Nasrallah killing and impact on various Mideast players

Israel's predatory airstrikes over the past weeks materially hurt Hezbollah's communication networks and hindered their military capabilities. Hezbollah post-Nasrallah will be increasingly fluid over the medium term, since their leadership is destroyed, their budget is on a shoestring and their bureaucracy is demolished.

Israel's aerial assaults assassinated Hezbollah's top brass like Nabil Qaouk, Ibrahim Aqil, Fuad Shukr and Hassan Nasrallah, their Secretary General, decimating their command-and-control structure. Nasrallah's assassination was masterminded by Israel's Kidon elite assassination unit of Mossad.

A conspicuous contender to succeed Nasrallah is Hashem Safieddine, who chairs Hezbollah's executive council and enjoys close ties to Tehran. The biggest challenge facing Safieddine is to swiftly reorganise Hezbollah's structure and boost combatant morale. Hezbollah's incoming second-generation leaders are likely to continue Nasrallah's policy of no disengagement with Israel till a durable ceasefire in Gaza is reached.

Iran sent an IRGC-QF Commander to Lebanon (covertly via Syria) to ensure Hezbollah's smooth leadership succession and revamp security.

Iran's IRGC Aerospace Force launched Fattah-1 and Kheybar-Shekan third-generation long-range (1,400km) missiles, as a reprisal to Israel's ground invasion of Southern Lebanon, exhibiting wider scale, capability and complexity.

Fattah-1 and Kheybar-Shekan use solid fuel, requiring a shorter launch preparation time whereby the missiles land simultaneously (able to saturate the Iron Dome whose TAMIR interceptors already malfunction to an extent). These missiles use maneuvering warheads allowing for better penetration, and solid fuel, easier and safer to operate, whose launch requires little warning. The Fattah-1 missiles launched in the April strike were heavily intercepted by American and Israeli defences, but most were liquid-fuelled Emad ballistic missiles, with a disproportionate failure rate of 50 per cent. Tehran is also emboldened by the S-400 SAM air defence systems, Murmansk-BN electronic warfare (jamming) equipment and Iskander ballistic missile systems offered by Moscow.

Iran is also likely to avenge Nasrallah and Haniyeh killings indirectly through proxies, by smuggling weapons to Hezbollah through Syria and Egypt, by activating sleeper cells in Iraq such as Kata'ib Hezbollah and in Syria like Liwa Fatemiyoun and Zainabiyoun.

Le Parisien reported that the "snitch" who leaked the sensitive information to the Israelis about Nasrallah's whereabouts was Iranian. This is attention-grabbing since Tehran is Hezbollah's key sponsor. Importantly, it reveals how deep Mossad intelligence clawed its tentacles into Iran's increasingly compromised intelligence agencies. Israel exploited Iranian intelligence's institutional rivalries where Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security has been locking horns with Iran's IRGC Intelligence.

Israel baited Iran into this war so the US gets further involved. Washington has diplomatic, defence and economic leverage over Tel Aviv, yet the Biden administration does not use it. Raegan stopped Israel from continuing its Beirut offensive in 1982. Obama twice disincentivised Israel from striking Gaza, yet the Biden administration instead invites Netanyahu to address Congress receiving standing ovations. Intense lobbying by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Adelmans and the Zionists of America ensures that Israel gets carte blanche to do whatever it likes, genocide included.

Hezbollah's ability to strike missiles towards Mossad Headquarters, deep into central Israel, and their assaults against northern Israel (due to which 65,000 Israelis fled their homes) including Mount Meron and Ramat David airbases (which give Israel visibility over Syria and Lebanon) precipitated Israel's Operation Northern Arrows "a limited and focused" ground invasion into Lebanon, seeking to degrade Hezbollah's infrastructure along the border into Lebanon.

Although Israel enters Lebanon armed to the teeth with aerial support, it's likely to be a "lengthy" war where Israel will eventually call in reservists as Lebanon's terrain is mountainous and rocky (like Afghanistan) giving them an advantage over the IDF. It is strategically unwise for Israel to open up another war front as it wears itself thin.

Hezbollah's training, their hundreds of thousands of missiles and rockets, 40,000 troops including 3,000 elite Radwan special brigades, their 'home turf advantage' and extensive tunnel networks stretching hundreds of kilometers in 36 geographic regions as defensive installations against an Israeli invasion of Lebanon ensure that they remain a formidable force.

High-tech AI systems like Lavender and Gospel give the IDF an edge and the IDF's 8200 Unit (signals-intelligence) weaponised walkie-talkies and pagers against Hezbollah and their explosions revealed how terror seeped into global supply chains, and profound security lapses in an organisation that flaunted its deterrence and defence capabilities.

Israel's explosive onslaughts targeting Lebanon weakened the narration Hezbollah fed its members: that it can safeguard them and avert Israel.

Some critics argue that Nasrallah and Haniyeh were just good at saber-rattling, fund-raising, ostentatious traveling, partaking in negotiations yielding no results, delivering rhetorical speeches and petty clashes unable to preempt glaring intelligence breaches within their own networks and too detached from their rank and file.

Though its strategy is in tatters, Hezbollah won't concede losses. Lebanon's foreign minister asserts that an estimated half a million citizens are displaced in the country. Tel-Aviv's modus operandi of scorching the earth in neighbouring countries with the deluded dream that Israel can slaughter enough of the "terrorists" ignoring innocent casualties to achieve "peace" is disastrous. Israeli troops are worn out from Gaza where they still haven't defeated Hamas nor have they rescued hostages.

Many Lebanese witnessed the terror inflicted on Gaza. As Hezbollah dispatched rockets countering Israel on 8 October 2023, it linked Lebanon's destiny with a ceasefire in Gaza. Yet it never anticipated the war in Gaza to be this prolonged. Hezbollah accepted a delicate balance between determent, low-intensity combat and a restrained war of attrition.

Lebanon - a fragile state with no president, an interim cabinet, crippled ministries and institutions, and an economy in tatters - faces a full-scale ground invasion.

There was an opportunity for Hezbollah-Israel to de-escalate tensions, engage in multilateral diplomacy and reach mutually realistic compromises for the sake of the Lebanese and Palestinian people. Yet an intransigent Netanyahu, for whom war remains a political lifeline, rejected all deals.

It is not wars that win hearts and minds. You don't kill your way through peace. For every Nasrallah assassinated a hundred more are born.