1. Political Belief System

A. Beliefs

• A blend of Twelver Shiite religious doctrine and revolutionary ideology inspired by the thought of Imam Khomeini.

• Islamic identity and internal relations.

• Patience and faith in the justness of the cause.

• Engagement with the issues and concerns of the Arab and Islamic Ummah.

• Belief in Wilayat al-Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist) as a religious and political authority.

• Armed resistance as a legitimate right to defend the land and sovereignty.

• Islam as the foundation for building a just and independent society.

• Belief in the Axis of Resistance as a strategic alliance aimed at confronting American and Israeli influence in the region.

B. Political Positions

• Commitment to resistance and opposition to the occupying Zionist entity.

• Relations with Iran, Syria, and the various forces of the Axis of Resistance in Palestine, Iraq, and Yemen.

• A firm position against American and Western hegemony.

• An economic and social vision grounded in independence, sovereignty, and the management of local resources.

• A domestic political approach in Lebanon based on dialogue and participation in state-building, while avoiding subordination to Western powers.

• Intellectual opposition to extremism, takfiri ideology, and sectarianism.

• Promoting a vision of national identity and citizenship.

• Combating corruption across state institutions and public-sector structures.

2. Behavioural and Emotional Traits

• Bringing the human and family dimensions of his personality to the fore.

• Expressing grief, anger, and emotion in his speeches.

• Humility and spontaneity.

• Political and intellectual flexibility.

• Tolerance of differences.

• Recognition of and respect for adversaries.

• Empathy with human suffering.

• Avoiding extremism and hard-line positions.

• Self-criticism and humility.

• Conviction in the ability to persevere despite challenges.

• Belief in progress and adaptation to changing circumstances.

• Restraining emotions when necessary and maintaining emotional composure in difficult situations.

• Adopting a humble and calm tone when addressing his audience, while displaying defiance and firmness towards his adversaries, without losing his composure.

• Credibility, wisdom, and patience.

3. Communicative Competence

• Oratorical presence and charisma.

• Rapport with audiences and popular appeal.

• Persuasive ability and power of influence.

• Combining political analysis, emotional language, and rational argumentation.

• Using accessible, colloquial language that resonates with his audience.

• Employing repetition and emphasis to reinforce key ideas.

• Responding to unfolding events and delivering direct speeches to address emerging political developments.

• Maintaining the image of a Shiite religious scholar whose oratorical appeal and charisma resonated across diverse Arab and Islamic constituencies, including secular and leftist circles.

• Building a broad popular following beyond Lebanon through his steadfast commitment to the Palestinian cause.

• Projecting the image of an Arab and Islamic leader and serving as a bridge between diverse, multi-ethnic Muslim communities.

4. The Party’s Administrative Leadership

• Effective and flexible administrative leadership, combining centralised decision-making with decentralised implementation.

• A long-term strategic vision that goes beyond merely reacting to immediate events.

• The ability to anticipate future political and military developments and plan proactively to confront challenges.

• Setting the party’s overarching strategic policies.

• A high capacity for manoeuvring and adapting to changing circumstances, both in Lebanon and beyond.

• A rigorous organisational structure that ensures continuity and sustained influence.

• Employing a policy of “strategic patience” in major and decisive matters.

• Internal communication and mobilisation-oriented messaging.

• Building alliances and managing external relations.

• Attention to security and intelligence matters.

• The ability to mobilise and manage human resources.

5. Culture and Knowledge Management

• Broad and comprehensive religious and intellectual knowledge.

• Political and strategic awareness.

• Familiarity with revolutionary and military experiences.

• Establishing a knowledge and cultural framework to develop intellectual thought within Hezbollah.

• Information gathering and analysis.

• Disseminating knowledge and fostering strategic thinking.

• Using the media as an instrument for knowledge dissemination.

• Establishing mechanisms for knowledge-based decision-making.

• Involving experts and strategic analysts in the decision-making process, reflecting a participatory, knowledge-driven leadership approach.

• Continuous learning and adaptation to change.

• Building institutional memory.

6. Jihad and Confrontation

• Jihad in the cause of God as a religious, moral, national, and humanitarian duty.

• Martyrdom and self-sacrifice in pursuit of the resistance’s higher principles.

• Confronting global arrogance and hegemonic powers.

• Social and developmental jihad.

• Resilience and defiance in the face of pressure.

• Supporting the oppressed wherever they may be and whenever circumstances permit, as in Bosnia, Yemen, Iraq, and Palestine.

• Recognising that confrontation extends beyond the military sphere to encompass media, political, and economic jihad.

• Advocating Jihad al-Tabyin (the struggle to clarify and explain the truth).

7. A Mentor to Generations

• Providing educational and intellectual guidance to raise awareness within society.

• Encouraging adherence to religious and political values.

• Instilling resilience, sacrifice, and resistance.

• Promoting religious and political education and awareness.

• Encouraging humanitarian and national values.

• Leading by example and providing moral guidance.

• Embracing a comprehensive form of leadership that encompasses social dimensions.

• Fostering a culture of resistance within society.

• Raising public awareness of the importance of agriculture in achieving food self-sufficiency.

8. Conflict Management

• Placing resistance at the centre of the strategic approach.

• Demonstrating political and tactical manoeuvring capabilities.

• Building deterrence capabilities and strengthening internal forces.

• Mobilising and leveraging a resistance-based identity.

• Employing media and political strategies and managing psychological warfare.

• Intelligently navigating international challenges.

• Pursuing a long-game strategy, approaching conflicts with deliberation and long-term planning.

• Effective negotiation and delegation.

9. Service and Relief for the Oppressed

• Providing relief to the poor and needy through social assistance networks.

• Caring for refugees and displaced people and delivering humanitarian relief in conflict zones.

• Supporting fighters and their families, and caring for the families of martyrs and the wounded.

• Establishing educational and healthcare institutions.

• Supporting women, strengthening their role, and promoting children’s rights.

• Fostering a culture of public service and social solidarity.

10. Divine Love

• Divine love as a source of guidance and success, placing one’s trust in God in all matters.

• Divine love as the foundation for steadfast faith in the principles of truth.

• Divine love as a driving force for justice and equality.

• Divine love embodied in the spirit of martyrdom and sacrifice.

• Divine love expressed through education and the deepening of religious awareness among individuals.

• Divine love reflected in the integration of spirituality and political action.

• Divine love as a guiding principle in relationships with others.

• Victory as a result of divine providence, rather than military power or political planning alone.

• Sacrifice in the cause of God as the highest form of giving.

He is Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who ushered in a new era of freedom, resistance, and liberation in modern times. Sayyed Nasrallah presented a practical model of the inspired leader who inspires others, enabling peoples to reconcile with themselves—all the peoples of the world—by returning to the truth of the human soul, which rejects humiliation and submission and yearns for freedom and a dignified life. He embodied the attributes of leadership charisma in communication, motivation, confidence, commitment, humility, empathy, and clarity of vision. He was an exceptional leader in every field and domain: political, military, cultural, economic, and social. He devoted his honorable life to defending Lebanon and its sovereignty and achieved a series of notable accomplishments in liberating the South, repelling Zionist attacks, and thwarting the external enemy’s plans to undermine Lebanon’s stability and security.

His speeches laid the foundations for developing the forward-looking national visions underpinning the Resistance project, in which the two pillars of the legitimacy of resistance and state-building complement one another through unified objectives and a division of roles, without contradiction or conflict between them. He emphasized the necessity of each reinforcing the other with the strength it needed. In the course of military resistance, he dedicated the victory of July 2006 to all partners in the homeland, indeed to the entire Ummah. On the political front, he consistently stressed that Hezbollah was among the “advocates of national partnership in building a just and capable state, and of national partnership and cooperation to lead Lebanon out of its crises” (Al-Amin’s Address, 10 May 2022). The enemy always awaited his speeches before even his friends and cronies did, because he was a truthful and wise leader, profound in thought and far-reaching in insight.

Sayyed Nasrallah devoted his life, among his foremost priorities, to enhancing political awareness among the people and the nation generally, and particularly within the social environment that supported the Resistance. His speeches, rich in both quantity and substance, constituted conceptual arenas for every segment of society, from its elites to its workers. At the Conference on Renewing Media Discourse in July 2021, he also presented a comprehensive foundational vision, affirming the importance of the media battle and the need for discourse to keep pace with developments and transformations in the region, in the context of supporting the strategy of Jihad al-Tabyin—the struggle to clarify and elucidate the truth—in order to convey facts and expose the distortion and deception practiced against the Ummah to obscure the Palestinian cause and distort the image of resistance movements.

He was a loving father who, since the Liberation War, had upheld his “faithful promise” of loyalty, love, and commitment to his extended family: the entire Lebanese people. He joined the ranks of the families of martyrs and, through the martyrdom of his son, offered solace to the families of other martyrs. He spent his life sacrificing himself for Lebanon on the altar of patriotism, along the paths of victory and liberation and the strengthening of Islamic unity. Until his final breath, he carried the Palestinian cause in his heart and offered his soul on the road to Al-Quds, earning the title “Martyr of Humanity” with distinction.

He was the “Great Martyr,” in the words of His Eminence the Supreme Religious Authority, Sayyed al-Sistani; the “great personality,” the “prominent leader and bearer of the banner of resistance … and a leader whose like is rarely seen,” in the obituary issued by His Eminence the late Leading Imam, Sayyed Ali Khamenei; and the “son of Musa al-Sadr and of the Husayni-Karbala school of resistance,” as he was mourned by the Speaker of Parliament, Mr. Nabih Berri.

Words remain inadequate to convey the stature of a leader as rare as he was. He lived as a free resistance fighter and ascended to martyrdom on his front line, in the war-management operations room, among his family and people, as a martyred leader. He carved his grave in the hearts of his people, his admirers, and his fellow resistance fighters, where the pledge remains one of neither compromise nor surrender. The slogan, the path, and the guiding thought will endure: “Far be it from us to accept humiliation.” (Humiliation…How Remote!)

Chronology of the Life of the Martyr of the Ummah and Humanity, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah

(28 November 1959 – 27 September 2024)

28 November 1959 — Date and Place of Birth

Sayyed Hassan Abdel Karim Nasrallah was born into a Shiite family in the Burj Hammoud area of the Matn District, Mount Lebanon Governorate, in the Karantina neighborhood, one of the poorest and most deprived neighborhoods on the eastern outskirts of Beirut.

Early Life

Sayyed Nasrallah grew up in a family comprising three brothers and five sisters, and he was the eldest child. His father, Sayyed Abdel Karim Nasrallah, owned a shop selling vegetables and fruit, where Hassan often helped him.

Against a backdrop of misery, neglect, and deprivation suffered by the Lebanese people, particularly the people of the South, and with an image of Imam Sayyed Musa al-Sadr displayed by his father on one of the shop’s walls, the winds of revolution against the Shah helped nurture in Nasrallah a sense of faith, as well as a belief in the possibility of change and a determination to confront injustice and deprivation.

He spent much of his time visiting mosques in neighboring areas, including Sin el-Fil, Burj Hammoud, and Nabaa, and devoted a substantial part of his early formative years to reading Islamic books.

Education

He completed his primary education at Al-Najah School and then attended the Sin el-Fil Public School, whose student body was predominantly Christian.

With the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975, he returned with his family to their hometown of Bazouriyeh, where he completed his secondary education at Tyre Public Secondary School for Boys.

There, he joined the Amal Movement, founded by Sayyed Musa al-Sadr and known at the time as the Movement of the Deprived. Armed with a strong personality, extensive knowledge, and a grounding in Islamic religious studies, he was appointed as the movement’s representative at the age of fifteen.

Late 1976 — Beginning His Journey with Sayyed Abbas al-Moussawi

Nasrallah became acquainted with Sayyed Muhammad al-Gharawi, the imam of Imam Ja’far al-Sadiq Mosque in Tyre, who helped him travel to Najaf al-Ashraf and provided him with a letter of recommendation addressed to Sayyed Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, one of the most important figures in Shiite history and the founder of the Dawa Movement there during the 1960s.

In Najaf, the martyr Sayyed al-Sadr assigned Sayyed Abbas al-Moussawi to oversee Nasrallah’s religious and scholarly education. A strong friendship developed between al-Moussawi and Nasrallah. It endured and grew stronger until, years later, the two participated in establishing Hezbollah, thereby writing an important chapter in modern Lebanese history.

1978 — Religious Seminary Studies in Baalbek

Sayyed Nasrallah returned to Lebanon as a result of the Iraqi Baathist regime’s persecution and pursuit of those associated with Sayyed al-Sadr. He resumed his studies and continued studying and teaching Islamic sciences at the Imam al-Mahdi Seminary in Baalbek, which followed the curriculum of Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr.

