Hello and welcome to the GZero World Podcast. This is where you can find extended versions of my

interviews from public television. I'm Ian Bremmer. And as the world has focused on the straits around

the Iran war, wondering whether in the United States or Iran or the Houthis would close the most

important shipping lanes and drag the global economy

further into the conflict, another front in the war has been opening in Lebanon.

It's received only a fraction of the attention, but five months later, it is itself increasingly

consequential for the future of the Middle East. Devastating strikes there by the Israeli military

during the fighting against the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah have left more than 4,000 dead already

and over a million people internally displaced. A fragile ceasefire is now in place, but whether

a long-term peace can hold in Lebanon depends on a question that diplomats have been trying to answer for many years, can Hezbollah actually be disarmed?

For more than four decades, Hezbollah has been at the center of one of the Middle East's most

dangerous rivalries. What began as a small militia grew into one of the world's most heavily armed non-state groups,

becoming both a dominant political force inside Lebanon and across the region.

For Israel, Hezbollah represents one of the most immediate military threats in the region.

For Iran, it has been the cornerstone of a strategy designed to project power in the Middle East

without having to fight

Israel directly. That uneasy balance of power largely limited conflicts over the years. But after

October 7, 2023, and then after the U.S. and Israeli strikes that killed Ayatollah Hamini in February

of this year, the conflict has entered a new phase. This time, as Hezbollah attacked

Israel in support of Iran, Israel saw an opportunity not just to contain the group yet again,

but to fundamentally weaken it, and so they decided to undertake a massive offensive.

If Hezbollah's military dominance crumbles, Iran then loses its most powerful regional ally.

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