Lebanon: Keystone to Middle East Peace and Iran

Iran may be contained if they lack a proxy next to Israel, making Lebanon key

Lebanon borders Israel to the north, unlike Iran which is 1,000 miles away

If Iran emerges from the war without nuclear weapons, but with a large conventional military capability, that may be acceptable to most regional players, including Israel — but only if Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy militia in Lebanon, is defanged.

Iran is ruled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and the curret Ayatollah, all of whom are loyal to the goals and ideals of the Islamic Revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini 47 years ago. Essentially this means imposition of a particular form of (extreme) Sharia Law on as many people as possible, starting with Iranians, and expanding to Muslim-populated regions (the Ummah which includes Israel), and growing to the broader world over time.

To achieve this, Iran has pursued a few main policies.

Proxy Militias. First, Iran has expanded military power outwards into Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Sudan. All have, or recently had, Iran-aligned proxy militias to destabilize and control those countries. (Syria was more a real alliance with the Assad regime rather than a proxy control situation.)

Conventional military. Second, Iran has built a domestic military capability capable of augmenting the proxy attacks, and to directly attack nearby neighbors. In Israel, in particular, Iran was able to launch enough missiles to deplete, but not overwhelm, the missile and drone defense systems. Iran was in the process of vastly expanding their missile production capability, to truly overwhelm Israel’s defenses in the near future, which is one reason for the timing of the current war.

Nuclear program. Third and most famously, Iran has been developing nuclear weapons technology for decades, and was fairly close to a “breakout” capability (where the nuclear genie would be very hard to stuff back in the bottle due to hidden, enriched nuclear material and in-country know-how).

It is critical to consider which of these work alone, vs in tandem with the others. It shows how some strong proxy militia is essential for Iran to eliminate Israel.

The nuclear threat can entrench the proxy militias as well as the larger Iranian missile threat. As a deterrent, it would prevent more civilized countries from attacks as we see in the current war, giving Iran complete free rein to develop the other attack vectors, particularly the terroristic proxies, but also kinetic long-distance missiles.

(Of course, Iran could also simply nuke Tel Aviv, and would likely be happy to do so if it would destroy Israel. But it seems counterproductive: Israel would respond in kind, actually setting back the Islamic Revolution goals on other fronts.)

The proxies are also key to Iran’s goal of eliminating Israel; Iran cannot conceivably defeat Israel from 1,000 miles away, so needs them. We have all seen the limits of arial attacks alone in this war, and Iran cannot project troops and force such distances against a strong opponent as they find in Israel. Israel is far smaller, but distance protects them somewhat.

It is the combination of missile and drone capabilities with robust proxy forces such as Hamas and Hezbollah which make it conceivable for Iran to someday eliminate Israel.

Hezbollah in Lebanon is the remaining proxy force, is more easily supplied with arms (via land or sea) and is therefore the key to Iran’s plans.

Huge changes may be brewing in Lebanon, however. Lebanese Christian and Sunni leaders have been negotiating directly in Washington, DC with the U.S. and Israel for the first time in decades. These negotiations explicitly exclude the Hezbollah-aligned Shi’a leadership in the Lebanese government. It is quite a bold action from the Lebanese Government, breaking with tradition and signaling how they are ready to exclude Shi’a proxy forces and bring Hezbollah to heel. They may well be planning to take their country back from Iranian proxy forces, with U.S. or other help.

If Lebanon controls Hezbollah they can only then make peace with Israel and return to normalcy. Then (and only then) the entire peace plan makes sense. Iran becomes a strong, secure regional power unable to conquer other countries that it does not share a border with, or reach via rapid shipping deployments. These neighboring Gulf States, all of whom were recently attacked by Iran, are already making large weapons purchases from the U.S., establishing a new, local balance of power.

If Hezbollah remains in control of Lebanon, with access to shipping ports in the South, a network of tunnels, and military staging areas for an eventual invasion of Israel, then Iran has a real shot at defeating Israel someday.

Lebanon’s control of Hezbollah is now the key question. Does Hezbollah fold into a peaceful Lebanese government, or do they continue to be a rogue proxy doing Iran’s bidding in preparation for a genocidal attack on Israel?