I Fear We’re Headed to a War With Iran We Don’t Want

Pretty much everyone asked Israel not to invade Lebanon for the fourth time, but they were not dissuaded either by entreaties or by the unsatisfactory results of their three prior invasions. So, here we go again, and this time it’s widely expected that Iran will enter the war, perhaps by the time I’m finished writing this.

Before I raise any greater points, I want to say that there is simply no way that Israel can tolerate having to permanently evacuate towns along its northern border because they are under regular rocket attack from Hezbollah. There is definitely a “what the fuck did you think would happen?” element to this. Ever since the October 7, 2023 massacre carried out by Hamas, Hezbollah has been raining rockets on Israel out of solidarity.

Over the last couple of weeks, Hezbollah finally got their response. Thousands of their members were injured and many killed when Israel remotely blew up their pagers and walkie-talkies. Their leader Hassan Nasrallah choked to death on toxic fumes in a bunker after Israel collapsed three residential buildings on top of it. A long list of Hezbollah’s top management has been killed through targeted bombings. The south of Lebanon and Hezbollah-controlled areas of the Beirut suburbs have been hit by a barrage of air power. And now a division of the Israeli Defense Forces has entered the country to hunt down more fighters and dismantle their rockets and tunnels.

The stated aim of this invasion is to allow for the return to their home communities in the north. The Israelis have tried to reassure President Joe Biden that the invasion will be limited both in time and scope, but they’ve said that before. Their 1982 invasion resulted in an 18-year occupation and the creation of Hizbollah. The end of that occupation coincided with the beginning of the Second Intifada, so it’s hard to argue that it did anything to make Israel more secure.

As for Iran, the government there is reeling. They don’t want to invite the full wrath of Israel, and possibly the United States, but they feel tremendous pressure not to sit back like punks while their proxy army in Lebanon is decimated. It’s expected that they will launch rockets, missiles and drones at Israel despite the risks. The last time they did this, they transparently helped Israel avoid suffering harm by giving a lot of advanced warning. Almost all the projectiles were shot down and Israel was persuaded by the Biden administration to let it go without a response.

But I suspect the Israelis won’t pass up a second casus belli for war with Iran. The truth is, Israel can’t be secure until Iran stops using proxies to attack it. Another truth is that the Sunni Arab world dislikes Iran and its influence in Arab lands, including Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. That’s why they’ve done little more than complain as Israel has used disproportionate force in Gaza against Iran-funded Hamas, and it’s why they don’t seem to care that Hezbollah is being destroyed.

Yet, while Iran and its proxies are almost universally loathed by everyone else in the region, their willingness to resist Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land gives them a begrudging respect and credibility. The loss of that respect and credibility is what Iran now fears, and that’s what is motivating them to risk an attack on Israel in response to the invasion of Lebanon.

I can almost see a way this all turns out well, because the Sunni Arabs seem much more interested now in peace with Israel than endless conflict. Egypt and Jordan have long had peace agreements with Israel, and the Saudis and other gulf states clearly want to move in that direction in the interests of economic development.

The problem is that they insist on a two-state solution, which is precisely what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spent every moment since the Oslo Accords trying to preclude. It’s this idea that Israel can have peace and security without a Palestinian State that is a roadblock.

I can’t see any way that Israel can just kill their way back to some acceptable level of normalcy. And yet I think Netanyahu’s plan is to attempt it by goading Iran into inviting a massive American-Israeli response that will decapitate their government. There are some in America that will welcome this, and frankly no one should mourn an end of Iran’s experiment with Khomeiniism. But I don’t think the American people want war with Iran, nor is there an appetite for it from either the Biden administration or the bipartisan national security establishment.

Maybe I’m wrong, and it won’t come to this, but Netanyahu seems to have gotten his way at every step since the October 7 attacks. It’s very difficult politically for either party to stand up to him. And, yet, his overarching plan to deny the Palestinians a political future is simply wrong on the merits. This is the one thing about the Middle East about which there is near universal agreement. My concern is that America will get sucked into backing Netanyahu’s plan without actually believing in it.

That’s a recipe for moral disaster.