That’s a question many in the ‘smart set’ are asking themselves in the wake of the complete decapitation of Hezbollah at the hands of the Israelis. The problem is, they didn’t expect what happened already, so they are Ill-prepared to formulate any cogent answers to any follow-on questions about the next stages in the Middle East. Here’s my take as a less-than-disinterested observer.
An important thing to note is that the current war in the Levant was never solely about Gaza or Apartheid or Palestinian rights, it was about the Islamic Republic of Iran’s desire to destroy Israel. The Palestinians are nothing but a convenient tool for the Ayatollahs in their quest for that aim.
Most of you were aware that Hezbollah and Hamas are Iranian proxy groups. The Ayatollahs, starting with Khomeini and continuing to today, have used these groups as a shield as well as a sword against Israel and the collective West.
Tehran has spent decades building up proxies to surround Israel with the explicit target of taking over the region and destroying Israel. The point of building up those terror proxies was to wait for the right time and strike, and serve as a deterrent from Israel taking them on directly.
While the Ayatollahs are more than willing to sacrifice every last one of them to further their aims, they miscalculated badly this time. Tehran wasn’t counting on is Israel would fight these wars to win. In less than a year since 10/7 the Israelis have mostly eliminated Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and decapitated Hezbollah. Hezbolllah was the Ayatollahs shield and now it is gone.
Today we get news that the IDF struck Houthi controlled ports and other facilities in Yemen. This was partially done as retaliation for several Houthi ballistic missile attacks in the past few days. There was little damage done by these launches, the Iron Dome intercepted all of the incoming. I said partially, because frankly, the strikes, especially the one on the oil terminal at Hodeidah port are a stark warning to the Tehran. A strike like that on just one of their oil terminal ports would cripple the Iranian economy for months.
I feel that the Ayatollahs have to respond, but with Hamas in tatters and the entire chain of command of Hezbollah dead, I don’t know what exactly they could do. The Houthi might try something major, but I’m not convinced they have the materiel to do so. The same with the Iraqi PMF militias.
There has been some palaver about enforcing UNSC resolution 1701. The problem is, that resolution has been in place since 2006 and still has not been fully implemented.
I’m not one for predictions unless I have enough data for a quality analysis. And right now, I do not have enough. That said I think we can expect a few things in the next week leading up to the one year anniversary of the 10/7 attacks.
We’ll see a continued low volume rocket and missile attacks from Hezbollah and the Houthis. I think I can safely say you’ll see some drones or rockets from the PMF in Iraq as well. The vast majority of these will be intercepted by the Israelis.
I would also expect to see the IDF targeting more Hezbollah sites and personnel. I do not think the Israelis are done knocking of Hezbollah leadership quite yet. It seems pretty clear to me that Mossad has Hezbollah deeply and thoroughly penetrated.
As a closer, there’s this little tidbit:
As of now, that is unconfirmed, but it’s also too good to check.
