Hizballah currently has over 130,000 missiles, rockets, and mortars pointed at Israel—more than can be found in the combined arsenals of all NATO countries except the U.S. These include hundreds of large-payload, long-range rockets that could destroy large buildings or even entire neighborhoods, as well as thousands of smaller lethal projectiles that are too small to be intercepted by Israel’s missile-defense systems. Speaking with a number of high-ranking Israeli officers and security experts, Willy Stern finds that most believe a war with Hizballah is inevitable. In the words of one of his interviewees, “it is going to be an absolute sh—storm. And [Israel is] going to be blamed.”

Hizballah cleverly places its arsenal where any Israeli military response—even legal, carefully planned, narrowly targeted, proportionate measures—will lead to massive civilian casualties among Lebanese. Why? Hassan Nasrallah, Hizballah’s cunning leader, sees a win-win situation. He’d like nothing better than for the IDF to kill Lebanese civilians. When these awful images appear on CNN and the front pages of the New York Times, Nasrallah will paint the IDF as baby-killers and worse. . . .

Israel wants the world to know that (1) a war with Hizballah in Lebanon will be, unavoidably, awful; and (2) the massive collateral damage won’t be Israel’s fault. Even more than that, the IDF seems to be pleading to the international community: do something. Stop Hizballah. Before it is too late, and they drag the region into a bloody hellhole. . . .

[Still], given Israel’s sophisticated, high-tech war-fighting machine, Amos Yadlin, [a retired major general and former head of military intelligence], says the IDF will have “clear superiority” in any conflict with Hizballah. Deterrence matters. Yadlin and every IDF officer I spoke to made one point clear: a war with Hizballah may be ugly, but Israel will win. Decisively.

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.”