By Matthew R.J. Brodsky

ISRAEL’S Operation Northern Shield, which recently exposed Hezbollah’s cross-border attack tunnels, has prompted the perennial question: Are Israel and Hezbollah about to go to war in Lebanon?

Long before these latest revelations, conventional wisdom held that another war between Hezbollah and Israel was simply a matter of time. While the date remained uncertain, the results were thought to be predetermined. The next round would bring an unparalleled level of destruction to both countries, dwarfing that of the previous 34-day war in 2006.

The tunnels Hezbollah burrowed are meant to facilitate the movement and infiltration into northern Israel of hundreds of its fighters as part of its well-established military doctrine that calls for “the conquest of the Galilee.”

The plan was developed after the 2006 war by Hezbollah’s international terror chief, Imad Mughniyeh, and expanded upon by Mustafa Badr Al-Din, both of whom were killed by Israel in 2008 and 2016, respectively.

These subterranean shafts were likely supposed to be used if Israel takes military action in Lebanon or once Iran passes a nuclear threshold that would embolden it to embark on a sustained military confrontation with Israel, which is something the regime in Tehran would like to avoid in the near-term.

But the tunnels are only a small part of the overall threat Iran and Hezbollah pose to Israel from Lebanon. On Dec. 3, a day before Israel made its operation public, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with US Secretary of State Pompeo in Brussels to pass on a message that should be delivered to the Lebanese authorities: They must stop Hezbollah’s efforts to acquire or manufacture precision-guided missiles or Israel will act.

Perhaps equally troubling, from Israel’s perspective, is the uptick in direct flights from Tehran to Beirut using converted civilian airliners that have carried advanced weaponry such as Global Positioning System (GPS) components that could upgrade Hezbollah’s arsenal of unguided heavy rockets into precision-guided munitions (PGMs).

Despite hundreds of Israeli strikes in Syria, Iran has already secured many of its war-related objectives, however, it has been less successful transferring PGMs and other “game-changing” weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

What’s worse, from Tehran’s perspective, is that the international community merely shrugs when Israel carries out such strikes and Russia hasn’t acted to put an end to them either. Israel’s success in interdicting these weapon transfers in Syria explains in part why Iran is shifting its advanced weapons production program to Lebanon, which constitutes a serious breach of Israel’s clearly articulated red lines.

Iran’s decision to shift production to Lebanon is based on the assumption that their facilities will remain off-limits to Israeli strikes and buried too deep should they decide to attack. It also constitutes an attempt to unilaterally impose a change in the current rules of the game that have been observed since 2013, when Hezbollah and Iran became deeply immersed in the Syrian conflict on behalf of the Assad regime.

The hybrid rules of engagement that emerged as a result shifted the theater of permissible engagement from Lebanon to Syria, meaning Israel could strike at weapons shipments destined for the Lebanese terrorist group in Syria, and Hezbollah believed it could retaliate against Israel on the Golan. Lebanon would remain untouched or Hezbollah promised to counter-escalate, thus spiraling toward the devastating Lebanon war analysts have been predicting since 2006.

Iran has so far shown an unwillingness to confront Israel militarily if it requires sustained conventional warfare. Hundreds of successful Israeli airstrikes on Iranian assets in Syria testify to this reluctance. On the other hand, the regime in Tehran has already demonstrated it is willing to fight to the last Lebanese in Lebanon, and the last Syrian, Iraqi, Afghani, or Pakistani in Syria. And they remain willing to sacrifice the well-being of their own people in their pursuit of foreign adventures.

Short of a direct Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, it’s hard to imagine that the regime would seek to escalate to a full-scale war. For that reason, Israel may conclude that limited, precision strikes in Lebanon could be the answer to shift the rules of the game back in its favor, especially if it is prepared to counter a limited retaliation. While this scenario entails significant risk, it also hinges on the Islamic Republic’s understanding that the 2006 rules no longer apply.

That is to say that Israel’s answer to a major counter-escalation from Hezbollah in Lebanon could have a new address, which happens to be the center of gravity and point of origin for many of the region’s problems. That address, of course, is in Iran. — Al Arabiya English