1982 — The Invasion and the Founding of Hezbollah

The Zionist invasion of Lebanon began. At the age of twenty-two, Sayyed Nasrallah participated in founding Hezbollah in Baalbek. He played an active role in mobilizing resistance fighters and establishing military cells that would later form the nucleus of the Islamic Resistance.

After a period of time, he assumed various responsibilities, including deputy head of the Beirut area and subsequently head of the Beirut area. Later, the position of General Executive Office was established, with responsibility for implementing the decisions of the Shura Council, Hezbollah’s highest leadership body. Sayyed Nasrallah assumed this position, thereby becoming a member of the Shura Council.

1989–1991 — A Passion for Religious Scholarship

Sayyed Nasrallah was deeply passionate about religious studies and wished to continue his studies in Islamic sciences. He therefore traveled to Iran to study at the Qom Seminary.

However, developments on the Lebanese scene under Israeli occupation prompted him to return to Beirut, where he resumed his previous executive responsibilities.

16 February 1992 — Beginning His Tenure as Hezbollah’s Secretary-General

Following the assassination of Secretary-General Sayyed Abbas al-Moussawi by the Zionist occupation, Hezbollah’s Shura Council members unanimously elected Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah as secretary-general, succeeding the martyred Sayyed al-Moussawi.

His charismatic and inspiring leadership guided Hezbollah’s journey until it became an influential regional power that posed a genuine threat to the temporary entity.

In one of his first speeches after assuming the position of secretary-general, he reaffirmed the path and approach of the Resistance, declaring:

“This is a path we will continue, even if all of us are killed and our homes are destroyed over our heads. We will not abandon the option of resistance.”

(Al-Amin’s Address, 18 February 1992)

1992 — The Beginning of Political Participation

A few months after the assassination of Sayyed Abbas al-Moussawi, Sayyed Nasrallah led the effort to bring Hezbollah into political life. Hezbollah participated in the parliamentary elections and won a number of parliamentary seats in the South and Bekaa Governorates.

The parliamentary bloc subsequently grew in size and gained additional seats in later elections. It became known as the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc.

13 September 1997 — Joining the Families of Martyrs

Sayyed Hadi Nasrallah, the eldest son of His Eminence Sayyed Nasrallah, was martyred on Jabal al-Rafi’ during confrontations with the Israeli enemy.

His martyrdom marked the point at which Sayyed Nasrallah and his family joined the ranks of the families of martyrs. He regarded this event not as anything other than a blessing for which he thanked God Almighty, saying:

“I thank God Almighty for His immense blessings, for having looked upon my family with favor and chosen a martyr from among us.”

1992–2000 — Leading the Liberation Campaign

Over the course of these eight years, resistance operations increased in both frequency and sophistication. Hezbollah worked to develop its capabilities and diversify its military arsenal, intensifying its specialized operations until they compelled the occupation to withdraw on 25 May 2000, following eighteen years of occupation in southern Lebanon.

This established the equation that “the eye resists the awl,” affirming that what is taken by force can only be recovered by force. Liberation, according to this account, can be achieved only through military action and resistance to the occupier, after experience had demonstrated the failure of all diplomatic and political mechanisms to restore usurped rights in Palestine and Lebanon.

1998–2004 — Leading Prisoner-Exchange Deals

His Eminence Sayyed Nasrallah led the largest deals for the liberation of Lebanese and Arab prisoners from the prisons of the occupation forces, through the blessing of the blood of the mujahideen and the struggle of the resistance fighters.

Among the most important deals were the following:

26 July 1998

The Israeli enemy was compelled to hand over the remains of forty Lebanese martyrs and release sixty Lebanese detainees: ten held in Israeli prisons and fifty others held at the Khiam detention center.

In exchange, it received the remains of Israeli Sergeant Itamar Ilya, a member of the Israeli Navy’s commando unit, who had been killed alongside eleven other Israeli officers and soldiers during a special mission in Lebanon in the 1997 Ansariya ambush.

29 December 2004

Through German mediation, Hezbollah concluded a prisoner-exchange agreement with the Israeli entity. It was the largest exchange of its kind and was described at the time as the largest and most significant in the history of this conflict.

Through the agreement, Hezbollah secured the release of all Lebanese detainees held in the occupation’s prisons, with the exception of the martyred detainee Samir Kuntar.

The exchange included twenty-three Lebanese prisoners and the remains of fifty-nine Lebanese resistance fighters, as well as 400 Palestinians. It also included prisoners of various Arab nationalities: five Syrians, one Libyan, three Moroccans, and three Sudanese, in addition to a German Muslim detainee.

In return, the occupation entity received intelligence officer Elhanan Tannenbaum and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers who had been killed while in captivity in 2000.

12 July–14 August 2006 — The Promise Fulfilled and the New Middle East Project Thwarted

On 12 July 2006, the Lebanese people witnessed the operation known as Al-Wa’d al-Sadiq (“The Truthful Promise”), a military operation carried out by Hezbollah along the Lebanese-Palestinian border.

The operation fulfilled a pledge made by the Islamic Resistance to liberate Lebanese prisoners and detainees held in the prisons of the temporary entity, foremost among them the dean of detainees, Samir Kuntar.

Sayyed Nasrallah had promised to secure Kuntar’s release, and this was indeed accomplished two years later through a prisoner exchange on 16 July 2008.

The Israeli enemy exploited the capture operation to implement a plan for regional domination through Lebanon. The objective was to implement the New Middle East project and redraw the region in accordance with Zionist-American interests.

However, as Sayyed Nasrallah stated, the Resistance had “shattered the project of ‘Greater Israel,’ which attacks the entire region, acts arrogantly, threatens, and runs amok.”

(Al-Amin’s Address, 9 May 2022)

The aggression lasted thirty-three days. During that period, the Resistance demonstrated the highest degrees of steadfastness and fought what the text describes as the most honorable confrontations, under the leadership of Secretary-General Sayyed Nasrallah.

He directed psychological warfare against the enemy by reinforcing the supportive social environment and the military front, while targeting the consciousness of Zionist leaders, soldiers, and settlers.

The occupation forces suffered heavy losses and were compelled to withdraw from southern Lebanon without achieving their objectives. Meanwhile, the Resistance, whose prominence was associated with Sayyed Nasrallah’s name, rose to prominence throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds.

Sayyed Nasrallah took pride in the people who supported the Resistance and who, in his view, defied prevailing stereotypes. He repeatedly praised their steadfastness and courage.

In his remarks commemorating the seventeenth anniversary of the victory of 14 August 2006, he again emphasized what he called the “courageous and swift return” of the people of the South to their villages and land. In his words, this return:

“consolidated the military victory by thwarting the objectives of the aggression and the war against Lebanon and the Resistance in Lebanon … It expressed steadfastness, our people’s steadfastness in their position, their attachment to their land, and their unwavering commitment to the option of resistance, no matter how great the sacrifices.”

2006–2018 — Protecting the Resistance and Building Capabilities

Over the course of eighteen years, Sayyed Nasrallah sought to protect the Resistance politically and legally. His wisdom thwarted external plans to drag the Resistance into internal strife and international courts.

His leadership also thwarted attacks by terrorist groups along Lebanon’s eastern border. Throughout those years, he maintained the golden tripartite equation: “Army, People, and Resistance.”

During this period, Hezbollah’s military capabilities accumulated and expanded across various fields. The party also responded to a request from the Syrian state to combat the spread of takfiri groups and ideologies, which posed a threat to Lebanon generally and to the border regions and the southern suburbs of Beirut in particular. This intervention led to a substantial reduction in those threats.

The Resistance’s experience was also shared with resistance factions in Iraq and Yemen as part of the effort to establish a resistance front against aggressive projects targeting the countries, peoples, and resources of the region.

Sayyed Nasrallah’s leadership contributed to the development of the resistance movement and to strengthening the foundations of the “Axis of Resistance,” extending from Iraq to Yemen and encompassing Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine.

After October 2019 — Confronting the Economic Siege of the Resistance

American policies aimed at tightening the economic noose around the Resistance’s social base began to take shape following a series of financial measures, the imposition of sanctions, efforts to destabilize the national currency, and the blockade of Lebanon and deprivation of its energy resources.

During this period, Hezbollah managed to break the maritime blockade and secure the passage of ships carrying fuel to the port of Baniyas in Syria, from where it was transported overland to its destination in Lebanon.

The fuel was then distributed wherever needed throughout Lebanon, including to various regions and official, religious, and charitable institutions.

In another bold move, Sayyed Nasrallah led a campaign to provide financial support to the Resistance’s social base across its various sectarian communities. Cooperative and discount stores were opened to assist the Lebanese people and ease their cost-of-living burdens.

In his speeches on the economic situation, he consistently stressed the need for a “national approach encompassing all Lebanese,” noting that “the Lebanese, as a state and a people, are capable of turning the threat into an opportunity and emerging from the accumulated consequences of misguided policies.”

June 2020 — Leading Deterrence in the Maritime Border Delineation Battle

The issue of maritime border delimitation represented a national cause requiring concerted efforts and coordinated action to safeguard “the property of the Lebanese people and save Lebanon from its financial, economic, and humanitarian problems.”

Sayyed Nasrallah called for the issue to become a “major national cause,” emphasizing that it was “no less important than the cause of liberating the occupied border strip.”

He stressed that the Resistance “would not stand idly by while Lebanon’s wealth was plundered,” because the enemy “does not recognize international resolutions, and the only logic it follows is the logic of force and arrogance. Experience shows that it does not respond to any international resolution; it responds only under pressure and through resistance. This is how it withdrew by force in 2000 (from Lebanon), and also from the Gaza Strip in 2005.”

8 October 2023 — Leading the Support Front

One day after the outbreak of the Battle of Al-Aqsa Flood, Sayyed Nasrallah led the battle to support Gaza, which, according to his stated position, would not cease regardless of the sacrifices involved.

He repeatedly declared:

“This battle is historic and is producing a historic and genuine achievement. The Lebanese support front is continuing in both scale and intensity, imposing new equations, and the linkage with the Gaza front is definitive.”

He also stated that supporting Gaza was “a decisive and final matter, and the Americans and the French have accepted this reality.”

(Al-Amin’s Address, 13 May 2024)

Sayyed Nasrallah strengthened the work of the Axis of Resistance by coordinating the various support fronts in Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen.

During this phase, he emphasized that:

“The Resistance in Lebanon is continuing what it began on 8 October in the Al-Aqsa Flood battle until it reaches the objective it seeks on all support fronts, and it cannot retreat.”

(Al-Amin’s Address, 9 July 2024)

27 September 2024 — The Secretary-General’s Martyrdom

His Eminence, the secretary-general of Hezbollah, was martyred in the heart of Beirut’s southern suburbs, a place he loved and that loved him. More specifically, he was killed at Hezbollah’s central headquarters in the southern suburbs, where he had been directing operations in support of Gaza and managing the Axis of Resistance’s efforts to support the Palestinian people, whom the nearest Arab countries had abandoned, leaving them at the mercy of Israeli genocide.

Sayyed Nasrallah was assassinated treacherously and in cold blood at a time when American and European mediation efforts were emphasizing the prospects for an agreement in Gaza and an end to the war, which would, in turn, have brought the support front to an automatic halt.

However, the policy of treachery pursued by the Zionist enemy, backed by the United States, unleashed all its malice, believing that assassinating His Eminence Sayyed Nasrallah would strike a decisive blow against the Resistance. The Israeli prime minister had described him as the “axis of the axis.”

Sayyed Nasrallah was martyred as he had wished, following a life of jihad, struggle, and liberation. His ascent and martyrdom took place on Friday, 27 September 2024, at 6:21 p.m.

He became the foremost martyr among leaders, having established a path and a body of thought that would live on and burn ever more brightly with the passage of time. He wrote a chapter of history for future generations, every stage of which would bear witness to his enduring role as a source of inspiration, influence, and motivation for the Resistance and the revolution against imperial arrogance, through his blood, speeches, and testament.

His words will be immortalized in history because he was an exceptional leader in every respect, even in the way he formulated the concept of death in his testament to the Resistance:

“We are not defeated. When we achieve victory, we win; and when we are martyred, we win. We stand on the threshold of a great victory. We must not be defeated as a result of the fall of one of our great leaders. Rather, we must carry his blood, his banner, and his objectives, and move forward with steadfast resolve and a longing to meet God.”

As he had previously stated in July 2024:

“Our martyrs are makers of life and makers of victory in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, and every region. Those who spread destruction and death are America and its forward camp, Israel.”

