The nightmare scenario: Iran tells Hezbollah to find a pretense to open a second front

I don't think it is going to happen. The people of Lebanon would not tolerate a Hezbollah starting a war now when they are in such bad shape from COVID and the country being on the brink of bankruptcy. They are still upset over the 2006 war.

But Hezbollah follows the orders of Iran's Supreme Leader, and Iranian media has been talking for weeks about how weak Israel is and how it will be destroyed soon. They wrote lots of stories about the Syrian anti-aircraft missile that ended up near Dimona, about a chemical factory fire in Haifa. Iranian media is following the events in Israel on a minute by minute basis. The Ayatollah Khamenei has been tweeting a lot about Israel. 

Hezbollah rockets are much more powerful and accurate than Hamas rockets. And they have 150,000 of them, of varying types.

Hassan Nasrallah can invent an excuse to start shooting and claiming that Israel started it. Only last week he warned Israel not to make any aggressive moves. 

Let's hope this doesn't happen, but if Israel is too cautious in confronting Hezbollah, Khamenei might interpret that as weakness and think he has an opportunity.

---

---