There is no question about it: Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar has trapped somebody – the only question is whom? Has he trapped Israel into falling clumsily into the regional war that he always wanted on October 7, with all of the negatives that entails?
Or has he trapped Iran, and its main proxy Hezbollah, into prematurely wasting their great moments, capabilities, and threats to aid Sinwar’s lost cause in Gaza, instead of reserving them to deter Jerusalem from attacking Iran’s nuclear program?
Going back in time, Sinwar’s calculation – until now, miscalculation – was that if he invaded southern Israel, Hezbollah, Iran, Yemen, Syrian militias, West Bank terrorists, and Arab Israelis would all join in.
In his best-case scenario, Hezbollah would have invaded Israel’s northern villages just as Hamas was invading the South, providing a one-two punch that would have confused and paralyzed the IDF even more than it was from Hamas’s stunningly successful initial thrust.
It also would have rocketed large portions of Israel to create further chaos and disorder and put the Jewish state on the defensive.
Instead, Hezbollah sufficed with a mostly symbolic (at a strategic level) string of rocket and drone attacks on only on Israel’s villages and cities located very close to the border.
At the earliest stages, Hezbollah did not attack the Golan Heights or places like Safed, Acre, or Nahariya.
Yemen never joined in anything more than a sporadic way and with a significant delay.
Iran didn’t join until April and, since then, has mostly remained on the sidelines.
The other fronts have been quiet or nonstrategic factors.
But maybe after waiting 11 months, Sinwar could have trapped Israel into picking a larger fight with Hezbollah, which could finally bring Hezbollah, Iranthe Lebanese-based terrorist group, its Iranian sponsor, and others into the war in a more full-fledged fashion.
Sinwar also hoped to delay or end the trend of Israeli normalization with moderate Sunni Arab countries, such as with the Saudis, which seemed imminent in September 2023.
Lastly, he hoped to undermine Israel’s alliances with the US, UK, and EU, and to get Israel in trouble with international courts.
In turn, this could lead Israel to finally agree to his terms of allowing Hamas to remain in power and to releasing massive numbers of Palestinian security prisoners. He could then be seen as the new Palestinian “Saladin” of the 21st century – the man who brought Israel to its knees and forced it to recognize Hamas.
This is no fantasy.
Normalization with the Saudis has been delayed, alliances with the West have been frayed, and international courts are after Israel in an unprecedented fashion, even as compared to prior wars.
The unanswered dilemma is who will come out on top in the escalating conflict with Hezbollah.
If Hezbollah manages to harm Israel enough with its rocket arsenal or outlast Jerusalem enough to force improved ceasefire terms for itself and Hamas, Sinwar’s trap will have succeeded, albeit with an 11-month delay.
But this is far from the most likely scenario.
Since last Tuesday, Hezbollah has been battered and pummeled in ways it never expected.
The Lebanese terror group has lost 3,000-4,000 fighters, its Radwan commander Ibrahim Aqil and 13-15 of his subordinate commanders, more than 500 rocket launchers, and many thousands of rockets.
What if the IDF at some point overcomes Hezbollah’s ability to swarm it with long-range precision rockets and enormous volumes of short-range rockets?
What if the IDF at some point achieves an overmatch capability against Hezbollah where its main threats against Israel are neutered, if not neutralized?
Shockingly, this might even be possible without an invasion.
Or what if the IDF manages an invasion of Lebanon without Hezbollah being able to destroy large stretches of the home front with its rocket arsenal juggernaut, as had always been predicted in worst-case scenarios?
The whole purpose of Hezbollah from Iran’s perspective, which provides its rocket arsenal, funding, and training, was to deter Israel from ever attacking Tehran’s nuclear facilities, lest it give up its ace in the hole.
What if Sinwar had led Hezbollah into a war it was not ready to fight, with the IDF achieving massive strategic surprise and suddenly degrading the Hezbollah threat to a point where it no longer served to deter the Jewish state from acting against Iran?
In that case, Sinwar’s trap will have boomeranged into undermining the head of the axis of Middle Eastern evil, Iran, as well as defanging its top proxy threat – Hezbollah.
He would then go down in history as not only the destroyer of Gaza but as the gambler who bungled decades of careful Iranian planning and put Israel in its strongest security position in years