Prologue

The second anniversary of the martyrdom of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah comes amid rapidly unfolding transformations in Lebanon and the region that have reshaped a broad segment of the balance of power and the trajectories of regional conflict. On this anniversary, this dispatch opens a space to examine the legacy of the era associated with his leadership, revisit its most significant milestones, transformations, and challenges, and particularly address the structure, position, and role of the Resistance within both the Lebanese and regional landscapes.

First: The Personality of the Master of the Resistance Martyrs and His Leadership Dimensions- the Master of Psychological Momentum, Charisma and Aura 

1. Personal Profile: Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah — The Epic of Sacrifice

He was Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the man who ushered in a new era of freedom, resistance, and liberation in the modern age. Sayyed Nasrallah offered a practical model of the inspired and inspiring leader in the reconciliation of peoples with their own selves — of all the peoples of the World — through a return to the truth of the human spirit: a spirit that rejects humiliation and submission and yearns for freedom and a life of dignity.

He embodied the defining qualities of charismatic leadership: communication, motivation, confidence, commitment, humility, empathy, and clarity of vision.

2. Concept: The Dimensions of the Personality of the Secretary-General of Hezbollah

This chapter presents a multidimensional approach to the personality of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and his leadership experience. It examines his system of political beliefs, his behavioral and emotional traits, and his communicative competence, alongside an analysis of his administrative leadership style within the Party and his management of its internal culture and knowledge.

The dossier also explores the place of jihad and confrontation in his vision and practice, his role as a teacher of generations, and his approach to managing conflict. It further examines his conception of service and the relief of the oppressed and vulnerable, culminating in the spiritual dimension embodied in divine love.

3. The Lover of Martyrdom — The Love of Martyrdom in the Words of the Martyr of the Ummah

This paper examines the concept of “martyrdom” in the thought of the martyred Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah (may God sanctify his soul) over a period spanning forty years (1984–2024), drawing upon an extensive body of his writings and spoken material, including lectures and discourse, interviews, lessons, public gatherings, and other sources.

The paper seeks to provide a precise and detailed analysis of these texts in order to unpack the multiple dimensions of this “love,” and to understand its spiritual foundations and personal manifestations.

4. The Legacy of the Martyred Leader — Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s Programme for Leading Hezbollah and Building the Resistance Society (1992–2024)

The Master of the Martyrs of the Ummah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah (may God sanctify his soul), represents an exceptional leadership figure who profoundly influenced the course of events in Lebanon and the region for more than three decades.

To understand this personality and his methodology based exclusively on primary sources: his addresses; his interviews; his personal testimonies concerning figures and periods he lived through and in whose decision-making he participated; testimonies of those close to him; testimonies of his enemies and adversaries; the political and jihad-related events associated with him; the major achievements, accomplishments, and pivotal decisions he made; and the studies that addressed his person — numbering nearly one hundred.

The objective is to provide a concentrated study of the defining features of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s leadership and his methodology of construction and transformation during the period extending from his assumption of the Secretary-Generalship of Hezbollah in 1992 until his martyrdom in 2024.

The research seeks to answer six central questions that constitute the foundations and architecture of his core programme. It examines the personal, spiritual, and ethical dimensions of Sayyed Nasrallah; the impact of his unifying personality; the distinctive elements of his school of politics, religion, jihad, and administration; and his strategic vision for institution-building.

Through this research, we seek to present an integrated portrait of this leadership figure, whose imprint on the history of the region is indelible.

5. Supporting Palestine in the Vision of the Secretary General — The Jurisprudential Foundations of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s Thought on Palestine and Operation Al-Aqsa Flood

The ideas of the Martyr of the Ummah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, concerning the Palestinian cause and Operation “Al-Aqsa Flood” are grounded in religious and doctrinal foundations that form an integrated philosophical vision, derived from a firmly established jurisprudential approach to questions of Islamic faith and law.

This study seeks to examine these intellectual foundations and connect them to the substance of his speeches throughout the “Al-Aqsa Flood” war, up to his blessed martyrdom. It also seeks to shed light on intellectual and personal dimensions that have rarely been addressed by the media.

6. America in the Discourse of the Martyr of the Ummah (1984–2024) — Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in Confrontation with the Great Satan

This paper analyzes the discourse of His Eminence the martyred Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah (may God sanctify his soul) toward the United States and its policies in West Asia over a forty-year period, from 1984 until September 2024.

Throughout this relatively long period, his discourse was characterized by an absence of clear contradictions, either in its content or substance, and remained consistent with a set of objectives on which he focused across four decades.

For those who follow his discourse, it reveals a consistent vision, with an increasing emphasis on exposing and warning against America’s attempts to undermine the stability of the region and weaken it.

7. Engineering Confrontation: The Master of the Martyrs of the Ummah in the Battle Against Structural and Existential Challenges (1992–2024)

This study seeks to deconstruct the methodology employed by the Master of the Martyrs of the Ummah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah (may God sanctify his soul), in confronting existential risks across pivotal stages of time — beginning with the “consolidation of identity” and the legitimacy of the mandate; proceeding through the “engineering of deterrence” and “preventive defence”; and culminating in the “support equation” during the major war.

The study adopts an analytical-documentary methodology, drawing on field realities and political discourse, with the assistance of artificial intelligence to extract quotations related to the relevant themes from the legacy of the Master of the Martyrs of the Ummah’s speeches, interviews, and lectures.

8. Establishing the Strategic Rationale of Resistance in the Thought of the Master of the Resistance Martyrs (1982–2024)

This study seeks to examine the doctrinal foundations and historical evolution of the concept of the “strategic rationale of resistance” within the strategic thought of the Master of the Resistance Martyrs and Secretary-General of Hezbollah, His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah (may God sanctify his soul).

The research problem begins with an examination of the methodology Nasrallah employed to dismantle the political, media, and psychological doubts and challenges directed against the choice of armed resistance, and how he transformed battlefield challenges and devastating wars into stages for consolidating deterrence and protecting sovereignty.

To achieve this objective, the study adopts a “historical-analytical methodology,” tracing the trajectory of the Resistance chronologically from its establishment in 1982 through the “Al-Aqsa Flood” battle and his martyrdom in September 2024. It does so by analyzing the substance of his speeches and positions and relating them to developments on the ground and to geopolitical transformations.

9. A Media Narrative: The Historic Achievements of the Lebanese Resistance

This narrative seeks to document the most significant achievements of the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon through a composite approach that combines chronological documentation with analysis informed by the field and political contexts.

This approach enables an understanding of the background to each achievement, beginning with the first liberation in 2000, passing through the 2006 victory, and then the Second Liberation battle in 2017 along the eastern border against terrorism, culminating in the maritime deterrence equation and the demarcation of the maritime borders in 2022.

The narrative points to the transformation of a Resistance that was established to confront a circumstantial challenge into an existential necessity amid the continued occupation and compounded Zionist-American aggression.

10. The Mahdist School of the Master of the Martyrs of the Ummah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah (May God Sanctify His Soul)

The central question of this study lies in tracing this fundamental transformation: How did the Master of the Ummah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah (may God sanctify his soul), deconstruct the negative legacy surrounding the concept of awaiting and reconstruct it so that it became synonymous, among the Resistance constituency, with jihad and preparation for the advent of the Mahdi?

And how did he reconcile absolute faith in the unseen and in the divine promise, on the one hand, with strategic rationality, political credibility, and sound judgment in decision-making, on the other?

11. The Rules of Conflict — Strategic Maxims of the Martyred Sayyed

This paper presents a series of forward-looking messages distilled from the speeches of the former Secretary-General of Hezbollah, His Eminence the martyred Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, extending from the Party’s founding period in the 1980s to the peak of the strategic developments accompanying the “Al-Aqsa Flood” battle in 2023–2024.

These messages constitute a “strategic roadmap” that does not merely describe the realities of a given stage, but reads between the lines, anticipates the region’s major trajectories, and warns against dangerous shifts in the plans of the adversaries.

12. The Global Image of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah

We decipher the global image of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in their eyes and the events surrounding his martyrdom and the global reactions. The last chapter will be dedicated to the solemn and extraordinary funeral procession of the resistance martyrs Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Sayyed Hashim Safieddine.

Chapter one coming soon.  

Based on a paper that offers a comprehensive forward-looking analysis of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's vision for managing the historic conflict between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States.

This text presents Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's final strategic vision of Iran's confrontation with the United States as a long-term, existential struggle rather than a conventional geopolitical dispute. Drawing primarily on his speeches and directives between June 2025 and February 2026, it argues that the confrontation must be understood historically, ideologically, militarily, technologically, and psychologically-and that its ultimate consequence could be the emergence of a post-American international order.

1. The conflict is structural, not circumstantial

Sayyed Khamenei rejects the notion that U.S.-Iran hostility stems from rhetoric such as "Death to America" or from political misunderstandings. He frames it instead as a clash between two incompatible models: American global hegemony, or what he calls "global arrogance," and Iran's insistence on sovereignty and strategic independence.

In this interpretation, Washington's fundamental objective is not simply to contain Iran but to restore it to a position of dependency, controlling its strategic choices and resources.

2. The historical roots precede the Islamic Revolution

The text traces Iranian distrust of Washington to the 1953 CIA- and MI6-backed coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, whose government had nationalized Iran's oil industry. The 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy is consequently presented not merely as an emotional reaction to the Revolution but, in Khamenei's interpretation, as a pre-emptive response to what he viewed as an American effort to engineer another coup.

Thus, the confrontation is portrayed as having deep historical memory, rather than beginning in 1979.

3. America's "hybrid war" requires a multi-front response

After direct military intervention failed to achieve decisive political change, the United States allegedly shifted toward what Khamenei describes as "compound" or hybrid warfare, combining military pressure, internal destabilization, sanctions, information warfare and diplomacy.

The response rests on four principal fronts:

Breaking the psychological impact of U.S. military power: American threats and displays of military force must not be allowed to produce political paralysis or surrender.

Containing internal unrest: Domestic protests and instability are portrayed as a potential avenue for externally supported regime destabilization, making internal cohesion and public "awareness" strategically decisive.

Winning the cognitive and information war: The most dangerous battlefield is described as the mind. Propaganda, pessimism and the amplification of Iran's weaknesses are seen as tools designed to erode public confidence-requiring an active strategy of tabyin, or clarification and counter-narrative.

Rejecting coercive negotiations:Negotiations conducted under American pressure are characterized not as genuine diplomacy but as a mechanism for extracting Iran's strategic assets-first nuclear capabilities, then potentially missiles and other elements of national power.

4. Concession is presented as a strategic trap

The argument is uncompromising: surrendering strategic capabilities in exchange for promises of security or sanctions relief would not eliminate pressure but invite further demands. Negotiation becomes legitimate only when it occurs between parties with sufficient leverage to impose costs on one another.

The underlying principle is simple: strength deters coercion; weakness encourages it.

5. National power extends far beyond the military

Khamenei's concept of power is presented as a composite of science, technology, military capability, national cohesion, ideological commitment and political will.

Scientific achievement is therefore treated as a strategic weapon in its own right. Advances in aerospace, medicine, biotechnology, nanotechnology and energy demonstrate that sanctions and technological isolation can be transformed into incentives for self-reliance and indigenous innovation.

The same logic applies militarily: Iran's deterrence must be domestically produced and therefore insulated from foreign suppliers and political pressure. Indigenous missile development is presented as the clearest expression of this strategic autonomy.

6. Military power requires a "spiritual" foundation

The text argues that weapons and technology alone cannot sustain resistance. What it calls Iran's "soft power from within"-religious conviction, national solidarity, sacrifice and willingness to endure hardship-is portrayed as the force that gives material power its staying power.

The culture of martyrdom is consequently presented not simply as religious symbolism but as a form of strategic resilience designed to neutralize the psychological advantage of a materially superior adversary.

7. The central geopolitical claim: American power is declining

The text's most ambitious conclusion is that the Iranian-American confrontation is part of a broader transition away from U.S.-dominated unipolarity.

Khamenei's reading of American decline rests on several indicators: political polarization, economic and social crises, declining legitimacy, and-most importantly-the perceived inability to translate overwhelming military capabilities into decisive political outcomes.

The argument is therefore not that America lacks power, but that American power is increasingly failing to produce the political outcomes it once could.

8. Iran as the nucleus of a broader resistance network

Iran is portrayed as more than a state defending its own territory. The concept of the "Resistance Front" is presented as an expanding transnational model based on endurance, sovereignty and rejection of external coercion.

What began, in this narrative, as an Iranian experience is portrayed as spreading across the region and potentially beyond it-turning resistance from a military concept into a broader political and ideological framework.

9. The envisioned "post-American" order

The ultimate objective is not perpetual war but to make the cost of attempting to subjugate Iran so high that the adversary becomes strategically convinced that coercion will fail.

