THE RETALIATION THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN
Why a wider war has yet to break out in the Middle East
It’s been more than two weeks since an Israeli drone fired a barrage of missiles into a Beirut suburb and assassinated Fuad Shukr, a senior officer of Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia headed by Hassan Nasrallah. Four others were killed in the July 30 attack, and eighty were injured, many seriously. Israel did it again a day later in Tehran, firing a missile—it was not a bomb as many have reported—into a government guest house that killed Ismail Haniyeh, a high-ranking official of Hamas who was involved in ceasefire talks with Israel. He was in Tehran to celebrate the inauguration of Masoud Pezeshkian, a surgeon and the first reformer in two decades to be elected president of Iran.
The murders triggered worldwide fears of a wider war in the Middle East, and the Biden administration quickly rallied the US Navy in support of the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the man who ordered the trigger pulled. A dozen American combat ships, including an aircraft carrier and an attack submarine, were ordered to sail to the Mediterranean. An unnamed senior American official was quoted in the Washington Post warning Iran in a diplomatic message that the Biden administration was “unwavering in its defense of our interests, our partners and our people.” Biden was said to have told Netanyahu in a telephone call that in response he wanted him to be a “good partner” and then added a familiar request: would the prime minister please agree to a ceasefire in Gaza entailing the release of Israeli hostages in return for the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails?
A full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah or Iran was not ignited, and American media attention returned to the Olympics, the presidential campaigns, and the misery of a hot summer with wilder than ever weather. There still is no ceasefire in Gaza, the Israeli Air Force continues its bombing campaign there, and the Israeli Army continues its ground war against Hamas as the world watches the murderous debacle in smoldering anger. (The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Israel put its military on high alert after learning of preparations by Iran and Hezbollah to carry out attacks. The specific preparations were not cited.)
So what is going on? Why didn’t Nasrallah, now engaged in a brutal tit-for-tat war of missiles with Israel, immediately respond after one of his senior commanders and longtime associate was murdered while at work in his office? And why didn’t Pezeshkian seek to avenge the death of an ally assassinated on Iranian soil?
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