Israel’s strike against a group of high-ranking Hizballah operatives, which also killed an Iranian general, met with approval and praise from many Arabs, much of it expressed via social media. In explaining this surprising groundswell of appreciation for the Israeli military, Abdulrahman al-Rashed points to Hizballah’s “heinous actions of targeting its rivals in Lebanon and its involvement in the killing of thousands in Syria.” He continues:

Those who shifted from admiring Hizballah to hating the group did so in less than one decade. These people used to support Hizballah in Lebanon in the past and they used to adopt the Shiite party’s political and military agenda. Anger began to surface when Hizballah’s militias occupied West Beirut [in 2008]—three years after the party’s involvement in the assassination of [Lebanese] Sunni leader Rafiq al-Hariri in 2005.

Hizballah, and also Iran, have lost the respectful and honorable status which they’ve always enjoyed in the name of Islam, Lebanon, and Palestine. Hizballah’s biggest fall [from grace] came in the wake of its clear sectarian bias in Syria as its members joined the filthy war which has killed more than 250,000 people in the biggest crime in the history of the region. This Iranian involvement in Syria will also have further repercussions.

There’s no doubt, in my view, that if a confrontation occurs between Israel and Hizballah or between Israel and Iran, many Arabs will pray for the defeat of Hizballah’s militias and [the] generals of its Iranian ally. This strange feeling, even if temporary, reflects the change in the region’s alliances and political stances.

Between the explosion of thousands of Hizballah pagers on September 17 and now, Iran’s geopolitical clout has shrunk dramatically: Hizballah, Iran’s most important striking force, has retreated to lick its wounds; Iranian influence in Syria has collapsed; Iran’s attempts to attack Israel via Gaza have proved self-defeating; its missile and drone arsenal have proved impotent; and its territorial defenses have proved useless in the face of Israeli airpower. Edward Luttwak considers what might happen next:

The myth of Iranian power was ironically propagated by the United States itself. Right at the start of his first term, in January 2009, Barack Obama was terrified that he would be maneuvered into fighting a war against Iran. . . . Obama started his tenure by apologizing for America’s erstwhile support for the shah. And beyond showing contrition for the past, the then-president also set a new rule, one that lasted all the way to October 2024: Iran may attack anyone, but none may attack Iran.

[Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s] variegated fighters, in light trucks and jeeps, could have been stopped by a few hundred well-trained soldiers. But neither Hizballah nor Iran’s own Revolutionary Guards could react. Hizballah no longer has any large units capable of crossing the border to fight rebels in Syria, as they had done so many times before. As for the Revolutionary Guards, they were commandeering civilian airliners to fly troops into Damascus airport to support Assad. But then Israel made clear that it would not allow Iran’s troops so close to its border, and Iran no longer had credible counter-threats.

Now Iran’s population is discovering that it has spent decades in poverty to pay for the massive build-up of the Revolutionary Guards and all their militias. And for what? They have elaborate bases and showy headquarters, but their expensive ballistic missiles can only be used against defenseless Arabs, not Israel with its Arrow interceptors. As for Hizballah, clearly it cannot even defend itself, let alone Iran’s remaining allies in the region. Perhaps, in short, the dictatorship will finally be challenged in the streets of Iran’s cities, at scale and in earnest.