Nasrallah Fallout

The London Times is a liberal paper, but not far-left like the New York Times or the Washington Post. So it is not surprising to see this headline: “Why killing of Hassan Nasrallah marks beginning of the end for Iran.”

The piece is by Lina Khatib, associate fellow at the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House. Some excerpts:

Iran found in Nasrallah a valuable tool for expanding its influence in the Middle East. Since 1979, to pursue its goal of becoming the Middle East’s regional leader, Iran has established a franchise of armed groups in Arab countries, including Iraq, Yemen and Syria, of which Hezbollah is the oldest and strongest.
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For Iran, Nasrallah’s personification of hope, strength and military credibility became immensely useful for rallying its proxies in the Middle East. Iran summoned Hezbollah to mentor and help train members of other groups. … Beirut became a hub where the leaders of Iran’s proxies gathered and Hezbollah would release photos of them meeting Nasrallah.
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Although Hezbollah will not collapse with the killing of Nasrallah, the fact that Israel managed to get him exposes the extent of the group’s current vulnerability to its longstanding enemy. It is a huge blow to Hezbollah’s morale and undermines its standing among its allies as a group with robust security. With Nasrallah’s killing, the invincibility of Hezbollah has been shown to be a façade. This sparks a tectonic shift in Iran’s relationships in the Middle East.

Iran-backed groups all over the region will see in Nasrallah’s elimination and Hezbollah’s weakening a real concern about their own security: if Israel is able to bring Iran’s most powerful asset in the Middle East to its knees, then smaller, newer groups in Iran’s network are potentially easier to undermine. And though Iran managed to maintain its regional influence despite the assassination of Soleimani, that assassination was a one-off event. The killing of Nasrallah is part of a wider Israeli campaign to neutralise Hezbollah, potentially marking the beginning of the end for Iran’s regional influence in the Middle East.

We can only hope so.

I confess that I also enjoyed this, not entirely unrelated report:

[Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah] Khamenei has reportedly been transferred to a secure location inside the country with heightened security measures in place after Israel vowed to “reach” anyone who threatens Israel.