Source: korybko.substack.com
Israel’s intelligence superiority and the Resistance Axis’ reluctance to escalate are responsible for why the self-professed Jewish State is indisputably winning the latest war with Lebanon.
The latest Israeli-Lebanese War shattered everyone’s expectations. Hezbollah’s enormous missile stockpile made them all believe that “Mutually Assured Destruction” (MAD) had been achieved with Israel, thus restraining both combatants’ actions in any future conflict, but Israel’s intelligence superiority and the Resistance Axis’ reluctance to escalate ultimately gave the self-professed Jewish State a major edge. The present state of affairs is such that Israel is indisputably winning the latest war with Lebanon.
Its audacious pager attack disrupted Hezbollah’s chain of command and operations, which Israel then exploited to hit their missile stockpiles while the group was reeling from this blow. Their chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who the IDF claims to have killed on Friday though Hezbollah has yet to confirm this at the time of writing, either still eschewed escalating due to his rational belief in MAD or he was literally unable to after what had happened. In any case, Iran could have escalated instead, but it refused.
It’s time to reflect on what everyone got wrong. For starters, nobody had any idea how deeply Israeli intelligence infiltrated Hezbollah. They knew the locations of most missile stockpiles, the whereabouts of the group’s leading figures, and were even able to literally plant disguised bombs on many of them. This couldn’t have been achieved through technical means alone. High-level human intelligence is therefore obviously responsible. These assets crippled Hezbollah from within before the latest war even began.
Second, friends and foes alike convinced themselves that the Resistance Axis would go out with guns blazing if they were ever on the brink of defeat, which didn’t happen. While it’s unclear whether Hezbollah wanted to escalate but was literally unable to or if it never seriously countenanced this due to MAD, there’s no question that Iran deliberately made the choice not to. While some might attribute this to its new “moderate”/“reformist” president, that ignores the Supreme Leader and the IRGC’s roles….