BROOKINGS
Commentary
What will Nasrallah’s death mean for the Middle East?
Jeffrey Feltman, Steven Heydemann, Colin Kahl, Mara Karlin, Suzanne Maloney, Natan Sachs, and Stephanie T. Williams
September 30, 2024
Sections
Post Nasrallah, serious questions
An upending of the strategic landscape
Will Iran try to play the long game?
A revolutionary event
Iran's calculations
A Middle East milestone
Lebanese civilians need urgent humanitarian aid
Israel’s killing of Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon on September 27, 2024 will have ripple effects across the Middle East. Brookings experts reflect on the implications of the Hezbollah leader’s death.
Post Nasrallah, serious questions
Jeffrey Feltman
Hezbollah is the Islamic Republic of Iran’s most successful export. Led by Hassan Nasrallah for 32 years, the “party of God” is the most capable and best-armed non-state armed group in the world. It is Iran’s partner, more than a proxy. Together, Iran and Hezbollah implemented the lessons learned from the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war: hardening bunkers, extending tunnels, disbursing arsenals, and exponentially expanding the size and reach of Hezbollah’s weaponry. Together, with brutality, Iran and Hezbollah saved Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from the wrath of his own citizenry. Together, Iran and Hezbollah trained and equipped Iranian proxies in Iraq and Yemen.
Israel’s assassination of Nasrallah, combined with the elimination of other leaders and followers, sets Hezbollah back in the immediate term. But it does not eliminate the threat of an organization that has shown resilience in the past and remains heavily armed. The question is what happens now with Iran, Israel, and the Lebanese themselves.
Iran has indicated publicly and privately that it does not wish to see a region-wide war in which Iran is directly involved. But in the face of its partner’s humiliation, does Tehran dare come across to its proxies in Iraq and Yemen as passive, relying solely on the Houthis and others (including Hezbollah itself) for a response?
Israel is likely to press its current military advantage, dismissing international outrage over civilian deaths and ignoring U.S. cease-fire proposals. While loathed by most Israelis, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can count on public support for hitting Hezbollah. He can probably rely on popular backing for a ground operation limited in time and scope, intended to allow Israelis displaced from the north to return home. But will Israel again try to occupy a strip of southern Lebanon, an approach that in the 1980s helped create the conditions for Hezbollah?
Finally, will the Lebanese see the blows against Hezbollah as a domestic crossroads? Through social services and offering prestige, Hezbollah has established deep roots within Lebanon’s Shia population, historically looked down upon by Christian and Sunni Lebanese. Will the death of their leader provoke grieving and furious Hezbollah cadres to seize Lebanese institutions (as happened in May 2008) and terrify the other Lebanese into electing a pro-Hezbollah president, filling the nearly two-year presidential vacuum? Will Christian leaders, sensing a wounded Hezbollah, overplay their hands and try to seize control, as Bashir Gemayel did after the 1982 Israeli invasion?
The best outcome inside Lebanon would be for the inspiring cross-sectarian demonstrations of 2019, snuffed out by the financial explosion of that year, to spring back to life, with ideas on how to build a stronger Lebanese state able to deliver for all its citizens. At the time, their slogan was “all means all”—all the political leaders and warlords who had so weakened Hezbollah Lebanon needed to exit the stage. The most powerful is now gone, but the vacuum will not last long.
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An upending of the strategic landscape
Steven Heydemann
Israel’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah is an enormous blow to an organization that has in the past shown considerable resilience. While Nasrallah’s death, together with Israel’s killing of dozens of the group’s senior commanders, may prove to be a temporary shock from which Hezbollah is able to recover, its immediate effects will be profound. In less than a month, Israel has upended the region’s strategic landscape through its campaign to weaken Hezbollah’s rank and file and eliminate its leadership, culminating in the attack that killed Nasrallah. It has exposed the limits of Iran’s proxy strategy and shifted the balance of deterrence and threat in Israel’s favor, at least for now. And it has almost certainly forced Iran’s leadership to rethink its reliance on Hezbollah as a force that could be deployed in the event of an Israeli attack on Iran.
