After Nasrallah, three quandaries shape the future of the war—and the Middle East
In February 1992, Israel killed the then-Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Abbas al-Musawi, who had led the group for less than a year before his death. Musawi was replaced by Hassan Nasrallah, a religious and political protégé of Musawi’s. In contrast to his mentor’s rather short tenure, Nasrallah has been at the helm of the terrorist organization for more than thirty-two years before his death on Friday. So ingrained was his leadership of the group that Hezbollah today is very much an organization designed to operate as a direct extension of Nasrallah himself.
Terrorists are not equal. Nasrallah was not Osama bin Laden, hiding in caves and at a rural compound. Nor is Hezbollah an isolated radical terrorist group; it’s a direct part of Lebanon’s society and government—to the dismay of many of the Lebanese people and the Arab world. Nasrallah was not just leader of one of the world’s most lethal and dangerous terrorist organizations, but a political figure with significant religious, financial, and governing responsibilities.
What now? Nasrallah’s death promises to fundamentally change politics in Lebanon, potentially the group’s future as Iran’s most critical ally in the region, and how Israel views the group. His death creates three interrelated quandaries—for Hezbollah, Iran, and Israel—that will determine if the region erupts in conflict and shape what it looks like for years to come.
Hezbollah’s quandary
Even before Nasrallah’s death, Hezbollah leadership was facing a conundrum. Nasrallah was eager to demonstrate active support for Hamas, while not undertaking lethal actions so extensive that they would prompt a full-scale war with Israel. Nasrallah learned from the mistake that prompted the 2006 war: His decision to send Hezbollah fighters across the Israeli border to kidnap Israel Defense Forces soldiers led to a thirty-four-day war that devastated not only Hezbollah, but much of Lebanon.
Hezbollah, and Nasrallah in particular, were heavily blamed by much of Lebanese society for the ruin that befell them. More than eighteen years later, at a time when Lebanon’s economy is in ruins, its financial, electricity, and pension systems all bankrupt, and basic goods in short supply, Nasrallah didn’t want to be seen as responsible for further destroying the broader Lebanese state by provoking or instigating a war with Israel.
But many of Hezbollah’s rank and file, including thousands of fighters who had battled in Syria, are probably dissatisfied with limiting their support for Hamas to rocket attacks on northern Israel. That frustration has compounded over the last two months, as Israel retaliated for a Hezbollah rocket attack that killed twelve children in Majdel Shams, Israel, in late July. In the last ten days, Israel has launched a series of escalated attacks: detonating pagers carried by thousands of Hezbollah members, then exploding walkie talkies used by the group the following day, followed by conducting over a thousand strikes against Hezbollah targets, before finally killing Nasrallah.
That Hezbollah would show restraint now, after its leader of thirty-two years was assassinated, is highly unlikely. Doing so would jeopardize the group’s legitimacy in the eyes of its own fighters and supporters. Moreover, whoever the group’s new leader is—Deputy Secretary General Naim Qasim and Hashem Safieddine, the head of Hezbollah’s Executive Council, if not killed in the attack, should be considered early top contenders—will need to consolidate support as quickly as possible. Hesitating or declining to respond in a meaningful and fulsome manner would undermine that goal.
Strategically, the events of the last few months have demonstrated that Hezbollah can’t deter Israel from attacking the group. To also not meaningfully respond to Nasrallah’s death is likely to be viewed by the group’s leadership as inviting additional, more broad attacks. And if Hezbollah feels increasingly cornered by Israel’s attacks—as it probably does with its leadership decimated and responses until now ineffective—it likely lowers the bar for not only meaningful retaliation but for a kinetic response that might be viewed as excessive, or even “irrational.”
The exact nature of Hezbollah’s response is likely to remain an open question, as is whether it acts alone. The Houthis and Shia militant groups in Iraq and Syria surely would welcome the opportunity to participate in trying to strike Israel hard. But what matters most, almost singularly, is Iran.
Iran’s quandary
When Hamas leader Ismael Haniyeh was killed in Tehran almost two months ago, world leaders warned that a response by Iran would risk setting off a regional war. The United States, which has spent much of the last year trying to prevent a regional conflict, sprang into action. Through both diplomacy and military warnings, it helped prevent an immediate Iranian response to the Haniyeh assassination.
