Israel has changed the "deterrence" calculus, and it is about time

For years, Iran and its Hezbollah proxy have been presenting themselves as deterring Israel's nonexistent aggressive and expansionist plans into Arab states. They've put together powerful armies and used their threats of all out war to only limit Israel's options of retaliating at their ever increasing attacks but also to use that power to leverage the West into stopping Israel from properly responding in the interests of maintaining quiet.

Before October 7,  Israel enjoyed quiet, and as a result so did Lebanon and Gaza. Lebanon had other problems to worry about and Gaza was steadily improving its economy - more trucks were entering, more goods were being exported, more Gazans had relatively lucrative jobs in Israel.

The "Black Shabbat" pogrom changed Israel's viewpoint, although it didn't change that of the West. While the US and other ostensible allies said that they supported Israel, that support was for Israel defending itself and not so much to go after Hamas and certainly not Hezbollah or Iran. 

While Israel was methodically dismantling Hamas' military capabilities, it mostly allowed Iran to dictate what happened on the Lebanese  - and Iranian - fronts. Iran and its proxies chose their moves based on the idea that their powerful armies were deterrence against Israel's doing anything major to hurt them.

Israel has changed that calculus. 

It has now been over seven weeks since Iran promised an imminent and devastating multi-pronged attack on Israel in response to the assassination of Hamas' Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Over time, that promise has evaporated, into a "we'll get to it when we decide to." And during that time period, Israel seized the initiative rather than wait to be forced to be in a defensive and fearful position. 

It pre-emptively blunted Hezbollah's own promised response to the assassination of Fouad Shukr. It mounted the most impressive supply chain espionage attack in history without firing a single bullet. It successfully took out the Radwan Force leadership meeting in a sub-basement of a residential building with a minimum of civilian casualties.  It has severely damaged Hezbollah's entire communications infrastructure, and reportedly Iran is reeling as well in fear that the same thing would happen to it. It has turned Hezbollah and Iranian forces against each other as they suspect their comrades of being spies. 

Suddenly, the deterrence equation has changed, and it is the terrorists who are being deterred from mounting their promised major escalation, at least for now. But Israel is keeping the pressure on so that they know that if they follow through on their rhetoric, they would be hurt far more than Israel would. Also, they are no longer dealing with an Israel that craves quiet, because Israel has seen that quiet is preparation  for attack, not detente. 

Israel's response has been risky but brilliant. The only thing I think is needed is a warning to Iran that even if its proxies mount a successful attack - whether an assassination, or a fatal attack by Houthis with Iranian missiles - that Israel will respond in a way that Iran's economy will be severely hurt.  The fiction that the Houthis and Hezbollah are independent must end.

October 7 proved that quiet does not mean safety or security. Israel is now telling its enemies that "quiet" has gone way down on its list of priorities, along with pleasing its Western allies who aren't facing these levels of terrorism. Iran and its proxies have more to lose than Israel has, and that message is one that is belated but finally here. 

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