The Decibel - How Israel’s strikes on Lebanon create new frontlines

Episode Date: October 2, 2024

On Tuesday, Iran fired hundreds of missiles into Israel following weeks of increasing Israeli aggression on Hezbollah. This week, Israel began ground raids and hit central Beirut in a strike. These attacks have killed hundreds in Lebanon and driven millions from their homes. Thomas Juneau is an associate professor of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa who specializes in the Middle East. He’s on the show to talk about what we can make of these escalations, and when we may see further involvement from Iran and the U.S. Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

On Tuesday, Iran fired hundreds of missiles into Israel, following weeks of increasing Israeli aggression against Hezbollah. Israel has not reported any casualties. Those missile attacks came a day after Israeli ground troops began raids into southern Lebanon. And earlier this week, airstrikes hit central Beirut. Israel's bombardment of Lebanon has so far driven a million people from their homes. I'm relieved, but I'm so worried about who we left behind. We are so worried. It's not over yet. It just began.

Hundreds of people have been killed by these strikes in Lebanon, many of them civilians. But with the situation changing quickly, we don't have exact numbers. Fighting between Israel and Hezbollah began on October 8, with Hezbollah firing strikes in support of Hamas. For months, that fighting was mostly contained to military targets. But now, the war has entered a new phase. To understand what's happening, I'm joined by Thomas Junot. He's an associate professor of public and international affairs at the University of Ottawa,

and his research focuses on the Middle East, especially Iran and Yemen. Thomas will talk about what we can make of these escalations, and when we may see further involvement from Iran and the U.S. I'm Maina Karaman-Wilms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Thomas, thank you so much for taking the time to be here. Thanks for having me again.

So you and I are talking on Tuesday just after noon. Things are changing really fast in this situation. But as of this point, we know that Israeli airstrikes hit Beirut earlier this week, and now Israeli ground troops have entered southern Lebanon. Can you just give us a very quick sense of things here, Thomas? How does this current situation compare with past conflicts between Israel and Lebanon? So that's a good question. And, you know, there's always this cliche about generals fighting the last war and making big mistakes as a result. And there's also a cliche about analysts analyzing the last war and making big mistakes as a result. It is true that the last serious war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 was militarily a draw in the sense that there was a lot of damage on both sides, especially in Lebanon.

But neither side can really say that it achieved its objectives. And that Hezbollah politically could be said to have won because it resisted against the much more powerful Israel. But the analytical danger here is to conclude automatically that this will again be a draw and that this will again be a quagmire for Israel. I think that's a serious possibility. And I'm not dismissing that. But things have changed. I mean, it's been 18 years. And one thing that has really changed, and we have seen that in the last two or three weeks, is that Israel has clearly learned a lot of lessons from its failures and mistakes in 2006. It has far better intelligence now,

as we see with the stunningly high degree of intelligence penetration of Hezbollah, they were able to kill not only the head of Hezbollah, but several layers of senior leaders. And that requires years of work. You don't make that up on the fly. According to media reports, Israel has extensive military plans to go inside Lebanon, which it didn't have clearly in 2006. So it is very different. And on the other side, well, Hezbollah is a lot more powerful today than it was in 2006. This is not at all the same Hezbollah. So how will these changes on both sides play out at this point is extremely uncertain. In the phase so far, Israel has been able to score significant successes.

But once you get into a ground invasion dimension, then it's a completely different dynamic. Let me ask you a little bit more about Hezbollah here. You mentioned, of course, that its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an airstrike. With Nasrallah dead, as well as a number of other Hezbollah members, as you mentioned, Thomas, what kind of impact do those attacks have on Hezbollah's current capabilities? Hezbollah is absolutely weakened. It has lost not only its leader, who was such a charismatic and important individual for the organization, but also several layers of leaders on the military side, but also on the political side of Hezbollah. Because it's also, yeah, it's also a political entity in Lebanon. Of course, it's a political party in Lebanon. It has MPs, it provides social services, it's a militia, it's an army, it's a terrorist group, but it's also a political movement. So obviously these must have weakened the organization.

