Ever since October 7, egged on by Iran, Hezbollah has been escalating its cross-border clashes with Israel, while its leader Hassan Nasrallah has been stepping up his blood-curdling rhetoric, predicting Armageddon if Israel were to launch all-out war. Yet the truth is that Iran-Hezbollah would like nothing better. They have sound strategic reasons for not initiating formal armed conflict. So their tactic has been to ramp up the provocation, daring Israel to strike back and trigger war.

Iran learned a lesson from its abortive attempt at overwhelming Israel’s defenses on April 13. In its first-ever direct aerial assault, it sent some 170 drones, over 30 cruise missiles, and more than 120 ballistic missiles the 1,000 kilometers toward Israel. The Iranian leadership no doubt expected a massive military and propaganda triumph.

In the event the operation was a miserable failure. To supplement Israel’s Iron Dome defense, America and Britain sent jet fighters to help shoot down the missiles. At the same time Jordan refused to allow Iran to use its air space for the operation, while several Gulf States, among them Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, passed on intelligence about Iran’s plans. As a result about 99% of the aerial armada never reached Israel, and Iran learned that not only the West, but much of the Middle East disliked and distrusted it.

Fearing wholesale lack of support if any formal Hezbollah-Israel conflict were seen as Iran-instigated, Iran-Hezbollah has, in the words of the English poet, Alexander Pope, been “willing to wound and yet afraid to strike.”

On June 18 the Israel Defense Forces announced that a plan for an offensive to push Hezbollah further back from the border had........

© Eurasia Review