Hezbollah does not understand the message

The latest hiccup concerns comments made Sunday by General CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to journalists en route to Botswana. According to the Associated Press, America’s top military officer “said the United States would likely not be able to help Israel defend itself against a broader Hezbollah war, just as it helped Israel fight a Iranian barrage of missiles and drones in April.

He warned Israel “to think about the second order of effect of any type of operation in Lebanon”, including the danger to US forces, and said the Iranians could join the battle directly and bring greater support for their proxy “particularly if they believe that Hezbollah was seriously threatened. »

It’s a calculated red light for Israel – don’t count on US aid, count on Iran’s anger – but what message is the general sending to Hezbollah? In the group’s frontman Hassan Nasrallah’s bunker, it probably sounds like: “Go ahead.” You can get away with more. »

He would be wrong, which would cost the Lebanese people dearly. The Biden administration has warned on other occasions during this war that it might not act to help Israel, and Israel nevertheless did what it had to do.

The other half of this Biden policy is the withholding of weapons, slowing their flow to Israel over the past four months due to bureaucratic delays. This gives the president plausible deniability, even if delays and scrutiny were absent when the administration wanted them.

The White House’s goal is to deter broader war, but a policy aimed at weakening Israel has the opposite effect. This encourages Hezbollah to continue firing and extend its reach. This increases domestic pressure within Israel to do something. Without provocation, Hezbollah has already fired nearly 5,000 rockets, missiles and mortars into northern Israel since October 7, depopulating the region. Iran doesn’t care, but a major war between Hezbollah and Israel could destroy Lebanon. Central Israel could suffer damage like never before.

The stakes are high, which makes the U.S. policy of publicly attempting to deter Israel even more difficult to understand. Israel will be less likely to be forced to fight Hezbollah if 70,000 Israelis can return home safely to northern Israel.

This involves calming Hezbollah’s rocket fire and convincing it to withdraw its fighters from the buffer zone in southern Lebanon. But Hezbollah has no reason to do that if it thinks it can keep shooting and President Biden will protect it from the consequences.