October 18: Decapitating the Iranian hydra

In which, the IDF crosses off the October 7 mastermind, Zelensky pitches an unlikely victory, North Korea deploys troops to Ukraine, and the Harris-Walz campaign appears to be on life support.

Decapitating the Iranian hydra

All the way back in January of this year, I noted that the US and Israel were confronting something of an Iranian hydra in the Middle East as they played proxy/terrorist whack-a-mole in Gaza, the Red Sea, Iraq, Lebanon, etc. My assessment of America’s attempt to deter Iran with targeted strikes was unlikely to be successful as it was using conventional force against Iran’s gray zone or asymmetric methods. The result being that, like the mythical hydra, Iran’s proxy networks would take a hit in one place and pop up in other places.

Enter the IDF who apparently finished reading the Greek mythology homework. In the myth, Hercules succeeds in killing hydra by decapitating it’s many heads, yes, but his nephew Iolaus then sealed the headless necks of the hydra with fire preventing the regrowth.

As confrontation with Iran came more to the fore this summer, Israel stepped up its own irregular  campaign against Iran’s hydra, combining intelligence and covert operations to deliver strikes across the region that effectively decapitated leadership in Hamas and Hezbollah while simultaneously throwing Iran’s IRGC into a panic over its apparent penetration by Israeli intelligence.

That irregular campaign racked up another major win when a drone strike in Gaza took out Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. From what we know of the strike, there was an element of the chance fortunes of war to it as the IDF apparently didn’t realize they had gotten Sinwar. But got him they did and Hamas and Hezbollah are not bereft of their political and military leaders in the space of just a few months.

Meanwhile, the US continues to use its airpower to hit Houthi sites in an effort to get the Red Sea lanes open.

You’d think that the US would be more appreciative of Israel playing Iolaus to its Hercules, but no sooner was the death of Sinwar was confirmed, then President Biden called for an immediate ceasefire and Secretary of State Blinken threatened to cut Israeli military aid if Israel didn’t do more to get humanitarian aid into Gaza (nevermind the fact that Israel has been working to get aid into Gaza from the start). 

Despite the ham-handedness of American diplomacy, the two allies appear to be cooperating on an imminent strike on Iran in retaliation for last month’s missile barrage on Israel.

At this point, with Hamas and Hezbollah on their back foot, but with drones and missiles starting to hit major Israeli cities, Israel is not going to be going for a ceasefire anytime soon. Not that Hamas wants one.

Iran seems to understand this as it has closed off informal contacts with the US, essentially ending what tenuous diplomatic relations existed with Washington. 

The region wide war many feared once Hamas attacked on October 7, now appears in full swing. Indeed, it’s already been going from Israel’s perspective, but now other state actors are getting more heavily involved as the US steps up support (threats of cuts aside) and Russian weapons are being discovered in Hezbollah hands.