322. Israel vs Hezbollah: Iran’s next move

0:00Thanks for listening to the Restisted Politics. Sign up to the Restisted Politics Plus to enjoy ad -free listening and receive a weekly newsletter. Join our members' chat room again early access to live show tickets. Just go to therestistpolities .com. That's therestistpolities .com.

0:18Welcome to the Restisted Politics with me, Asda Campbell. And with me, Rory Stewart. We're going to go around four countries today, Rory. Levinon.

0:28Well, I think we should talk briefly about the UK, both in terms of what's happened to the government, but also the Tory conference going on. In case people didn't know. And then I said last week that it's almost a year since Millay took over in Argentina. He won the election in October, and I think finally took power in towards Christmas. So we talk about him and now he's going very, very mixed picture. And then also the Austrian election, which happened at the weekend, where the far right of one. So shall we kick off in the growing quagmire that is the Middle East? Yeah. Levinon. So very, very quick reminder for people.

1:04The attack on October the 7th against Israel, almost exactly a year ago now, was launched by Hamas, which was a group that crossed over mostly from Gaza, and they were mostly Sunni Muslims. There is a different group, which was not part of the October 7th attack, which is based in Lebanon called Hisbela, much, much larger group, traditionally seen as having over 100 ,000 missiles, tens of thousands of fighters. And that is a Shia Muslim group that emerged in Lebanon in the early 1980s and was a major player in the resistance to Israel. Israel occupied southern Lebanon from the early 80s till 2000, and then attacked again in 2006 and a big player in the Civil War.

1:50So when a Netanyahu was addressing the UN, he gave a very, very aggressive speech that maybe we could touch on briefly, in which he basically described the United Nations as a sort of source of an anti -Semitic bile and made some very aggressive comments about Hisbela and Iran. And it seems now clear that he had by then authorized the latest stage in a series of attacks, which have happened over the last few weeks, just to show their confidence in what they were doing. They released a picture of the Israeli press service, released a picture of Netanyahu on the telephone from their office inside the United Nations, saying that was the moment at which he authorized the attacks on Lebanon.

2:30Exactly. So the big story is that Hisbela has been a major threat to Israel for at least 18 years, if not almost 40 years. And at certain times in history, they've lived in a kind of uneasy sort of rules of a game. So there was a moment, for example, in the 90s, where you could see Israeli and Hisbela leaders saying about particular attacks that was according to the rules of the game, or that wasn't. And in particular, Hisbela was focusing on attacking military targets for a period, not spending times, although they're also a group that's conducted terrorist attacks against civilians. For the last 11 months, they have been absolutely central to the picture for two reasons, firstly because by firing missiles into northern Israel and saying that they were going to continue doing that until there was a cease -fire in Gaza, so they were doing it in solidarity with Gaza.

3:22They ended up with tens of thousands of Israelis being displaced from more in Israel, and a big, big push from the Israeli government to get Israelis back into more in Israel. The second reason, though, that they've been important is that the United States and its allies and everyone have been begging Israel and Hisbela not to up the ante and go to war with each other because the fear from the very beginning was there was going to be a broader regional conflict that were people in Netanyahu's cabinet who wanted to launch strikes on Lebanon almost immediately. There were people I remember saying in the region to me, Israeli saying, it's unfortunate we were attacked by Hamas, Hisbela is the real enemy, we need to swing the surround and go after Hisbela, and that's been a lot of the effort of Anthony Blinken and Joe Biden saying, don't do that because they didn't want to draw Iran, which has hisbela's big backer into this conflict.

4:10So Hisbela, which has had well over 100 ,000 missiles, many of them precision guided, has held back from firing salvos of thousands of missiles a day into Tel Aviv, which they had the capacity to do, and they partly were holding back because they believed that if they did it, it would up the anti -improvo -commassive response from Israel instead of which they had been dropping fewer missiles, evacuating northern Israel and had killed a few people. And of course that was a big problem for Israel, but from the point of view of the people trying to keep a lid on things, they thought that a lid was being kept on things.

