EXPERT Q&A — As fears of a wider Mideast war rattle the region, and many in other parts of the world, Cipher Brief CEO Suzanne Kelly spoke with former CIA Senior Executive Glenn Corn about a key question: How Hezbollah may respond to the attacks that resulted in the explosion of communication devices used by the group across Lebanon – hundreds of pagers on Tuesday, and then hundreds of walkie-talkies and other devices Wednesday. Hezbollah has accused Israel of carrying out the attacks, and the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed Thursday that “retribution will come.” As has been the case with recent attacks in Iran and Lebanon, Israel neither claimed nor denied responsibility.
As The Cipher Brief has reported, the detonations came almost immediately after Israel declared stopping Hezbollah attacks a formal war aim, in addition to eliminating Hamas in Gaza. Perhaps the most urgent question now is whether the two-day attack was Israel’s way to hit Hezbollah without launching a major military operation, or a prelude to such an operation. As for Hezbollah, Corn said the group has several options, as it considers what to do next.
These answers have been edited for length and clarity.
The Cipher Brief: What are the options here for Hezbollah in terms of a response that they can manage?
Corn: Obviously, everyone’s watching what’s going on very closely. We’ve been doing that for a long time now. We’ve spoken about the fact that the Israelis are under increasing pressure to get their settlers back to the north. We’re going on a year now that they’ve been evacuated, about 60,000-65,000 Israelis, and they’ve been warning for a while that they are going to do something.
It’s a brilliant operation in many ways, technically. Politically, it remains to be seen what the fallout is going to be. But what are Hezbollah’s options? One, when Hassan Nasrallah says it’s a terrorist act and a declaration of war, Israel and Hezbollah have been at war already for years. Hezbollah has been targeting Jewish targets and Israeli targets and U.S. targets for years. They have blood on their hands. So I’m not sure for the Israelis it makes a huge difference.
Hezbollah has a large arsenal of weaponry that they could launch at Israel. They could probably inflict a good deal of pain and damage on Israel. My suspicion is they’ll look for a target to go after so that they can send a message to the Israelis that they’re striking back. But we shouldn’t forget also, to my understanding, that the Israelis thwarted an attempt by Hezbollah to kill a former senior Israeli official just before this happened.
This war has been going on for a long time. And my own sense is the Israelis are just getting very tired of it. And there are a lot of people pushing in Tel Aviv to bring it to a head, to an end, if that’s possible.
The Cipher Brief: What are the options in terms of what Hezbollah might be able to do? It seems like this pager attack may have caused complete chaos in terms of the organizational structure of the organization, and how Hezbollah operatives were communicating with each other.
Corn: They have a network worldwide that at one point was very effective, very disciplined. The Iranians invested a lot in developing that capability. If I were still in the intelligence community, I’d be looking worldwide for potential threats against Israeli or Jewish targets. The Iranians may help them on the ground, although, my own assessment is that Hezbollah is very capable of doing things on their own.
But it is my understanding that what the Israelis have been doing both with these two operations, if it was the Israelis, has really shocked Hezbollah. And it’s really undermining the morale of the organization and causing a lot of problems for the command and control of the organization. And my guess is that’s exactly what the Israelis are trying to do.
The Cipher Brief: What do you suspect is happening those two, between the leadership in Tehran and the leadership of Hezbollah right now?
Corn: I think that probably there’s a lot of discussions going back and forth on what the response should be. Hassan Nasrallah has been very calculating when he’s responded to the Israelis in the past. You know, I hate to call it tit-for-tat because it’s not tit-for-tat. A lot of people have been killed over the years in the different strikes by the Israelis against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, and attacks by Hezbollah against the Israelis, including terrorist attacks against targets internationally. I think the most recent one I can remember was in Bulgaria, where they killed a number of Israeli citizens with an attack on a bus.
So I’m sure there’s a discussion between Nasrallah and the Iranian Supreme Leader on what they should do, what would be appropriate. My assessment is the Iranians don’t want a widening of the war. I don’t think they need that right now, and I don’t think they want that before the U.S. elections. But they may feel that they’re under pressure now to do something because of what has just happened. I’m sure it’s shocked them as well.
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