A “Negative Spiraling Cycle” in Lebanon
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I'm Andrew Schwartz, and you're listening to The Truth of the Matter, a podcast by CSIS where we break down the top policy issues of the day and talk with the people that can help us best understand what's really going on.

To get to the truth of the matter about the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon, we have with us my dear friend and colleague, Aram Nergouzian, who is a senior associate at CSI as an expert in matters of the Levant. Aram, welcome to the podcast. Can you tell us, you know, we're talking on Tuesday, October 29th, the situation is very fluid. What do you see right now and what should we be looking at? Well, thank you for having me, Andrew.

We've had a year now, plus or minus, of escalating conflict between the Israelis and Hezbollah, as you alluded to. It started out quite limited in scope. Most of it's symbolic. I don't honestly think that Hezbollah, had they known what would be the

tempo and the cycle of escalation, I don't think that they would have participated so haphazardly in what would become a hurting cycle with the Israelis starting on October 8th when they first started firing missiles and rockets towards Israel, tentatively in support of Hamas after October 7th. Starting in July of 2024, you had a spike in targeted strikes and assassinations that culminated in basically the decapitation of Hezbollah's senior leadership. Now,

The organization has struggled to restore how it observes, orients, and decide what to do, and then acts on the battlefield, let alone in the political sphere in Lebanon. Because anybody in senior leadership that was old enough to have been around at the founding of the group is basically gone. We have a new cadre of junior leadership that are continuing to engage in command and control at the operational and tactical levels in the South.

bordering Israel. You also have, in a sense, a shift in approach. Most Lebanese have assumed for years that the Israelis would engage in a large-scale ground operation that included infantry and armor, essentially an invasion as far as Hezbollah and their supporters are concerned. And that hasn't quite materialized. So what you've had is a cycle of targeted strikes and special forces interventions with limited armor by the IDF.

You've had Hezbollah leveraging what they basically built up over the last 15, 20 years, which is a series of redoubts along rolling hills and valleys in the south that are very difficult to penetrate using combined arms, regardless of whether the leadership in Beirut has been decimated. And because of this kind of in-and-out approach by the IDF,

a higher tolerance and risk appetite for attrition within Israel after October 7th, and the fact that local commanders in Hezbollah are still basically holding out in the south, you have the kind of hurting stalemate that would have been unimaginable pre-October 7th, 2023, that has become the new normal. It doesn't change the fact that Hezbollah is a shadow of its former self politically. There are questions about

why and how Hezbollah can and cannot fire some of its more sophisticated missiles, missiles it purports to have in its inventory. And we don't have any reliable estimates yet as to how many of their missiles have in fact been fired or destroyed. But for the time being, we have not seen the kind of mass fires by Hezbollah that really would threaten civilian infrastructure in Israel.

But we also haven't seen the kind of wholesale capitulation of Hezbollah assets and elements in the South that show the political aspects of what is so far a military campaign. Rom, tell me, Israeli forces seem to be decimating Hezbollah by the day. They've decapitated the leadership. They've been effective in destroying some of their stockpiles. Some of their members have walked away from Hezbollah.

What does this lead you to believe? Is this still pretty much a stalemate or does Israel have the upper hand? The Israelis have spent the last 15 plus years modernizing every aspect of intelligence fusion, data collection, bringing their special forces into truly in the 21st century and a long-term plan tied to conventional modernization.

Now, Hezbollah has spent a lot of time building up its missile arsenal, but in terms of their real-world combat training, most of it has centered on fighting irregular groups in Syria. Now, they've developed a bit of a vaunted reputation as shock troops going in and cleaning up the Assad regime's mess, in a sense.

In real world terms, Hezbollah has been using, at best, post-World War II level command and control in Syria, very carefully monitored by the Russians who have communications overwatch in that country, against a collection of actors that at best have been operating using World War I level command and control communications. If the question is, have they been training, have they been preparing to fight against a modern conventional military, the answer is no.

I think that doesn't change the fact that this is an ideological organization. They are zealous. They do believe that this is the kind of cause that you fight and die for. But that is also under a different time and place, the time and place where for most junior elements within Hezbollah,

And let's be frank, most of the younger and mid-tier personnel have only ever known Hassan Nasrallah and the senior members of the Shura Council, not just their dot lines, but throughout most of their time in Lebanon. You've had the kind of sea change in political leadership, and not just one or two or three, but wholesale.

that most institutions don't go through, at least not in such a short period of time. Now, you had a major strike in July, essentially killing the number two of their military command and control. But then in the latter part of September going into October, over a period of seven or eight days, Hassan Nasrallah and most of the senior military leadership of the organization was taken out.