4:43And then there's been an escalation, the escalation, I'll stop talking now, but the escalation very quickly is, as listeners will remember, killing of Iranian diplomats in Beirut, the killing of the Hamas chief in Tehran, the blowing up of pages, blowing up of Woki Torkis, followed by significant air strikes, where hundreds of people have been killed and culminating in the killing of Nasrullah, who since the 1990s has been the leader of Hisbela every year. Yeah, I think let's just start with this escalation point because I think the ever since, October the 7th, I think Joe Biden in particular, has been trying to trade absolute support of Israel and Netanyahu, even though they don't really get on with influence, and the influence that they've been speaking to is to try not to let this thing spread, so it becomes a regional conflict.

5:32And I do think the image of Netanyahu launching this, is it were, or authorizing this, from the United Nations in the United States, where he's just delivered this really aggressive speeches, you say, and where lots and lots of diplomats from other countries walked out in protest, I think that was pretty deliberate. He essentially seems to be saying that he kind of feels empowered and able to take this wherever he thinks the Israeli government feels that it should go. Interestingly, you mentioned at the start, right at the start, after the October 7th, attacked by Hamas, Gannon, the defense minister, I think was in that camp that said, the real enemy is hisbola.

6:13Let's go for that. At that stage, Netanyahu was saying, no, we focus on Hamas, and the war aim is to take out the entire leadership. Now, the war aim now, as you say, in relation to Lebanon, the war aim there is to create the conditions for these 60, 70 ,000 Israelis who have been evacuated to get them to go home. In that, I think a tacitim admission that the war aim in Gaza has not been fully met. In fact, the guy who masterminded the October 7th attacks, he's still at the edge, they still haven't got him, but they have got, as you say, Hassan Nazrallah, who's 64, led this organization for three decades, took over from a guy who was killed in an attack on his helicopter, and who was a massive, massive, massive figure in Lebanon.

7:03This is a guy who you see his face everywhere. You don't see him everywhere because he kept very, very low -key, secure bunkers, and all that. The thing about this bombing seems that they've taken out, some reports say four, some reports say six apartment blocks in order for these 2 ,000 -pound, they're called the bunker buster, these bombs to get underground and take him out. Now, that is an incredible success story for the Israelis, and it's a huge blow to his boiler. The next step, the reaction from them and from Iran, will decide where this thing goes next. Yeah, I mean, it's amazing looking at the coverage and how difficult, I mean, we often talk about how polarized and sort of post -truth, all these discussions are, and my goodness, people are struggling to work out how to talk about this.

7:54So, I was just spending quite a lot of time listening to it, times of Israel podcasts and reading some of their reporting, and of course, their reporting focuses on this as a moment where Israel has rediscovered its faith in the military and security forces. Yeah, and Nenya, who just almost meant? And to Nenya, who just meant just before the 12 -month anniversary. So, that's one way of looking at it, which is Israel totally bewildered, horrified by those people killed on October 7th and felt completely let down by Israeli intelligence. Military, because they thought they had penetrated Hamas and you what they were doing and they had apparently no warning of this attack.

8:29Now, they've just seen this attack, which is very, very sophisticated. So, we talked about it a little bit, but it's now clear that the pages blowing up were just the thin end of the wedge because Israel was also gathering enormous amount of metadata on his blast. So, if somebody in his blast was killed, fighting in Syria, and that was posted on Facebook, then anyone who looked at Facebook post would then be followed up by Israeli intelligence. They would be hacking into the mobile phones, people's wives, into the odometers, their cars, and finally getting to killing Hassan Asurullah, who Israeli intelligence and military have been trying to assassinate for decades now.

9:10Yeah. So, that's one story, which is the sort of technical admiration of the tactics, the military tactics. And just on that, Roy, it's not just him that they've taken out. They've now taken out most of the leadership. They took out his main kind of right -hand man. They took out the leader of the southern front. They took out the head of his security unit. So, this is something where we're talking over a dozen key key people who've been removed from the leadership of Hezbollah. And the point about Israel, we're Netanyahu's, if you remember, we have the whole sort of supreme court protest, we've had massive protests because of his failure to bring back the hostages.

