Israel Has a New Operational Freedom After Crippling Hezbollah
Live MintFor years, Israelis were told that in the next war with Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia would fire thousands of rockets and missiles a day, overwhelming their air defenses, causing blackouts, death and destruction. “The fact that Israel hadn’t attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities was always connected to concerns about Hezbollah,” said Danny Citrinowicz, who used to oversee research on Iran inside the country’s military intelligence branch. Israel also worried about Iran’s capacity to fight back, but its October assault there with more than 100 warplanes appears to have stripped the Islamic Republic of a significant number of air defenses. At a military ceremony last month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remarked that his ultimate goal is to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon, adding that now, “we can reach any place in Iran we need to.” In a speech to Parliament this month, he said Israel had damaged “a specific component” of Iran’s nuclear program. Those who conducted the study say it wasn’t wrong and that if Hezbollah had joined in fully when Hamas launched its attack on southern Israel last year, that scenario would likely have played out.