In Part IV, I described the lessons learned after Iran’s April 13 missile assault on Israel and Israel’s counterstrike. As a result, both countries have come out of the shadows and have entered a new phase in their conflict, their war. Note that I subtitled this series “Israel and Iran.” Most of the news has been about Israel versus Hamas and Hezbollah, and the battle between them. It is important to understand that the war with an Iranian ally and a proxy is actually two battles in the greater war with Iran. Today, I’ll describe what we can expect in terms of Israel’s next moves against Hezbollah and Iran and suggest a way to defeat them, using what I call the Hit-Them-in-the-Face-as-Hard-as-They-Can plan.

I should start with a caveat, however. In 1928, Frederick Maurice, a British military historian, wrote about the difficulties of predicting the course of a war. The example he used was when World War I broke out during the summer of 1914. A number of analysts predicted that it would be “over by Christmas.” The four years that followed proved them wrong. The lesson here is that I am not going to make predictive statements, but rather name some possibilities of what may happen, and perhaps be more prescriptive about what Israel and the West needs to do. Either way, these things have implications for the markets, which I will address in the final piece, Part VI. Let’s get into it.

So, What Is Next?

After the Israeli counterstrike on Iran in April, both countries took a pause from direct confrontation. Israel went back to finish the job in Gaza by rooting out the last vestiges of Hamas. They were not going to stop until the job was done, no matter what the world around them demanded they should do. On August 21, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced that the Israel Defense Force (IDF) defeated Hamas’s Rafah Brigade, its most dangerous unit, and destroyed more than one hundred tunnels used to resupply their forces and to hide the hostages taken on October 7. This phase of the Israeli operation is all but complete.

 Many don’t realize, though, that Hezbollah had their own plans for an invasion of Israel. Iran supplied them and readied them for the attack, but Hamas beat them to the punch. (There is a positive aspect to Hamas’s attack. If it were Hezbollah instead, the scale and devastation would have been ten times worse. Simply put, they have a significantly larger number of men and weapons than Hamas.) In the meantime, while the IDF is fighting Hamas in Gaza, and Iran and Israel are conducting their tit-for-tat operations, Hezbollah has subjected northern Israel to daily missile and rocket strikes, without end. They fire off just enough of them to keep Israel off-balance, but not enough to cause a massive American response. They seem to know where the line is.

As a result, this region of Israel has been evacuated since last October 8. Hezbollah has been at war with Israel and has enjoyed free reign to do what it wants to the homes, cities, and businesses of this region, and no less, the landscape. For twelve months, it has been on fire, and it is still on fire. Until recently, global media coverage has been all but mute about this scene. (See endnote about war crimes.[i])

 Since a major portion of the job in Gaza is finished, Israel is turning its attention to southern Lebanon. Why? Israeli families numbering 94,000 people, according to a March 9 article from NPR[ii], who are refugees in their own country, have evacuated their homes near the northern Israeli border with Lebanon, and moved to safer locations. Certainly, they would like nothing more than to return and put their kids back in school. You know, go back to normal life. But to do that, Israel must silence Hezbollah’s artillery, missile, and rocket attacks. Again, who should stop shelling who? It’s no wonder that, back in April, Israel attacked that building in Damascus. They had to disrupt Iran and Hezbollah’s command and control and, to this day, must continue to apply pressure.

They did exactly that when they ramped up this pressure on August 25 through an aerial strike with over one hundred jet aircraft. The IDF reportedly targeted six thousand rocket launchers that were pointed at Israel. Unfortunately, they will have to keep up the pressure to keep Hezbollah’s reaction from getting out of hand. This means they must deter them from a deeper missile attack into Israeli territory, i.e., on Tel Aviv, Haifa, or some other population center, and God forbid, Jerusalem.

But this isn’t the only additional front in this war. In addition to airstrikes against Hezbollah, Israel has been targeting terrorists that live and hide in the West Bank—a third front in this war. These are skirmishes to take out individuals who are known terrorists. It’s more like a police action, but the theme is the same. They want all of these groups to stop messing with them, or they will lose their lives. It’s that simple.

