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Keep an eye on Hizbullah
Hizbullah may boost efforts to avenge Mugniyah killing in wake of election defeat
Part 2 of analysis
The election defeat in Lebanon is
not merely a local political failure on Hizbullah’s
part – it is a defeat for Iran and Syria, which invested money and great efforts during the elections campaign, in an effort to secure the victory of the camp loyal to them.
The same was done by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, who supported the Hariri camp. At the end of the day, it was the Saudi money that tipped the scales, and the radical camp sustained a stinging humiliation. This fact will have regional implications for Iran’s status in the region, and possibly even for the presidential election results to be held there in about two weeks.
All of the above may affect Hizbullah’s conduct in the near future. Nasrallah
may – with Tehran’s and Damascus’ encouragement – abandon the responsible approach he adopted ahead of the elections in order to threaten the Hariri camp and force it to take Hizbullah and its allies into consideration when forming the new government.
As Nasrallah is not a candidate for a senior government post, his hands are no longer tied as they were up until now, when he attempted to carry out a “soft takeover” of the Lebanese government. This is the reason why the Lebanese are already very concerned about the eruption of a civil war initiated by Hizbullah and its partners.
However, there is another possibility: There is no doubt that Hizbullah is still deterred by the results of the last war, and therefore it will not seek to get entangled and entangle Lebanon in an all-out war with Israel. However, Nasrallah may very well try to initiate controlled tensions, which would force his political rivals in Lebanon to tow the line.
For example, Hizbullah may boost the efforts to avenge the assassination of Imad Mugniyah by carrying out an operation on the border or overseas, without claiming responsibility. Hizbullah may also attempt to fire at Israel planes on surveillance missions within Lebanon, and possibly even deploy anti-aircraft missiles supplied by Syria in the Bekaa Valley region. Israel already declared that it would view such move as a belligerent provocation.
Therefore, Israel must greatly boost its alertness on the Lebanon border and at overseas facilities, and of course, quickly fix the flaws discovered during the recent home front drill. For the time being at least, the election results in Lebanon cannot and should not be seen as an all-clear siren – the opposite may be true.
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