And it looks like even now, if you look at how the battle is playing out, you've got the tactical battlefield in the south, and then you have the intelligence and counterintelligence battle that's taking place from the eastern met all the way to Iran. And in the latter, the Israelis have proven unrivaled. They've spent time penetrating not just Hezbollah and the mix of Lebanese actors operating in partnership or in alignment with Hezbollah, but also in Iran,

when it comes to the push force and other senior structures in Tehran. So that has been not only debilitating in terms of how to support and resupply from Iran all the way to the Med, it's been demoralizing because this is the first major shock that the organization has suffered

not just since the 2006 war, but in a sense, since the organization was founded. And in Lebanese terms, that is the great democratizer, because throughout Lebanon's post-independence history, different communities have vied for political primacy. They've used force of arms, they've used demographics, you name it, but they've all tried. The Druze have tried it, the Maronite Christians have tried it, the Sunnis after the Taif agreements and end of the Cold War.

And all of them have suffered catastrophic leadership crises as a consequence of assassination, civil war, foreign interventions, you name it. And the Shiite political establishment just went through that same crisis. So that is very much a side effect of the counterintelligence and intelligence war taking place after October 7th.

And it is catastrophic for the group. But then when you go down to the foxholes in the south where small units of Hezbollah are operating against modern military forces coming from Israel in and out, they are still holding on to this notion that all they need to do is hold that little bit of ground and attrit the enemy.

and fight a series of retrograde military operations. In a sense, as long as the Israeli military doesn't go in en masse, and the objective is not to hold territory, what some Lebanese consider an invasion, for example,

then this can go on for some time. It's not clear for how long. And there is a thinking in Iranian and in pro-Hezbollah circles that eventually the Israelis will tire out. Eventually the pressure will mount on Israel, certainly after the elections. And there's no basis on which to really test that. Israel might have far more staying power

after October 7th, because the next decade will likely be defined by the consequences of that catastrophe in terms of risk appetite, how the civil military structure assesses risk, and then how far successive Israeli governments might be willing to go to secure that immediate near or

abroad, along the border with Lebanon, the border with Syria, the territories Jordan, and even tied to Egypt and Sinai. And that's something that we haven't really come to terms with, just as much as the Hezbollah elements haven't come to terms with the consequences of losing their senior leadership. I want to talk more about what Hezbollah may or may not have left. But before I do that, I want to ask you, inside Lebanon, what's going on? The leadership, how do they feel about this?

It's very tempting in internal Lebanese politics to want to gloat. That would be certainly the case anywhere else. There's been a balance of power that has been so heavily skewed in terms of Hezbollah being the 800-pound gorilla in the political room that any perception of weakness or weakening or right-sizing of Hezbollah

has certainly created at least some breathing room that things might be changing, that the balance of power might be shifting as a consequence of the battlefield. But there's a dangerous gap between gloating and posturing and adapting to change in the balance of power and going so far that it triggers a response. And I think the mix of Lebanese political factions and actors are coincidental.

quite wary of this notion that there might still be a hurting response if what now constitutes Hezbollah leadership senses that there is now a fifth column threat, an internal threat from within the Lebanese political system against them, their constituents,

what remains of their political and military autonomy. Now, you have to also catch that in the reality that Lebanon has had a caretaker government for years, and that caretaker government has been presiding over a hurting financial and fiscal crisis starting in 2019. You have a military that is very, very dependent

on external assistance, not because it wants to be, but because historically Lebanese governments have underfunded the capital side of defense spending. And now they're even more dependent on aid when it comes to remaining combat capable. And when I say combat capable, it's not to go and fight an external threat.

but rather to maintain the limited internal stability that remains in country. The number one fear of the political establishment is that this can all turn so quickly that Lebanon could shift from a cross-border conflict to an internal conflict.

And the Lebanese military, which is still in the south, but not in the zone of contact between Hezbollah and the IDF, also is looking over its shoulder to the core of the country to try and maintain limited metrics of internal cohesion and stability there too, because they're our biggest concern.

