This is How Israel Plans to Defeat Hezbollah and Iran

Israel aims to address the enduring threat of Hezbollah attacks by compelling Hezbollah to seek an end to the war while maintaining Israeli freedom to strike Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon. With each passing day since Israel launched its ongoing military campaign against Iran on June 13, the question of whether Hezbollah will enter the conflict—whether at Iran ’s request or of its own accord—has become more pressing. Will the Lebanese Shiite party join the fight, despite its defeat in the two-month war last year (September–November, 2024), in which Israel wreaked. ‘The stars aligned’: Why Israel set out for a war against Iran , and what it achieved IDF saw the regime’s growing nuclear threat, alongside the collapse of proxy groups, and was at peak. Israel is countering Iran ’ s plan through brute force . The result has been strategic failure on both sides, along with tens of thousands of innocent people killed and immense human displacement and physical destruction. Israel ’ s strikes on Iran ’ s military infrastructure seem to have reduced the number of missiles Iran could fire back, just as its earlier attacks on Hezbollah did. Israel cannot end the war without achieving three goals: dismantling Hezbollah ’ s military infrastructure all the way to the Litani River, enforcing its withdrawal beyond the Litani River, and stopping the smuggling of weapons from Iran through Iraq and Syria. Further Israeli tactical victories against Hezbollah, a Gaza ceasefire , or a U.S.-brokered deal for the Israel-Lebanon border will at best delay this reckoning—one that since October 8 is no longer a question of “if,” but “when” and “how.”. If Hezbollah is battered the way Hamas has been, Iran stands to lose its most effective ally against Israel and, by extension, the United States. Short of a capitulation by Hezbollah - which is unlikely - it is hard to see how Israel can achieve its war aim of removing the threat of Hezbollah attacks without sending in troops on the. Since Hamas’s horrific October 7 , 2023 , assault on Israel, Iran has supported the group by orchestrating attacks on the Jewish state from Iran’s other Resistance Axis allies—Hezbollah in Lebanon, Shia militias in Iraq, and the Houthis in Yemen.