As expected, and after what seems like weeks of an aerial softening-up campaign against known Hezbollah operatives and locations by the IDF, Israeli ground forces have entered southern Lebanon.
This is not yet a general invasion, though, more of a series of limited raids on terrorist locations and weapons stores. The aim seems to be to push Hezbollah north so they are less able to target northern Israel, and thus the 70,000 or so Israelis who have been displaced can return home.
This is the latest iteration on a complex operation which started with the exploding pagers and walkie talkies, then targeted assassinations of much of the terrorist hierarchy, and now a ground campaign. So far the Israelis have hardly put a foot wrong, and their intelligence capabilities seem to be all-seeing and all-knowing.
And yet Iran, sponsor of the various proxies which have been attacking Israel, has done nothing substantial since its failed missile and drone assault on its sworn enemy back in April.
Despite senior members of its own Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) being killed alongside its Hezbollah allies, it has stood on the sidelines.
Why might this be so? It has suffered enough humiliation as it watches its proxies being systematically dismantled by the IDF, not to mention the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh when he was their guest in an IRGC compound in their own capital, Tehran. Surely they have enough cause to respond?
I think there are several reasons for this non-action. The first is that they are fearful of provoking a devastating Israeli attack on Iran itself. They will now know, if they did not before, that Israel has a comprehensive knowledge of Iran’s internal state apparatus and plans and has probably infiltrated their state security apparatus at every level.
Very little that the Iranian regime thinks, plans, or does, will be unknown in Jerusalem, and the IDF has amply demonstrated its ability to strike its enemies almost at will. Iranian air defences are no match for the Israeli air force’s capabilities to penetrate Iranian air space. There is no point in poking the bear.
Second, should anything Iran might try to do threaten the state of Israel existentially, then they will have the USA against them too. The US is Israel’s biggest backer and will not let it face defeat, so if push were ever to come to shove the USA would weigh in on Israel’s side.
There would be only one winner in that confrontation, so Iran wants to avoid that at almost any cost. And third, Tehran has more important assets to protect than its various proxies around the Middle East. Of these its nuclear programme is primus inter pares. Iran has longed to develop a nuclear presence to equal Israel’s, including developing its own nuclear weapons, and indeed may have travelled some way down this path.
Israel, for its part, will never let this happen, and has interfered with Iran’s nuclear ambitions (international sanctions aside) before when it seemed they were getting a bit too close to success.
Historically, it has targeted Iran’s nuclear programme through relatively limited sabotage in the form of cyber-attacks , assassinations of scientists , and bombs placed at Iranian nuclear facilities. This strategy has allowed Israel to repeatedly hinder Iran’s nuclear progress while maintaining some level of credible deniability, thus avoiding further military escalation.
Clearly this has been galling for Iran, which does not wish to give Israel any further excuses to attack its precious nuclear development efforts.
Plus, in another context, Tehran is also walking the tightrope in supplying Russia with its Shahed attack drones for use against Ukraine, a matter which will not be pleasing the USA.
And so, for the time being at least, Iran chooses to do nothing spectacular in response to Israel’s harrying of it proxies. All this could change overnight, of course, and we may yet see a wider conflagration in the region.
I have said many times before that, in the end, the USA is going to have to deal with Iran. Let’s hope they succeed using diplomatic means, not military ones.
Lt Col Stuart Crawford is a political and defence commentator and former Army officer. Sign up for his podcasts and newsletters at www.DefenceReview.uk
