Will Israel attack Iran? Jesus, who knows. There are too many moving parts to say with any certainty. One of these "moving parts" is that the Israelis have to consider Hezbollah in Lebanon, and if Iran is hit, what will Hezbollah's response be like. Moreover, will Iran's first rate terrorist apparatus all across the Middle East strike American and Israeli targets with straight orders from Tehran?
Over at
Small Wars Journal,
Kip Whittington, thinks that Hezbollah will only attack Israel if it feels that the Israelis are going for regime change in Tehran.
An Israeli strike
against the Iranian nuclear program, while destabilizing, does not threaten Hezbollah's
chief sponsor in the region, and thus would not trigger an automatic response. As he notes in his piece, "Hezbollah would have to 'sit down and think about it.'"
Here is what Whittington
says:
In the middle of a region experiencing unprecedented change, a question lingers: Will Israel attack Iran? As a result, a flurry of writings have appeared attempting to answer this pertinent question. A "yes" comes with a list of consequences of which the most troubling is the threat of an escalating regional conflict. In the middle of this regional war it is said that the most powerful non-state actor in the Middle East, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, would be a key player.
Conventional wisdom amongst analysts suggests that Hezbollah, acting as an Iranian proxy, will retaliate against Israel. While certainly a possibility, policy-makers should recognize that today's Hezbollah is fundamentally different from the one that fought Israel for 34-days during the summer of 2006. Members can no longer afford to take actions that don’t pass a cost-benefit test. Recent remarks by Hassan Nasrallah best reflect this altered strategic calculus. The Secretary General declared that if Israel attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities, Hezbollah’s leadership would have to “sit down, think and decide what to do.” This seemingly uncharacteristic remark can be attributed to two factors: 1) Hezbollah is now the strongest political actor in the Lebanese government; and 2) both Hezbollah and the state of Lebanon will incur a massive retaliatory military campaign by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Therefore, Hezbollah will only undertake military action against its historic enemy if Israel pursues a policy that harms the organization’s vital geostrategic interests -- primarily regime change in Iran. As long as Hezbollah retains both a political and military wing, they will still require Iran’s ideological, military and financial assistance. With uncertain days ahead for their other ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, ties between Iran and Hezbollah will only strengthen.
