The Israel Defense Forces targeted a senior Lebanese Hezbollah leader in Beirut on Tuesday. Israel says that the missile strike constitutes retaliation for a Hezbollah rocket attack that killed 12 Israeli children on Saturday.
The Israeli action appears clever in its strategic calculation. I say that for two reasons.
First, it's because the strike seems to have balanced effective deterrence alongside the mitigation of civilian casualties. On the deterrent side of the equation, Israel targeted Hezbollah military operations commander Fuad Shukr inside the terrorist group/political party's Beirut stronghold. Considering that Shukr appears to have been in an apartment building at the time, it is probable he was killed (Israel would not risk a politically sensitive strike in Beirut that endangered civilians absent high confidence it could get its target).
Israel needed to hit a high-profile target inside Beirut to underline its willingness to escalate in response to Hezbollah's prior escalation. Lesser retaliation would have been perceived by Hezbollah as a signal of Israeli trepidation amid heavy pressure from the Biden administration to avoid escalatory actions. It would also have signaled fraying Israeli deterrent resolve to Iran in an environment where Iran is pursuing increasingly bold nuclear enrichment activities.
The second reason I suggest this strike represents clever strategy centers on who Israel targeted.
Fuad Shukr isn't just any Hezbollah leader. As with Imad Mughniyeh, a Hezbollah leader assassinated in 2008, Shukr was instrumental in planning the U.S. Marine barracks bombing. As the U.S. Justice Department notes , "Shukr played a central role in the October 23, 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps Barracks in Beirut which killed 241 U.S. military personnel and wounded 128 others."
Shukr's likely demise thus represents overdue justice for Americans as much as it does justice for the innocent children Hezbollah killed on Saturday. This dual U.S.-Israeli interest narrative carries powerful strategic value for Israel. After all, the Israeli government knows that the Biden administration is desperate to avoid further escalation in the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict that has been underway since Hamas's atrocities last October. But by eliminating an avowed enemy of the United States (Shukr had a $5 million U.S. government bounty on his head), it complicates the Biden administration's prospective criticism of Israel over this response.
More importantly, it creates political pressure on President Joe Biden and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris to support Israel if Hezbollah now further escalates the conflict. In essence, Israel has put Harris in a position where she must choose between criticizing Israel for the fallout of killing one of America's greatest terrorist adversaries, risking her being painted as weak on terrorism by former President Donald Trump, or offering support for Israel. Hezbollah must also anticipate that political calculation.
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Top line: Assuming civilian casualties are low to nonexistent, this strike will constitute a proportionate and necessary response to Hezbollah's escalation.
And while U.S. and Israeli interests in Lebanon diverge in key areas , it is manifestly good news for both Israel and America that Shukr is dead.
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