In this vision, Iranian strength is intended to produce deterrence, deterrence to produce strategic stalemate, and strategic stalemate ultimately to contribute to the erosion of American hegemony.

The text therefore sees a future international system in which sovereign states possess greater freedom of action and major powers are less capable of imposing their will through military force, sanctions or political diktat.

Bottom line

The document's core thesis can be reduced to one strategic proposition:

Iran's path to a post-American order runs through self-reliance, deterrence, internal cohesion, control of the information battlefield, and refusal to negotiate from a position of weakness.

In this framework, sanctions become an engine for technological independence; military threats become a test of deterrence; information warfare becomes a battle for public will; and negotiations become meaningful only when backed by sufficient power.

The broader claim is that Iran's resistance is not merely defensive. It is presented as part of a historic transition from American unipolarity toward a more contested and multipolar international system.

Translated from Kensuke Matsuyama, a Japanese World History Teacher at a Tokyo High School

The Middle East is experiencing severe tensions as a result of the war between the United States and Iran. The Strait of Hormuz and the future price of crude oil are currently at the center of global attention. If the military confrontation between the United States and Iran escalates, there are fears that it could trigger a sharp rise in oil prices, an energy crisis, and even a Third World War. The deterioration of the situation in the Middle East is a grave issue that directly affects the global economy, including Japan.

So, can the United States actually win a war against Iran?

Today's subject is "Why America Will Lose the War Against Iran: Five Reasons Revealed by World History." We will examine previous American wars to explore how the current situation in Iran could unfold in the future.

When thinking of the world's most powerful country, many people would probably think of the United States:

Enormous military power.

The world's largest economy.

Military bases spread across the globe.

Yet the reality is that America has lost numerous wars in the past.

Moreover, its adversaries were not superpowers. They included countries whose gross national product was less than one-five-hundredth 1/500 that of the United States, peasant fighters, and armed groups operating in mountainous regions.

So why do the world's most powerful countries lose wars?

Today, from the perspective of world history, we will examine three wars that the United States lost-the Vietnam War, the War in Afghanistan, and the Iraq War-and analyze the common factors that contributed to its defeats.

Finally, what course might the latest American attack on Iran take in the future? I would like to consider what lies ahead based on patterns revealed by world history.

If you read to the end, you will understand why America loses wars and what the future may hold for Iran.

This essay examines the current international situation through the lens of world history.

Below are five recurring factors. We will examine each one in the context of the respective wars.

1. The Vietnam War (1965-1975)

Let us begin with the Vietnam War.

There are several ways of defining the period of the Vietnam War. For this discussion, however, we will define it as the period from 1965, when the United States began direct air strikes against North Vietnam, to 1975, when the South Vietnamese regime supported by the United States collapsed.

The Justification: The Gulf of Tonkin Incident

The Gulf of Tonkin incident provided the justification for direct U.S. intervention in Vietnam.

The stated reason was that "an American destroyer was attacked twice by North Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of Vietnam, on August 2 and August 4, 1965."

Under the slogan "Remember Tonkin," the United States began bombing North Vietnam in what became known as the bombing of North Vietnam, determined to prevent North Vietnam from launching further attacks.

However, the subsequent release of classified documents revealed something shocking.

It became clear that the North Vietnamese attack on August 2 had most likely occurred as a result of a U.S. violation of Vietnamese territorial waters, meaning that the United States bore part of the responsibility.

More importantly, it was subsequently established that the alleged North Vietnamese attack on the American destroyer on August 4 "did not actually happen."

In other words, the incident had been entirely fabricated by the government at the time.

There had been no legal justification from the outset.

Geography: The Jungle

Second, one of the principal reasons for the American defeat in Vietnam was the nature of the jungle terrain.

Vietnam's battlefields consisted of dense tropical forests. In such an environment, the military strengths in which the U.S. Army excelled-tanks, large troop formations, and modern weaponry-could not be fully exploited.

The Vietnamese side, by contrast, was thoroughly familiar with the jungle terrain. They hid in the forests and repeatedly launched surprise attacks through guerrilla warfare.

We did not know where the enemy was. They disappeared immediately after we attacked them.

Thus, despite possessing overwhelming military power, the U.S. military struggled to confront an invisible enemy.

In other words, in the Vietnam War, terrain, rather than differences in military strength, became a decisive factor in determining the outcome of the war.

Asymmetric Warfare: Guerrilla Warfare

Another factor that troubled America was guerrilla warfare.

The Cu Chi tunnels in South Vietnam became a symbol of guerrilla warfare. Once fighters entered the tunnels and closed the entrances, it became virtually impossible to determine where they were hiding.

This was an enormous underground tunnel network stretching more than 200 kilometers in total.

The Viet Cong established headquarters, hospitals, and even weapons depots inside these tunnels. They would emerge above ground to launch attacks before quickly disappearing back underground.

In other words, this was a conflict between modern armies equipped with bombers, tanks, and large forces and guerrilla fighters operating underground.

Wars fought between parties whose military capabilities and methods of warfare differ substantially are known as asymmetric warfare.

In the Vietnam War, Vietnamese fighters operating underground were able to outmaneuver the United States, which was equipped with advanced weapons.

Domestic Public Opinion: The Anti-Vietnam War Movement

Another major problem in the Vietnam War was the anti-war movement inside the United States.

As the war continued, American casualties increased, while horrifying images from the battlefield were broadcast on television every day.

Approximately 58,000 American servicemen died in the war. In addition, roughly 2.7 million U.S. troops were deployed to Vietnam, and the war cost approximately $168 billion.

This led to widespread questions among the American public:

"Why do we have to fight in distant Vietnam?"

The anti-war movement spread, particularly among university students, and large-scale demonstrations were held across the United States.

In other words, during the Vietnam War, the United States had to contend not only with Vietnam but also with domestic public opinion.

The anti-war movement eventually became a major factor pushing the U.S. government toward withdrawal.

State-Building Failure: The Collapse of the Republic of Vietnam

Finally, another crucial factor was the failure of state-building.

The United States established the Republic of Vietnam in South Vietnam and supported it as an anti-communist regime.

However, the government suffered from widespread corruption, weak popular support, and political instability.

Consequently, even with U.S. military support, the foundations of the state did not become significantly stronger.

Then, when American forces withdrew in 1973, the South Vietnamese government rapidly collapsed. In 1975, the capital, Saigon, fell to the North Vietnamese Army.

The Republic of Vietnam ceased to exist, and Vietnam was unified under a communist system.

In other words, the principal factor in America's defeat in the Vietnam War was not simply military failure. It was also the failure to establish a stable state in the first place.

2. The War in Afghanistan (2001-2021)

Now let us examine the war in Afghanistan, which began in 2001.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 took place in the United States.

The United States launched the war because the Taliban regime in Afghanistan was alleged to be harboring Osama bin Laden of al-Qaeda, who was believed to have masterminded the attacks.

The war became a quagmire and lasted for 20 years.

The Reason: Overthrowing the Taliban Regime

The issue here is the legality of the U.S. attack on Afghanistan under international law.

The United Nations Charter, in principle, prohibits states from using force to attack other states. The exceptions are the exercise of the right of self-defense or authorization by the United Nations Security Council.

The United States attacked Afghanistan, citing the September 11 attacks as justification for its right to self-defense.

However, the terrorist attacks were not carried out by a state but by a terrorist organization known as al-Qaeda.

In other words, the United States attacked the state of Afghanistan rather than the terrorist organization itself.

At the time, the Taliban government in Afghanistan demanded evidence proving bin Laden's involvement in terrorism. It also stated that, if evidence were provided, it would consider referring the matter to an Islamic court or to a third country.

Nevertheless, military attacks were launched, and debate continues to this day over whether the war was legitimate under international law.

Incidentally, bin Laden was located in 2011-not in Afghanistan, but in Pakistan.

In other words, it is highly likely that he was already hiding in another country while the United States continued its war in Afghanistan.

Geography: Mountainous Terrain

One of the reasons the United States struggled in Afghanistan was its mountainous terrain. Afghanistan is surrounded by rugged mountains, and its roads and infrastructure are limited. As a result, supplying troops-the most essential element in sustaining military operations-becomes extremely difficult.

War is not simply a matter of sending soldiers. Food, ammunition, fuel, and other supplies must also be continuously transported to the front lines.

In mountainous regions, however, supply routes are limited, and long supply lines are vulnerable to attack. In fact, great powers such as Britain and the Soviet Union encountered the same problems when they invaded Afghanistan in the past. For this reason, the country is often referred to as the "graveyard of empires."

Asymmetric Warfare: Guerrilla Warfare

Another factor that troubled America was guerrilla warfare.

Asymmetric warfare is important here as well. Asymmetric warfare is a form of conflict in which the very mechanisms of fighting differ between the opposing sides.

In conventional warfare, the U.S. military has a clear understanding of the "enemy army," "front lines," and "battlefield." But Taliban fighters did not always wear military uniforms. They often lived as villagers. They would take up weapons only when it was time to attack and then return to being villagers once the operation was over.

In other words, from the perspective of the U.S. military, it was impossible to distinguish the enemy from civilians.

We did not know where the enemy was.

Similar things occurred during the Vietnam War, as mentioned earlier.

Taliban fighters were based in villages and caves scattered throughout the mountainous regions, and when attacked, they would quickly retreat deep into the mountains.

As a result, it was extremely difficult to locate the enemy, and American forces continued to deteriorate without being able to deliver a decisive blow.

Domestic Public Opinion: Criticism of the Endless War

Now let us turn to domestic public opinion.

The war in Afghanistan began in 2001, but it continued for an astonishing 20 years. During that period, the cost of the war exceeded $2 trillion. As a result, criticism of the "endless war" gradually intensified within the United States. Ultimately, in 2021, the U.S. government withdrew from Afghanistan.

State-Building Failure: The Collapse of the Ghani Government

Then came the failure of state-building.

After defeating the Taliban regime, the United States attempted to establish a pro-American government in Afghanistan and pursue national reconstruction. However, the government was plagued by corruption, and local areas were not adequately governed. Then, in 2021, as the U.S. military began withdrawing, the Taliban rapidly expanded its influence. When the capital, Kabul, fell, President Ashraf Ghani reportedly fled the country, taking a vast fortune with him.

What was the result?

The Taliban regime, which had supposedly been overthrown 20 years earlier, once again returned to control Afghanistan.

In other words, the war in Afghanistan can be described as a war that, after 20 years of fighting, ended by returning to where it had begun.

3. The Iraq War (2003-2011)

Now let us examine the Iraq War.

In 2003, the United States launched a military attack on Iraq, claiming that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

The Justification: Possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction

The U.S. government claimed that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and nuclear weapons.

However, subsequent investigations found no such weapons.

The Bush administration in the United States also acknowledged that much of the intelligence concerning weapons of mass destruction and related matters ultimately proved to be false.

In other words, the Iraq War was a war that began over a weapon that did not exist.

This sparked widespread controversy within the international community, and the legality of the Iraq War itself came under intense scrutiny.

Geography: Fighting in Urban Areas

One of the reasons the United States struggled in Iraq was urban warfare.

Fighting took place in densely populated cities such as Baghdad and Fallujah.

In urban environments, the complex network of buildings and narrow alleys prevented the U.S. military from fully exploiting its strengths, such as tanks and air power.

American soldiers were targeted by enemies firing from rooftops and windows, forcing them to fight in an environment where they did not know where the enemy was hiding.

The brutality of this urban fighting was also portrayed in the film American Sniper.

Thus, in the Iraq War, the U.S. military was forced to wage a war of attrition inside urban areas.

Asymmetric Warfare: Improvised Explosive Devices

Another threat that troubled the U.S. military was the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

The tactic involved planting bombs along roads or on vehicles and detonating them as American forces passed.

Moreover, IEDs were extremely inexpensive weapons and could be constructed using materials costing only a few hundred dollars.

Yet they could also destroy armored vehicles worth millions of dollars.

In other words, the Iraq War was a classic example of asymmetric warfare, in which inexpensive bombs were used against some of the most advanced weapons in the world.

Domestic Public Opinion: The Collapse of Bush's Administration

One of the greatest problems during the Iraq War was the fierce backlash from domestic public opinion.

At the beginning of the war, President George W. Bush's approval rating reached a record 91 percent, and a wave of patriotism spread throughout American society.

But once weapons of mass destruction were not found and the war dragged on, the situation changed dramatically.

Anti-war demonstrations spread throughout the United States, while criticism intensified over whether the war had been justified in the first place.

As a result, support for the Bush administration eventually fell to 25 percent.

Thus, even during the Iraq War, the U.S. government lost the support of domestic public opinion.

State-Building Failure: The Rise of ISIS

Then came the failure of state-building.

