A Sober Reading of Iran and Lebanon

National power is composed of military capabilities on the one hand, and resilience and motivation to fight on the other. Between Western civilization and the Islamist axis there are deep differences in perception and values regarding the relative importance of these components. In Israel and the United States, the emphasis tends to be placed on military capabilities; within the Islamist axis, on resilience, endurance, and motivation. This asymmetry shapes the emerging reality and is reflected in how each side defines its objectives.

Trump set a clear objective: removing enriched uranium from Iran. This objective is even more important than keeping the Strait of Hormuz open, which remained open at the beginning of the war. It is measurable and precise, and therefore preventing it from being achieved has become Iran’s ultimate goal — a zero-sum game. Neither side is eager to return to war. Although Trump projects that he has time, he also faces midterm elections and his term ends in 2028. For the Iranians, who think in much longer time horizons, patience is preferable and more rewarding. 

For this reason, there will likely be no comprehensive nuclear agreement between Iran and the United States. It is more likely that the sides will arrive at an interim framework focused on the Strait of Hormuz. More likely still, we may enter a non-agreed reality that could include exchanges of blows, with both sides trying to keep them below the threshold that would justify full-scale war. This range of scenarios is not good news for Israel.

Unless events occur that disrupt the emerging trends, the Second Iran War will be remembered for the paradox it created: in this war, Israel deepened the damage to Iran, but undermined the success of the First Iran War. The current dynamic may generate a new conceptual fixation that will accompany future American presidents: that there is no military option against Iran. 

It did not have to be this way. The war was poorly managed and missed the opportunity both to deepen the damage and to consolidate the achievement. How could it have been managed differently? The United States and Israel should have ended the war unilaterally and without an agreement about two weeks after it began. By that point, the upper ranks of Iran’s leadership had already been decapitated, its naval and air arms had been destroyed, its missile project had suffered a devastating blow, and its nuclear program had been pushed back — for the second time in six months. All this happened before the Houthis intervened, and before the regime’s myth of survival was born. Under such conditions, popular unrest in Iran after the fighting subsided would have been more plausible.

This, incidentally, is how the First Iran War ended. That war did not solve Israel’s problems, but it was etched into public consciousness as an Israeli success and an Iranian failure. In a world where the idea of “total victory” is a total fiction, that was probably the optimal outcome.

In Lebanon, the picture is quite similar. In the previous round — the “pager round” — Israel knew when to stop in time. Hezbollah’s resilience was damaged. It was exposed to domestic pressure and ongoing humiliation, and it refrained from responding to Israeli preventive eliminations of his troops in South Lebanon. In the current war, Israel is deepening the damage to Hezbollah’s capabilities, but in inverse proportion, it is strengthening Hezbollah’s motivation and self-confidence.

It is true that Lebanon is witnessing unprecedented phenomena in its discourse about Israel. But we must not confuse this with what will shape Lebanon’s basic reality. The demand that Hezbollah disarm is not an issue on which it will compromise. Like the Iranian nuclear project, Hezbollah’s weapons are the essence of the organization — the core of its identity. No form of pressure can cause it to give them up. Therefore, the bitter truth is that without a civil war, the situation in Lebanon will not fundamentally change. And even then, there is no guarantee that it would change for the better.

Finally, the war sharpens the tension between two security doctrines that have dominated Israeli thinking. Since the IDF’s withdrawal from Lebanon, Israel has behaved, in Ehud Barak’s famous phrase, like “a villa in the jungle.” It surrounded itself with high fences and sharp barbed wire - and we saw the results on October 7.

In response, a counter-conception emerged against the “villa in the jungle” thesis. It praises constant military friction and the effort to shape reality in the Middle East by force. Thus, the IDF captured the Syrian Hermon, intervened in Syria on behalf of the Druze, deepened cooperation with the Kurds in Iraq, created a regional presence in distant places such as Somaliland, and launched a second war against Iran within six months.

However, this doctrine also carries a price: it condemns Israel to a prolonged war of attrition and undermines the second component of national power, alongside military capabilities: the resilience and motivation to fight of a public that is already struggling to bear the burden.. It is also worth remembering that this doctrine is not new. This is how Israel acted for most of its existence. The theory of intervention and friction brought us the First Lebanon War, while the “villa in the jungle” thesis brought us the Second Lebanon Wa