By Dr. Eric R. Mandel
(JNS) — One year ago, the genocidal dictator of Syria was in power, propped up by his Iranian patron with the help of Hezbollah, a Shi’ite jihadist proxy. At the same time, in Lebanon, Hezbollah held sway and was under the direct control of Iran. Lebanon was a nation in traumatic distress from long-time civil wars as Hezbollah intimidated Christian, Sunni and Druze leaders, flexing their muscle as the strongest military in Lebanon, with the government’s Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) unwilling or unable to confront them.
What a difference a year makes. In rapid-fire succession, beginning in August 2024, the Israeli Air Force pre-emptively struck and destroyed Hezbollah’s vast missile-launching network. In September, Israel decapitated the senior Hezbollah leadership, including its longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, disrupting its command-and-control structure. The Israeli military campaign and its victory against Hezbollah motivated the Sunni Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in Syria to move south from its stronghold in northwestern Syria to seize control of the country. They knew Israel created an opportunity for them by weakening their Hezbollah enemy embedded in Syria.
By December, Assad had fled to Russia, and Iran, Hezbollah and other Shi’ite-controlled militias had left Syria in the hands of Sunni jihadist Abu Mohammad Al-Julani, now known as Ahmed al-Sharaa, who was a part of ISIS and an Al-Qaeda leader, but who has now convinced much of the world that he had renounced those allegiances.
Is this simple pragmatism on the part of al-Shaara to get much-needed reconstruction funds without much scrutiny? Is this an opportunity for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to advance his neo-Ottoman expansionism and dominate Syria just as Iran did? Or is there an actual change that could be a pathway for Syria and Israel to not only have a cold armistice, but also a path to normalization?
Meetings with U.S. State Department officials, American and Israeli politicians, think tanks and intelligence officers, as well as seven visits during the past 18 months to the Israeli-Lebanese and Syrian borders, have opened my mind to new possibilities that I could not have imagined a short time ago. But I am skeptical.
Lebanon’s new president, Joseph Khalil Aoun, is saying many of the right things, but he has also acknowledged that elements of Hezbollah may need to be incorporated into the LAF. The not-so-secret secret is that Hezbollah has been embedded in the LAF officer corps for years. On the one hand, the LAF is destroying Hezbollah munitions, but on the other, it is too weak to go into the thousands of private homes in Southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah has stored weapons. The LAF has also been unwilling to dismantle Hezbollah’s clandestine weapons factories in the area, a primary source for their future resurgence.
Why is the mechanism monitoring the Lebanese ceasefire working well so far? Because Washington is committed to monitoring it with some 20 U.S. personnel working from Beirut and coordinating with the LAF to help them fulfill their mission as much as possible.
The third layer ensuring quiet in Lebanon’s southern areas is Israel, whose forces are in place to operate against Hezbollah pre-emptively should they break the conditions of the ceasefire. Israel has remained in five topographical vantage points there, giving approximately 60% of the Israeli displaced population who evacuated from the northern border the confidence to return to their homes on the border.
To the credit of the Lebanese government, it has removed most of Hezbollah’s control at Beirut’s airport, a known conduit for cash from Iran to Hezbollah, as well as weapons transfers. Unfortunately, America’s frenemy, Turkey, is now allegedly working at the behest of Iran to ferry cash through the airport to resupply Hezbollah. In the Middle East, Persian Shi’ites sometimes work with Turkish Sunnis if they share interests. This is not the first time that Turkey has helped Iran evade sanctions. Iran is also moving weapons and cash through the Beirut port, which will provide another test for the LAF.
The renewal of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) mandate to patrol Southern Lebanon is coming up this summer; It would be best not to renew it.
UNIFIL has not stopped one of the 150,000-plus missiles transited to Hezbollah since 2006 from Iran, and Hezbollah has infiltrated the international body’s ranks. Most egregiously, Hezbollah tunnels and weapons facilities were built close to U.N. bases, whose staffers failed to report these violations, making UNIFIL not only impotent but a part of the reason why Lebanon could not free itself from Hezbollah’s grip.
Along Israel’s northern border, the quiet these days is startling after experiencing the sounds of war and thousands of projectiles and UAVs targeting Israeli civilian towns in the not-too-distant past. This is in contrast to the active fighting in Gaza, hostages still languishing in horrific conditions in Hamas tunnels, the Houthis still sending ballistic missiles into Israel’s heartland, and, most importantly for Israel, the fear of an ineffective deal being negotiated by Iran and America.
It will take patience, prodding and the imposition of consequences when U.S. interests are in question to advance this once-in-a-generation opportunity to create long-term quiet on Israel’s northern border, something that very much correlates with America’s national security.
Dr. Eric R. Mandel is the director of MEPIN, the Middle East Political Information Network, senior security editor of The Jerusalem Report and a contributor to The Hill and The Jerusalem Post. He regularly briefs member of Congress and their foreign-policy advisers about the Middle East.