The King is Dead
Nasrallah's demise and the after
Last week I wrote about how Hezbollah put themselves in a terrible strategic position. I intuitively understood this, but little did I know how ugly the tactical picture would get for them in such a short amount of time.
Last Friday, the 27th of September, Israel carried out an airstrike that killed the head of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah. Israel claims they knew his whereabouts for months and were just waiting for the right time to strike. Israel was in the right strategic position; they had the reach advantage over Hezbollah. Like a boxer, all they had to do was stick and maintain distance.
To do what they did to Hezbollah, Israel had to solve two problems:
The War in Gaza
Intelligence
Once the war in Gaza began to wind down, Israel could shift more resources to fighting Hezbollah in the north. Israel then had to solve an intelligence problem. Having the reach advantage through air dominance is one thing; finding and spying on Hezbollah leaders until you can kill them is another. After the October 7th attack, everyone, including me, talked some trash about Mossad. With this decapitation of Hezbollah, they earned their reputation as the scariest intelligence agency right back. Unlike most other intelligence agencies that put a premium on being quiet, Mossad really enjoys being loud and looking scary.