What seems less likely, however, is whether Israeli attacks—which have killed more than a thousand Lebanese civilians and displaced hundreds of thousands—will advance Israel’s strategic objectives and bring about lasting change on the ground. However severe a setback Nasrallah’s death has caused, it has not neutralized Hezbollah’s vast arsenal of missiles. Whatever uncertainty Iran’s leadership may be experiencing now, it is unlikely to diminish Iran’s support for Hezbollah or its efforts to bolster the group’s military capacity. It is also unlikely to bring about a shift in Lebanese politics that would bring Hezbollah under the authority of the Lebanese state, such as it is, or induce the group to give up its weapons—a longstanding demand of its Lebanese critics. Nor is it likely to compel what remains of Hezbollah’s leadership to implement UN Security Council resolution 1701, calling for its withdrawal 18 miles from Israel’s northern border to the Litani River.
What seems far more likely, in the immediate term, is that Hezbollah’s remaining leaders will move, however haltingly given their relative lack of experience, to reestablish a chain of command, restore operational readiness, and prepare for an anticipated Israeli ground operation. If diplomatic options for avoiding an Israeli incursion seemed bleak before Nasrallah’s death, they appear even more so now.
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Will Iran try to play the long game?
Colin Kahl
No one should shed a tear for Hassan Nasrallah. He was the leader of a terrorist organization responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans, Israelis, Lebanese, Syrians, and other citizens from around the region and the world. His decision in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’s massacre on October 7 to order Hezbollah to open a second front against Israel also ensured he would become a target of Israeli military action at some point. His refusal to agree to a diplomatic solution along the Israel-Lebanon border—where tens of thousands of people on both sides have been displaced by exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israel—also increased the prospect that Israel would eventually attempt to increase military pressure on Hezbollah to force the group to decouple its actions from the ongoing war in Gaza.
In the immediate aftermath of Nasrallah’s demise, there are three key questions.
First, how decimated is Hezbollah? Clearly, Israeli covert actions and overt strikes in recent days have dealt a substantial blow to Hezbollah’s command-and-control system, as well as the group’s weapons stockpiles. But it remains unclear whether Hezbollah still has the capacity for the type of large-scale strikes—using thousands of precision-guided rockets, missiles, and drones to attack targets across Israel—that analysts have long feared. We should expect Israel to continue to use military force to pre-empt any sign that Hezbollah intends to use its remaining long-range arsenal.
Second, will Israel go in on the ground? If Hezbollah (and the group’s backers in Iran) do not agree to a diplomatic framework advanced by the United States and its allies to de-escalate the conflict and secure the safe return of border communities, the prospect will grow that the Israeli defense forces (IDF) will cross the border to militarily establish a buffer zone. A ground incursion would be a risky gambit that could produce significant costs for both the IDF and Hezbollah. But elements in Israel and Hezbollah may still advocate for (or invite) it; in Israel because it may be seen as the only option to accomplish the objectives of securing its border, and within Hezbollah among those hoping to drag Israel into a disastrous quagmire.
Finally, what will Iran do? Tehran built Hezbollah to be its forward retaliatory force on Israel’s border—a means to deter, and if necessary respond to, any large-scale Israeli attack on Iran. The Islamic Republic has a vested interest in not seeing the group fully destroyed. And Iran’s leaders undoubtedly fear that a failure to forcefully respond to the assassination of Nasrallah will undermine Tehran’s credibility with the remnants of Hezbollah’s leadership as well as other proxy groups in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. Yet, even with Hezbollah on the ropes, Iran is not keen for a full-fledged war with Israel, and the significant American military reinforcements sent to the region by U.S. President Joe Biden have further bolstered deterrence. While miscalculation cannot be ruled out, the most likely scenario is that Iran offers symbolic support, encourages Hezbollah to avoid going “all in,” and seeks to play the long game to rebuild the organization.
A related issue is the nuclear file. Since former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (aka the Iran nuclear deal), Iran’s nuclear progress has steadily advanced to the point that it would now take only a couple of weeks for the Islamic Republic to produce the fissile material for a nuclear bomb. The dramatic weakening of Hezbollah will rekindle debates in Tehran about weaponizing Iran’s threshold nuclear capability. At this critical juncture, it will be essential for the Biden administration to remind Iran’s leaders of the president’s determination to use all means necessary to ensure Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon, while quietly signaling that it would be wise for all sides to take a deescalatory off-ramp.
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A revolutionary event
Mara Karlin
The profound weakening of Hezbollah is a revolutionary event for the Middle East. The most capable non-state actor in the Middle East has taken a generational hit with recent events. From a slew of spectacular attacks eliminating most of its senior leadership, including its top leader for more than 30 years, to the unprecedented efforts to incapacitate many of its operators by blowing up their pagers and walkie-talkies, Hezbollah has faced among the most devastating losses of any terrorist group in less than two weeks.
