A portrait of Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah seen in Beirut on 21 September. The leader of the Lebanese resistance group was assassinated by Israel in a massive airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburb on Friday, 27 September. OLA NEWS/SIPA/Newscom
Israel’s assassination of Hasan Nasrallah, the secretary general of Hizballah, in an apocalyptic bombing attack on Beirut’s southern suburb on Friday is likely, at least in the short term, to cause enormous shock, despair and demoralization among supporters of the resistance to Zionism in Lebanon and across the region.
That is exactly what it is intended to do.
Confirmed by Hizballah on Saturday, Nasrallah’s killing comes after a series of tactical successes in the early stages of Israel’s unfolding full-scale attack on Lebanon, an open-ended assault that may well equal in barbarity Tel Aviv’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.
These are terrible and difficult thoughts to absorb after almost a year of genocide.
First there were the pager and walkie-talkie attacks, followed by a series of assassinations of Hizballah’s senior leaders, and now the head of the organization itself.
As Nasrallah himself admitted in his final speech, the organization suffered a severe blow with the pager attacks. Even worse was to come. Clearly there were serious breaches in security.
Nasrallah’s stature as a tactical and strategic thinker, as the most prominent and trusted leader of the Axis of Resistance, and as a personality capable of inspiring and reassuring supporters even in the worst of times, cannot be overstated.
The euphoria in Israel, Washington and some Arab capitals, will be exceeded only by the grief of Nasrallah’s supporters, who are far more numerous.
And there is no doubt that the loss is real and great from the perspective of a resistance that faces not only Israel’s formidable arsenal, but all the resources of the United States and the collective West.
Israel’s ability to carry out this series of attacks in quick succession will shake the confidence of many in Hizballah’s legendary prowess and operational security.
The attacks will go some way to restoring the prestige Tel Aviv has lost among its Western and Arab backers after a year of military failure in Gaza, and its failure to prevent the Hamas military offensive that wiped out the Gaza division of Israel’s army on 7 October 2023.
And although Hizballah has been hammering Israeli military assets and settlements in the north of historic Palestine with rockets, many in the region are asking why the resistance group’s response to Israel’s escalating aggression has not been harder and harsher – even as Israel intensifies its bombardment of civilians across Lebanon and within its capital.
Another question on many lips is why Iran, which vowed retaliation after Israel’s murder of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July, has acted with such restraint. There is a growing perception that its lack of response only encouraged Israel’s ever more brazen violence.
“Shock and awe” is not victory
Amid the rapidly changing situation and the torrent of emotions after a year of livestreamed genocide in Gaza, now being extended by Israel to Lebanon, it is hard to maintain a long view. But doing so is essential for sound analysis.
It is worth remembering this: In almost any asymmetrical war, when the strongest side – the invader or colonizer – goes on the offensive, it often appears to achieve quick and stunning success.
Indeed “shock and awe” is the name of a Western, specifically American, military doctrine, developed in the 1990s and explicitly touted when the US invaded Iraq in 2003.
Also called “rapid dominance,” its aim is to demoralize and paralyze the adversary with the use of overwhelming and spectacular displays of violence.
The goal according to the doctrine’s authors, is to so “overload an adversary’s perceptions and understanding of events that the enemy would be incapable of resistance at the tactical and strategic levels.”
We’ve seen this time and again in recent decades and we’re witnessing it now.
Just weeks after the 11 September 2001 attacks, the United States attacked Afghanistan, quickly toppling the Taliban government under the pretext that it had sheltered Osama bin Laden.
American confidence following this swift apparent success undoubtedly spurred Washington to go on to its next project: the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.
With the government of Saddam Hussein quickly overthrown and American tanks in control of Baghdad, President George W. Bush gave his infamous “Mission Accomplished” speech on 1 May of that year – words that came to haunt him as the United States became bogged down in a war of attrition against resistance in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
These rapid victories, or so they appeared, sparked real fears at the time that the American forces would roll onwards towards Damascus and Tehran, or perhaps other “rogue states” on America’s hit list.
