Why Israel will avoid a direct show-down with Hezbollah

Much has been made of the alleged "increased tensions" in the Middle East, due in no small part to both Israeli and US meddling in Syria. The more paranoid factions of the punditocracy see an Israeli or combined Israel-US assault on Hezbollah in Lebanon as imminent, especially in light of Mr. Netanyahu's dire straits vis-a-vis those various corruption investigations.

It won't happen, and here's why. That number is from two years ago. Unofficial estimates have the Hezbollah arsenal at well over 200,000 rockets today, and we're not talking about the homemade stuff the Gaza rocketeers lob into the Negev on a regular basis. We're talking about the real deal.

If you assume a best case scenario wherein the various Israeli anti-missile defences, Iron Dome, David's Sling, and the Arrow program, all function flawlessly, they could be expected to be effective against an initial barrage of a few hundred incoming. They'd be less effective going forward, and they'd essentially be a non-factor after a few thousand, which in the case of all-out war would be a matter of hours.

Then what? Even if the IAF managed to take out half the Hezbollah arsenal in a massive first strike, that'll leave a hundred thousand missiles and Israel with it's missile shield spent. Political rhetoric aside, IDF leadership will never permit this.

What we're looking at is a regional case of MAD lite. There may be proxy battles here and there, but there will not be a head-on confrontation.

Baron Black's attack on Iran would be suicide for Israel

That's why it doesn't happen.

Conrad "Monty" Black's prescription for peace in the Middle East, written on a day he got into the cooking sherry a little earlier than usual, speculates that in the current climate of chaos wrought in the region by the Nations of Virtue, it might be a good idea if Israel, perhaps in concert with Turkey and Saudi Arabia, eliminated the threat of the imaginary Iranian nukes once and for all. (There had to be more than sherry at work here...)

Black, former publisher of the JPost, still hews to the Likud party line, and as the world knows, the Iran nuke has been a bee in Bibi's bonnet for a quarter century now. Yes, those Iranian nuclear engineers have been months away from a nuclear weapon since the early nineties!

So why does the IAF not do something about it?

The IAF/IDF at the upper echelons are populated with serious people who don't take the yapping of ultra-nationalist politicians and armchair warmongers seriously. While Conrad Black can gloat about the IDF's "thrashing" of Hamas from his mansion in Toronto, IDF boss Benny Gantz acknowledges the courage of the Hamas fighters. Gantz understands that the only result of an unnecessary war that took the lives of five dozen IDF troops was to enhance the prestige of Hamas among the Palestinians.

That's what Mr. Black calls a thrashing of Hamas. The only thing thrashed by Operation Over the Edge was Israel's standing in world opinion.

The serious people understand the limits of what the IDF can and cannot do. They can't destroy Hezbollah, they can't destroy Hamas, and they certainly won't destroy Iran. Even in a nuclear first strike, there will be enough assets left over among Iran and her allies that Israel would be obliterated.

For their part, the Iranians understand that any attack on Israel would be suicidal as well.

What we've got here is MAD lite. Might as well get used to it, live with it, and make the best of it. The threat of mutually assured destruction kept the peace between NATO and the Soviet bloc for 50 years; it can do the same for Iran and Israel.

There's something to be said for MAD

As we bid a bittersweet farewell to all the unfulfilled promise of the year now gone, I find myself getting a little nostalgic for the good old days of Mutually Assured Destruction.

Those were the good old days, were they not? We had the big nuke hardware, they had the big nuke hardware, everybody knew that nobody was going to do anything stupid. Mutually Assured Destruction.

Even in the darkest days of Nixon's downfall, when Tricky Dick was stumbling around the White House in an alcoholic stupor, nothing bad happened.

Same with the last days of Brezhnev. Senility and cirrhosis may have had him firmly in hand, but somehow, that threat of mutual destruction prevented anyone from taking advantage.

One of the biggest stories of the year gone by and the year ahead is the story of the mythical Iranian nuke.

Do they have one?

Are they working on one?

If so, how far are they from having one?

You know the rest of it. It's the number one foreign policy obsession with every GOP candidate. Talking tough on Iran is the caucus cajone test. They're tripping over each other to make the most bellicose statements about the imaginary Iranian nuke.

I personally have taken the worst-case scenario to heart. Let's assume they have a nuclear weapons program. Lets assume they actually build a bomb.

Then what?

Then nothing. There is only one country that has ever used an atomic weapon. Everybody else holds them for their deterrent value.

That deterrent value has worked. It'll work for Iran too.