If I had to guess what the Israelis plan, it would go something like this: (1) They occupy up to the Litani River, possibly opening a route to the Beqaa, through which they can connect to the occupied Golan; meanwhile, they grind down Hezbollah within areas south of the Litani; (2) This becomes an emptied buffer zone, north of which the Israelis would tightly control the area as far as Sidon, recalling that in the 1976 "red lines" agreement with Syria, the Israelis did not allow the Syrians to move south of Sidon, seeing it as an advanced security barrier. (3) The Israelis tell the Lebanese to disarm Hezbollah, or else they will risk losing the areas Israel occupies—thereby pushing the Lebanese state into a confrontation with the party and the Shiites. At worst, this creates chaos and civil war, which suits Israel just fine, protected as it is by the southern buffer zone. (4) Or, if the Lebanese refuse to enter into a civil war on Israel's behalf, the Israelis gradually integrate the south into their areas of control, as they did the Golan. North of that is an area of instability that keeps Hezbollah constantly occupied. (5) Lebanese promises of peace with Israel would be largely meaningless, as Israel is operating according to a security logic, and knows it is the Lebanese who will sue for peace once the Israelis have secured all the conditions they want. At that stage, the Israelis could impose peace, yet maintain control over all the land they have taken, or large swathes of it. This is what they seek in Syria and West Bank. Why not Lebanon? (6) Among these Israeli conditions is a new delineation of the maritime borders with Lebanon, giving Israel more hydrocarbon reserves than they already have today. The Israeli plan is the Iron Wall, hegemony, and Lebanon will not be able to do anything about it. (7) Hezbollah may think this would help it revive the resistance option, but would it? From where would it stage operations? From the Shouf, pushing it into a confrontation with the Sunni, Druze, and Christian communities? From the central and West Beqaa, where you have a signficant Sunni community? From the area south of the Awali or Zahrani, which would be under constant Israel surveillance and bombing? This would be a resistance with no strategic depth, one provoking the hostility of all non-Shiite communities. (8) In light of the above, what happens to the southern suburbs of Beirut? Do the Israelis destroy them completely, thereby cutting the community's ties to Beirut, eliminating a nexus of complex inter-Shiite communal relations, and erasing the focal point of the Shiite presence in the capital? We'll have to see. (9) This geographical fragmentation of Lebanon would revive doubts about the viability of a unified Lebanese entity. Caught between Israel on the one side and Iran and Hezbollah on the other, what chance would such a state have to survive? Lebanon can surprise, but ... (10) This is one possible scenario, but I'm sure there are many others.
