Separate or the same war?

The line between the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah is more blurred than ever after the latter’s catastrophic performance in the 2023-2024 war with Israel. After losing its leadership to Israeli strikes, the group is now run directly from Tehran.

The blurred line between the IRGC and Hezbollah makes the fighting in Lebanon and Iran difficult to separate, with many Israeli analysts viewing them as interchangeable.

“They’re not separated at all,” Professor Kobi Michael, senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies and the former head of the Palestinian desk at the Israeli Ministry for Strategic Affairs, said of the wars with Iran and Hezbollah. “This is one conflict, and Hezbollah decided to join the war on March 2 because of the Iranians.”

IRGC officers “operate most of the cells of Hezbollah, and Hezbollah has no option to continue surviving without Iranian support.”

Hezbollah was created during Israel’s occupation of Lebanon in the 1980s, an operation first undertaken to expel the Palestinian Liberation Organization. The group was created by Shia Lebanese with heavy Iranian support, and Tehran has since viewed the group as a critical part of its deterrence vis-à-vis Israel.

“This is one war, and there is no doubt … that the negotiations with Iran affect the war in Lebanon, and the end of the war in Iran, or the outcomes of the end of the war in Iran, will directly impact the situation in Lebanon,” Michael said.

Former Chief of IDF Intelligence Amos Yadlin told the Washington Examiner that he viewed the wars as distinct, but with their outcomes closely linked.

“In a way, both. It’s separate because it’s two different kinds of wars. The war with Iran is a regional war; it’s a global war. It’s the U.S. and Israel vis-à-vis Iran and Iran vis-à-vis the Gulf states and the rest of the global economy. And the war between Israel and Hezbollah is a bilateral war,” Yadlin said.

On the other hand, Yadlin argued that Iran’s recent push for a ceasefire that includes all of the Middle East shows the deeply intertwined nature of the conflicts. But given how reliant Hezbollah is on Iran, if the latter is defeated, the militant group will “dry out,” and there’ll “be no need for war.”

Lt. Col. Sarit Zehavi, founder and president of the Alma Research and Education Center and a 15-year Israel Defense Forces Intelligence Corps veteran, and Zineb Riboua, a research fellow and Middle East expert at the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East at the Hudson Institute, view the wars with Hezbollah and Iran as closely linked but believe the war in Lebanon could continue even if fighting with Iran halts.

Zehavi said it’s a “very probable” scenario that the war in Lebanon could continue long after the war with Iran. Though Tehran views Hezbollah as an extension of itself, Zehavi believes it would be fine with the war in Lebanon continuing, but the direct one with the United States and Israel concluding.

“I don’t think, for them, it matters,” she said when asked if Tehran would cease fighting on favorable terms while allowing that in Lebanon to continue. “Eventually, they want to survive, that’s their mission, and they don’t care to sacrifice. And I’m sorry for saying it this way, but this is how they view it: to sacrifice some Arabs for the cause.”

Zehavi believes Iran and the IRGC look down on Hezbollah after its poor performance over the past few years, failing to inflict any significant damage against the IDF, failing to save the regime of Bashar al-Assad, and failing to prevent the damage inflicted against Iran during the 12 Day War. She believes Tehran now views survival as its primary goal and may be willing to make its proxies pay the price in return.

“So for Iran, if they can get an agreement with the United States that will enable them to rebuild their power in the Islamic Republic, even with the price that Israel is continuing the campaign against Hezbollah, so be it,” Zehavi added.

For now, Iran has shown no signs of abandoning its proxy in Lebanon amid the larger war. Tehran has never feigned interest in the U.S. demand to cease its support for regional proxies in Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. Its most recent rejection came on Wednesday.

Can Hezbollah survive without Iran?

Hezbollah’s degradation over the past three years has increased its reliance on Tehran, but analysts disagree as to the extent.

“[Hezbollah] was always run by the IRGC. Nasarallah was a very charismatic figure, and it was almost, not completely, but almost like a partner for the IRGC, and when he was gone, there was more involvement,” Zehavi said, noting that now, “decision-making is in Tehran.”

Yadlin argued that if the government in Tehran fell, it would mark the “complete end” of Hezbollah. Such a fall would also embolden the government of Lebanon, which would be in a position to deliver demands to Hezbollah. 

“Unlike Gaza, which is homogeneous — Hamas doesn’t have any opposition — in Lebanon, there are Sunni Arabs, Christians, Druze, that hate the idea that Hezbollah basically took Lebanon as a hostage, Yadlin said. “And even in the Shia base, you start to see some complaints about the role that Lebanon took as a messenger of Iran, as a proxy of Iran.”

Riboua was more skeptical, arguing that Hezbollah would likely survive the collapse of the government in Tehran but would be vastly degraded.

