Suddenly, Israel has a remarkable opportunity for a diplomatic breakthrough in Lebanon. You'd be forgiven for not knowing about this, because both Israel and Hezbollah seem committed instead to a spiraling conflict. Hezbollah apparently decided to plunge itself, and Lebanon, into the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran because it believes that it faces an existential crisis. Israel destroyed much of the organization's missile arsenal in 2023'24, decimated its ranks of commanders, and wiped out most of its political leadership. Hezbollah seems to have concluded that it needs to act now to restore deterrence. For its part, Israel has apparently reached an equal and opposite conclusion about Hezbollah: that now is the golden opportunity to reduce the organization to irrelevance. The war that ended in 2024 did not completely neutralize Hezbollah, and the organization was making some headway in rearming itself, despite the Lebanese government's efforts to prevent this. The chance to settle its...
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