Hasan Nasrallah is gone but the threat of Hezbollah remains

No one should shed any tears over the death of Hasan Nasrallah, the longtime leader of Hezbollah, in an Israeli airstrike Friday. He was a terrorist kingpin with the deaths of countless innocents - including Israelis, Americans, Syrians and fellow Lebanese - on his hands. His demise was, as President Joe Biden said, “a measure of justice for his many victims.”

Hezbollah earned renown throughout the Muslim world for waging an effective guerrilla campaign against Israeli troops and eventually, in 2000, driving them out of Lebanon. In response to further Hezbollah attacks, Israeli troops entered Lebanon again in 2006, only to have Hezbollah fight them to a draw. Hezbollah won supporters for its “victories” over the “Zionist entity.” But it undercut its appeal to Sunnis by slaying numerous civilians as part of a scorched-earth campaign to keep the brutal, Iranian-backed Assad regime in power in Syria. Little wonder Nasrallah’s demise was celebrated by so many in both Israel and Syria, even as it was mourned by his Shiite followers in Lebanon and his sponsors in Tehran.

However, while Nasrallah’s assassination is amply justified on both moral and strategic grounds, it is unlikely to strike a decisive blow against Hezbollah - an organization that is deeply embedded in the fabric of Lebanese society.

Nasrallah became Hezbollah’s leader in 1992 after the assassination of his predecessor and mentor, Abbas al-Musawi, also in an Israeli airstrike. Israelis rejoiced at the death of Musawi, with some imagining Hezbollah might die with him. Yet Nasrallah - then a young and obscure cleric - proved to be even more effective an empire builder than Musawi was, turning Hezbollah into arguably the most powerful non-state military force in the world. It is quite possible that Nasrallah’s successor - most likely, his look-alike cousin Hashem Safieddine - will prove equally adept.

Whoever he is, Nasrallah’s successor will have his work cut out for him. The group has suffered body blows from an escalating Israeli campaign in the past two weeks.

Trying to force Hezbollah to stop rocketing its north - those attacks have driven more than 60,000 Israelis out of their homes - Israel unleashed the cunning covert attack on Sept. 17 and 18 that blew up thousands of Hezbollah’s pagers and walkie-talkies. It followed that up with punishing airstrikes that have eliminated numerous top Hezbollah commanders, culminating in Nasrallah’s death. The Lebanese Health Ministry estimates that more than 700 people have been killed in Israeli strikes in the past week. (It does not distinguish between combatants and noncombatants.)

The death toll is sure to climb after rescuers finish digging through the rubble of Nasrallah’s underground headquarters in southern Beirut. The Israeli Air Force likely dropped 2,000-pound bombs to penetrate his bunker, in the process flattening six residential buildings overhead. That is a measure of ruthlessness that will earn Israel further condemnation around the world. But Israeli leaders hope the strike will restore a measure of deterrence against its enemies that was lost after Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel nearly a year ago.

Hezbollah must be especially concerned about the success that Israeli intelligence has had in penetrating its most secret operations. Israel not only managed to supply the militia with booby-trapped electronic devices, it also tracked its senior leaders precisely enough to call in airstrikes to eliminate them. Israel’s vaunted intelligence agencies - including Mossad, Aman (the military intelligence directorate) and Unit 8200 (the equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency) - had their reputations battered by their failure to prevent Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack. They are restoring some of their luster now.

So now Hezbollah, while replacing its leaders and rebuilding its communications network, will also have to launch a hunt for traitors within its ranks. Thus, the ripple effects from Israel’s strikes will continue to destabilize the terrorist organization for months and even years to come.

Yet Hezbollah is far from defeated. Before the latest airstrikes, Hezbollah was estimated to field 150,000 to 200,000 rockets and missiles. The Israeli air attacks have eliminated some of them, but most likely remain operational. Hezbollah also is estimated to have 40,000 to 50,000 fighters who are highly motivated and well trained.

Israel hopes its air campaign will obviate the need for a ground attack on Hezbollah. But, as I noted a few days ago, few nations have ever achieved their war objectives via air action alone: Air power is most effective when used in a combined arms offensive in conjunction with ground power. And Hezbollah will be all the more reluctant to stop its rocketing of northern Israel after the death of its leader; to do so now would be a virtual admission of defeat that would badly dent its aura of power. Israel may still find itself faced with the daunting necessity of sending troops back into Lebanon, where they are likely to be in for a brutal, inconclusive battle against a formidable adversary.

Nasrallah is gone, and good riddance to him. But Hezbollah remains. It is not only a powerful military force and a potent terrorist organization but also a quasi-governmental agency throughout southern Lebanon that wins the loyalty of Shiites by providing Iranian-funded social services in place of Lebanon’s dysfunctional central government. It would be nice to think the Lebanese government could now disarm Hezbollah and end its reign of terror, but that is wishful thinking. Israel will still have to reckon with the Iranian-backed organization for years to come.

Hezbollah and Israel, although mortal enemies, managed to live in a cold peace between the end of Israel’s last incursion into Lebanon in 2006 and the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7. They will have to somehow attain a new modus vivendi after the end of the current bloodletting - because neither side is in a position to eliminate the other.