9:46And you're now seeing, there's still plenty of people who really don't like Netanyahu and think he's hung all this terribly, but you're now seeing this as a, as you say, as a cause of almost of celebration. Well, it is a cause of celebration for a lot of Israelis. This is them feeling that, having been on the back foot for a year, they now look like they're back in charge. Yeah. The second dimension, which has been striking, is of course, although Hamas has tacit support from quite a lot of the Arab world, Hezbollah because it's Shia, in other words, their co -religionist with the Iranian regime is very, very unpopular with a lot of the Arab world and in particular with Saudi Arabia.

10:23And in fact, Mohammed bin Salman, the leader of Saudi Arabia, essentially forced the Lebanese Premier to resign because of his rage at Hezbollah participating in the Lebanese government and has very much seen Hassan Nasr al -Azbollah as one of his major adversaries. So that, by attacking Hezbollah, Israel has created a situation where much of the gulf isn't quite sure how to respond because they don't like Iran, they don't like Hezbollah, equally, they're obviously troubled by Israel mounting this attack across the border. They're concerned about further escalation and many of these regimes would have been critical if it hadn't been an attack on Hezbollah.

11:01You're talking about the lack of popularity in the broader region on the political level. Somebody who works in the Middle East, who works in polling, sent me some stuff. And if you're talking to read it, I sent it on to you a bit from this thing called the Arab Barometer, which surveys opinion in most of the Arab countries. And this was carried out earlier this year. Before the October 7th attacks, February and April 2024, the way that a lot of people who don't necessarily follow this very closely, almost assume that Hezbollah is like the government of Lebanon. Hezbollah is the Lebanon in terms of as a political entity.

11:33This survey found that when the Lebanese people were given a list of all the political entities, which of the identified with, 12 % said they identified with Hezbollah, she and it's with the only sect that actually went above 1 % in relation to people liking them. Just to come in on that, I'll say one of my colleagues who was the conservative minister for Secretary of State for North Ireland, got in trouble saying that she discovered that all Catholics seemed to vote for one party in all process and seemed to vote for an party. Karen Bradley. Exactly. The same is true in Lebanon. So there are a few Christians, this particular Christian sects that have sometimes allied with Hezbollah and there was a moment when the Druze had an alliance during the Civil War.

12:17But fundamentally it is Shia. And the Shia have always been both in Lebanon and to some extent in Iraq and certainly in Saudi and in Bahrain, often marginalized, often impoverished, often popular, perceived by Sunni Muslims as almost heretics, too superstitious. And so getting a clear picture on who Hezbollah is is very difficult because it's connection and legacy of terrorist attacks and hostage taking and bombs. But on the other hand, there was a moment when it was surprisingly popular in Lebanon because it was seen as the group that drove Israel out. So Israel occupied southern Lebanon from the early 1980s right way through to 2000 and it was Hezbollah that really got the credit in a way that Lebanese army didn't and none of the other Lebanese factions did for mounting the military attacks on driving out Israel.

13:09They also, in this in a sense, was Asa and Israel are real success. He projected those as military successes. They wasn't just that they were given the credit, they took the credit and they shaped a narrative, giving them the credit. That was a quite an interesting political moment because it was a moment where Israel through the 90s was saying we will withdraw if attacks cease against us. So they were trying to demand the US and others would get guarantees of peace before they was drew. And His Bilal said, no, that's rubbish. Israel's not going to withdraw unless we keep attacking them. And most Lebanese agreed with His Bilal at least on that.

13:46And so there was a moment after 2000 where His Bilal was quite popular. So another moment after 2006, which was more controversial, some Lebanese blamed His Bilal for the fact that Israel invaded again in 2006. But others gave him credit for Israel than leaving. But the real problems started with the Syrian war. And that's the moment at which many, many Lebanese, including Lebanese shea and many other people in the region, turned very, very anti -Hisbullah because his Bilal basically propped up. Bashar and Asa had the dictator in Syria and they were the groups that led to his victory. Although now you have people from Lebanon fleeing to Syria to escape what's going on here.

14:27Just to give you a few interesting findings from this survey, Rory, nine out of 10 Lebanese people said they have not a lot or no trust in their government, the parliament, the president or the prime minister. Three out of four said they do not trust religious leaders. 65 % said religious leaders are just as likely to be corrupt as political leaders. And then on the sort of use that last week about, you know, what life is like there for people around 80 % and this is the highest of all the countries that were survived in the Arab world. 80 % say that they struggle with the availability and affordability of food.

