Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was photographed on his flight to the US earlier this week next to a hat bearing the slogan ‘total victory.’ Those two words somewhat obscure reality: Israel is yet to fully outline what would constitute victory in the currently three-front war (against Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Ansar Allah (Houthis) in Yemen).
Netanyahu is hardly alone among politicians and statesmen in his preferring vagueness over specificity. Vagueness provides flexibility, and enables a variety of possible end states to be presented as an achievement. You do not have to subscribe to the view held by Netanyahu’s opponents, that the Prime Minister cares only about his own narrow political interest, to suspect that his lack of clarity is not accidental.
Israel is yet to fully outline what would constitute victory in the currently three-front war (against Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Ansar Allah (Houthis) in Yemen).
Nevertheless, an absence of clarity was one of the main factors which led to the disaster of 7 October. The failure to properly consider the nature and goals of the Islamist Hamas movement began the slide toward the complacency and over-confidence which left the border inadequately defended on that day. So here are some goals which together might constitute a clear strategy for Israel.
The objective of Israel’s war should be the eradication of Islamist rule in the Levant. As a result of decades of complacency, incuriosity and illusion, for which both the country’s political and the security leadership must share blame, Israel permitted the emergence and strengthening of two areas of Iran-supported de facto Islamist sovereignty on its borders: Hamas in Gaza to the south-west, and Lebanese Hezbollah to the north.
Iran, patron of both these zones of de facto Islamist rule, is currently a year or so away from the capacity to produce a nuclear weapon. The regional contest with Tehran has a long way to run, and is set to form the Middle East component of a broader global contest. Iran’s success in assembling two Islamist armies on Israel’s borders represents a key strategic achievement for the mullahs, achieved by steady and patient work over the last three decades. The intention is to use these armies to slowly bleed Israel to death. If Iran goes nuclear, uprooting these entities will become impossible, without triggering a nuclear crisis. That’s why they must be uprooted now.
What does this mean in practice? In Gaza, an outcome to the present war which would include three elements would constitute victory: the destruction of the Hamas governing authority in the Gaza Strip (the movement is likely to remain, as in the West Bank, as a clandestine armed force, capable of occasional acts of terror), freedom of action for Israeli forces throughout the Strip, the establishment of a non-Israeli ruling authority holding civil control of the area.
The combination of these three elements would together end the de facto Islamist sovereign area in Gaza, which has constituted a launchpad for Iranian ambitions against Israel. Logically speaking, a war ending in anything less than the achievement of these three objectives should be judged a failure for Israel.
Ending the threats from the immediate south and north would constitute a vital step in ending Tehran’s forward march, which has been unimpeded over the last decade, and would begin the process of rolling back Iranian power.
Should these goals be achieved in Gaza, focus would then turn to the second goal. In the extremely likely situation in which US and French diplomatic efforts to induce Hezbollah to withdraw from the border area fail, the choice available to Israel will be to acquiesce to Hezbollah (let it terrorise residents of Israel’s northern border communities at will), or to force the Shia Islamist group from the border.
Israeli action against Hezbollah will not necessarily swiftly follow the achievement of Israel’s aims in the south. Time will be needed for forces to rest and re-supply. Israel’s ability to respond to Hezbollah’s very-well-developed rocket and missile array will need to be developed. But the goal of Israel must be to remove the Iranian capacity to pressure Israel from the north, by the physical distancing of Hezbollah’s fighters from the border. This will probably include the establishment of a buffer zone north of the border. Further Hezbollah attempts to strike at Israel would then be deterred. The prospect of a repeat of 7 October on a larger scale from the north would disappear.
The achievement of Israel’s objectives to the south and north will not of course constitute victory over Iran in the regional struggle now under way. Indeed, the final decision in this regard is likely to come only with the downfall of the Tehran regime itself. Ending the threats from the immediate south and north, however, would constitute a vital step in ending Tehran’s forward march, which has been unimpeded over the last decade, and would begin the process of rolling back Iranian power. Clarity of vision on this subject is vital, and overdue.
Jonathan Spyer is director of research at the Middle East Forum and author of Days of the Fall: A Reporter’s Journey in the Syria and Iraq Wars (2018).
