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from https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2024/09/28/its-official-hezbollah-chiefs-top-commanders-killed-in-israeli-strikes-n3795117

It's Official: Nasrallah, Top Hezbollah Commanders Killed in Israeli Strikes
Ed Morrissey 9:00 AM | September 28, 2024
AP Photo/Richard Drew

Fool around, find out. After decades of terrorist attacks and eleven
months of indiscriminate civilian bombardment, Hezbollah leadership
belatedly discovered that it had touched off a real war with Israel. And
then Hezbollah promptly lost its entire top leadership structure in less
than two weeks:

Long-time Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and other top commanders of
the terror group were killed in a massive Israeli airstrike on their underground headquarters in the Lebanese capital of Beirut, the Israel
Defense Forces announced Saturday morning as Israel sought to
dramatically upend the year-long conflict.

Hezbollah confirmed his death several hours later.

The announcement came as the Israeli military ramped up its airstrikes
against Hezbollah assets in Beirut and other areas in Lebanon, hours
after Nasrallah was struck at the terror group’s main headquarters,
leaving parts of the Lebanese capital shrouded in smoke and dust.

In the wake of the announcement, Iran's Ali Khamenei called for Muslims
to unite against Israel. But it's where the 'Supreme Leader' made that
call that is most notable:

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on Muslims on
Saturday "to stand by the people of Lebanon and the proud Hezbollah with whatever means they have and assist them in confronting the ... wicked
regime (of Israel)."

In a statement after the Israeli army said it had killed Hezbollah
leader Hassan Nasrallah, Khamenei said: "The fate of this region will be determined by the forces of resistance, with Hezbollah at the
forefront," state media reported.

He has been transferred to a secure location inside the country with
heightened security measures in place, two regional officials briefed by
Tehran told Reuters.

Looks like Iran has belatedly learned a lesson about Israeli
capabilities, and their own relatively lack of the same. Despite decades
of planning and resources, the Israelis easily penetrated Hezbollah communications and subterfuge, and not just in Operation Grim Beeper.
They knew precisely where to find Nasrallah, and had no compunction at
all in destroying Hezbollah's command center, even in a residential
center of suburban Beirut. If the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh at an
IRGC safe house in Tehran hadn't taught the Iranians a lesson about
Israeli determination and will, yesterday's decapitation strike in
Beirut certainly did.

Does Israel have that same capacity in Iran? Does Khamenei really want
to find out?

The comment about Hezbollah being "at the forefront" of the "forces of resistance" might be a clue. Why not Iran itself? Israel has all but
destroyed Hamas as a proxy army, although they still remain a potent
terror group with their top leader still presumably alive. Hezbollah's
entire upper echelons, not to mention its reputation, just got
annihilated. Iran is the only effective force in the field now against
Israel, but at least thus far, it doesn't appear that Khamenei is too
anxious to take the field.

That calculation comes in to better focus when one understands what the
loss of Nasrallah means to Iran's mullahcracy. Nasrallah didn't just
serve as the leader of Hezbollah; he was the capo di tutti capi of all
Iran's proxies arrayed against Israel:

Nasrallah had grown to become the senior leader of Iran’s numerous
proxies. He would often host Iranian officials, and he would also invite representatives from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad to Lebanon to coordinate their attacks against the Jewish state. He also sought to
muster the Houthis in Yemen to threaten Israel, and he coordinated with
Iraqi militias.

The Hezbollah leader had worked with other key Iranian-backed leaders in
the region; in recent years, Iran has seen many of them killed. This
includes Qasem Soleimani of the IRGC and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. With those critical leaders off the table, Nasrallah was increasingly filling many shoes. Now those shoes are empty again.

Fool around, find out? Perhaps. If Khamenei expects to reconstitute
Hezbollah as the forward force against Israel, consider the difficulty
he faces in achieving that goal now. Israel didn't just pick off
Nasrallah as they did with Haniyeh. The IDF destroyed their entire top
command, disabled thousands of their lower-level commanders in Operation
Grim Beeper, and have completely destroyed their organizational
infrastructure in Beirut. They'll be hard pressed to stop the Lebanese
Armed Forces from pushing them out of the country altogether at this
point, thanks to a total disintegration of command-control capabilities.

But even if they stick around, who can lead them? Israel has wiped out
all of Hezbollah's candidates for succession. Units are still conducting missile attacks essentially alone and without any coordination, making
those left with initiatives into easy targets for the IDF. There's a
very real risk now of a ground invasion that will scour the sub-Litani
of Hezbollah's remaining assets, which means that even if Khamenei
appoints a successor, there may not be much left to lead -- and not much credibility left to even try:

“Israel has declared war. It is a full-scale war, and Israel is using
this opportunity to eliminate the leadership structure and destroy Hezbollah’s infrastructure,” said Fawaz Gerges, professor of
international relations at the London School of Economics.

“They are breaking Hezbollah’s power. There’s no need to kill every member of Hezbollah, but if you destroy its combat structure and force
them to surrender. It loses credibility,” Gerges said.

That is the key. Nasrallah didn't just get defeated -- he got
humiliated. It took Israel less than two weeks to utterly vanquish
Nasrallah once the Israelis treated this like a real war. They
humiliated the mullahs of Tehran too, taking less than two weeks to
completely destroy the upper levels of the organization that Iran built
with so much money and resources over the last 45 years. Israel made
them all look ridiculous in a region where tyrants cannot afford to be
made to look ridiculous.

Fool around, find out.

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