Backed Into Corner, Hezbollah Must Make a Fateful Decision

Lebanese militant group has held back on using some of its most advanced weapons as it strikes Israel

By Sune Engel Rasmussen and Summer Said, WSJ

Hezbollah is dealing with disagreement among its ranks about how to respond to devastating attacks on the Lebanese militant group, according to people familiar with the group's deliberations. With no good options available, the group faces one of the most consequential decisions in its four-decade history.

Hezbollah, the world's most heavily armed nonstate paramilitary group, fired its first missile at the commercial capital of Tel Aviv on Wednesday, its boldest response yet to a wave of strikes by Israel. It must now choose whether to unleash more of its advanced weapons, striking deeper into Israel and potentially triggering a full-scale war, or hold back and risk diminishing its reputation as one of the fiercest fighting forces in the Middle East.

"This is the single most crucial moment for Hezbollah since it was created," said Rym Momtaz, a security analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace with expertise in Hezbollah. "Hezbollah has no good options."

A full-scale war, such as the one Hezbollah fought with Israel in 2006, likely would be devastating for Lebanon, exасerbating its economic crisis and eroding Hezbollah's support among the population. Still, if the group doesn't respond in kind to the recent attacks, it could undermine the deterrence that Hezbollah spent decades building against Israel, largely with military and financial help from Iran.

Israel said the recent attacks were aimed at stopping Hezbollah strikes that have continued for nearly a year and allowing Israelis to return to parts of northern Israel. Hezbollah, which is designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization, has pledged to keep striking Israel until it withdraws from Gaza.

Attacks by Israel have left Hezbollah in disarray. Last week, thousands of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies exploded, and an airstrike in Beirut killed elite military commanders. On Tuesday, another Israeli airstrike in southern Beirut killed Hezbollah's top missile commander, Ibrahim Muhammad Qabisi.

There is disagreement among Hezbollah members about how to respond, the people familiar with Hezbollah's discussions said. Some members said the group has been too cautious about escalating the conflict. They argued that Hezbollah should retaliate now, taking advantage of the anger in its own ranks and the broader Lebanese population.

Hezbollah members also have expressed frustration in conversations with Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officials that Tehran hasn't stepped in to support its Lebanese ally, the people said.

But Hezbollah's leadership wants to avoid what it sees as a trap set by Israel: Getting Hezbollah to be seen as starting a regional war that draws in Iran and the U.S., the people said. The group's leader ship is trying to figure out how to re-establish deterrence without going to war with Israel, these people said.

It isn't clear how much Israel's attacks have degraded Hezbollah's weapons. Until recently, the group possessed about 150,000 missiles and rockets, about 10 times the number it had in 2006. Israel's military said Hezbollah has fired 9,000 projectiles at Israel since last year, and the recent strikes have destroyed tens of thousands of Hezbollah's munitions.

"I believe Israel disrupted the group's military capability, at least temporarily, and made it harder to respond coherently," said Daniel Byman, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington who co-wrote a recent study of Hezbollah's arsenal.

Hezbollah is believed to still possess a vast arsenal, including hundreds of guided ballistic missiles.

Aside from the Qadr-1 medium-range ballistic missile fired at Tel Aviv, Hezbollah has yet to deploy its most-advanced weapons, including an estimated tens of thousands of unguided ballistic missiles with a range of 80 to 180 miles, and hundreds of guided ballistic missiles with a range of 150 to 300 miles.

Some current and former Israeli security officials said they were surprised that Hezbollah didn't retaliate with more force in recent days. Emergency and municipal authorities, who were briefed by the Israeli military weeks ago in preparation for possible Hezbollah strikes, were told to expect 4,000 missiles and rockets each day.

The strikes targeting Hezbollah launchers likely helped subdue the response, said one official.

One possible response by Hezbollah could be to launch hundreds of nonguided rockets to overwhelm Israel's air defenses and target non-military sites. When Iran attacked with more than 300 rockets and drones in April, Israel relied on assistance from other countries to shoot them down, even though Tehran had telegraphed its attack in advance.

One complication is that Hezbollah's longer-range precision missiles are more visible when being set up, potentially exposing them to Israeli strikes, Byman said. The risk is amplified by the recent attacks, which have shown Hezbollah to be thoroughly infiltrated by Israel. The pager and walkie-talkie attacks also likely complicated - but didn't destroy - Hezbollah's communications. Most of the group's communications occur through coded language over landlines and human couriers.

Hezbollah's predicament is partly of its own making. The group has fired rockets at Israel since Oct. 8-the day following Hamas's attack on Israel-and has refused to halt its attacks until there is a truce in Gaza, an ultimatum that has backed it into a corner.

"It tied its fortunes to the Gaza front, which it cannot control, is constrained by the dire Lebanese situation, was pulled into an attritional war it wasn't built to fight, and has been outgunned and out foxed by Israel," said Momtaz, the security analyst.

Hezbollah officials believe Israel's recent attacks are aimed at offsetting the tactical win the group scored in northern Israel, where some 60,000 Israeli residents have been evacuated, by exacerbating the mass displacement and humanitarian crisis in southern Lebanon, the people familiar with the matter said.

Hezbollah's leadership still believes Israel is hesitant to launch a ground invasion, which would be harder to pull off than airstrikes and likely cause significant Israeli casualties, the people said.

Hezbollah's decision in the coming days could have momentous consequences for its future. It could cost the group credibility in Lebanon, where it is a powerful political party, a welfare provider and a stronger military force than the national army - all founded primarily on resistance to Israel.

"Hezbollah are damned if they do and damned if they don't," said Aram Nerguizian, a non-resident senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies with expertise in military dynamics in the Middle East. "The risk for the group is that the longer this goes on-and the longer the Israelis are able to avoid getting into a ground campaign that only benefits Hezbollah - the more rapidly the group's credibility, monopoly on national security politics, and de facto political hegemony are degraded."