14:5868 % say they often run out of food and water internet electricity and healthcare, they have the worst results in the entire region. So you're talking already about a place that is really, you know, suffering in terms of its sort of day -to -day life. And, you know, this is going to make it one hell of a lot worse. And you've put your finger on something really important here because the most optimistic supporters of what Israel have done and I'm being attacked by a lot of them on Twitter because they hate the idea that I'm suggesting this is contributed to escalation. They want to see it in very black and white terms.

15:32His velar terrorist group, therefore killing him is great and any questions about what comes next are disloyal and anti -Semitic. But the optimistic is that by getting rid of Hassan Astroler, Lebanon is going to suddenly become this much more coherent democratic peaceful country and the Lebanese army is going to take over the border and his velar is going to vanish and it's all going to be wonderful. That's just, that's just love. It's completely naive and a lot of it for the reasons you've just pointed out, which is that you've just pointed out that Lebanon is in real economic problems. It's politically very, very fractured and, of course, his velar's presence in Lebanon is part of this much bigger arc of sheer Iranian influence that stretches right the way through Syria into Iraq and to Iran itself.

16:17So Hassan Astroler was not just some sort of single evil genius who, if you kill him, the whole phenomenon of militant sheer Islam somehow vanishes. There's no doubt that this has been a very, very serious military blow to his velar. But I think we must assume that they will be trying to come back and I think another thing and I maybe this is the thing I want to turn back to you on. I feel very, very strongly that Iran and his velar will feel forced to respond now. From their point of view, I mean, they're horrible people. So I'm not trying to put too much onto their point of view, but it's worth thinking about their point of view to understand what's happening.

16:51From their point of view, they feel that even though they did lob thousands of missiles into Israel over the last few months, they didn't kill very many people and that they feel they could have done a lot more and they feel that they held back because the United States told them that if they held back Israel wouldn't attack. And so now that they have been attacked in this way and totally humiliated, I mean, you know, the leader of Hamas was killed in Tehran at the inauguration, Israeli diplomats have been killed and that's where those being killed, pages of all blown up. I would have thought it's almost impossible now for Iran and his velar not to respond.

17:24And of course, when they respond, Israel will say this is a completely unprovoked terrorist attack against us and will then respond even more aggressively back. Just just online why it's naive to think that because you take the head guy out, somehow the whole thing is going to implode. I mean, this is this is an organization where there used to be people being killed. And as Ralla got the job because his predecessor, Masawi, who was one of his mentors, because he got killed by the Israelis, by the Israelis. And they're already talking the guy who made the first public statement of his baller, who was the second in command, 9 % he is clearly in the frame possibly as a leadership figure.

18:02And so is Nasser al -Assad Qasim, a guy called Hashem Safidini. This is an organization that will they will have people lined up. Now, the interesting thing about Iran though is, and again, you have to be very, very careful, necessarily taking all of face value. But the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, he yes, he has called on Muslims worldwide to take revenge and side with what he calls honorable as baller. But he is also indicating that it will be Hezbollah, not Iran, that leads any response. And the new president, and we talked earlier about the new president doesn't have much power, but he is nonetheless a serious figure within the leadership.

18:37He's also calling for his strength. And don't forget his well -rawing. When Israel assassinated Ismail Hanei, the Hamas leader, in Iran said they would be retaliation, but thus far we've yet to see it. My worry is, you're absolutely right, but my worry is that given that they said they would respond to that, given they said they would respond to the attack on their embassy, they're going to feel at some point forced to respond. Because otherwise, I think there's a real, I'm afraid, loss of face on their part. And that's one of the dangers. Now, it's also worth acknowledging that what has happened here has astonished the world.

19:13I mean, Israel didn't do this to Hisbla for 18 years. I mean, these provocations from Hisbla are not new. They had just as much reason to do it any time in the last 18 years. So why not? And probably the reason why not is that they believed that Hisbla was this incredibly formidable force with over 100 ,000 precision missiles, and that it would be far too dangerous to do. They've just done it, and it's turned out that they haven't got the response that people predicted, and it's turned out that they were able to do far more damage to Hisbla, and with far less consequence so far for Israel than people predicted.