A fourth front is also open. Early in the week of September 9, Israeli special forces conducted a raid in Syria, killing at least sixteen people and destroying an Iranian missile factory. More can be written about these actions and others, but suffice it to say, Israel has their hands full.

Let’s quickly add it up. Israel is fighting on eight fronts:

• Hamas in Gaza
• Hezbollah in southern Lebanon
• Iranian Republican Guard (IRG) in Syria
• Terrorists in the West Bank
• Iran’s proxies in Iraq
• Houthi rebels in Yemen
• Resupply routes into Gaza from the Philadelphi Corridor on the Egyptian border
• And of course, the common denominator in all of this is the Iranian regime itself

The West and its media decry the possibility of a wider regional war if this gets out of hand. They consider any further aggression in any direction an expansion of the war. The truth they deny, or at least obfuscate, is that it has technically been a regional war since the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Their goal then and now is the annihilation of Israel. Nothing has changed. After the latest missile volley from the Iranian regime into Israel on October 1, commentators and experts are warning of a wider regional war. They say the risks are high. They are all wrong. There is absolutely no risk of a regional war. That’s because it already started last October, and it continues to this day.

What Are Israel’s Options for Ending This?

After Israel’s preemptive strike against Hezbollah, there has been much discussion about not only regaining control of their northern border but also pushing Hezbollah north about eighteen miles to the Latani River. This river runs east-west through Lebanon and would provide Israel with a buffer zone. (Incidentally, this buffer was supposed to occur after Israel’s incursion with Hezbollah in 2006, by a resolution of the United Nations. To no one’s surprise, that resolution was never enforced.) For the present, the Israeli order of the day is more airstrikes against Hezbollah’s missile sites. Of course, Hezbollah will respond by firing rockets from other sites that are still operational. This attrition warfare will continue, but it cannot last forever.

Eventually, out of desperation or because Iran orders it, Hezbollah could target the major population centers mentioned earlier. This would mean all-out war, which both sides have shown by their actions they don’t want. To force an end, one could conclude that the Israelis will have to invade Lebanon. They did just that, on the same day as Iran’s latest missile attack on October 1. They started with targeted ground attacks to ready for an invasion.

Recent Israeli tactics are showing that Israel is prepared to push Hezbollah back and that they have excellent intelligence on their positions, including the whereabouts of their leadership, underground facilities, tunnels along the border, and missile launcher sites.

The September 17 and 18 Israeli attacks on their command-and-control network, causing pager and walkie-talkies to explode, killed 37 operatives, and injured up to 3,000 militants. This makes it harder for Hezbollah to communicate with its members and throws them into disarray. This was immediately followed by more successful air strikes on 100 launcher sites, in addition to targeted bombings of their leadership. (By the way, the US stock market hit an all-time new high on September 19, which is information that will become more important to you when I close today’s article.)

Israeli intelligence has demonstrated their capability, proving that the events of 10/7 were a complete anomaly. They have pinpointed the locations of Hezbollah’s leadership, missile launchers, and infrastructure. Today, they have eliminated most of Hezbollah’s chain of command, including its leader, Hassan Nasrallah. In other words, the campaign against Hezbollah has begun and will not stop until the threat is completely eradicated.

What about Iran?

Unlike Hamas, which is an Arab ally of Iran but doesn’t answer to the Persian mullahs, Hezbollah is a proxy for the Iranian regime. They take their orders from the IRG, and ultimately from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Another way to understand this is that Hezbollah is an equivalent to Iran, only Arab. If they are equivalent, then they are Iran. For Israel, all actions against the Iranian regime must start with Hezbollah.

When the Iranian Revolution took place in 1979, led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the ayatollahs did not replace the government or its army. They simply installed themselves above the government and its president. The same is true for the IRG. It is not the Iranian Army; it is the security force and army for the protection of the Islamic regime—the ayatollahs. Again, they are an overlay on top of the existing government and its army. That doesn’t mean that the president of Iran is not a puppet. Of course, he is.

