The Israeli raid on Gaza that started late Saturday morning may last several weeks, and ground operations are certainly a possibility. Israel's goal is not to drive Hamas from power, only for the simple reason that there is no one else obviously capable of ruling Gaza at this point. What Israel wants is to compel Hamas to sue for a restoration of the truce, and thus deal the resistance a withering blow that it cannot easily sell as a victory in the aftermath. There is a larger regional strategy involved as well, which has several ramifications for Lebanon, one short-term, one medium-term and another long-range.
 
First, for all the concerns that peace talks between Israel and Syria might put Lebanese sovereignty at risk, the Syria-Israel track is at least postponed, if not finished. Since Damascus sees negotiations in themselves as a tactic to enhance its regional and international prestige, it cannot engage Israel in the wake of a brutal siege that has left hundreds of Palestinians dead.
 
If it is now clear that Israel's desire for talks with Damascus was largely cosmetic, if not cynical, the same is not true for the incoming Obama administration, which, along with Europe, had hoped to "split" Syria from Iran through peace talks with Israel in order to weaken Tehran. Washington will now have to face the Iranian issue squarely with three choices only – they can impose a stronger round of sanctions on Tehran, appease the regime, or opt for military action. However, sanctions won't work at this stage, and it is increasingly unlikely that the Americans will take down the Iranian nuclear program. Washington's failure to act will make an Israeli operation inevitable, and it is not clear whether or not Lebanon can avoid that confrontation, which brings us to the second issue.
 
With the raid on Gaza, Israel is taking Iranian assets off the table. Given Syria's track record over the last 35 years, let us assume that in the event of an Israeli attack on the Iranian nuclear program, Damascus will stay out of the fray lest the Assad regime expose itself to existential risk. Israel is hoping to have only one major concern remaining after the current siege – Hezbollah, which boasts, not without justification, that it defeated Israel in the 2006 July War.
 
Certainly the Israeli military was eager to address its mistakes in that conflict, some of which were in the training and doctrine of an army that had in the Occupied Territories become more like a high-powered constabulary. An air raid on Gaza hitting 40 specified military and security targets within four minutes, rather than a small, tactical ground incursion to take out a few Hamas leaders indicates that the Israeli staff is thinking militarily.
 
After all, Israel's error in 2006 was not reliance on air power, but that air power was not tied to any strategic goal, aside from destroying Hezbollah's long- and medium-range missiles. In 2006 the Israeli defense minister was a former labor organizer, but the current one, Ehud Barak, is the most decorated soldier in the history of the Jewish State. The larger purpose in restoring what Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah has called the balance of terror is to warn the Party of God to stay out of the way when Israel goes after Iran. Nasrallah has evidently gotten the message, for his TV appearances are a way of justifying why he has opted not to join in the fight, and thus we can hope that Tehran may have already played its Hezbollah card.
 
This brings us, finally, to the larger regional consequences. It is unclear what motivated Nasrallah to urge Egyptians to take to the streets. In most of the Arab states, the government owns the monopoly on violence, a prerogative that the Egyptian security services have used to check the Islamist movement for the last 70 years. Worse than inciting a people that has no chance, and likely no desire, to overthrow its government, Nasrallah has inspired the wrath of an Egyptian regime that has been very supportive of the Siniora government, and used vivid sectarian language in is broadsides against Iran and Hezbollah. Hence, what might well have been marketed as another disproportionate Western war against an Arab society – the US war in Iraq, the 2006 July War – is now revealed to be a project to overthrow the established order of the region. Nasrallah appears to be banking on the strength of a revolutionary current that may well have already reached its limits two and a half years ago. Regardless, he may also have unleashed forces that are well beyond his, or anyone else's control.