Who Will Save the West?

Protect the West from Iran and Its Proxies 

In the WSJ, Yonah Jeremy Bob, a senior analyst for the Jerusalem Post, describes a house you would thank your lucky stars not to be living in:

• The kitchen: filled with advanced Kornet antitank missiles.
• A living room with grenades, mortars, high-caliber guns, and dozens of military vests.
• Concealed near this southern Lebanese house is an antiaircraft gun.

One can only imagine what it is like for a generation of children growing up in what is thought to be normal: playing. They play alongside deadly weapons of war. Across dozens of villages in southern Lebanon, it is reported that Hezbollah has built these “homes.”

Recently, the WSJ’s guest author rode along a convoy of Humvees with the Israel Defense Forces. Bob was cautioned by the IDF not to identify the villages for fear of endangerment to IDF’s operation.

In hand-to-hand combat, the Israeli military exploded Hezbollah weapon stockpiles, resulting in almost half of these targeted villages being destroyed.

IDF soldiers in tanks or bulldozers rumbled from house to house to catalogue weapons Hezbollah had buried. They then demolished the homes. The terror group had hoped to tap its infrastructure in southern Lebanon to invade northern Israel in a replay of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

Taking apart terrorist infrastructure built into civilian surroundings comes with many risks. The mountain terrain is much different from that in Gaza: Rocky topography makes it harder to destroy Hezbollah’s tunnels, which sometimes requires pouring huge amounts of cement. The terrain hasn’t kept Israel from prevailing on the battlefield far more than it did in the 2006 Second Lebanon War.

During Mr. Bob’s visit, he heard gunfire and explosions and saw Hezbollah rockets overhead. Hezbollah’s presence in southern Lebanon is wiping out the West’s view that this is an Israeli problem that can be solved by diplomacy alone.

Since the invasion of southern Lebanon began on Sept. 30, the IDF has showered the West with evidence of weapons and materiel hidden in every third or fifth house. In some villages, Hezbollah commandeers every house.

The Farce: Iran Ignoring a 2006 UN Resolution

Why isn’t the West raining fire and brimstone down on Hezbollah and its sponsor, Iran? This is making a farce of United Nations Resolution 1701, which was adopted in 2006 and stated that Hezbollah couldn’t operate in southern Lebanon.

Controlling Hezbollah 

How much longer can the West deny that Hezbollah is out of control and must be restrained, preferably by diplomacy but by force if necessary? “Yet the West’s priority seems to be reaching a cease-fire so it can go on ignoring the dangers of these Middle Eastern actors.”

Ideally, a cease-fire and diplomacy are the way to prevent long wars. Look with wonder how diplomacy has worked for Israel with six Arab and Muslim countries, especially in Egypt. Until Hezbollah halts its rocket fire and accepts terms that let Israel and its allies expel the group from south Lebanon, there will be no diplomacy.

Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, likes his position of power. Most of the group’s 150,000 rockets still threaten the Jewish state. He seems to embrace his new role of leader in Iran’s “ring of fire” around Israel. This way, he can wade into the conflict by firing rockets at Israel whenever it might be advantageous to Tehran—or any time he wishes to dabble in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Supporting Israel’s Success

Hezbollah, with Israel committed to killing Nasrallah, his top commanders, and advisors, won’t be able to maintain its power, especially once Israel destroys Hezbollah’s rockets and its Radwan special forces. If the West presses Israel into a cease-fire that merely reverts to Resolution 1701—which has been ignored for 17 years with no consequences—all of Israel’s successes will have been for nothing.

Iran and Hezbollah won’t be coaxed into the civilized world’s norms of nonviolence. Nor will military force without violence be successful.

Diplomacy backed by military force is the only way to achieve stability between Israel and Lebanon. This is even more true when it comes to the dangerous ayatollahs of the Islamic Republic. Tehran’s ballistic-missile attacks on Israel in April and October showed that Iran can kill thousands of people and destroy whole cities more than 1,000 miles away—a fate Israel averted only through excellent antimissile defense.

What if Tehran Has Nuclear Weapons?

Iran might someday turn these capabilities against the West.

The West must shift its attitude toward the Middle East—to save the region from more wars and save itself from Iran and its proxies.