On top of that, several hundred, if not thousands of fighters have been injured in the Pager attack from three weeks ago. According to media reports, a lot of Israel's targeting in the last two or three weeks have hit weapons caches and infrastructure. So the organization is weakened. But the counter argument to that is that Hezbollah, and we know this, is an extremely resilient organization. It has a very deep talent pool inside the organization. And we know that it has serious contingency plans and succession plans to be able to ensure the continuity of the organization when leaders at the battalion, at the higher level, at the top level, when they die. It's also an organization that as a fighting force is very experienced. It's been fighting in Syria for many years, right? In the 2010s, in the civil war in that country. So Hezbollah is not dead. It's destabilized. It's on the back foot, but it is still a very

strong organization. So that's why if we get into a scenario, and that's not clear yet, but if we get into a scenario of deep penetration of Israel inside Lebanon, all of the successes that Israel has absolutely had for the last three weeks, successes from a military perspective, these become much more questionable because the organization Hezbollah is going to be able to resist and it's going to be able to use the invasion as a rallying cry to rebuild its credibility that has been damaged a fair bit. Do we have a sense? How is Hezbollah viewed within Lebanon?

I mean, that's a general question and there obviously there must be nuances here, but can you just give us a sense of that, Thomas? So that's a very good question because Hezbollah is an extremely divisive organization. Hezbollah absolutely has a strong and very committed base of support inside Lebanon and to a limited extent outside of Lebanon too. In particular, among the Shia population in Lebanon, the Shia in Lebanon are a plurality, i.e. they're not a majority, but they're the largest group. They also have a bit of support in other minorities in Lebanon,

but that's a bit marginal. That being said, Hezbollah is very much hated among a number of other groups in Lebanon. Among the Sunni and Christian, Hezbollah is often seen as the enemy. Among the Sunni in Syria, and among all the anti-President Assad opponents in Syria, Hezbollah is seen as an ally of Assad who has crushed the opposition in Syria. So he is widely hated in large parts of Syria, too. So, you know, it's a very mixed picture. You're talking about Hassan Nasrallah there? Is that what you're referring to?

Hassan Nasrallah.? Is that what you're referring to? And these were real scenes of joy that were not made up for propaganda. I want to ask you also about Houthi militants in Yemen, because this is also something that we're seeing start to play out here, an exchange of strikes basically between Israel and the Houthi militants. Are you surprised to see an escalation with the Houthis at this stage? Absolutely not. You know, the Houthis are a group that we hadn't been hearing a lot about just until a few years ago. They emerged as a small rebellion in northwest Yemen.

They progressively expanded their power in Yemen. They seized the capital in 2014. They defeated Saudi Arabia, right, which tried to intervene militarily for years in Yemen after 2015 and failed. Right. And today the Houthis dominate Yemen. They are de facto the government in the capital. They don't control the whole country, but de facto they are the government. And as they've consolidated their power in Yemen, we've seen, especially in the last year, that they have worked extremely hard to become a regional

power as opposed to just a domestic player in Yemen. We've seen that most spectacularly in the attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, which have caused so much damage. They're targeting of Israel also. What we're seeing now, to answer directly your question, is that the Houthis see Hamas and Hezbollah being weakened, severely weakened in the case of Hamas. So the Houthis are de facto emerging, not only because of their own ambition, but because of the weakening of the others as a partner of choice for Iran, right? In the axis of resistance, quote unquote, right? That network of violent groups that Iran supports throughout the region. So the Houthis, who are extremely opportunistic as an actor,

politically, but also militarily, they see a window here, and they are absolutely trying to seize it. So as you mentioned there, Thomas, of course, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis, all backed by Iran, called this axis of resistance. Now on Tuesday, we are hearing that Iran is preparing a missile attack on Israel. Thomas, what does that kind of response from Iran tell you? So as you said, we're talking a Tuesday over roughly lunch hour. Events seem to be unfolding as we are speaking. So there will be more clarity in the next hours and days. But just to take one step back, the big question that we had been asking for the last couple of weeks was why hasn't Iran responded yet after Israel has been hitting

