swing and could be accompanied soon by a ground invasion. According to local officials, this escalation has also caused the death of over 1,000 people, the injury of thousands of others, and the displacement of up to a fifth of the Lebanese population.

Hezbollah can no longer deter Israel, as the latter is doing whatever it pleases; it has no defensive capacity to defend against any of these Israeli attacks, although it could still put up a fight against a land incursion. It also has not displayed an offensive capability on any scale that would compare to or dissuade Israel: either because Israel’s intelligence and air-defense shield have minimized Hezbollah’s offensive missile and drone capacity or because the latter is too afraid to hit Israel hard and then suffer the consequences. Another possibility is that Iran doesn’t want the group to expend its full arsenal in order to keep the powder dry for Iranian needs in case the Islamic Republic comes under direct attack.

In addition, since 2000, Hezbollah had built its domestic legitimacy vis-à-vis its base on the argument that it alone is the shield that protects people in the south and other parts of Lebanon from any Israeli threat; but over the past two weeks, the majority of the population of the south, as well as the southern suburbs of Beirut and the northern Bekaa Valley, have been displaced.

The assassination of Nasrallah has echoes of the equally consequential assassinations of Druze leader Kamal Jumblatt in 1977, the Maronite leader Bachir Gemayel in 1982, and the Sunni leader Rafik Hariri in 2005. Each of those assassinations had long-lasting and negative consequences on the cohesion and domestic influence of their respective communities. Also, Hezbollah’s resounding rout during the last two weeks has echoes of the Arab defeat of 1967 — with possibly equally momentous regional consequences.

For Iran, Hezbollah was the primary and, in many ways, the sole deterrent against Israel and its principal backer, the United States. Other Iranian militia allies or proxies in Gaza, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq could play supporting roles, but none were set up to be the strategically armed aircraft carrier parked on the Israeli border. Iran itself, with far inferior conventional capabilities than Israel or the US, and at a long distance from Israel, has limited deterrent or defensive capabilities against potential Israeli strikes. Indeed, over the past several years, when Israeli war planners contemplated strikes on Iran, their primary worry was the large-scale response that Hezbollah could mount from Lebanon. Also, in the recent past, Iran could threaten war and chaos in the Gulf, which acted as a strong deterrent at least to the US, as war in this critically important region would greatly impact global energy prices and could tip the global and US economies into recession. But Iran now has normal and friendly relations with Saudi Arabia and nearly all of its neighbors across the Gulf and draws much benefit from those ties.

The current rout of Hezbollah leaves Iran profoundly vulnerable. Not only has Tehran lost (at least for several years) its primary strategic asset, but the Israeli side has demonstrated an intelligence and attack capacity — and willingness to take risks and casualties — that neither Hezbollah nor Iran saw coming.

Much will depend on what Iran and Israel do next. For the Iranians, their primary and narrow option is to try to find a way to deescalate, slow or stop the Israeli onslaught, and effectively buy years of time — to review and revise their overall strategy, and to rebuild Hezbollah’s leadership and capacities.

The other option would be to build a more powerful deterrent, which would be a nuclear weapon; but it might be too late for that. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is itching to escalate the fight. If Iran tries now to make a run for it, Israel — with backing from the US — will undertake airstrikes on as many Iranian security facilities, nuclear and otherwise, as it can manage. It’s true that Iran can take a lot of punches, and such a series of attacks would slow Iran’s nuclear program, not stop it; but more importantly, the leadership of the Islamic Republic — aware of the high level of opposition to it among large swathes of its own population — would be worried first and foremost about the stability and security of the regime itself, if it proved so vulnerable to Israeli attack.

The tectonic shift in the Middle East might affect other arenas as well. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government, ostensibly an ally of Hezbollah and the Axis of Resistance, have remained conspicuously silent throughout the last year, probably aware of the threat to what remains of the regime if it took an aligned stance. In the past 24 hours, thus-far unconfirmed reports emerged that Israel had killed Assad’s brother Maher, the number-two man in the regime, a key figure in the Syrian military, the liaison with the Iranians and Hezbollah, and a main overseer of the massive captagon drug industry. In Yemen, the Israelis retaliated against a Houthi strike on Tel Aviv with a large-scale attack on Hodeida port — a critical logistical node for the Yemeni militant group. The attack on Yemen also illustrated to Iran that Israel is able and willing to carry out long-distance air strikes.

Of course, much will depend on what Israel — in effect, Netanyahu — decides to do next. In Lebanon, the Israeli air campaign seems set to continue until the air force runs out of Hezbollah targets, no matter the cost in human lives, ruined civilian infrastructure, or the number of displaced. Israel also seems poised to undertake a land invasion, probably to reoccupy a strip of southern Lebanon roughly up to the Litani River and also to dismantle the remaining Hezbollah installations that it cannot eliminate from the air. Whether this invasion would be a temporary in-and-out operation or a long-term military presence is not yet clear. The latter scenario would be one that might be welcomed by Hezbollah and Iran, as it would allow them to regain the cause that got them started in the first place: liberating Lebanese territory from Israeli occupation.

Meanwhile, there is no doubt that Israel’s victory over Hezbollah greatly increases Israel’s abilities and willingness to threaten or even hit Iran. Whether Netanyahu will keep rushing from war to war — Gaza, then Lebanon, then Iran — or whether he will await the outcome of the US elections and consider his options vis-à-vis the Islamic Republic in 2025 is yet to be seen. But clearly the board has been cleared for a direct Israeli-Iranian reckoning of sorts.

No matter how it is approached, and regardless of the recent agreements between Iran and its Arab Gulf neighbors, a large-scale war between Israel and Iran would not be a predictable and easily containable affair. It could quickly plunge the wider region into military conflict, upending the global economy by fully disrupting energy flows and nearby international sea lanes.

Although the US and the international community have proven largely ineffectual in the past year, an important diplomatic opportunity still exists. In its moment of deep vulnerability, it is time to be clear to Tehran that if it gives up not only its nuclear weapons program but also its network of proxy militias around the Arab world — half of which it has lost in the past year — and agrees to be a normal international player abiding by international law, it has a secure and prosperous place in the regional as well as the global order. It’s a long shot, but much of the Iranian public would respond positively to such a shift if there were a leader in Tehran bold enough to make it.

Interestingly, a similar offer can be made to Israel. At its moment of military ascendance and triumphalism, does Israel want to invest its current ascendancy in many more decades of occupation, with all the resistance, revenge, and recurring war that that will engender? Or is it willing to seize the historic moment, accept the outstretched hand from the Arab and Muslim worlds, and help bring about a final and sustainable two-state resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis that is embedded in a friendly Middle East and global order? Only the latter option can ensure a secure and prosperous future both for Israelis and Palestinians — and for the region more broadly.

Paul Salem is MEI’s Vice President for International Engagement. He focuses on issues of political change, transition, and conflict as well as the regional and international relations of the Middle East.

Photo by IBRAHIM AMRO/AFP via Getty Images