A way to picture this organization is to imagine a military battle tank. The main body of the tank is where the engine of the Iranian government, its army, and the president sit. The turret with its main gun sits atop the tank, where the ayatollahs and the Iranian Republican Guard meet to figure out who their going to target next. They pass along orders to the president and tell him where to drive. Then, they fire off the gun at their enemies, both foreign and domestic. Briefly, that is how things work in Iran.

I mention this short history and organizational structure because if you add this to the obvious weaknesses pointed out in previous parts of this series, then you know how vulnerable the regime really is. For example, it took them two months to respond to the killing of Hamas’s political leader, Ismael Haniyeh, in center-city Tehran, let alone deterred it from occurring. Even an Iranian-sponsored assassination attempt on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other leaders was foiled, as reported by World News on September 19.[iii] So, they have no answers for Israeli covert operations or military strikes. We know this is the case because they did not live up to their threat of retaliation for Haniyeh’s death, until their October 1 missile attack. They essentially tied this strike to both Haniyeh’s assassination and Nasrallah’s death twelve days before.

So, this Islamist regime that has been installed atop the Iranian government must be removed. It is the head of the snake, and it needs to be decapitated.

How Can Israel Accomplish This?

First, Israel must destroy the majority of Hezbollah’s strike capability. This means not only further airstrikes, but a land invasion to push them back to the Latani River. Although Hezbollah is on an IRG leash, the IDF must remove their ability to counter an Israeli attack on the Iranian regime.

The second phase is Israel should seize this moment of the ayatollah’s fear and the IRG’s ineptitude to directly punch the regime in the face as hard as they can. For a punch in the face to be effective, it must bring the regime to a complete surrender. What kind of punch would do that?

Two things must be acknowledged before I describe the tactics necessary. First, too many negotiations have occurred between the West and the Middle Eastern parties that have ended in no resolution. In fact, the Wall Street Journal reported on September 19 that a Gaza cease-fire is out of reach for the Biden administration.[iv] (This is obvious given Hamas’s recent defeat. A cease-fire at this point would be redundant.) And this raises a question.

When will the lesson be learned that the Islamist culture does not respond to diplomacy and endless talking around a conference table? Sure, they’ll show up, but it is primarily for optics. Their love language is the use of power, and they value vengeance more than any other motive. Everything else is for show and to make demands for what they want, knowing they aren’t really there to negotiate. The US State Department should go back and relearn the lesson that one does not negotiate with a terrorist. Furthermore, these are not state actors, and therefore, should not be treated with the same protocols of a foreign ambassador. They deserve the common “courtesies” that a criminal would receive. You know, orange overalls, chains, and handcuffs.

The second point is that we cannot forget that the Iranian regime is ever so close to having a nuclear weapon. This program needs to be eliminated. Their nuclear capabilities are a non-starter for Israel, let alone the West, and can’t be tolerated. The average American or European is not paying any attention to the nuclear threat and how close the reality is. To the uninformed, it certainly is not an existential crisis. (They’re too busy camping out on college campuses to see it for what it is.) But for Israel, it most certainly is existential. Let’s not forget that the ayatollah’s goal is to install a global caliphate, so the elimination of Israel is only the beginning. If successful, then they are coming after the West, and more specifically, the “Great Satan.” So, what kind of punch would end this?

Iran[v] must be hit hard using three specific tactics. The first tactic is a strike on their nuclear weapons manufacturing center and its offshoots. These must be destroyed. Even if their capabilities are in underground bunkers and tunnels, all Israel has to do is shut the mouths of these caves. (Call it a Punch-in-the-Mouth Plan.) That is, destroy the entrances and exits so that, even on a temporary basis, nothing can get in or out, not even cavemen. If the regime has the wherewithal to open them, then the IDF can simply close them again. This action includes two other components: 1) the capture or elimination of the scientists who run this program, and 2) conducting cyberattacks against their hardware and development networks. Israel has successfully conducted these types of operations before.

Nobody in the international community who is a serious thinker really wants the maniacal regime of Iran to have nuclear weapons. This gives Israel cover to go after any capabilities Iran has. They can do what the rest of the world won’t. Some will publicly denounce it, but in the end and privately, it will have approval.