Hezbollah and Hamas groups, as you said, backed by Iran so hard? Why is Iran standing by? And part of the answer was maybe until now that Iran was biding its time to wait for the right time. But part of the answer, too, is that Iran is very limited in its options now. Because Iran supports these violent groups throughout the region and has been able to destabilize the region a lot like that. But in conventional military terms, and by conventional, I mean fighter aircraft, frigates, tanks, you know, like a conventional military power indicator, Iran is a lot weaker than Israel and the U.S. It knows that and it wants desperately, it's a priority, it's the priority to avoid escalation up to the level of all-out confrontation because it knows that in that scenario it loses. So yes, Iran wanted to retaliate for all the hits

that Hezbollah and Hamas were taking, but it was scared that its retaliation could lead to a counter-retaliation by Israel, which would really hurt Iran extremely hard. Now we seem to be going through a retaliation by Iran, which is very risky. And I'm assuming that Iran, as it usually does, will be calibrating its response to make sure that it sends the message that it's retaliating, that it's sending a message of strength, not only to Israel and the US, but to its friends, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, while trying to make sure that it doesn't provoke that overall escalation that it still, I'm convinced, wants to avoid. Do we have a sense, I guess, of the kind of effect a missile strike would have on Israel? Because we do hear about the Iron Dome. We know Israel has capabilities to deter these kinds of attacks. Would this have a significant impact on Israel? Because we do hear about the Iron Dome. We know Israel has capabilities to deter these kind of attacks. Would this have a significant impact on Israel? So just to make one clarification,

Israel has extremely effective air defenses in general. Iron Dome is its system to defend against shorter range missiles and rockets. So primarily from Hamas and Hezbollah, which are, in the case of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, in the case of Hezbollah, in Lebanon, right at the northern border. Israel has another system called Aero, which is its air defense against longer range stuff, i.e. that comes sometimes from Yemen and the Houthis, but also from Iran. Iron Dome and Aero, which together form a complex or layered system of air defenses, is very effective. But such a system, even when it is very effective, and when in Israel's case, there is a lot of experience in using it, it is never 100%. In April, when Iran attacked Israel with about 300 ballistic and cruise missiles and drones,

Israel actually had an extremely high success rate. But that was partly because a lot of what Iran used were drones, which are extremely slow flying, about 200 kilometers per hour. So Israel was able, with US, French, UK, Jordanian help to literally whack them down one by one. Cruise missiles, which are slower flying, which Aero was better able to detect and intercept. Iran intends to use a greater proportion, if not only ballistic missiles, in its current retaliation, which are much faster flying and therefore more difficult to intercept. And this is an important point, not only for the very simple and valid humanitarian reason of civilian deaths, but also because that increases the risk of escalation. Because Iran's attack in April, being easier, quote unquote, to intercept, made the risk of escalation

less likely. We'll be right back. Thomas, let's turn to Israel now. With Israeli ground troops now in Lebanon and the other attacks that we've seen over the past two weeks, we're seeing a significant escalation from the kind of tit for tat that Israel and Hezbollah had been exchanging for the last year over their border. What does Israel say is their goal here? That's not entirely clear. There is one goal that is clear, and it is to allow the 60 or 70,000 Israelis from the northern part of the country close to Lebanon who have been evacuated for months now because of what you described as the tit-for-tat attacks on both sides of the border,

it's to allow them to go back home. That's a goal. Beyond that, it's not entirely clear. There's a lot of talk in the media or Israeli officials have talked about creating a buffer zone in the south of Lebanon. And one area that is often mentioned is a strip of about 30 kilometers on the southern part of Lebanon, just across the border from Israel, that is between the border and a river called the Latani. And it's about 30 kilometers in that border area. And Israel has often said that it wants that area to be cleared of Hezbollah, and that therefore the current invasion, the current incursions are meant to dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure from that area. That's a possibility. The problem with that is that it's one thing to dismantle that infrastructure.