The death of Nasrallah is a heavier blow to Iran. Even though it happened outside of Iran, it’s likely to be viewed not just through a professional prism, but a personal one. Nasrallah and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have known each other for four decades and shared not only a political ideology, but a religious one. Hezbollah accepts the Iranian concept of velayat-e faqih or “guardian of the jurist”: a constitutional system subordinate to a theocratic construct, for which Hezbollah also accepts Iran’s supreme leader as the ultimate authority.
Moreover, it bears noting that General Abbas Nilforushan, the deputy commander for operations for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was also killed in the attack on Nasrallah. IRGC leaders may view Nilforushan’s death as yet another reason to respond.
How might they do so? The reality is that as much as Iran’s leaders sincerely mourn the loss of Nasrallah and Nilforushan, Tehran’s overriding priority remains regime stability and security. Iran is as averse as any actor in the Middle East to involvement in a broad, full-scale war, and for good reason.
Iran’s power projection in the Middle East depends on its proxies. The catastrophic success of Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attack refocused Israeli attention on the group in a manner it had not been in years. The subsequent, massive loss of innocent Palestinian life and utter destruction of Gaza are horrid realities of the war that will reverberate for years to come. But so too is the fact that Hamas, while not destroyed, has been massively degraded. Its fighting forces have seen upwards of 17,000 killed and its leadership ranks have been decimated.
Iran’s terrorist partners and proxies in Gaza, the West Bank, Yemen, Iraq, and Syria have varying levels of responsiveness and connection with Iran, a reflection of varying political, religious, and other ties. If those proxies are no longer available to serve as a deterrent against an Israeli attack, then Iran’s domestic security, including its nuclear program, to say nothing of the regime’s stability, will be more precarious.
It’s for that reason that Iran has almost certainly been hesitant for Hezbollah to take a bigger role in the post-October 7 conflict. After Nasrallah’s assassination, Iranian leaders will struggle to appropriately balance how involved they can be in the immediate response, their personal feelings for the Hezbollah leader notwithstanding.
By declining to play a meaningful role in response, however, Iran risks lowering the cost to Israel of continuing to degrade Iran’s most important partner—militarily and organizationally, as well as the group’s command and control. Of all Iran’s partners and proxies, it is Hezbollah which has received the most money and advanced conventional weapons. Hezbollah is the pointy end of the spear for Iran.
Launching a widespread and intense response that triggers a larger regional war—the exact response many in Israel are hoping for—may help Iran exact a bigger cost from Israel for killing Nasrallah and other Hezbollah leaders. Doing so would bolster its own legitimacy with its proxies. Tehran may reckon that if Israel concludes there is no meaningful price to pay for its actions, it will be more likely to come after Iran directly in the near future.
Yet war with Israel carries huge risks. Tehran and Hezbollah would be able to inflict some short-term damage, but as it demonstrated in April, Israel simply has a military advantage.
An Iranian military response to Nasrallah’s death is unlikely to result in a restoration of full deterrence against Israel. And Tehran would have to reckon with the challenge of fighting a broader regional war today that it probably cannot win militarily or diplomatically. That would risk jeopardizing the Islamic Republic’s primary goal of regime security.
Israel’s quandary
Less than two weeks after the beginning of the war with Hamas, some Israeli officials, including current Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant, advocated a “pre-emptive attack on Hezbollah,” viewing the threat from the group as being of greater concern than that of Hamas. Gallant was overruled and the war in Gaza remained Israel’s focus, even as a daily volley of rockets began to fall in northern Israel and tens of thousands of Israelis from the area were forced to flee their homes.
Today, most Israeli leaders across the political spectrum view the situation in the north of the country as intolerable. Families have been away from their homes for almost a year, children away from their schools. What Israel is asking for, and has been for months, is space, not territory. United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 1701, adopted after the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, mandated that no armed groups, aside from the Lebanese armed forces and UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), would be permitted south of the Litani River, about eighteen miles from the Israeli border. Yet the Security Council resolution was never fully implemented, and Hezbollah’s control of the area today is intact.
Israel is not seeking to occupy southern Lebanon; it simply wants Hezbollah’s Radwan forces (roughly equivalent in concept to US Special Operations forces) to move their personnel away from the Blue Line—the UN-demarcated border between Israel and Lebanon—by at least ten kilometers. The United States and France, most prominently, have been trying for months to broker an agreement to this end.
Doing so, Israel believes, would allow the civilian population from the north of the country to return to their homes and no longer be within range of Hezbollah rocket attacks. Political pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address this situation took on new urgency after the school year began without residents being able to return home, a reality that led to significant anger by northern residents last spring.
