SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
The Israeli military has killed Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in a series of airstrikes outside of Beirut yesterday. Nasrallah led the militant group for 32 years and, with the help of Iran, built up an arsenal of weapons capable of reaching far into Israel. We're joined now by Randa Slim, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Middle East Institute. Thank you so much for being with us.
RANDA SLIM: Good morning.
SIMON: How do you read the significance of this news?
SLIM: It's very significant. I mean, this is - as you mentioned, this is a person who has been the leader of this organization for the last 32 years, built the organization around his stature, around his, you know, ideas and developed close relationships with the Iranian leadership. And so it's the kind of organization where the leader makes most of the decision and has veto power over all of the decision.
And so with his disappearance basically from the scene, the next thing to watch is who's going to succeed him. And that - and the question to be asked, who died with him? Who died with him from the leadership council? Who of his advisers perished with him yesterday? So all of these are questions that will determine the next steps to be taken by the organization.
SIMON: And I predicate this next question on the fact that I just started following you on X. There must be worry in the ranks of Hezbollah about infiltration in their ranks.
SLIM: I mean, definitely. I mean, many commanders have already been assassinated by Israel, yhanks information that pretty - you know, that spies inside their ranks have provided. This assassination definitely was based on intel provided by people not only in lower ranks but most probably at the leadership level. So I think they will need time to reorganize, to figure out how this information was, you know, passed on tactically and on time and who was behind this.
So there - you know, what we are going to see is - going forward is a time for them to reorganize, but also to clean up their ranks from spies. So you are going to see some purge. We will not hear of who - you know, we will hear of who is no longer in the organization, or we will not hear of that because these people will most likely be killed.
SIMON: Does this put the region closer or farther away from a cease-fire that the United States has been urging?
SLIM: It all depends on basically the decisions of three actors. The decision by Iran, which now is going to be playing more of a role in helping Hezbollah guide its own decision-making process and more of a role in its military decisions. So it depends on what - where Iran wants to go next. You know, does it want regional conflagration or not? Until now, it has not wanted that.
It depends on what the Israeli prime minister wants. Does he want a cease-fire? Does he - or does he want to proceed with his campaign against Hezbollah, killing more commanders, bombing more missile sites, as has happened yesterday in the southern subs of Beirut? Up to 40 strikes, you know, leveled basically whole neighborhoods and buildings, with Israel saying these were sites of missiles, Hezbollah missiles. Is the Israeli prime minister interested in, for example, reaching - in agreeing to the cease-fire proposal put forward by the United States and France?
And the third actor is, you know, Hezbollah. I mean, what do they want to do? Do they want to - I mean, I'm pretty sure they want to respond, or they might in the short term, but then at the same - after that, agree to the cease-fire proposal. And the big thing that was an obstacle to a cease-fire proposal, besides, in my opinion, the Israeli prime minister's political calculus of whether he wants war or not or whether he wants cease-fire proposal or not, is Nasrallah's linking the Lebanon theater with the Gaza theater. He said, yeah, I will go for the cease-fire proposal, but only if there is a Gaza cease-fire.
And so now, with him not being on the scene, will the new leadership, leader or leadership of Hezbollah, with Iran decide that, let's go for this cease-fire proposal and agree to delink the Lebanon theater from Gaza? So these are the three players that will influence the next steps.
SIMON: I think a lot of people just hearing the news this morning are going to wonder what the prospects are for a wider war in the region. How do you read that?
SLIM: I mean, again, it depends on the risk aversion of these players, you know? I mean, so far, the Israelis have definitely shown that they are less risk-averse towards a regional war. I mean, they must have calculated in their planning for this attack yesterday and in their campaign against Hezbollah commanders that that kind of scenario might happen and that they were ready to deal with it. Iran so far has been risk-averse about regional conflagration - Hezbollah the same because since Octobrt 8, when Nasrallah declared this war of support with Gaza, the escalation with Israel has followed a tit-for-tat pattern, you know, within certain rules of engagement that were not violated by Hezbollah. And so it depends what these players do next and, more importantly, what the U.S. will do next because of all the external players in this conflict, the U.S. has the most influence in - on Israel if it chooses to exercise it and if it's able to, you know, I mean, get the Israeli...
SIMON: Yeah.
SLIM: ...Prime minister to change his calculus. This is where we are now.
SIMON: Randa Slim of the Middle East Institute, thank you so much for being with us.
SLIM: Thank you very much for having me on. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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