It then raises the question of what happens next? Does Israel stay there? In which case it's a permanent occupation, which is not only morally and legally extremely problematic, but for sure it will attract retaliation and resistance from Hezbollah and others and therefore bogs down Israel in another occupation of Southern Lebanon. If Israel then withdraws from that border area, that buffer area, then you know that Hezbollah will simply swoop back in. So there has to be a political process

with the UN, with the Lebanese government, with the US, with regional countries. The challenge is that right now, as we speak, I see absolutely no trace of that political process. I guess, yeah, I'm still kind of wondering about the strategy here, like Israel's choice to escalate the fighting now, what could be behind that? I think one element that does have to be mentioned, and the issue here is not even to say whether we agree or disagree with it, is to explain the reality that in Israel right now, there is a deep trauma with what happened on October 7th with the Hamas attacks,

and that there is a growing belief that over the last few months in Israel that the containment or the management of tensions with Hezbollah and with Hamas is not an option anymore, because it's an approach that failed and led to the devastating terrorist attack of October 7th. So there is a lot of debate, a lot of controversy. Not everybody agrees, of course, but there's a lot of people in Israel, in the population, in the government, in the security establishment, who say never again that we need to solve the problem as opposed to manage it, not only of Hamas in Gaza, but now of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and therefore of going much farther than we have gone in recent years. And of course, Israel has been fighting this war in Gaza for

nearly a year now. I wonder about their resources, Thomas, like have they used up a bunch of their military resources? What is their military capability going into this escalation in Lebanon? Well, first of all, there's obviously any state, democratic or not, will be fairly secretive about its weapon stocks and will limit the information that is publicly available to answer a question like that. But media reports coming out of Israel and coming out of serious American media have said that for now, Israel is capable of fighting what is de facto a three-front war and maybe even a four-front war, right? There's the Gaza front that is slower, but still there. Operations are not done. Obviously, the Lebanon front that is extremely intense right now. As of Tuesday, possibly a front with Iran. How durable that will be, we'll see. But also a front

with the Houthis in Yemen, which Israel attacked on Sunday, for example, and will, I think, probably continue attacking. In large part because of continued replenishment and military and economic assistance from the U.S., it does seem like Israel is able to sustain that in military terms. Where the debate does get interesting is when you take account of political and economic considerations domestic to Israel, economically, 11 and a half months of war and almost 12 months now have been extremely costly for Israel. Politically, there's also a lot of opposition to the continuation of the war. But for now, if anything, Netanyahu has been rising in the polls in more recent weeks. So he does seem to be on solid, solider ground, at least for now. This recent escalation into Lebanon, has this had any effect on the war that Israel is fighting in Gaza?

Well, the war that Israel is fighting in Gaza has really slowed down by any military indicator. First of all, a lot of Israel's military resources have shifted north to the Lebanon front. The number of strikes and so on, airstrikes, incursions, raids have slowed down. There's an issue of targeting in the sense that Hamas has been severely weakened. And it's not like there are multiple Hamas targets just waiting to be hit. They're not. Hamas is not eliminated, but its remaining fighters have been severely destabilized, but they're in tunnels, they're in bunkers, and they're very hard to reach. So it's not over. Israel still officially wants to release the 100 or so hostages, several of whom are reportedly dead at this point. But that has slowed down a lot.

And Israel's stated goal when it comes to the war in Gaza is to wipe out Hamas. We have seen high profile killings of Hamas leaders, Hezbollah leaders. I guess, Thomas, I'm wondering what kind of effect do these assassinations really have on the wider movements? So that's a great question. And, you know, there's been a lot of studies by academics, by think tanks over the years on what we call decapitation strategies, which is killing leadership of terrorists or other organizations, criminal and so on. It can mean decapitate at the head, at the top, like Nasrallah for Hezbollah, but also layers before that. And the answer that these studies have come up with is really a complicated one, which is it depends. Sometimes you kill a leader of a terrorist organization, but he's replaced by a more effective and more radical leader. More effective as a terrorist, of course. And then you're actually worse off. And in some ways, that's how Nasrallah himself came to power.