There's also these internal fault lines that could escalate into open conflict, especially as a consequence of a massive internal displacement problem. You've had basically the south empty out and a predominantly Shiite south has now moved into the Lebanese hinterland in the Bekaa and the north, but also in the larger metropolitan

in Beirut area. And that only exacerbates internal cross-sectarian tensions. Those are the things that Lebanese civil military leadership are thinking about. It's really interesting because I feel like we hear things about this conflict here in the United States and people in Europe the same, but does the press reporting match what's actually going on in Lebanon? The Lebanese have already shifted in terms of their behavior and their mitigation approaches to this crisis in ways that

are reminiscent of past conflicts. It's a hardening and a stoicism in the face of day-to-day adversity. It's people going to school under the shadow of conflict. It's trying to maintain supply chains and logistics in a conflict. We've seen this before in the 15-year civil war. And that is trouble because it's the kind of resilience that Lebanon doesn't want to be known for, which is to say a negative spiraling cycle.

where you have more insecurity, but you're also adapting to it. Conflict has become the new normal in Lebanon again. And not like in these small pockets of instability as a consequence of political brinksmanship and the financial crisis, but because you have a large geopolitical battle. So on the one hand, the Lebanese are toughing it out, contrary to a lot of

the assumptions that this would lead to far higher levels of internal tension, there has been an attempt to keep a lid on those internal tensions between the Shiites, the Druze, the mix of Christian communities, Lebanon, Sunnis. They have found a modicum of live and let live, but it's hanging by a thread.

And in a sense, a lot of the international community has tried to limit its engagement with Lebanon because of the perception of corruption. Lebanon has endemic corruption in terms of how the government has functioned for decades. And as a consequence of the financial crisis, most governments and international organizations have tried to link their engagements with reforms. But this crisis between the IDF and Israel on one hand and Hezbollah on

the other has loosened some of that thinking into what we need to stabilize the situation any way we can. Because if we were talking before about what would happen if Lebanon became a truly failed state in terms of people leaving and trying to migrate to Europe,

or elsewhere in the region, what that does in terms of the proliferation of small groups that are armed and ideological and ready to basically work for any potential sponsor that's willing to fund them. That was always hypothetical and was sort of like the boogeyman, but now we're there. We're in a context where if this were to be a long,

hurting conflict, then the Lebanese's ability to hold out, meaning they're just trying to ride out the conflict, not immigrate, not go to Europe, not go to North America, not go to Australia, at least, that would become far more difficult to do. And we've already had a series of migration crises as a consequence of the war in Iraq.

the war in Syria, the conflict in Libya, dynamics in Yemen. I don't think it's anyone's interest to see a Lebanon that is even more unstable, has to deal with not just a displaced Syrian population that is stuck between Syria and Lebanon, but also a mix of Lebanese who really are trying to stay in their country and would prefer to stay in their country if they could.

Aram, we know in southern Lebanon, it's a constant battle zone. But what is it like in Beirut right now? Beirut is a hyper-urbanized, extremely dense city where you can be in one neighborhood going about your business and just 200, 300 meters away and have an airstrike against a high-value target in Hezbollah. It's happening regularly.

Now, the tempo has somewhat diminished over the last few days. And some of my interlocutors who work in the development space and in security cooperation who have spent the last few weeks in sites outside of Beirut as part of the contingency plan, many of those have started to shift back to Beirut. Not all of them, and mainly folks in the security cooperation space.

But that isn't meant to be construed as a return to normal. It's just that there's been a lull in the tempo. Now, a lot of this also comes down to the mix of targets beyond Beirut. The IDF and the Israeli intelligence services clearly have a set of priorities, and not all of them are in the metropolitan Beirut area. You have targets in the Bekaa. You have targets in Herma. You have high-value targets moving around, trying to make it more difficult for Israeli targeting.

But again, we come back to this question of risk appetite. Israel clearly is willing to go and hit key targets, as it sees it, anywhere in the country. And that also impacts the psychology of the Lebanese. Because in past conflicts, there was always this underlying assumption that there are safe zones, places where the conflict will either not show up or won't manifest en masse. And you can have people kind of go about their day to day. But that is less and less a stable model.

model, especially as you have more and more targeting in areas which are not considered traditionally as Hezbollah, Redouch, or strongholds. It's really a question of where you are in the city. And the other side of it is that the conflict is a national one. It's across the country. And what do you think the Lebanese people ultimately want, the majority of them? The Lebanese want to pursue the kinds of economic opportunity that

I think everybody else in the region wants to pursue. They would like, ideally, a country that is productive, where you have labor mobility, socioeconomic mobility, a country that is once again welcoming or preceded welcoming from a perspective of tourism, is not entangled in regional conflicts, is not beholden to the geopolitical ambitions of this or that country. I think that's by and large been the case for decades and often gets hijacked by a very small minority on this or that side. It's trying to reposition Lebanon

in this camp or that camp, and that's never worked. Lebanon has never been a country that stably fits in one geopolitical orbit or another.

It's almost in a cliche sense at the intersection of East and West. It does best when it's not caught up in geopolitical battles. And look, you have an educated labor market that is trying to remain in Lebanon, to remain rooted in country, especially as you've had this globalization of information technology and access to jobs that are more geographically agnostic. So you have potential jobs.