After nearly four decades, Iran lost its best and biggest investment. Hezbollah adopted the train-the-trainer approach in the early 1980s, and it has advised numerous terrorist groups and militias since then. Its efforts to fight on behalf of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad were crucial to his survival. And inside Lebanon, Hezbollah was the only group that didn’t even pretend to disarm following the civil war’s cessation in 1990. Instead, it grew stronger and more capable, continued fighting Israel even after its occupation ended in 2000, and used its weapons to wage assassinations and to repeatedly undermine security and stability inside Lebanon.
To be sure, a weaker Hezbollah is still a profoundly dangerous Hezbollah. It retains a large arsenal and a strong network of powerful pals. Internal competition for power may lead to poorly calibrated actions. And Nasrallah will not be easily replaced as Hezbollah’s strategist or as a key representative of Lebanon’s Shia population.
In the near term, watch for: 1) Does Israel conduct any type of ground invasion? Every time it has done so in Lebanon since 1978 has come with its own set of problems, for both Lebanese and Israeli security. 2) Does Iran use military force directly in support of Hezbollah? That’s not usually how it operates, but if not now, then when? And if not on behalf of its closest proxy, then for whom? 3) Does Hezbollah try to de-escalate after a brief surge in violence or does it manage to maintain a more sustained response?
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Iran's calculations
Suzanne Maloney
The massive Israeli airstrike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday may have been aimed at the Beirut bunker that served as the group’s headquarters, but its ultimate target was Tehran. The elimination of Nasrallah, along with a string of senior Hezbollah commanders killed by Israel in recent months, throws into disarray Iran’s strategy of strangling the Jewish state through its network of proxy militias. And Israel’s successful attrition of Hezbollah intensifies the Islamic Republic’s vulnerability. As a result, despite the muted initial Iranian response, Nasrallah’s death is almost certain to ignite Iranian escalation in an effort to restore deterrence.
For more than four decades, Hezbollah has been Iran’s ace in the hole— the inaugural franchise within a loose network of militias cultivated, trained, equipped, and funded by Tehran. Hezbollah serves as the nucleus within the “axis of resistance” and its arsenal of sophisticated missiles are intended as the first line of defense for Iran. Crippling such a key asset, even if only temporarily, severely undercuts Iran’s stature and power projection in the region.
Nasrallah’s loss is personal for Iran’s political elite. He was the only major figure in the region who considered Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as his spiritual guide; the two men had known one another since Hezbollah’s early days. And the latest events follow months of daring Israeli operations that have steadily erased the entire upper echelon of Hezbollah commanders and key Iranian counterparts, as well as the August assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in an official Iranian guesthouse. For Iranian leaders and their regional allies, the question of what—or who—comes next looms large.
For now, Israel has achieved a decisive upper hand in its long-running conflict with Iran. However, the historical record and scholarly literature suggests that leadership decapitation has mixed results and at times may backfire. The Trump administration’s assassination of infamous Iranian Qods Force commander Qasem Soleimani in January 2020 ultimately did little to erode the strength, durability, or efficacy of Iran’s network. Israel’s elimination of a previous Hezbollah leader, Abbas al-Musawi, paved the way for the ascension of Nasrallah, who over the subsequent decades proved to be a far more effective and deadly adversary.
Iranian leaders appreciate that Israel’s intelligence penetration and tactical dexterity are humiliating and fueling a dangerous perception of the theocracy’s weakness. Their 45-year grip on power has relied on confrontation, brutality, and defiance—as well as strategic patience when necessary. In commemorating Nasrallah, Khamenei and other Iranian officials have invoked al-Musawi’s 1992 death. A month after that assassination, Hezbollah retaliated by orchestrating the bombing of Israel’s embassy in Buenos Aires.
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A Middle East milestone
Natan Sachs
Nasrallah’s demise is more than yet another assassination: Not only was he a symbol and leader of Iran’s “axis of resistance” and a major player for decades in Lebanese, Israeli, Syrian, Palestinian, Iraqi, and Yemeni affairs, but his death comes amidst a wider blow to his organization, which it may struggle to recover from for some time. It was a risky move for Israel, which expects revenge; Hezbollah is firing rockets at Israeli civilians even now and Iran will respond as well. But Hezbollah, Israel’s most formidable conventional foe, is at its lowest point in years.
The assassination also represents a slide in Israel’s own goals in Lebanon and a win for those in Israel who called for a northward focus from the start.