After overthrowing Saddam Hussein's regime, the United States systematically removed members of the Ba'ath Party, which had supported Saddam Hussein's former government, from the government and military.

But at the time, membership in the Ba'ath Party was almost a prerequisite for career advancement in Iraq.

As a result, many talented bureaucrats and military officers had joined the Ba'ath Party to advance their careers, regardless of their ideological commitment to the government.

By collectively expelling these Ba'ath Party members, Iraq lost a large number of key figures who were crucial to the administration of the state and the leadership of its military.

Consequently, the country's governing structure rapidly weakened, and Iraqi society descended into chaos.

Some former soldiers who had lost their jobs subsequently joined armed groups, while extremist organizations expanded their power.

It was amid this chaos that the Islamic State (ISIS) emerged.

In other words, the failure to govern Iraq after overthrowing the regime ultimately contributed to the emergence of new extremist groups.

4. America's Latest Attack on Iran

So far, we have examined three wars: the Vietnam War, the War in Afghanistan, and the Iraq War.

Given this history, what kind of developments can we expect from the current American attack on Iran?

The Justification: Iran's Nuclear Program

First, the stated reason for the attack on Iran is Iran's nuclear program.

However, diplomatic negotiations over Iran's nuclear program had continued with the United States and European countries.

In other words, the nuclear issue was originally at a stage where it was supposed to be resolved through negotiations.

On the other hand, the United States-which has demanded that Iran halt its nuclear program-is itself a nuclear-armed state, while Israel is also widely believed to possess nuclear weapons.

In other words, it is a situation in which countries that possess nuclear weapons are effectively saying:

"You cannot have them."

Many countries view this as contradictory.

Some believe that the United States came under pressure from Israel to take military action because Israel considers Iran's nuclear program a threat.

These factors have led to questions within the international community over whether the war truly has legitimate grounds.

Geography: The Strait of Hormuz

Then come the geographical factors.

Iran's terrain is difficult to attack because of its numerous plateaus and mountainous regions.

But, as the current situation demonstrates, Iran is also using the Strait of Hormuz as a weapon.

Because approximately 20 percent of the world's crude oil shipments pass through the Strait of Hormuz, a prolonged blockade could have a major impact on global energy supplies.

As a result, international public opinion could turn its criticism toward the United States, asking:

"Who was responsible for escalating the war?"

In other words, Iran can use the geography of the Strait of Hormuz as a weapon to draw the entire international community into its strategic calculations.

Asymmetric Warfare: Drones and Naval Mines

The next factor we need to consider is asymmetric warfare.

Iran cannot directly defeat an enormous military power such as the United States.

But Iran possesses large numbers of drones.

Iran is reportedly operating attack drones costing approximately $20,000 each.

By contrast, the missiles used by the U.S. military to intercept them cost approximately $2 million per missile.

In other words, shooting down a single drone costs the United States 100 times more than the drone itself.

Furthermore, there are naval mines.

Depending on the type, a single mine can be deployed for anywhere from several thousand to tens of thousands of dollars.

Yet the large oil tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz carry approximately two million barrels of crude oil.

If crude oil is priced at $80 per barrel, the cargo would be worth approximately $160 million.

In other words, weapons costing several thousand to tens of thousands of dollars can potentially inflict damage worth $100 million.

The longer the war continues, the greater the cost America will have to bear.

Domestic Public Opinion: A Backlash Over Inflation

The next important factor is public opinion inside the United States.

Inflation is currently a serious problem in America.

Many citizens are deeply frustrated by the rising cost of living and gasoline prices.

If the war with Iran continues for a prolonged period, crude oil prices will inevitably continue to rise.

If that happens, people's lives will become more difficult, and criticism of the government will rapidly intensify around the question:

"Why are they fighting a war in the Middle East?"

In other words, American public opinion is highly likely to become the decisive factor in bringing this war to an end.

State-Building Failure: Strong Anti-American Sentiment

The final factor to consider is state-building failure.

As mentioned in the previous video, anti-American sentiment is deeply rooted in Iranian society.

Therefore, if the United States takes the lead in changing the government, the new administration is likely to be perceived as an "American-made government."

Indeed, some in the United States have proposed a plan to present Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former shah who was forced into exile, as a symbol of political authority.

However, Iran has a history of overthrowing a monarchy closely aligned with the United States during the 1979 Revolution.

Therefore, if someone inheriting the legacy of the old monarchy were placed at the center of power, domestic opposition would intensify rapidly.

In other words, even if it were possible to overthrow the Iranian regime, building a stable state afterward would be extraordinarily difficult.

5. What Constitutes Victory or Defeat in War?

The important question here is how we define "victory" or "defeat" in war.

In previous wars, the United States sometimes achieved short-term military victories.

In the Vietnam War, American forces were superior to their opponents in most battlefield engagements.

Even in the Iraq War, they managed to capture Baghdad in just three weeks.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban regime collapsed only two months after the war began.

But the problem lies in what happens afterward.

The purpose of war is not simply to overthrow an enemy regime.

The real question is whether it is possible to establish a stable political order and achieve the war's political objectives.

Although the United States may have achieved victories in short-term military operations, it ultimately failed to accomplish its long-term political objectives and withdrew.

In other words, America fell into a pattern of "winning the battlefield but losing the war."

Looking at the current situation in Iran, the same pattern could emerge. Even if the United States succeeds in achieving military superiority, stabilizing the political order afterward would be extraordinarily difficult.

That is precisely why this war could follow the same historical pattern as those that came before it:

a short-term military victory followed by a long-term political defeat.

Bottom Line

As we have seen, the United States faced similar problems in the past in the wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq:

A weak case for war.

Geographical constraints.

Asymmetric warfare.

Domestic public opinion.

Failure to build a stable state.

When these factors come together, even a country possessing the most powerful military in the world can lose a war. And now, it appears that the same pattern may be repeated in Iran.

History shows us the outcomes to which wars often lead.

Even the most powerful country in the world cannot escape the laws of history.

That is why I believe we must learn from history.

The Martyr Leader, Sayyid Ali Khamenei (may his soul be sanctified), regarded scientific advancement and technological innovation as transcending their conventional utilitarian functions. In his strategic vision, science constituted a sovereign instrument for generating national power and enabling the nation to penetrate fields that dominant global powers had long sought to monopolize and reserve exclusively for themselves.

According to the dossier(reference), the sustained moral, political, and material support extended by the leadership to scientific elites, universities, research institutions, and centers of technological innovation produced transformative advances that elevated Iran into the ranks of scientifically advanced nations despite prolonged international sanctions and external pressure.

These achievements are summarized below.

Strategic Scientific and Technological Achievements

Peaceful Nuclear Technology

Development of the nuclear facilities at Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center, Natanz Nuclear Facility, Arak Nuclear Complex, Bandar Abbas, and Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant; operation of advanced centrifuges; production of heavy water; and uranium enrichment.

Establishing an indigenous nuclear fuel cycle as a symbol of technological sovereignty and national self-reliance while reducing dependence upon foreign powers.

Space Technology and Communications

Design, construction, and launch of Iran's first indigenous satellite, Sina-1 satellite.

Securing independent space and communications capabilities while overcoming international technological restrictions and joining the community of space-capable nations.

Medical and Biological Sciences

Advances by Royan Institute in stem-cell research, cloning technologies, advanced radiopharmaceuticals for cancer treatment, and regenerative medicine.

Enhancing pharmaceutical security, improving treatment for complex diseases, and reducing dependence upon imported medical technologies.

Nanotechnology and High-Performance Computing

Production of nanomaterials and nano-engineered industrial products, together with the construction of one of West Asia's most powerful supercomputers.

Building indigenous capabilities in big-data processing, advanced scientific research, industrial innovation, and strategic computing infrastructure.

Defense and Aerospace Industries

Design and production of the second-generation Saeqeh fighter aircraft, modernization of radar networks, command-and-control systems, and the establishment of infrastructure for asymmetric warfare management.

Developing an independent, integrated air, land, and maritime defense architecture founded upon domestic scientific expertise and operational military experience.

Science as an Instrument of Strategic Independence

The dossier argues that these achievements demonstrate the success of a long-term strategy that transformed the national slogan "We Can" from a rhetorical expression into an operational doctrine guiding state policy.

Rather than viewing international sanctions solely as constraints, the leadership is presented as having sought to convert them into catalysts for indigenous innovation, encouraging domestic scientific production and reducing structural dependence on foreign technology.

According to the report, this approach dismantled what it characterizes as the psychological barriers surrounding technological dependence while laying the foundations for enduring scientific sovereignty and sustainable technological security.

In this conception, scientific capability is portrayed not merely as a developmental objective but as an essential component of national deterrence and strategic resilience.

Part VI: The Friday Prayer Pulpit as a Strategic Instrument of Crisis Management and Geopolitical Leadership

The dossier presents the Friday Prayer pulpit in Tehran as one of the Islamic Republic's most influential sovereign platforms for political communication.

Under the leadership of the Martyr Leader, it evolved beyond its traditional religious function into an instrument for crisis management, strategic signaling, and geopolitical messaging.

Through sermons characterized by detailed political analysis, direct strategic messaging, and, on several occasions, multilingual addresses, the Leader Sayyed Khamenei articulated positions that, according to the dossier, shaped both regional and international political developments.

Among the most significant addresses highlighted are the following:

August 2005 - Gaza and Iraq

Addressing developments in Gaza Strip and Iraq, the Leader argued that Israel's withdrawal from Gaza after thirty-eight years of occupation represented the product of armed resistance rather than negotiations.

He also expressed support for the establishment of an independent Iraqi government capable of ending successive periods of foreign domination and Ba'athist dictatorship while resisting American efforts to influence Iraq's constitutional process.

October 2005 - Iran's Nuclear Rights

The Leader called upon the Iranian public to support the newly formed government and reject what he described as misinformation disseminated by dominant global powers.

He asserted that access to nuclear science and technology constituted an inalienable national right of the Iranian people and rejected American allegations regarding Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons.

The dossier notes that he compared these accusations to what he characterized as Washington's contradictory human-rights discourse in light of abuses associated with Abu Ghraib Prison and Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

The sermon coincided with the announcement of the successful launch of the Sina-1 satellite.

October 2006 - The Victory of the Resistance

Following the 2006 Lebanon War, the Leader described Hezbollah's victory as compelling evidence that organized popular resistance could prevail against one of the world's most heavily armed militaries.

He simultaneously warned against what he described as American efforts to foment sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shi'a communities in Iraq while politically isolating Hezbollah.

September 2007 - The Failure of the "New Middle East"

The Leader declared what he described as the collapse of the American project for a "New Middle East," arguing that it had failed to achieve its strategic objectives.

As evidence, he cited the electoral victory of Hamas, the outcome of the 2006 Lebanon War, and what he viewed as the inability of the United States to consolidate political control over Iraq.

September 2008 - Political Insight and Internal Unity

Addressing Iranian political elites, the Leader urged an end to divisive political disputes, arguing that prolonged internal confrontation only served the objectives of external adversaries and undermined the revolutionary principles of the Islamic Republic.

Historic Friday Prayer Sermon, June 19, 2009 (Containing the Post-Election Unrest):

This marked a decisive political turning point in calming the atmosphere following the presidential election. The Leader called for calm and tranquility, drawing inspiration from the Prophet's migration (Hijra), and defended the candidates with paternal compassion as elements within the constitutional order of the system. He also decisively put an end to attempts by external parties and Western media to exploit the protests to strike at the pillars of the Islamic Republic and its internal stability.

Friday Sermon, September 2009 (Explaining Imam Ali's Political Conduct):

In this sermon he laid out the strategic principle governing the system's internal approach - "maximum accommodation, minimum alienation" - distinguishing between legitimate differences in viewpoints and methods on one hand, and direct targeting of the foundations of the system and the security of society on the other, which the state is committed to firmly confronting.

Friday Sermon, February 2010 (The Islamic Awakening):

Here he addressed the popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and Bahrain, describing them as an Islamic awakening movement seeking to realize its aspirations according to the teachings of the true religion, influenced by the model of the Iranian Revolution and its resistance. He delivered an important address in Arabic to the fraternal peoples, exposing the plans of international arrogance.

Friday Sermon, February 2011 (The "We Can" Doctrine):

He reviewed the historic achievements of the revolution in eliminating dependency and restoring dignity and sovereignty, conveying Imam Khomeini's effective approach based on faith in the ability of Islamic peoples to overthrow tyrants subservient to the West.

Friday Sermon, January 2020 (Glad Tidings for the People of Patience and Gratitude):

Following the martyrdom of Commander Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and the historic missile response against Ain al-Asad base, he addressed with deep sorrow and condolence the painful crash of Ukrainian flight 752, which claimed the lives of all 176 passengers and crew. He affirmed the role of the Quds Force as a guardian of the dignity of the oppressed and a protector of the security of Iran and the region, thwarting terrorist takfiri projects.

