Meengla
Elite Member
Which is to take offensive action against Hezbollah at a time it sees as opportune. Hezbollah wants to avoid getting in this clash at any cost. But now it's at the cost of having the war be brought to them and it would be bizarre if they just ate up the strikes and didn't go down with a fight. There have been strategic miscalculations in regards to the post October 7 landscape. And Hezbollah and others are now paying a price for it. Houthi's in Yemen made correct strategic decision and did not face some extremely dire consequences some warn of. They showed willingness to escalate and recognizes there's a limit to what US and Israel can enforce on the region.
It is not a fair comparison to draw between Lebanon and Yemen.
Firstly, Yemen doesn't have much to lose and seems to have higher tolerance to take casualties and material losses. Lebanon is internally a much more divided country and the residents there have tragic memories of the previous bombardments of Lebanon, especially of Beirut. Hezbollah doesn't have the political consensus to take the losses like the Houthis do.
Second, is geography. And that works for or against both the Houthis and Israel. Israel cannot inflict the kind of damage to Yemen unlike to Lebanon--even with the American help from the Red Sea--and likewise the Houthis cannot cause the kind of damage to Israel like Hezbollah can do. If you remove the blockade of the Port of Eilat then Hezbollah has caused far more damage to Israel than Houthis have been able to. Even the Port of Eilat is of relatively minor significance to the Israeli commerce.
My assessment remains as I have been saying for months: Hezbollah will only get totally involved when they see Gaza being totally annihilated; in that scenario, Hezbollah would have to. Until then, they are exercising a 'strategic restraint' and certainly preparing for the big war should it come. And, to repeat: Both the Americans and the Iranians don't want to expand the war and have their proxies told so.