Israel has three disparate goals in this campaign. First, it aims to safely return home tens of thousands of Israelis whose towns and villages were evacuated, for fear of an attack by Hezbollah similar to that by Hamas on October 7. Yet, Nasrallah refused to acquiesce to U.S.-brokered mediation until a cease–fire was reached in Gaza.
Israel’s second goal was therefore to pressure Hezbollah to de-link the two arenas, with no success. The imperative to return its civilians home now places a risky temptation before Israel’s decisionmakers. Will it press its advantage with a major ground incursion to remove the threat from the border, and risk another Israeli quagmire in Lebanon, like that during the long 18 years between 1982 and 2000?
A third, more expansive goal lingered in the background for years, and has now become central: To degrade Hezbollah’s formidable capacity as a strategic threat to Israel by targeting its organizational and leadership structure, its military capacity, and its materiel alike.
For 18 years, Israel has been sparing little expense to infiltrate and monitor Hezbollah and Iran. The latest result is the remarkable string of intelligence successes of recent weeks, a sharp contrast to the colossal intelligence failure with Hamas. The attacks on Hezbollah’s pagers and its hand-held communication devices, the assassinations of senior commanders, and the strikes against factories and stockpiles of various munitions, amount, cumulatively, to a strategic milestone for Israel and other foes of Iran.
This caps years of Israel’s “campaign between the wars” to stop Iranian supplies to Hezbollah of precise munitions and their manufacture by Hezbollah itself. A large arsenal of precise munitions would represent an unprecedented threat to Israel, which is only about the size of New Jersey and within range of thousands of Hezbollah rockets and missiles which could overwhelm the country’s missile defense systems. The threat is in Israeli eyes second only to Iran’s nuclear program, and it is a central target of Israel’s current strikes as well.
From shortly after October 7, there were those in Israel who argued, with some reason, that Hamas was only one tip of a much broader campaign, loosely orchestrated by Iran. They advocated striking first against Iran’s most powerful tool, Hezbollah, not one of its weaker partners, Hamas. A year later, with Hamas—and Gaza—devastated, Hezbollah too is diminished and in disarray. It will regroup and respond, but it is no longer the organization it was just a month ago.
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Lebanese civilians need urgent humanitarian aid
Stephanie T. Williams
The implications of Israel’s stunning assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah may take months if not years to be felt. While Hezbollah, Iran, and their allies in the region are on their back feet, trying to regroup, we should keep our focus firmly on Lebanon’s already heavily traumatized and impoverished civilian population and, with our allies in Europe and the Arab world, use this interregnum to prevent full state collapse. Indeed, it could be a moment for some kind of state reassertion.
Already, Lebanon is in the grip of its worst economic crisis since the 19th century with the rate of poverty tripling in the ten years between 2012 and 2022, according to the World Bank. Beirut has never recovered from the devastating port explosion of August 2020 and now many areas of the south and the southern suburbs of the capital have been leveled by Israeli bombs. Up to one million civilians—some 20% of Lebanon’s population of 5 million—are now displaced and on the move. Urgent humanitarian assistance is needed to forestall even greater tragedy from unfolding.
We should ramp up support for the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and other state security institutions with whom we enjoy steady cooperation. In keeping with UNSCR 1701, the LAF should be deployed across the country, up to the Blue Line. Complicating matters is the fact that Lebanon has been without a president for almost two years. The parliament should be pushed to convene to elect a head of state and usher in a permanent government to replace the enfeebled executive currently in charge. If ever there was a time, this is the moment for Lebanon’s friends to swiftly mobilize on her behalf.
Authors
Jeffrey Feltman
John C. Whitehead Visiting Fellow in International Diplomacy - Foreign Policy, Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology
Steven Heydemann
Steven Heydemann
Nonresident Senior Fellow - Foreign Policy, Center for Middle East Policy
@SHeydemann
Colin Kahl
Colin Kahl
Sydney Stein, Jr. Scholar in Residence - Foreign Policy, Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology
@ColinKahl
Mara Karlin
Visiting Fellow - Foreign Policy, Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology
Suzanne Maloney
Vice President and Director - Foreign Policy
@MaloneySuzanne
Natan Sachs
Natan Sachs
Director - Center for Middle East Policy, Senior Fellow - Foreign Policy, Center for Middle East Policy
@natansachs
Stephanie Turco Williams
Stephanie T. Williams
Nonresident Senior Fellow - Foreign Policy, Center for Middle East Policy
@StephAnneTurco
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