Hezbollah can be defeated despite Iranian regime

Hezbollah can be defeated without toppling the Iranian regime, but only with decisive American leadership, according to Foundation for Defence of Democracies senior fellow Jonathan Conricus.

With the democratically elected Lebanese government making what Conricus called “special” and “unprecedented” statements seeking coexistence with Israel, he said the path forward lay in sustained pressure on Hezbollah through military action, economic warfare, political isolation and information warfare.

“Action is what’s needed. Hezbollah is still powerful, still armed, still has its independent financial and logistic institutions in Lebanon, and still wields significant political power,” Conricus stated, saying ultimately, without the economic infrastructure Hezbollah will crumble.

“There needs to be a coordinated economic warfare plan against Hezbollah. The purpose should be to cut or to disable all of Hezbollah’s economic infrastructure that the Iranians and Hezbollah built inside Lebanon. This is really the oxygen supply of Hezbollah.”

Conricus said this will ensure Hezbollah doesn’t have the ability to run the “state within a state” as it has been doing using Iranian assistance, specifically financial aid.

All four prongs, Conricus said, will support the democratically elected government in Lebanon as it pursues sovereignty.

Conricus rejected any suggestion the Lebanese government and Hezbollah were one and the same, noting Beirut had stated clearly that “Hezbollah serves foreign interests.” But he regretted that “so far, they have not coupled or supported their statements with actions on the ground against Hezbollah”.

His case rests on a broader conviction that Israel has never been allowed to win its wars since 1967. A jihadist enemy is “part of a death cult”, he said, and will keep coming “until you relieve your enemies of the ability to continue to threaten you”.

The downfall of the Iranian regime, he added, “would solve most problems in the Middle East”.

Conricus was scathing about the international media, arguing a death draws coverage only when Israel can be cast as responsible.

“A life has value in international media and in Western media, depending on who took the life, and if the life was taken as part of something related to Israel, the life has value and is reported on,” he said. “If Israel wasn’t involved, then it has an intrinsically lower value or no value at all.”

On Israel’s reliance on US diplomatic support, Conricus was critical. “I did deeply regret Israel’s unbalanced, exaggerated reliance on US diplomatic support and the temporary limitation on our ability to pursue our national security interests, and I think that is a shortcoming,” he said, blaming failed policies that need to change, and poor leadership by the current Israeli government.

Conricus said it is important to rebuild the nation’s diplomatic and military ability to pursue security interests.

“Currently I am concerned with the limited amount of strategic freedom of action that Israel has, specifically when it comes to Lebanon, but not only, and that’s definitely something that I think needs to change urgently in the future.”

Turning to the Diaspora, Conricus urged Australian Jews to abandon a “pre-October 7 mindset” and use their “untapped power”. He said many Jews worldwide remained “passive, subjective, and afraid to get organised, generate political power, and use that political power to defend themselves”.

Citing the pro-Palestinian rally held at the Sydney Opera House two days after the October 7, 2023 attacks, he said, “There should have been significant economic actions taken by the Jewish community, strikes and other activities.” He held up Florida as the model, where one encampment lasted for less than three hours before local authorities acted and shut it down.

He was sharply critical of the Australian government, which he described as “supportive of Palestinian propaganda” and said the community’s future was “much more reliant on the strength of our community and us as individuals than it is on how high the ebb and tide is in terms of antisemitism”, warning that decades of prosperity had “bred complacency and a misunderstanding of the situation”.

The community, he said, needed a more assertive Israeli mindset: “I don’t like it, I don’t want to fight, but I understand that I’m being forced to fight, and if I’m being forced to fight, I will inflict more pain on my adversaries than what they can inflict on me.”