In testimony before the House Foreign Affairs committee, Tony Badran documents the terrorist militia’s large arsenal of rockets and missiles, its increasing influence in Lebanon and Syria, and the danger it poses:

The partnership between the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and Hizballah has grown to such an extent that it is now meaningful to speak of the LAF as an auxiliary force in Hizballah’s war effort. . . . In certain instances, LAF troops and Hizballah forces have deployed troops jointly, such as during street battles with the followers of a minor Sunni cleric in Sidon in 2013. The LAF routinely raids Syrian refugee camps and Sunni cities in Lebanon, rounding up Sunni men and often detaining them without charges. . . .

The Israelis have no choice but to expect that if war should break out between them and Hizballah, the LAF will come to the direct aid of the latter. . . . In contrast to the policies of Israel and Saudi Arabia, the U.S. is not making its aid to the LAF contingent on its severing its operational ties with Hizballah—a policy which many in the Middle East see as facilitating the partnership between the two.

Iran and Hizballah clearly intend to leverage their success in Syria to change the balance of power with Israel. Specifically, they have set their sights on expanding into the Golan Heights, and on linking it to the south Lebanon front. . . .

As a result, the IDF is preparing for offensive incursions by Hizballah into northern Israel in the next conflict. For Israel, Hizballah’s use of Lebanon as an Iranian forward missile base, its expansion into Syria with an aim to link the Golan to Lebanon, and the prospect of this reality soon getting an Iranian nuclear umbrella, creates an unacceptable situation which, under the right circumstances, could easily trigger a major conflict.

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”