Victory Friday Prayer, October 2024 (13 Mehr 1403):

Held under extremely sensitive circumstances following the martyrdom of Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah and Ismail Haniyeh, and the launch of the "True Promise 2" missile strike against the Zionist entity. The Leader affirmed the legitimacy of the Al-Aqsa Flood as a lawful right of the Palestinian people to defend their land, and the legitimacy of Lebanese military support for Gaza. He described "True Promise 2" as a brilliant and lawful step by Iran's armed forces, stressing that the Islamic Republic would not delay in fulfilling its duty, nor act rashly, nor fall short. He delivered his address in Arabic, eulogizing Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah and describing him as "Lebanon's shining pearl and eloquent tongue" for the peoples of the region, affirming that his martyrdom brings not despair and corruption, but a Husseini consolation that inspires life, inspiration, and hope.

Address of December 11, 2024 (21 Azar 1403 - Lessons from the Syrian Events):

Delivered following the dramatic changes and the occupation of Syrian territory by armed groups, in which the Leader characterized the events as the product of a Zionist-American scheme aimed at striking Syria's vital and scientific centers to entrench Washington's influence, stressing that the awareness of the resistance and Syrian youth would liberate the occupied Syrian territories and expel foreign forces.

Part VII: The Doctrine of Regional Resistance and Management of Shared Defense and Security Files

The regional doctrine of the Islamic Republic under the leadership of the Martyred Leader Khamenei (may his secret be sanctified) rests on the belief that national security and the cultural, economic, and political sovereignty of the Islamic Republic and neighboring states are interconnected links that cannot be separated. The leadership holds the view that the true independence of nations lies in complete liberation from the bonds of cultural dependency, which is far more dangerous than economic and political dependency. From this stemmed the doctrine of Islamic Resistance as a shared defensive, security, and cultural framework aimed at strengthening popular sovereignty and protecting the national choices of peoples in the face of tyranny and Western hegemony.

The Martyred Leader strongly defended the legal and historical principles granting peoples under occupation the full and legitimate right to resist their occupiers, declaring that no court or international organization possesses the moral or legal authority to object to the Palestinian people's struggle to reclaim their usurped rights. Accordingly, the supporting defense provided by Hezbollah in Lebanon and other resisting peoples is considered a religious duty and a great service to all of humanity, aimed at preventing the enemy from completing its plans to besiege and devour the territories of neighboring states one after another.

In the context of justifying Iran's advisory and military field presence in Iraq and Syria, the Leader offered a comprehensive strategic and historical explanation resting on two structural pillars:

Historical loyalty and mutual security exchange:

Reciprocating Syria's courageous stance during the Sacred Defense War in the 1980s, when Syria cut off the Iraqi oil pipeline carrying oil to the Mediterranean and Europe, forgoing considerable financial revenues to support Iran's defensive position against the internationally-backed aggression of Saddam's regime - a precedent of loyalty that morally and politically obligated standing by Damascus in its ordeal.

Preempting threats and combating terrorism:

Fighting ISIS and similar takfiri terrorist groups at their roots to protect the sanctity of the holy shrines and preserve Iranian national security, since the leadership was convinced that without the sacrifices of advisors and devout youth in the Syrian and Iraqi arenas, devastation and insecurity would have spread to directly engulf Iranian cities.

Through this harsh field experience, the Leader drew three strategic lessons valid for all political and popular elites in preserving state cohesion and protecting its achievements: first, he warned against the danger of "negligence" and underestimating adversaries or relying on their smiling promises that conceal daggers of betrayal; second, he warned against "arrogance and pride," which represent a lethal poison threatening national achievements at moments of progress; third, he advised against negativity and psychological defeatism, which paralyze the capacity for initiative and lead to surrender when problems arise - affirming that reliance on God (tawakkul) and continuous preparation are the only paths to ultimate victory and to uprooting Zionism and the evil colonial elements from the region.

Bottom Line

Surveying more than a quarter-century of the leadership of the Martyred Imam Leader Sayyid Ali Khamenei reveals a highly flexible yet resilient strategic pattern of governance, one that succeeded in preserving the essence of revolutionary and Islamic principles and applying them in practice despite the ferocity of surrounding economic and military pressures. This dynamic management enabled Iran to transform from a state facing foundational challenges into a republic possessing substantial regional and scientific power, one that imposes its own equations in West Asia and designs its technological and defensive deterrence tools through the will of its own young talents.

The leadership transition of July 1989 unfolded amid exceptionally delicate and complex circumstances, as the Islamic Republic was confronting a convergence of profound institutional, security, and geopolitical challenges.

At the constitutional level, Iran was in the midst of a comprehensive review and amendment of its Constitution, a process that had not yet been completed, thereby creating a period of legislative uncertainty regarding the country’s evolving constitutional framework.

From a security perspective, the country had only recently entered into a ceasefire with Iraq following the conclusion of the Iraq-IranWar. Nevertheless, serious concerns persisted regarding the possibility of renewed military aggression, whether from Iraq itself or through provocations involving the Mojahedin-e-Khalq or MEK of Iran, alongside the prospect of direct confrontation with the United States. These concerns were compounded by an escalating campaign of political pressure, hostile propaganda, and efforts aimed at undermining the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic.

Against this backdrop, the dossier argues that the Martyr Leader, Sayyid Ali Khamenei (may his soul be sanctified), successfully managed this critical transition through what it characterizes as prudent and measured leadership. According to the report, his approach helped reassure a society experiencing uncertainty while restoring public confidence and reinforcing national cohesion.

In the report’s assessment, this strategy frustrated expectations among the Republic’s adversaries that the post-1989 transition would result either in a fundamental departure from the Revolution’s founding trajectory or in internal institutional collapse.

Rather than allowing the succession period to evolve into a constitutional crisis, the leadership is presented as having transformed it into an opportunity for institutional consolidation. This was achieved, according to the dossier, through strict adherence to the constitutional framework and an unequivocal affirmation of continuity with the political and ideological legacy of Imam Ruhollah Khomeini.

Consequently, the report argues that the perceived moment of vulnerability was converted into the foundation upon which Iran subsequently developed into a regional power possessing increasing strategic influence.

Part IV: National Economic Governance and the Formulation of the Resistance Economy Strategy

The economic philosophy attributed to the Martyr Leader Khamenei was characterized by an unusually candid acknowledgment of the structural shortcomings confronting the Iranian economy.

Rather than denying the existence of economic difficulties, he repeatedly recognized persistent challenges—including inflation, economic stagnation, unemployment, and declining living standards—as genuine national concerns requiring sustained policy responses.

A particularly significant example cited by the dossier is his address of February 2017, in which he emphasized that widespread public participation in national commemorations could never absolve government officials of their responsibilities toward improving citizens’ livelihoods.

During that address, he reportedly expressed profound concern over youth unemployment, describing it as a source of embarrassment for the political system itself—an indignity that, in his words, exceeded even the humiliation experienced by an unemployed young person before his own family.

From this perspective, economic governance was portrayed not merely as an administrative responsibility but as a central pillar of national legitimacy.

The Annual Economic Themes

The report highlights the leadership’s practice of assigning an official national theme to each year as a mechanism for directing collective priorities and mobilizing national resources toward production, self-reliance, and economic resilience.

2011

Economic Jihad

Mobilizing the country’s human and material resources to confront escalating international sanctions.

2012

National Production, Support for Iranian Labor and Capital

Protecting domestic investment while strengthening national industries and reducing dependence on external markets.

2016

Resistance Economy: Action and Implementation

Transforming the Resistance Economy from a conceptual framework into practical national policy.

2017

Resistance Economy: Production and Employment

Reducing unemployment while strengthening productive capacity across Iranian industries.

2018

Support for Iranian Goods

Encouraging consumption of domestically produced products and protecting local markets from excessive imports.

2019

Production Boom / Prosperity of Production

Accelerating industrial production as a practical response to inflation and deteriorating living conditions.

Institutionalizing the Resistance Economy

According to the dossier, these initiatives culminated in the promulgation of the General Policies of the Resistance Economy on 18 February 2014.

The document characterizes this policy framework as an indigenous scientific and strategic model designed to neutralize the effects of economic warfare while compelling Iran’s adversaries to recognize the country’s indigenous capabilities.

Following the United States’ withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and the subsequent intensification of sanctions, the report notes that the Martyr Leader ordered the establishment of the Supreme Council for Economic Coordination in April 2018.

Chaired by the President and comprising the heads of the three branches of government, the Council was granted authority to issue decisions with immediate executive force, thereby eliminating delays associated with conventional bureaucratic approval procedures and enabling more rapid responses to urgent economic crises.

Combating Organized Smuggling

The report also emphasizes the leadership’s repeated warnings regarding the dangers posed by organized smuggling, portraying it as a direct threat to both national production and citizens’ livelihoods.

The Martyr Leader sharply criticized what he viewed as inadequate border supervision, pointing to the daily entry of thousands of shipping containers through official ports while noting that only a very small proportion underwent comprehensive inspection.

According to the dossier, he instructed the country’s security and judicial institutions to intensify efforts against major smuggling networks, confiscate illicit goods, and publicly destroy them in order to protect domestic industries, preserve fair market competition, and foster a secure and transparent investment environment.

Strategic Assessment

Within the framework presented by the dossier, the Resistance Economy extends beyond a conventional economic policy.

Rather, it is portrayed as a comprehensive doctrine of national resilience that integrates economic management, industrial development, institutional coordination, and strategic autonomy.

The underlying objective, according to the report, is to reduce structural dependence on external actors, enhance domestic productive capacity, and transform economic self-reliance into a core component of national security.

The next part will highlight the “Scientific and Technological Sovereignty as a Foundation of National Power in the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Part II: Strategic Leadership Thought and the Structural Characteristics of Governance

The philosophy underpinning the governance and administration of the Islamic Republic during the leadership of the Martyr, Sayyid Ali Khamenei, rested upon a robust intellectual foundation that successfully reconciled unwavering adherence to the founding principles established by the Founder of the Islamic Republic, Imam Ruhollah Khomeini, with the constitutional and institutional flexibility required to navigate the profound transformations unfolding across both the regional and international arenas.

Imam Khomeini provided a detailed characterization of the Martyr Leader's personality, describing him as one of the Islamic Republic's strongest pillars; a devoted brother steadfastly committed to constitutional legality; a scholar equally distinguished in religion and politics, shining "like the sun in the firmament of the Revolution"; a selfless soldier on the battlefield; and a teacher at the prayer sanctuary who embodied compassion and fraternity toward believers while demonstrating firmness and resolve in confronting what he described as arrogant and hostile powers. He further portrayed him as one of the principal bastions of the Revolution and fully qualified to assume both the leadership of the Islamic Republic and the office of Wilayat al-Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist).

This foundational endorsement profoundly shaped the practical model of leadership that subsequently emerged. In his first address to the nation following his appointment, the Martyr Leader pledged complete fidelity to Imam Khomeini's path, affirming his commitment to the principles of national independence, resistance to systems of domination, support for the oppressed, and the preservation of the Palestinian cause as a paramount Islamic responsibility.

Leadership Characteristics of the Martyr Leader and Their Institutional and Political Manifestations in the Governance of the Islamic Republic

Leadership Characteristic

Institutional and Political Manifestation

1. God-Centered Leadership and Reliance upon Divine Providence

Reliance upon God as the principal source of resilience in confronting profound political challenges and preserving national confidence and stability.

2. Adherence to Authentic Muhammadan Islam

Formulating strategic choices and national policies in accordance with the fundamental principles of Islamic law and doctrine.

3. Islamic Compassion and Mercy

Prioritizing humanitarian and ethical considerations in governance while safeguarding domestic social harmony.

4. Commitment to Justice and Rejection of Discrimination

Supporting disadvantaged social groups and opposing monopolistic practices and illegitimate socioeconomic inequalities.

5. Popular Legitimacy and Close Engagement with Society

Maintaining direct engagement with the public and preserving popular confidence as the primary foundation of political legitimacy.

6. Institutionalization of the Requirements of Juristic Leadership

Consolidating the ethical, scholarly, and constitutional standards necessary for preserving the integrity and dynamism of the institution of Wilayat al-Faqih.

7. Preference for Consultation and Specialized Expertise

Relying upon scientific assessments, expert analysis, and technical reports before making strategic decisions.

8. Comprehensive Information Networks

Establishing diverse channels of communication and intelligence to monitor domestic developments and international strategic dynamics with precision.

9. Commitment to the Rule of Law

Exercising constitutional authority within clearly defined legal and institutional frameworks.

