June 24, 2024 - 4:00pm

Is an Israeli assault on Lebanon now inevitable? While an argument can be made that the drastically escalating rhetoric of both the Israeli government and Hezbollah is an attempt by each side to deter the other, the auguries are not reassuring. Last week, according to an IDF statement, “operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon were approved” by Israel’s military leadership, with actions taken “accelerating the readiness of the forces on the ground”. Posting on X, Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz declared that “Israel cannot allow the Hezbollah terror organisation to continue attacking its territory and citizens, and soon we will make the necessary decisions. The free world must unconditionally stand with Israel in its war against the axis of evil led by Iran and extremist Islam.”

Yet for the Biden administration, a vastly more destructive expansion of the Gaza war is a headache it can ill afford. Israel is dependent on US arms transfers and diplomatic cover to continue its Gaza operation. The war has already dragged in US military assets to an unsuccessful naval effort in the Red Sea and seen US service personnel killed in the Middle East by Iraqi Shia militias. Despite these facts, an increasingly erratic Benjamin Netanyahu has nevertheless seen fit to publicly accuse Biden of insufficient support, drawing pained denials from American officials. While publicly and privately urging Israel to abandon any ideas of a Lebanon operation and agree to a Gaza ceasefire, US officials have reportedly assured their Israeli counterparts that in the event of war with Hezbollah, America will offer Israel its military support, short of deploying troops on the ground.

What this actually means is difficult to discern. Presumably, given American warnings that Israel’s Iron Dome defence system would be overwhelmed by Hezbollah’s missile arsenal, the US intends to shoot down incoming barrages as it did, with French and British support, during April’s unprecedented Iranian strike against Israeli targets.

The recent announcement that the USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group is being redeployed to Centcom’s Middle East area of operations “to deter aggression, safeguard regional stability, and protect freedom of navigation in the region” highlights America’s positioning of assets ahead of an Israeli operation, as well as its desire to dissuade Hezbollah from widening the war. But the Hezbollah leader Syed Hassan Nasrallah’s threat that his group would respond to an Israeli assault by fighting a war “without rules and without limits”, and would target Cypriot airbases if they were used in support of Israeli operations, indicates the scale of the looming crisis. Britain should also heed this warning.

Britain used the Sovereign Base Areas on Cyprus as a launchpad for RAF airstrikes against the Houthis and to shoot down incoming Iranian missiles. But allowing their use to support Israeli operations in Lebanon, even in a defensive capacity, would put British assets at risk and enable a military escalation neither the US nor the EU desires — and to no tangible British benefit. After almost nine destructive months of war in Gaza, Israel appears ready to wind down its campaign against Hamas with the group still in power and the remaining hostages still in captivity, thus achieving neither of Netanyahu’s original war aims.

Yet the looming war against Hezbollah presents a far greater challenge for both Israel and the United States, in pursuit of likely unachievable aims and carrying far greater risks of a wider regional war. A war in Lebanon would be disastrous for the luckless country, already buckling under economic collapse and political dysfunction. It would also initiate a refugee crisis whose effects would further destabilise European politics.

While the moribund Conservative government has chosen to fight this election on national security issues, in its dying days in power it has no mandate to embroil Britain in yet another poorly-planned Middle Eastern morass. The incoming Labour government, already suffering electorally from Starmer’s initial support of Israel’s Gaza campaign, would equally have much to lose and nothing to gain from involvement. If Britain has any role to play, it would be best served supporting French efforts to deploy the Lebanese Army along the border with Israel in place of Hezbollah, an attempt to defuse the crisis that may have limited chances of success but is at least constructive. Locked in their own strange embrace, Israel and the US may be stumbling into disaster. Britain, watching on, would be best served staying out.


Aris Roussinos is an UnHerd columnist and a former war reporter.

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