It is a country with unique geographic and natural resource features which make it unique. It's the only country in the region that doesn't have a desert. And those are all laudable. But you have these cycles of corruption and conflict that have been a disruption to what should otherwise be a country that is known for tourism, known for cultural exchange, and not for conflict.

I think that the Lebanese, by and large, regardless of their denomination and political orientation, when you peel away the bravado and the posturing, they just want to go about their day-to-day and provide for their families pretty much like everybody else. Is there a culture of confrontation?

conflict in a very small order in one community or another. That's true across the region. But by and large, I think the Lebanese would just like to get back to trying to forge a recovery after years of financial mismanagement. Finally, though, I want to ask you, going back to Hezbollah, we've often heard since October 7th, the day after Hamas attacked Israel,

and Hezbollah then started attacking in the north. We've often heard how dangerous Hezbollah is, how well armed they are, how much better organized and better armed they are than Hamas, how their tunnels are more extensive, how their leadership is more experienced. But yet it seems like Hezbollah is really on the ropes right now. What do they have left?

And what is their arsenal now look like? And I guess I also want to ask, why aren't they using more of these thousands of missiles that we've heard so much about? The problem that Hezbollah is facing is that on the one hand, their posture is beholden to Iran's foreign policy priorities.

And on the other, the shifting risk appetite of the Israeli national security community. What does that mean? That means that even if they want to dramatically escalate, assuming they can, they have to accommodate Iran's priorities as their primary sponsor and partner.

Iran has invested in Hezbollah much like the United States has invested in its fleet of nuclear ballistic missile submarines. The idea being that this is a second strike capability and a deterrence. At least that was the thinking before October 7th. And really right up until the summer of 2024, it was still the crown jewel in their array of irregular groups. And it really justified Iran's thinking that they didn't need a traditional nuclear arsenal as a deterrent. They had an irregular deterrent.

Now that deterrent has been damaged quite badly. It's lost much of its leadership. It looks a bit like a battleship in Battleship Rock or Pearl Harbor. That doesn't mean that Hezbollah doesn't have any fight left in it. I think if that were the case, this particular conflict would be winding down in terms of the information operations that both sides are still very actively engaged in.

And that brings us to the question of what is the thinking in Israel and how does that affect all of this? If you're in Hezbollah and it's pre-October 7th, or certainly pre the current intensification of the conflict, you would have considered things like a far larger volley of missile fire as a kind of escalation that would trigger a cooler response by the Israeli National Security Committee. Let's say cooler heads prevail, you know, we'll retaliate, but then we'll kind of dial things back.

The problem for Hezbollah is that the risk register in Israel has changed. The risk appetite has changed. And if you were to have a mass fire by Hezbollah, if they can still do it, and it's a big if, that enters into the realm of the unknown. It would be a justification for a far larger escalation. And not necessarily in Lebanon. It could be an escalation in Iran. You know, there's a thinking now that not every problem tied to Hezbollah will be resolved in Lebanon. And that's the problem that the Iranians are having to struggle with.

They have a depreciating asset in Lebanon that they can try and float militarily or politically, but probably not both at once. They have to deal with an Israel with a far larger risk appetite, an election cycle that may or may not present them with opportunities to secure the regime. And all of this while trying to figure out what to do about their deterrent. Should they shift towards a nuclear deterrent?

Won't that trigger an immediate escalation by Israel and its allies? This is not a good place to be if you're Iran. It's not a good place to be if you're Hezbollah. But I think conflating that level of pain with a clear end state where we shift from the battlefield to the realm of politics is still very unclear. I don't think that's been clearly communicated.

Certainly not here in Washington with U.S. interlocutors. And I don't think that players in the region have confidence that the Israelis have a clear strategy for de-escalation or a good reading on how Iran itself wants to craft some kind of a soft landing. So, yeah, these are going to be a few difficult, painful weeks. But at the end of the day, Andrew...

From Iran's perspective, Hezbollah is doing what it was designed to do. It's taking the bodyguards for Iran. But at some point, we're going to come back to politics. And it's incumbent on the Iranians to have some sense of what is an acceptable offering for this crisis.

And ideally, an Israeli civil military leadership that also has a good idea about what it thinks would be an off-brand. There aren't that many players that can fit in the middle in terms of negotiations. Globally, that'd be the United States. Regionally, there's certainly a role for Cairo and for Doha, but it remains to be seen what that space will look like after the elections. Aram.

As always, really appreciate your insight on this. I know we'll be talking more as this conflict simmers on, but thank you so much for this today. Thank you for having me, Andrew.

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