Amid reports of tension between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump, Iran this week submitted a proposal to end the war that would require an end to Israel’s strikes on and invasion of Lebanon, which have killed at least 3,000 people since March. Analyses in Middle East Policy help to explain Tehran’s insistence on linking the two battlespaces, including Iran’s reliance on strategic depth, Hezbollah’s coercive leverage over Israel and capacity for ideological adaptation, and the weaknesses in the Lebanese political order that will frustrate a peaceful resolution.
In addition to the studies featured in this article, you can find more on the Iran War in an Early View of our Summer 2026 journal. Middle East Policy has also released its 167th issue, with analyses of testimony from Palestinian women jailed by Israel, the unresolved question of sovereignty in Jerusalem, and shifting relations between Turkey and the Gulf powers. And readers can still access our free special issue, Washington’s War on Iran, featuring 14 examinations of the conflict. If you find this update useful, please forward it to others you believe will benefit; register to receive our weekly updates here. And please follow us on the social media platforms X and LinkedIn.
In his open-access analysis, Edward Wastnidge pointedly contends that Hezbollah offers Tehran a forward defense that can sap Israel’s strength and divert its attention from the Iranian homeland. The nonstate paramilitary has developed autonomous capabilities that, Wastnidge shows, have fed back into the Islamic Republic’s own military capacity.
Hezbollah’s battlefield experience, enhanced through…involvement in the Syrian conflict, provides the [Iranian Axis of Resistance] with a vanguard force capable of further sustaining its deterrence of Israel. It has also begun to assume a broader role, with Iran and its allies drawing on its expertise in a number of advisory missions across the region. This sense of interoperability and linkage across multiple arenas has transformed a group previously seen as an Iranian protégé into one that some argue is the backbone of a wider armed body.
Robert Mason adds that the American withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 strengthened Tehran’s assessment that preserving interconnected Middle Eastern fronts—especially Hezbollah’s position in Lebanon—was essential to preventing strategic isolation and maintaining deterrence against Israel and the United States. “Iran’s threat perception was heightened by the Trump administration’s ‘maximum pressure’ policy,” Mason writes, “validating its doctrine of strategic depth, which appears to be more sustainable given the enclaves that have developed in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.”
The result of this commitment to bolstering allies was a marked increase in Hezbollah’s coercive power. After the group demonstrated its might through direct and bloody clashes, it was able to influence Israeli decision making as well. Daniel Sobelman, in an open-access article, argues that it was Hezbollah’s implicit and at times explicit threats that forced Netanyahu to cede claims on key sources of natural gas to Lebanon in 2022. Israel effectively accepted a maritime boundary arrangement that allowed Lebanon to claim rights over the Qana gas field and a larger share of the disputed eastern Mediterranean economic zone than many Israeli officials had previously supported. “Hezbollah succeeded in compelling Israel to negotiate under threat and under fire,” Sobelman contends.
This helps to explain Israel’s continued focus on Lebanon even as Washington tries to bring the Iran front to a close. But Hezbollah has not only proved formidable in defending Iran but in building domestic political power. Despite Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s vow to disarm the nonstate paramilitary, his government has made little progress.
The reason for this is less a lack of will than structural constraints that incentivize inaction in a deeply divided society. Lebanon’s political system is commonly described as a form of consociational democracy designed to manage sectarian diversity through elite bargaining and power sharing. Benjamin MacQueen contends, however, that this is inherently dysfunctional, as it lacks meaningful proportional representation, institutional constraints on elite behavior, and mechanisms capable of expanding political participation beyond entrenched sectarian networks. Two other Middle East Policy analyses explain how the system has allowed state resources to flow through patronage networks without checks on corruption, as well as how it has contributed to the erosion of public trust that fueled the long-running debt spiral.
More germane to the Iran War, MacQueen argues that the sclerotic political system allows Hezbollah to operate not simply as an armed movement but as one of several entrenched communal actors embedded within the confessional order. It has not only preserved an autonomous military capacity but also expanded its influence within formal politics. Disarming the group requires more than just bombardment, but talks between the Israeli and Lebanese leaderships will not be sufficient.
Could Hezbollah ever agree to drop its armed struggle and limit itself to participating in Lebanese domestic politics? While it seems unlikely given its origins as a force dedicated to resistance against Israel, Massaab Al-Aloosy underscores the group’s flexibility. During the 2010s, Hezbollah faced what it perceived as an existential threat: The possible collapse of the Assad regime jeopardized the military and political order linking the group to Iran through Syria. This alignment had sustained the movement’s regional role and deterrence strategy against Israel. Taking sides against fellow Muslims who were fighting against Damascus required a major shift in ideology for an organization founded on opposing Israeli occupation and incursion.
“The insurgency’s leadership must be flexible in dealing with reality,” Al-Aloosy observes, “despite believing in an ideology that rejects the status quo.” With Bashar al-Assad gone and Iran focusing on its immediate homeland, could Hezbollah again shift its founding principles and forge a new identity within Lebanese domestic politics?
Middle East Policy, Lebanon Analyses
Reinforcing the Resistance: Iran and the Levant in a Multipolar Middle East
Edward Wastnidge—open access!
Strategic Depth Through Enclaves: Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah
Robert Mason
Hezbollah’s Coercion And the Israel-Lebanon Maritime Deal
Daniel Sobelman—open access!
Lebanon’s Electoral System: Is Reform Possible?
Benjamin MacQueen
The Practice of Corruption in Lebanon
Francisco Salvador Barroso Cortés | Joseph A. Kéchichian
Hezbollah in Syria: An Insurgent’s Ideology, Interest, and Survival
Massaab Al-Aloosy
Fallen Cedar: Lebanon’s Debt Diplomacy, 2015–2020
Kevin Rosier
Saudi Arabia Calls Out Hezbollah: Why Now?
Matteo Legrenzi | Fred H. Lawson
Can Lebanon’s Economy Be Saved? A Plan for Revival
Leila Dagher | Raoul Nehme
Lessons from the Syria-Hezbollah Criminal Syndicate, 1985–2005
Iftah Burman | Yehuda Blanga—open access!