10. Protection of Public Liberties

Safeguarding lawful democratic rights and legitimate spaces for expression and constructive criticism within the framework of the law.

11. Acceptance of Criticism and Institutional Self-Evaluation

Encouraging critical assessment and continuous evaluation of governmental and administrative performance.

12. Support for the Oppressed and Resistance to Global Hegemony

Maintaining an ideological commitment to opposing domination, coercion, and international arrogance.

13. Strategic Awareness of the Adversary (Basirah)

Cultivating collective political awareness capable of identifying infiltration strategies, soft warfare, and narrative-based conflict.

14. Confronting Adversaries without Compromising Principles

Conducting political and defensive struggles while remaining committed to ethical, humanitarian, and religious values.

15. Innovative and Proactive Diplomacy

Pursuing dynamic regional and international diplomatic initiatives to counter efforts aimed at isolating or containing the Islamic Republic.

16. Selflessness and Dedication to the Public Interest

Placing the higher national and Islamic interest above partisan or personal considerations.

17. Humility and Close Association with Ordinary Citizens

Embodying a model of leadership closely connected to the concerns and aspirations of working and lower-income social groups.

18. Fidelity to Foundational Principles and Commitments

Refusing to compromise the pillars of national independence or the country's intellectual and cultural sovereignty.

19. Simplicity and Personal Austerity

Maintaining a modest lifestyle consistent with the living conditions of the middle and lower social classes.

20. Rejection of Tribalism and Narrow Partisanship

Remaining equidistant from competing political factions in order to preserve the leadership's role as a national guarantor of stability.

Strategic Translation of Leadership Principles into State Policy

According to dossier, these leadership characteristics were translated into eight enduring strategic measures intended to reinforce the Islamic Republic's national resilience:

1. Ensuring National Security While Preserving Channels of Dialogue

Maintaining public order and national security while keeping avenues of dialogue open with protesters, alongside confronting acts of disorder, violence, and sabotage through legal and security mechanisms.

2. Directing Governments to Address Economic Hardship

Consistently urging successive governments to prioritize economic reform and alleviate the burdens affecting citizens' livelihoods through practical policy measures.

3. Preserving Institutional Cohesion

Maintaining close cooperation among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches in order to frustrate attempts to create competing centers of authority or institutional fragmentation that could weaken the state's governing structure.

4. Supporting Constructive Government Policies

Providing sustained support for governmental initiatives and administrative measures considered beneficial to national development and public welfare.

5. Rebuilding Mutual Trust Between Society and the State

Working continuously to restore confidence between public institutions and citizens by narrowing the distance separating officials from society and strengthening institutional credibility.

6. Promoting Social Optimism

Encouraging hope and public confidence as a means of countering hostile information campaigns and negative narratives designed to amplify weaknesses and cultivate despair-particularly among younger generations.

7. Deepening Public Awareness of External Pressure

Enhancing public understanding of American policies and the dynamics of economic sanctions, psychological warfare, and political pressure in order to strengthen societal resilience against external influence.

8. Upholding National Unity

Presenting national unity as the Republic's foremost strategic shield against internal fragmentation and external challenges, while emphasizing solidarity as the cornerstone of national stability and resilience.

Analytical Observation

A defining feature of this governance model is its effort to integrate ideological legitimacy with institutional governance. Rather than portraying revolutionary principles and state administration as competing imperatives, the framework presents them as mutually reinforcing dimensions of governance. Throughout the dossier, leadership is depicted not merely as the exercise of constitutional authority, but as a comprehensive strategic function encompassing political guidance, institutional cohesion, crisis management, economic direction, public mobilization, and regional statecraft.

In the next part we will focus on the - Governance and State Consolidation after 1989.

This dossier examines the most significant strategic achievements realized during the leadership of the Martyr, Leader of the Ummah, Sayyid Ali Khamenei (may his soul be sanctified), drawing upon official documents, speeches, and reference materials published in Persian-language sources. It focuses on the strategic foundations that governed the administration of the Islamic Republic across the political, security, economic, scientific, and military spheres, as well as the mechanisms employed to manage both domestic and external crises and the leadership's role in shaping the Republic's overarching public policies.

The dossier further reviews the measures undertaken to strengthen national security, preserve the cohesion of state institutions, support successive governments, manage economic challenges, institutionalize the doctrine of the Resistance Economy, advance scientific, technological, and military capabilities, expand the Islamic Republic's regional and international influence, and support the Axis of Resistance throughout the region. It also examines the most consequential historical positions adopted during his tenure, situating them within their broader political and strategic contexts to illuminate the leadership's methodology in navigating profound transformations and major crises.

Part I: The Strategic Foundations of Leadership

1. Strengthening National Security and Preserving Domestic Stability

Safeguarding the security and stability of the state constituted one of the central pillars of the leadership throughout every stage of its tenure. This vision was founded upon the conviction that national security is an indispensable prerequisite for sustainable development and for safeguarding both the institutions of the Republic and society as a whole.

Within this framework, the Martyr Leader consistently emphasized the necessity of distinguishing between legitimate public demands-which warrant dialogue, engagement, and responsive governance-and activities viewed as deliberate attempts to destabilize the state or undermine the political order, which, in his view, required responses within established legal and security frameworks.

This strategic approach was likewise linked to strengthening national preparedness against a broad spectrum of threats-whether security-related, political, or informational-while protecting the domestic front against efforts aimed at destabilization, fragmentation, or institutional erosion.

2. Supporting State Institutions and Government

The Martyr Leader adopted an approach centered on strengthening the institutions of the Islamic Republic and enabling them to discharge their constitutional responsibilities effectively, while simultaneously stressing the importance of continuously addressing economic and public service issues.

Successive governments were consistently encouraged to prioritize economic reform and the improvement of citizens' living standards. The leadership provided broad strategic guidance, monitored policy implementation, and urged executive institutions to accelerate execution and respond more effectively to the challenges confronting society.

Support for governmental initiatives aimed at promoting development and improving administrative performance remained a defining feature throughout his leadership, based upon the conviction that the effectiveness of state institutions constitutes a fundamental pillar of national stability.

3. Preserving the Unity of State Institutions

Maintaining institutional harmony among the various branches of government emerged as one of the principal foundations of public policy. Continuous emphasis was placed upon coordination among constitutional institutions and preventing overlapping authority, conflicting jurisdictions, or competing centers of decision-making.

This approach rested upon the belief that institutional unity represents an essential strategic asset in confronting both domestic and external challenges, and that divisions within the state apparatus would inevitably weaken the country's capacity to manage crises and achieve its long-term strategic objectives.

4. Supporting Public Policies and Reform Initiatives

Throughout his leadership, the Leader of the Ummah consistently endorsed policies and initiatives designed to address national challenges and promote progress across all sectors.

This orientation reflected the belief that successful implementation of developmental and reform programs constitutes one of the principal foundations of domestic stability and improved public services.

Accordingly, sustained support was extended to governmental and institutional initiatives aimed at enhancing administrative performance, stimulating domestic production, and addressing economic and social challenges. Throughout different stages of governance, emphasis was placed upon ensuring the uninterrupted functioning of executive institutions, regardless of political disagreements or external pressures.

This approach further encouraged all state institutions to adopt practical solutions, expedite project implementation, and continuously evaluate outcomes in order to achieve the strategic objectives established within the state's broader policy framework.

5. Strengthening Trust Between the State and Society

Strengthening the relationship between the Islamic Republic and society occupied a prominent position among the leadership's priorities, based upon the understanding that mutual trust constitutes one of the fundamental pillars of political and social stability.

Throughout successive stages of governance, official guidance consistently emphasized narrowing the gap between public officials and citizens, responding effectively to economic and public service demands, and strengthening communication with public opinion in order to reinforce confidence in state institutions.

Maintaining this trust was regarded as an essential safeguard against attempts to provoke internal divisions or weaken national cohesion. Consequently, repeated calls were made to deepen cooperation between state institutions and society at large.

6. Managing Information Warfare and Strengthening Public Awareness

The information domain constituted one of the principal components of the leadership's strategic vision amid what it characterized as escalating "wars of narratives" and coordinated media and psychological campaigns targeting the Islamic Republic.

Within this context, the Martyr Leader stressed the importance of cultivating hope within society, highlighting national strengths and achievements, and resisting narratives that focus exclusively upon shortcomings and failures.

He likewise attached particular importance to raising public awareness regarding the nature of information warfare and psychological operations by explaining the objectives behind external media campaigns and encouraging media and cultural institutions to present narratives grounded in factual achievements and objective realities, thereby strengthening society's resilience against psychological pressure and propaganda.

7. Enhancing Public Awareness of External Challenges

The Martyr Leader, Sayyid Ali Khamenei, regarded an accurate understanding of external threats as one of the essential prerequisites for strengthening national security.

Accordingly, he devoted sustained attention to explaining the nature of American and broader Western policies toward the Islamic Republic, presenting military, economic, political, and informational pressure as interconnected instruments within a unified strategic framework.

In this regard, economic sanctions, psychological warfare, political pressure, and attempts to destabilize domestic stability were portrayed as complementary mechanisms employed to achieve broader political and security objectives. Consequently, raising public awareness regarding the nature of these challenges and the means of confronting them became a recurring strategic priority.

8. Preserving National Unity

National unity constituted one of the fundamental pillars underpinning the leadership's management of both domestic and external challenges, being viewed as a decisive factor in strengthening the state's resilience and preserving stability.

The Martyr Leader consistently affirmed that social cohesion, together with close cooperation among state institutions and political forces, represented a strategic asset essential to safeguarding the nation-particularly during periods of military and security crises.

He maintained that national solidarity enhances the state's ability to withstand external pressures while mitigating their consequences. Accordingly, he repeatedly called for safeguarding national unity, avoiding internal polarization, and promoting an inclusive national discourse centered upon the country's higher national interests, regarding these as the foremost guarantees for preserving stability and protecting the state.

End of Part I

In part II we shall highlight the “Strategic Leadership Thought and the Structural Characteristics of Governance of Martyr Sayyed Ali Khamenei.”

The concept of “lost prestige” in military studies can be understood through the following foundations:

First: The Collapse of the Deterrence Equation

In military strategy, deterrence rests on three elements: capability, will, and credibility (or the enemy’s perception of that capability).

“Lost prestige” means that the third element—credibility—has been destroyed. When an army possessing overwhelming technological superiority and firepower fails to accomplish what appears to be a straightforward tactical objective—such as seizing Ali al-Taher Hill—the adversary ceases to believe in that army’s threats. In other words, the opponent no longer fears your power because you have failed to translate it into tangible success on the battlefield.

Second: Failure to Implement the Doctrine of “Shock and Awe”

Conventional armies derive much of their prestige from the principle of rapid decision and the display of overwhelming force capable of paralyzing the enemy’s thinking and ability to resist.

“Lost prestige” signifies that the opponent has absorbed the initial shock, adapted to massive firepower, and is no longer intimidated by it. This effectively nullifies the psychological impact traditionally associated with advanced weaponry.

“Lost prestige” signifies that the opponent has absorbed the initial shock, adapted to massive firepower, and is no longer intimidated by it.

Third: The Reversal of the Logic of Asymmetric Warfare

In military studies concerning guerrilla warfare and irregular forces, a well-known principle articulated by Henry Kissinger states:

“The conventional army loses if it does not win; the guerrilla wins if he does not lose.”

Prestige is lost when a conventional army becomes trapped in a war of attrition. The mere survival and resilience of an opponent facing a vastly superior military force constitutes a blow to the conventional army’s prestige and exposes its operational shortcomings.

Fourth: The Loss of Initiative Through the Adversary’s Growing Boldness

Military prestige functions as a psychological shield, discouraging enemies from taking offensive action.

When that prestige erodes, the enemy’s fear barrier is broken. In military terms, this means the adversary transitions from passive defense—simply absorbing attacks—to active defense or even offensive action, including ambushes, counterattacks, and the targeting of supply lines. This shift occurs because the enemy has come to believe that the opposing army is neither invulnerable nor beyond harm.

Fifth: The Erosion of Internal Morale

In On War, military theorist Carl von Clausewitz identifies morale as one of the decisive factors of victory.

Lost prestige affects not only the enemy but also the attacking army itself. When soldiers discover that superior training, air support, and heavily protected armor cannot shield them from death at the hands of a less-equipped adversary, doubts begin to emerge regarding both leadership and military capabilities. Such doubts lead to hesitation, reduced aggressiveness, and declining combat effectiveness.

Sixth: The Neutralization of Technological Superiority

In the modern era, military prestige is often built upon technology: advanced airpower, heavily protected tanks, and sophisticated surveillance systems.