“They would no longer have the same capabilities, the same legitimacy, the same appeal to recruit,” she said. “They would no longer be able to continue their actions as they used to.”

“I don’t think they’d totally disappear, but, being completely weakened, just pushed into a position where they’ll have to make concessions,” Riboua added.

Stripped of Tehran’s missiles and drones, Hezbollah wouldn’t be able to wage war against Israel as it had before, but would continue its “political militancy in much more of a symbolic way rather than a military way.”

Despite this, Sarit and Zineb warn that the group is still fully capable. Both view the Lebanese government as still completely incapable of disarming Hezbollah, though both were shocked at the new assertiveness of Beirut as seen by Tuesday’s banishment of Iran’s ambassador.

An existential fight for Hezbollah?

On Wednesday, Qassem indicated that Hezbollah was preparing for a protracted war with Israel, saying its choices were either “surrender” or “inevitable confrontation and resistance.” The day prior, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz declared that the masses of mostly Shia residents of southern Lebanon could be displaced for an indefinite period.

“Hundreds of thousands of residents of southern Lebanon who evacuated North will not return South of the Litani River until security is guaranteed for the residents of the North,” he said, referring to northern Israel.

“All five bridges over the Litani that were used by Hezbollah for the passage of terrorists and weapons have been blown up, and the IDF will control the remaining bridges and the security zone up to the Litani,” Katz added.

Michael suggested that the current war with Hezbollah could be the last and is likely to continue until Katz’s objectives are accomplished.

“All the land between the international border and the Litani River will be cleaned. There will be no Hezbollah there, and no Shiites will be there. There will be no Shia villages there anymore. And Hezbollah will weaken, it will be weakened to the degree that maybe the Lebanese Army will be able to take responsibility and control, and then this will be maybe the ripest moment to accelerate the negotiation between Israel and Lebanon for reaching peace between both countries,” he said.

The question then becomes how difficult this new war with Hezbollah will be, a prospect that divided the interviewees. Riboua and Zehavi suggested it might be more difficult than the Oct. 7 war, while Michael argued that Hezbollah’s reduced capabilities could make it easier.

He viewed the current war as likely to be an easier operation than the one after Oct. 7, 2023, noting that Hezbollah today is “much less capable.” Israel destroyed roughly 70% of its massive arsenal of around 150,000 missiles in the last war, but the arsenal that remains is still formidable. Hezbollah’s current capabilities, he estimated, were on par with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad at the dawn of their Oct. 7 attack.

Aside from Hezbollah’s reduced capabilities, Michael said that Israel is in a far better position than it was in the last war. Israel will be treading over familiar ground in southern Lebanon, enjoys intelligence superiority, operational superiority, and has the backing of partners in Lebanon.

“I think that at the end of the day, the mission will be accomplished. It will take several months, but the mission will be accomplished,” he said.

A former senior Israeli intelligence official concurred. Jerusalem is pursuing a strategy of pressuring Hezbollah on four fronts:

1. Pushing its ground forces back out of anti-tank missile range from the border.
2. Bombarding their main centers of gravity from the air.
3. Pressuring the Shiite Lebanese to cease support for Hezbollah.
4. Blocking those living in the South from returning until they do, and pressuring the Lebanese government to dismantle them as a military organization.

Effectively pursuing all four of these strategies at once, backed by good intelligence and cutting off supply from Iran, could make the war an easier affair than in 2024.

Riboua and Zehavi are of a different view. They believe Hezbollah may be more dangerous and aggressive in its weakened state, and that the different objectives of the current war will make operations more difficult.

“It’s more difficult because the goal is different,” Zehavi answered when asked if the 2026 war in Lebanon would be more difficult than the last. “The goal in 2024, the ground invasion, not the whole campaign, was to remove the threat of invasion by Hezbollah. This means that IDF maneuvered only very close to the border.” 

“Now the goal, as the Minister of Defense just said, is to clear the areas all the way to the Litani River. This is 30 kilometers. It’s a much bigger area,” she added. “It’s a bigger challenge. The goal is different.”

Hezbollah’s actions in the current war seem to reflect this. Sources familiar with the matter reported that the IDF has noted that Hezbollah has been more aggressive in the current war, in their tactics and attacks.

Riboua believes Israel could go even further than the Litani River, viewing now as its opportunity to rid itself of Hezbollah for good.

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“I think from an Israeli perspective, everything is on the table. They’re going to do whatever it takes because it’s Hezbollah that violated that U.N. resolution, and they’re the ones who started attacking Israel while Israel was engaged in another war,” she said.

The only factor complicating a further invasion would be the political cost at home. A more likely scenario, Riboua noted, was a continuation of the air campaign and the use of nonlethal means to strangle the group’s financial network.