The death of the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike has dramatically weakened a key Iranian deterrent against its archenemy, Israel.
Iran has long sought to have the proxies it supports in the region — including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and forces in Syria, Yemen and Iraq — serve as the front line in its long-running fight with Israel. But if its most important military asset, Hezbollah, has been decimated, it may have no choice but to respond, experts said Saturday.
The decisions it makes will have a significant impact on the next stage of a growing conflict that now threatens to engulf the region.
“Iran’s choices really range from ugly to unpalatable,” said Ali Vaez, the director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group, a conflict prevention organization.
Julien Barnes-Dacey, the Middle East and North Africa program director at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said Israel’s assassination of Mr. Nasrallah significantly raises the risk of a dangerous conflagration in the Middle East, and beyond.
“It really is a question of whether Hezbollah has the capacity to launch wide-ranging missile strikes on Israel at this point,” Mr. Barnes-Dacey said. If it does not, “this could now push Iran to make a dash for nuclear weapons because they see that as their only effective form of deterrence left standing.”
Mr. Nasrallah’s death is a significant loss for Iran. Not only was he a charismatic leader who has inspired generations of anti-Israeli sentiment, he was also very close to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He was also his principal liaison to the Arabic-speaking world.
Mr. Khamenei issued a statement of condolences after Hezbollah confirmed its leader’s death, calling on all Muslims to rise against Israel with all their might and stand with Hezbollah and Lebanon. “All of the forces of the resistance are standing by and supporting Hezbollah,” Mr. Khameni said. “The fate of this region will be determined by the resistance with Hezbollah at the top.”
It is not the first time that Israel has decapitated Hezbollah.
In 1992, Israel killed Nasrallah’s predecessor, Abbas al-Musawi. “Israel has assassinated multiple Hamas leaders over recent decades, and on all occasions, these groups have come back — stronger, more radical, and posing an even graver threat to Israel,” Mr. Barnes-Dacey said.
Mr. Nasrallah’s death was the cumulation of a multiweek assault that started with an attack on a Syrian weapons facility supplying arms to Hezbollah, and was followed by a sophisticated sabotage operation on Hezbollah pagers and radios that killed or incapacitated scores of commanders and damaged the militia’s ability to communicate.
Subsequent airstrikes took out even more commanders. But other than denouncing the attacks in speeches and statements, Iran has largely stood by the sidelines. Mr. Nasrallah’s assassination could be the blow that finally forces Iran to react.
It is not yet clear how much damage the Israeli attacks have done to Hezbollah’s substantial arsenal of weapons, but if the militia has been significantly incapacitated, Iran may not have many options for retaliation.
Iran certainly has the capabilities to attack Israel itself, as it proved in April when it launched a drone and missile attack. But Israel could also deal a very severe setback to Iran both militarily and economically, and that is something that the Iranian government does not want, Mr. Vaez said. “They know that any attack by Iran would then allow Israel to further expand the war and drag Iran into a direct military confrontation with the United States,” he added.
If Hezbollah still has capabilities that it can deploy, Mr. Vaez said, that’s probably the likeliest response. “Iran wants to stay out of this as long as it can.”
Iran is good at playing a long game, said Paul Salem, the vice president for international engagement at the Middle East Institute in Washington. Instead of reacting with an immediate barrage against Israel, Iran could instead pull back, quietly help Hezbollah repair the damage to its weapons stores and its leadership, and start rebuilding what’s left.
Unlike Hamas, Hezbollah is not encircled by Israel. The militia has access to weapons supplies from Iranian allies in Syria and Iraq via the relatively porous Lebanese border.
“Hezbollah will, over time, find new leaders,” Mr. Salem said. “Those leaders can be trained and armed and given a new set of tactics and strategy. They have suffered a tremendous loss. But it’s not the end of Hezbollah.”
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