The second tactic is to take out one or more of the ayatollahs, preferably those closest to Khamenei, if not the whole group. This reinforces just how vulnerable they are. When referring to the problems in the Middle East, many say “cutting off the head of the snake” is key to restoring peace. Well, this is a way to do it quickly. (There is historical precedent for the use of assassination. For example, Hitler was a target many times during World War II. Even Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian and Lutheran pastor participated in Operation Valkyrie, a secret plot to eliminate Hitler. Bonhoeffer wrote in his book Ethics, “It is better to do evil than to be evil.”)

That said, in the case of both the nuclear facilities and the ayatollahs, the Mossad and all its intelligence capabilities must be let loose.

These ideas are designed to exact a price on both the leadership and the IRG, and ultimately remove them from power. They sound brutal, and they are, but this is war. And war is an extension of politics by another means (Clausewitz), especially when “diplomacy” doesn’t work. If the other party won’t listen, then other actions are required. This leads to the third tactic, which also must be initiated simultaneously with the other two.

To harden the punch, the reinitiation of all economic sanctions against Iran is of utmost importance. This takes US leadership, which President Biden already threatened to do after he stepped down from seeking another term. These sanctions will be designed to stop Iranian cashflow and strangle the regime financially. In the first place, removing the sanctions only invited the terror and it’s hard to understand the appeasement of a dictatorial regime, but that doesn’t mean the United States can’t change course. It must admit the error to its allies and reinstitute the prior sanctions—all of them.

Not only will this suck the economic life out of Iran, but they won’t have the resources to re-open the underground weapon systems. Perhaps some lucky archaeologist will dig them out a couple of millennia from now.

Earlier, I mentioned that Iran’s regime is evil. It is obvious that Israel is leading a fight of good against evil. But the West has proven that it doesn’t know what side it is on. Unfortunately, for Israel, they may have to go it alone, if the United States and the West doesn’t help in this regard.

Of course, this punch-in-the-face plan has its risks. For example, the US Administration, instead of helping Israel, may choose to stop sending weapons resupply to Israel because they escalated the war before the US election (because it hasn’t figured out which side it’s on). The second is the president may not act on his threat to reinstitute the sanctions. And a third risk is that Hezbollah might immediately send a barrage of missiles into the Israeli capitol and other highly populated cities. (Hopefully, the alliance that repelled the April attack is still in place and ready to go.)

Of course, there are those who will be appalled by my suggested tactical approach to putting the Iranian regime down. My question is, “What are the other options?” This is where most pundits are mute. They don’t have any ideas. Some just lack the courage to say and do what needs to be done.

If these things aren’t accomplished, or unless some other options are utilized, it means more of the same in this region, until a new administration is seated. Even then, it may still mean more of the same—for years. Unfortunately, for politicians who want to get elected and Israelis who just want to get on with their lives, this Middle Eastern war is not over anytime soon.

The truth is that the West will have to confront the Iranian ayatollahs—the central figures in this mess—even if they must close their eyes and let Israel do it … when they’re not looking.

So, Israel can cut off the head of the snake, but that doesn’t mean that peace breaks out forever. Yet, it still must be done because the Persian regime has proven that it will “fight to the last Arab,” as is spoken of in the region. You see, the mullahs don’t care about Gazans or the Lebanese. They are willing to destroy as many Arabs and Arab nations as it takes to pick off Israel. Therefore, at a minimum, there is a moral obligation to stop it. Just don’t do it believing that there will be a permanent end to this conflict, even though peace may come for a decade or two.

And thus, the cynical sanguinity of Wall Street. They are not moved by the Middle East conflict because they have become accustomed to the noise and always factor it into their market forecasts, even if it is subconscious. They understand from belief, instinct, or history, that “his hand against everyone and everyone’s hand against him,” as the angel said, is the region’s modus operandi. This, in a way, is one of many reasons why the US stock market keeps moving to new highs. Traders trade while they watch the bombs bursting in midair, passing a bowl of pretzels to the guys at the next post. It’s just another cynical day to be optimistic about stocks. “Buy, buy, buy,” is the command.

The logical questions are: How does this war affect the stock markets? And why does the US market seem so strong? These questions will be answered in Part VI. But to give you a hint, think about oil prices. They tell you much of what you need to know.