On November 6, 2014, Boaz Ganor and Hussain Abdul-Hussain addressed a Policy Forum at The Washington Institute. Ganor is the associate dean of the Lauder School of Government and executive director of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya. Abdul-Hussain is the Washington correspondent for the Kuwaiti daily al-Rai and a former editor at the Beirut Daily Star. The following is a rapporteur’s summary of their remarks.

BOAZ GANOR

Beginning in the early 1980s, the concept of exporting Ayatollah Khomeini’s Shiite revolution became one of the main factors shaping Iran’s foreign policy. The idea was to establish a Shiite crescent spanning Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. Tehran thus created Hezbollah, the state’s long arm, supporting the group’s military capabilities and making it one of the strongest nonstate actors in the region.

Today, Hezbollah holds approximately 100,000 rockets and missiles. From an Israeli perspective, this is an unprecedented challenge. Hezbollah’s strategy for the next round of confrontation with Israel includes surprise attacks in which it would launch hundreds or thousands of missiles per day across the border. It believes this approach would neutralize Israeli technological and defensive capabilities. Yet this round might not take place anytime soon — Iran sees Hezbollah as a strategic deterrent against Israeli military strikes on its nuclear facilities, so unleashing the group’s capabilities now would be counterproductive.

Hezbollah has also been trying to take over Syrian cities and villages near the Lebanon border. Without the group’s presence in Syria, Bashar al-Assad arguably would have lost the war by now, and the current situation could have been much different. When Hezbollah’s intervention began, many Lebanese — including Shiites — criticized the group for putting Iran’s interests first. But that has changed with the perception that jihadist groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) are threatening Lebanon. Hezbollah is now regaining political strength among its core constituency, many of whom believe the group is protecting them from Syrian spillover.

If Assad wins the war, his alliance with Iran and Hezbollah would be strengthened, posing a much bigger challenge to Israel. Hezbollah is also gaining military experience that will likely make the next ground fight with Israel much more difficult than past clashes.

Read the article in full at The Washington Institute.