Fareed on Israel’s Attempt to Assassinate Hezbollah’s Leader

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Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good

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September 27, 2024

What to Make of Israel's Attempt to Assassinate Hezbollah's Leader?

Israel and Hezbollah have moved closer to all-out war. An Israeli strike in Beirut targeted Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, an Israeli official told CNN. Nasrallah's status is unknown.

A deadly situation has intensified drastically—particularly if Nasrallah has been killed.

Fareed offered his reaction to CNN's Richard Quest. Israel was caught off guard by Hamas' Oct. 7 attacks and did not expect to find itself in a protracted war in Gaza, Fareed said. But this looks like the execution of a more thought-through plan to strike at Hezbollah definitively. 

In recent weeks, Israel has sharply ramped up its campaign against Hezbollah: the Lebanese Shiite militia and political party—designated as a terrorist group by the US government—against which Israel fought a devastating war in southern Lebanon in 2006.

Soon after Oct. 7, Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel in solidarity with Gaza and Hamas. Since then, the two sides have traded cross-border fire. Tens of thousands have been displaced on both sides of the border, and Israel's government has said its priority is allowing Israeli citizens to return safely to their homes in the north.

In July, Israel escalated sharply by assassinating a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut. It escalated again more recently with deadly pager and walkie-talkie explosions that targeted Hezbollah members. To Fareed, this recent sequence looks like an attempt to eliminate Hezbollah as a threat. 

For weeks, observers have feared Lebanon could suffer a full-scale ground war. (In a nightmare scenario, such a conflict could grow even larger and draw in Iran, Hezbollah's chief backer; Iran's broader network of allies in the region; and perhaps the US military.) Israel and Hezbollah "appear locked in an upward military spiral," Dana Stroul of the Israel-aligned Washington Institute for Near East Policy wrote in a Foreign Affairs essay earlier this week, "but both would lose more than they would gain from a full-scale war right now." In language that may be understated, Urban Coningham wrote Thursday for the UK security think tank RUSI that the uptick in Israeli attacks "perhaps also reflects a weakness in the US's security arrangements, as it has been unable to effectively dissuade and disincentivise its own allies from escalation."

After today's strike, CNN's Bianna Golodryga heard from London School of Economics political-science professor Fawaz Gerges, who said: "Regardless of whether Hassan Nasrallah is killed or not … this is the tipping point. This is the spark that will most likely trigger all-out war. You'll see in the next day or so. This is it. Hezbollah will retaliate strategically—and that's exactly what [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu has been gunning for. He wants, really, a justification to go to launch a ground invasion, and a ground invasion will be really a long war, a much longer war than the war in Gaza. It will likely last for a decade."

Note to readers: The Global Briefing will be on hiatus next week. We'll return to your inboxes in earnest on Tuesday, Oct. 8.

The Iran Factor

As Hezbollah's powerful backer and Israel's arch enemy, Iran is the all-important wildcard in the brinksmanship that is now unfolding.
 
On Monday, Fareed asked Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian about Israel's ongoing escalation against Hezbollah. Pezeshkian's response: Hezbollah cannot stand alone against Western-backed Israel, and Muslim countries and international organizations should discuss the future of the conflict. "We must not allow for Lebanon to become another Gaza at the hands of Israel," Pezeshkian said.

See Fareed's interview with Pezeshkian on this week's GPS, at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET Sunday on CNN. 

Speaking with CNN's Richard Quest, Fareed suggested Iran likely will not react aggressively to Israel's strike targeting Nasrallah.

In New York this week for the annual UN General Assembly gathering of world leaders, Pezeshkian has struck a conciliatory tone, The Economist wrote. His main goal, in the magazine's view, seems to be reopening relations with the West and getting Iran out from under severe US sanctions. Some analysts remain suspicious. In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh argued that if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the presidency in November, Iran will likely build nuclear weapons. (Gerecht and Takeyh criticize Democrats' diplomacy-oriented approach to Tehran as opposed to former President Donald Trump's harder line. They depict Iran, and its nuclear program, as lying in wait.)
 
At the British international-affairs think tank Chatham House, Bronwen Maddox writes that targeting Iran directly may be the ultimate goal of Israeli attacks in Lebanon, by escalating conflict to the point where such attacks become conceivable. "For countries working to avoid a regional war, the concern is that Israel's government may be using the Lebanon attacks as a way to create the option of a future attack on Iran's nuclear facilities," Maddox writes. "Analysts are concerned that Israel might decide to strike regardless of the US election outcome, hoping for support from a Trump presidency but willing to tolerate censure from a Harris administration if necessary."

Fareed: Trump Would

Harm the US Economy

"From the start of his entry into political life, Donald Trump has had one enduring advantage," Fareed writes in his latest Washington Post column. "Many see him as a man who knows a lot about how to generate economic growth for the country. After all, he's a rich businessman and he played a super successful one on prime-time television for years. The feeling is, he must know what creates growth. In fact, almost everything Trump proposes would have the opposite effect."
 
Trump's proposal for steep new tariffs would cost US consumers, Fareed writes. The left-leaning Center for American Progress calculated that a typical American family would pay $2,500 more per year. The Peterson Institute calculates Trump's policies would dent economic growth by 2.8 to 9.7% by 2028 and hike inflation. Trump's proposal to deport undocumented immigrants would remove another force for growth, Fareed writes.
 
"In an age when government intervention is all the vogue," Fareed concludes, "let's not forget that markets are ultimately what create enduring growth and efficiency. No one needs more reminding of that than the celebrity-businessman in this race."

Can the UN Help Solve Today's Global Crises?

On Sunday's GPS, UN Secretary-General António Guterres told Fareed that the organization needs significant reforms in order to address today's pressing challenges.

Two Years After Revolt,

Sri Lanka Elects a Leftist

"With an eye on scripting a fresh political culture, voters in Sri Lanka rallied around new President Anura Kumara Dissanayake in Saturday's election," Marwaan Macan-Markar writes for Nikkei Asia. "His victory, fueled by anti-establishment discontent that had been brewing for months, gives the Marxist-leaning politician a role in deciding the future of reforms in the debt-ridden island nation." Le Monde's Sophie Landrin writes that Dissanayake "embodies political renewal" and calls him the country's "first Marxist-Leninist president."
 
The arrival of new leadership follows serious upheaval two years ago. In 2022, a crisis in Sri Lanka's economy and public finances prompted mass protests and the flight of Sri Lanka's then-president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
 
Before last weekend's election, a Foreign Policy op-ed by Amita Arudpragasam noted other candidates were tainted by establishment ties and questioned just how radical Dissanayake will be. Arudpragasam wrote: "Dissanayake's manifesto demonstrates that his policy approach—routinely mischaracterized by his rivals—departs from what one might expect of a Marxist-Leninist leader. Notably, he has not only agreed to work with the IMF, but he has also pledged to increase market competitiveness, transparency, and efficiency; to increase Sri Lanka's share of foreign trade through export diversification; and to increase foreign direct investment."
 
The Economist writes: "Mr Dissanayake will probably try to keep Sri Lanka's relations with China, India and America finely balanced, says Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu of the Centre for Policy Alternatives, a think-tank in Colombo, the capital. The new president's immediate priority is to prove to supporters and opponents that he and his party can govern the country competently, despite having almost no experience in power. But pressure to make good on his election promises may mount swiftly—both from ordinary Sri Lankans, and from his own party's leftist old guard."