Israel assassinated his predecessor, and he proved to be a more radical, but also a much And then you're actually worse off. And in some ways, that's how Nasrallah himself came to power. Israel assassinated his predecessor, and he proved to be a more radical, but also a much more effective leader of Hezbollah as a political and terrorist organization. In this case, with Hezbollah, that's a question. That's a fair question. But it's a question made complicated by the fact that several layers of leadership have also been killed. So it's one thing to replace one guy, two guy, five guys, but here literally a significant proportion of Hezbollah's several top echelons have been killed. So it's hard to believe that Hezbollah will not be weakened and destabilized, but in the long term, I think, and several others absolutely think that it is way too early to write Hezbollah's obituary. In our last few minutes here, Thomas, I want to ask you about the U.S. What is the likelihood that the U.S. actually gets more

involved here? I think as long as the war remains contained to Lebanon and Gaza, the U.S. remains involved because of course it's involved, but indirectly involved, i.e. providing support militarily, support from an intelligence i.e. providing support militarily, support from an intelligence perspective, and there's a lot of intelligence sharing going on, and diplomatic support for Israel. Where it does become an open question is if things really do escalate between Israel and Iran. If there's limited tit-for-tat between Israel and Iran, the U.S. wants to keep that contained. But if things really escalate and don't stop between Israel and Iran, then the chances of the U.S. directly getting involved becomes much more likely. And the higher the ceiling of Israel-Iran direct violence, the higher the probability that the

U.S. comes in. And that's bad news for the U.S. because it is something that it has wanted to avoid. It is bad news for a lot of civilian populations in the region who, as is always the case, and we don't say this enough, they are the victims of a lot of this violence. But it's also bad news for Iran, because once the US starts using its vastly more powerful capabilities, Iran will suffer much more than it has so far. Just very lastly here, Thomas, the last time we had you on the show, which was back in August, you were talking about how Israel and Hezbollah have hit civilians. But most of the time, they try to aim for military infrastructure. But if we are in a scenario of escalation, that red line of trying most of the time, sort of, to focus on military targets, that becomes seriously diluted.

And we are going to see on both sides, way more civilian casualties. So yeah, so Thomas, back in August, you were kind of saying, you know, the red lines seem to be civilians being targeted here. That was several weeks ago. Where do you think those red lines are now in this conflict between Israel and Hezbollah? Several red lines have been crushed. The red lines of civilians being targeted has been crushed. The red lines of civilians being targeted has been crushed. Other red lines, which include targeting deeper inside the other country, as opposed to focusing mostly, not all the time, but mostly on border areas, that red line has also been crushed. So right now we are in a fundamentally different context than we were just a few weeks ago in August. This notion of red lines, I find very useful to try to understand

and analyze the conflict, where it is and where it might go, because a lot of what is going on is each side trying to push the red lines and reinterpret the red lines to its own favor. So as we said earlier, one of the things that Israel is trying to do now is to create a new red line, which is Hezbollah, not within 30 kilometers of the border. Right. And it is using military force and eventually perhaps a diplomatic process, we'll see, to try to enforce that new red line. And Hezbollah is resisting. So that notion of red line is actually a really central one to understand everything that's going on.

Thomas, thank you so much for taking the time to be here today. Thank you so much for taking the time to be here today. Thank you. That's it for today. I'm Mainika Raman-Wilms. Today's episode was edited and mixed by Ali Graham. Our producers are Madeline White, Michal Stein, and Ali Graham. David Crosby edits the show. Adrienne Chung is our senior producer, and Matt Frainer is our managing editor.

Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.