19:51So, you know, people like me who are calling for caution, and actually even the American diplomats who have been calling for caution. Many Israelis are on a stand to be turning around saying you were far too cautious. You know, we should have done this 18 years ago. Maybe a final point will go to the UK. The other interesting thing in this survey was marked and declined in support for the view of the United States. It was 42 % of Lebanese people broadly supported the United States in 2022, and it's now down to 27%. So again, and remember, this is before October 7th. So I imagine that's got even worse.

20:25Just to finish with a pretty obvious and pompous point, this is a military tactical success, but it is not a solution to Israel's situation in the Middle East, not political strategy. It doesn't deal with the problems in internal. Israeli politics, it doesn't deal with Gaza, it doesn't deal with what the settlers doing on the West Bank, and it doesn't deal with the way that the region and much of the world perceives Israel remains in a very, very fragile situation, and this attack, although very, very successful, far more successful than people like me, would have expected. It's still a military victory that doesn't answer the long term questions.

21:04Yeah, and meanwhile, Rory, literally, as you were speaking there, if you remember, Hasbola have been persuaded that the Israelis are likely to launch a ground invasion pretty soon. Gallant, as we know, has been up in on the Lebanese border himself talking to the troops, and it seems that the Israelis have told Joe Biden and the administration that they are planning, confirm they are planning to launch a limited ground incursion into Lebanon. So I think as any surprise, however, it is an indication of the failure of the strategy to deescalate, and it's likely to make us even more alarmless to what might happen thereafter.

21:48Yes, and I think it's a very, very significant change because many Lebanese who hate Hasbola will not want Israel mounting a ground invasion into southern Lebanon. Factions of strong national assentment will play, and we've already got the Chinese government talking about attacks on sovereignty. I think this is Israel pushing it into increasingly dangerous territory, and I understand I'm somebody who cautioned against what they've just done, which they seem to get away with, but I think a ground invasion is very, very dangerous, and in some sense is exactly what Hasbola is looking for because Hasbola has tens of thousands of fighters who are very, very accustomed to urban warfare who've been fighting in Syria.

22:31For many years, they may not be able to protect themselves from high tech attacks, but my goodness, they have experience in fighting street to street against soldiers, and if they're defending Lebanese territory, remember Hisbola are Lebanese, right? They're not foreigners fighting for their own homeland and their own streets, with experience going all the way back to the early 1980s. I think this I am confident as a mistake. Those numbers that I gave you from that Arab barometer survey of public opinion, I think a ground incursion by Israel will increase support internally for anyone who is responding to that.

23:08So pretty dangerous times, Rory. Very dangerous times. Very, very dangerous times. Well, we've done quite a lot on that. Should we take a quick break and then come back on UK domestic, and then Argentina and Austria?

23:26This isn't ad from BetterHelp. At the moment, we're getting advice from everywhere. You just have to go on TikTok. Could be Alice's cold plunges. Could be my attempts to meditate or the digital detox that I'm doing in Colombia. But of course, one of the things that we know is that it can be incredibly valuable to talk to another human being, somebody who's actually been trained as the therapist to work through these ideas, calmly objectively and professionally. And as the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a very diverse variety of expertise.

24:02They've got over 5 ,000 therapists in the UK. They've helped more than five million people globally, and you can join a session literally at the click of a button, change therapists anytime. It's obviously not about fixing you, but it's about hearing yourself clearly, maybe for the first time. So talk it out with BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10 % of their first month at BetterHelp .com slash rest politics. That's better, help .com slash rest politics.

24:35Welcome back to the rest of politics with me, Rory Stewart. And with me, Alice Di Campbell. And Rory, as we speak, recording this on Monday, late afternoon, the Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, who I think you and I felt probably should have gone day one of a new Labour government, has finally announced that he's going. Yeah, and I'm afraid of, I'm sorry, because it's sad not to be polite about someone they're going, but really, it's not being great. He was brought in by Boris Johnson. He was comparatively young and inexperienced, compared to the traditional Cabinet secretaries. He hadn't really done the kind of big jobs, that kind of Burke trends and Robert Armstrong's had done.