With Hezbollah entrenched on the border, there are two ways to view the last few months of Israeli military action. The first is that Israel’s pressure is an effort to deescalate by escalating: raise the pressure on Hezbollah so that the group decides its rocket attacks are no longer worth the costs and distances itself from the war in Gaza. In theory, this would enable the group to move back the requisite kilometers, calming tensions, and reduce the potential for a broad war. Nasrallah, Israeli officials argue, is the one who connected the situations initially and refused to budge on the point; his killing raises the possibility, however remote, that a replacement will take a more pragmatic stance.
Part of the problem, however, is the now-uncertain state of Hezbollah’s command and control, which historically has been good. But in the past few months, Israel has eliminated more Hezbollah leaders than it had in the last few decades. Nasrallah’s absence, especially if other senior leaders were killed on Friday, may mean Hezbollah’s command and control is not as good as it once was. Mid-level field commanders in the south may not be as responsive to new leaders’ orders, and getting Hezbollah to move back from the border may not be automatic, even if a new leader agreed to the move.
The second view of Israel’s military operations in the last two months is that all have been preparation for a broader war aimed at Hezbollah’s strategic defeat. Hezbollah represents a threat that has become intolerable not only to the north of Israel but to the entire population. And the group’s weapons inventory, thanks to Iran, provides Hezbollah the capability to strike anywhere in Israel.
If the response from Hezbollah and Iran to Nasrallah’s death is so intense that it does in fact spark a broader war, then Israel’s immediate quandary is likely to be one of military tactics. Though Israel might prefer an air-only campaign, its military almost certainly already has developed plans, if needed, to send in ground troops to move the Radwan forces back from the Blue Line, if required. But putting ground forces in Lebanon risks a long, drawn-out war in an environment the enemy knows better, and at a time when Israel’s active and reserve military forces are exhausted from the war in Gaza.
Assuming Israel was successful in pushing Hezbollah further from the border, a new conundrum would arise: how to ensure that success is permanent? It’s not clear Israel has an end strategy to address it.
After the failure to fully implement UN Security Council Resolution 1701, Israel is unlikely to view a UN mandate alone as a sufficient guarantee. That leaves three options: an international force, such as an enhanced UNIFIL with a mandate to enforce and not just monitor the border (an idea that countries contributing troops will be loath to agree to); Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, which even Israel is unlikely to want knowing it would portend years of increased terrorist threats; or a technological border solution to monitor both above- and below-ground activity, combined with Israeli freedom of action if the Lebanese armed forces won’t act to eliminate known threats in the area.
A new era
Nasrallah’s death marks both the end of an era, and the beginning of a new one. If his leadership over the last thirty-two years portends what comes next, it will be a period of equal if not greater regional strife, as Iran and Hezbollah continue to prioritize their historic desire to permanently eliminate the state of Israel over that of the welfare of the Iranian and Lebanese people.
The underlying challenge for Israel, however, is that in a broader, regional war, the bar for success is significantly lower for Iran and Hezbollah than it is for Israel. Iran succeeds if it can successfully strike Israel and inflict damage; the bar for success for Hezbollah is to inflict damage in Israel and survive with the group’s core intact. Israel meanwhile is maintaining maximalist objectives including what Netanyahu called the need to “degrade Hezbollah” until it no longer poses a threat (a parallel to how he views success in Gaza as only being achieved through “total victory”).
A full-scale military conflict between Israel and its adversaries would visit varying degrees of devastation on the populations and infrastructures of Lebanon, Iran, and Israel—as well, potentially, as Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Red Sea shipping. But Israel, Iran, and Hezbollah also face challenges from not using the capabilities at their disposal: Such restraint risks permitting what each views as threats to their populations and security to linger unabated and unchallenged.
How these actors resolve their strategic quandaries in the coming days will determine whether the Middle East, and the world, can avoid sliding into catastrophic conflict.
Jonathan Panikoff is the director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. A former career US intelligence officer, Panikoff served as the deputy national intelligence officer for the Near East at the National Intelligence Council from 2015 to 2020.
Further reading
Image: Demonstrators carry pictures of Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah during a protest, following his killing in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Friday, outside Al Kalouti mosque near the Israeli embassy in Amman, Jordan September 28, 2024. REUTERS/Jehad Shelbak
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