Fifteen years ago last Sunday, Israel announced its unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon, ending an eighteen-year war. The move emboldened Israel’s enemy, Hizballah, and provided a model for terrorists throughout the region, writes Mitch Ginsburg:

At the time [of the withdrawal] there seemed to be a problem—that the war was killing more Israelis than it was saving, roughly two-dozen soldiers per year on average—and it seemed that the problem could be solved by retreating. . . .

Yossi Kuperwasser . . . was, in May 2000, the chief intelligence officer of the IDF central command. Hizballah’s ability to oust Israel from Lebanon, he said, was “wind in the sails” of the Palestinian militant groups in the West Bank, which, four months later, launched the bloody second intifada.

Palestinians, he said, would tell him often that two-dozen dead soldiers a year for several years in a row was an attainable goal for the Palestinian groups if it proved sufficient to pry Israel off certain parcels of land. He said he would always tell his Palestinian peers that there was a big difference between the West Bank—the land of the Bible, . . . in which Israel had built civilian settlements—and Lebanon, which was neither settled nor part of the promised land.

Today Hizballah is considered by many to be the strongest non-state actor in the world. It has upward of 100,000 rockets in its possession and veto power in Lebanon’s national government. Would it have reached this position without an Israeli withdrawal? Would the second Lebanon war [in 2006] have been necessary?

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.