The loss of prestige in this context means that the opponent has found effective tactical methods to neutralize these advantages, whether through tunnel networks, camouflage, loitering attack drones, or anti-armor weapons. As a result, the strategic value of the technological arsenal is significantly diminished.

Military Conclusion

In military science, “lost prestige” is the moment when an army ceases to be a force capable of imposing its will through fear and deterrence and instead becomes a reactive force trapped in a war of attrition, paying a bloody price for every meter it advances.

It is the moment when armies discover that material superiority—steel and firepower—has been effectively neutralized by the human, tactical, and adaptive superiority of the adversary.

Practical Applications of the Concept of Lost Prestige

The inability to seize a specific geographical objective such as the strategically significant Ali al-Taher Hill—which overlooks Nabatieh, the Iqlim al-Tuffah region, and the northern sector of the Litani River—despite ten consecutive days of attacks and four days of intensive round-the-clock preparatory bombardment, carries military and strategic implications that extend far beyond a mere tactical setback. It strikes at the very heart of Israeli military prestige and its doctrine of deterrence.

The meaning of this “lost prestige,” and the significance of the reported losses—such as the death of the commander of the 52nd Armored Battalion and the destruction of Merkava tanks—can be summarized as follows:

A. The Collapse of the Doctrine that “Firepower Guarantees Ground Advancement”

Conventional armies, foremost among them the Israeli military, traditionally rely on a scorched-earth approach, employing overwhelming air and artillery fire to dismantle defenses before advancing infantry and armored units.

Failure to advance after ninety-six hours of sustained assaults and heavy bombardment suggests that massive air and artillery support has lost much of its effectiveness against underground fortifications, tunnel networks, and concealed defensive tactics. This undermines the aura that has long surrounded the effectiveness of Israel’s technological and aerial superiority.

B. The Superiority of Complex Ambush Tactics Over Technology

The loss of personnel and equipment—particularly the destruction of heavily armored vehicles such as the Merkava tank and the killing of senior officers—indicates that the defenders successfully transformed the area surrounding the hill into a “kill zone.”

The simultaneous use of loitering attack drones, guided anti-tank missiles such as the Kornet, and mortar fire demonstrates the ability of modern guerrilla tactics and close-range combat methods to neutralize technological advantages that were once regarded as decisive.

C. Moral and Psychological Collapse and the Loss of the “Image of Victory”

Armies depend upon the momentum of rapid victories to sustain morale and justify losses before domestic public opinion.

When a conventional military, regarded as one of the most powerful in the region, remains unable for days to secure a single elevated position while suffering significant losses, that hill ceases to be merely a military objective. It becomes a symbol and a psychological burden.

Such an impasse generates frustration and diminishing confidence among advancing troops while placing military and political leaders under growing internal pressure due to their inability to achieve a decisive outcome or present a clear image of victory.

D. The Loss of a Critical Operational Foothold and the Complication of Ground Operations

From a purely operational perspective, Ali al-Taher Hill constitutes a commanding terrain feature and a pivotal anchor point.

Control of the hill would be essential for securing the rear of Israeli forces and protecting supply lines in the event of a sustained deployment north of the Litani River. Failure to capture it leaves advancing forces exposed to continuous fire and operational vulnerability, depriving any ground incursion in the area of meaningful strategic value and reducing it to a costly war of attrition with no clear horizon.

E. The Deprivation of Political Leverage

Israel has often intensified ground operations in order to create facts on the ground that can later be leveraged during negotiations.

Lost prestige in this context means entering political negotiations or ceasefire discussions from a position of battlefield attrition rather than one of coercive strength. The continued resilience of the hill denies Israel the ability to dictate terms and grants the opposing side greater influence over the timing and framework of any eventual settlement.

Final Assessment

The continued resistance of Ali al-Taher Hill under these circumstances represents far more than the successful defense of a geographic position. It stands as a powerful indication of the erosion of the theory of the “invincible army.”

According to this interpretation, the battle demonstrates that possession of the most advanced aircraft and the most powerful tanks is no longer sufficient to break a determined fighting force that combines intimate knowledge of the terrain, sophisticated defensive networks, and tactical adaptability. The result is a process of material and human attrition that gradually weakens the deterrent power upon which Israel has built much of its military prestige for decades.

The valleys of southern Lebanon (Wadi al-Hujayr, Wadi al-Salouqi, extending to the valleys of Zawtar, Yuhmor, and Ghandourieh) have proven to be deadly traps for Israeli armor. Their deep, narrow terrain deprives tanks of freedom of maneuver and turns them into easy targets for Kornet anti-tank missiles, improvised explosive devices IEDs, and concealed infantry forces.

Following the failure of its maneuver warfare in these valleys, the enemy was compelled to seek alternative avenues of advance based on what may be termed "plateau warfare and open-line operations." The Khardali-Arnoun-Kfartebnit route offers a comparatively less complex geographical environment for mechanized movement than the steep and constricted valleys.

Accordingly, the enemy's concentration of effort on this axis constitutes an attempt at operational compensation. Having found the valley approaches effectively sealed by the resistance through fire and force-particularly in Ghandourieh, Hujayr, and Zawtar-it has been driven toward a compulsory maneuver dictated by military necessity and the most basic principles of tactical and military geography. Failure to secure the Kfartebnit-Ali al-Taher axis would effectively render all Israeli positions north of the river militarily untenable and make their eventual withdrawal or expulsion from the area virtually inevitable.

The enemy's determination to secure this axis-even during a ceasefire-reflects its profound concern over the battlefield consequences of remaining without it. This assessment can be substantiated through several military realities.

First: The Bridgehead Imperative

Whenever an army crosses a major natural obstacle such as the Litani River, its foremost doctrinal requirement is the establishment of a secure and defensible bridgehead to protect supply and reinforcement routes across the river.

The Kfartebnit-Ali al-Taher axis constitutes the strategic depth necessary for safeguarding that crossing. Without control of this axis, forces deployed north of the river-toward Arnoun or the vicinity of Beaufort Castle-would effectively stand with their backs to the water, while their crossing points and logistical lifelines remained fully exposed to resistance fire from the overlooking heights. Militarily, such a posture borders on tactical suicide.

Second: The Isolated Pocket Problem

With Israeli advances having stalled from the south and east (Zawtar and Yuhmor) and from the west (Ghandourieh and Salouqi), the territory currently held north of the river around Arnoun and the castle effectively becomes a narrow and isolated pocket.

Remaining within this enclave without controlling the area's dominant terrain feature-Ali al-Taher Hill-and its logistical hub, Kfartebnit, would reduce Israeli forces to little more than fixed targets. Under such conditions, the resistance would require no major offensive operation; a sustained campaign of guided missiles, mortars, and drones would gradually erode and destroy the pocket over time.

Third: The Political and Military Utility of Terrain

The enemy's willingness to violate the ceasefire in pursuit of this axis reflects its recognition that any presence north of the river without Kfartebnit and Ali al-Taher carries little military or political value.

Maintaining positions around the valleys or Beaufort Castle without expanding toward the high ground would not create an additional buffer zone north of the river; rather, it would create an attrition zone for Israeli forces themselves. Israeli decision-makers understand that remaining in exposed and vulnerable positions north of the Litani would generate continuous casualties that the Israeli home front could not indefinitely absorb, eventually forcing a withdrawal under fire-much as occurred during the withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000.

Fourth: Ali al-Taher as the Dominant Terrain Feature

Ali al-Taher Hill functions as both the "eyes" and the "firepower platform" of this battlefield.

Without it, Israeli forces north of the river would suffer from tactical blindness. The Israeli military cannot effectively protect dispersed units in the valleys or around Beaufort Castle without occupying a commanding position capable of providing direct fire support and battlefield observation. Failure to seize the hill leaves the resistance in possession of topographical superiority and therefore in control of the engagement's tactical dynamics.

The Cost Imposed by the Resistance

Should the resistance succeed in maintaining the enemy's failure on this axis-as it seeks to do through ambushes and by absorbing repeated incursions despite intensive preparatory fire-then every Israeli soldier north of the river effectively becomes a vulnerable military target.

At that point, Israeli commanders would face only two choices: either withdraw their forces quickly to avoid a protracted war of attrition, or leave them exposed in isolated pockets that cannot be adequately supplied or defended. Such a dual failure-in both the valleys and the highlands-would lay the groundwork for an eventual Israeli retreat south of the river.

This is the central military conclusion linking the strategic importance of the terrain with the human and material costs being incurred in the effort to control it.

In military science, the value of an objective is measured by the level of losses a command is willing to sustain in order to achieve it. The intense willingness to sacrifice soldiers, officers, and Merkava tanks on the Kfartebnit-Ali al-Taher axis can be explained by several fundamental factors.

A. The "Zero-Option" Dilemma

Israeli military planners increasingly perceive their choices north of the river as binary: either seize Ali al-Taher Hill and Kfartebnit to secure a defensible bridgehead for their dispersed forces on the plateau stretching from southern Zawtar to southern Arnoun, or acknowledge the failure of the ground maneuver as a whole.

This perception makes the command willing to absorb exceptionally high losses, including among elite units and armored formations, because failure to secure the objective would effectively nullify the broader ground operation and leave remaining forces exposed and vulnerable.

B. Attempting to Break the Deadlock Through Massed Assaults

Pressed by time and constrained by a ceasefire that cannot be violated indefinitely, the Israeli military has increasingly abandoned the logic of slow and methodical advances in favor of successive assault waves.

Troops and armored vehicles are pushed through narrow or exposed corridors in the hope that overwhelming firepower and numerical pressure will eventually create a breach. Yet the resistance, anticipating such desperation, has transformed these approaches into elaborate kill zones through layered and coordinated ambushes.

C. Why Are So Many Officers Being Killed?

The disproportionately high casualty rate among officers and field commanders is presented as evidence of declining morale among frontline troops.

Following heavy losses suffered in areas such as Zawtar, Ghandourieh, and Hujayr, ordinary soldiers are described as increasingly reluctant to advance. As a result, platoon and company commanders are compelled to lead from the front, exposing themselves directly to sniper fire, ambushes, and explosive devices, and consequently becoming priority targets.

D. Armored Suicide and the Illusion of Protection

The continued deployment of tanks and heavy vehicles-including Namer armored personnel carriers and Humvees-into areas vulnerable to guided missiles and attack drones reflects a deeper operational reality: Israeli infantry often refuse to advance without armored protection.

Commanders therefore continue committing armored assets despite their vulnerability, viewing them as indispensable for maintaining momentum, even when those vehicles risk becoming little more than mobile coffins once engaged.

E. The Arrogance of Sunk Costs

Military organizations can become trapped by what economists call the sunk-cost fallacy. Israeli commanders may believe that, having already paid a substantial price in blood and equipment to reach the vicinity of Arnoun and Beaufort Castle, withdrawing without securing Ali al-Taher and Kfartebnit would constitute an unacceptable humiliation.

Consequently, additional forces are committed to the same battlefield in the hope of salvaging a tangible achievement, even as losses continue to mount and the objective remains elusive.

Bottom Line 

According to this assessment, the Islamic Resistance/ Hezbollah understands the enemy's strategic predicament: it believes Israel now considers success at Kfartebnit essential to sustaining its broader position beyond it.

For that reason, the resistance has not confined itself to a defensive posture. Instead, it has sought to establish what amounts to a battlefield guillotine along the route the enemy is compelled to use-Khardali, Zafata, Kfartebnit, and Ali al-Taher. The substantial losses incurred there are portrayed as a reflection of strategic desperation, with offensive operations increasingly resembling a gamble in blood after the exhaustion of more viable military options.

The wars of tomorrow will not be won on the battlefield — they will be won inside the mind, the economy, and the information ecosystem of the enemy.

That is the brutal, clarifying lesson of 2026. What emerged from that conflict was not merely a new set of tactics. It was a new philosophy of power — one that renders many of the West’s inherited assumptions about war, deterrence, and victory dangerously obsolete.

Victory Is No Longer What You Think It Is

Forget annihilation. The modern strategist does not seek to destroy the enemy — he seeks to paralyze him. The new definition of victory is the engineering of “systemic paralysis”: a condition in which the adversary retains its military hardware but loses the cognitive and institutional capacity to use it coherently. Through targeted disruption of financial systems, command networks, and information arteries, a state can be reduced from a sovereign actor to a managed dependent — its policy choices quietly held hostage by supply chains and technological infrastructure controlled by the victor. The conquest is invisible. The defeat is permanent.

The Existential War Is Not About Survival — It’s About Who Controls Reality

The 2026 conflict elevated a concept that deserves far more attention than it receives: the war over epistemic sovereignty — the right to define what is real. Using real-time AI-generated deepfakes and precision-crafted disinformation, one can bypass the propaganda of the last century and move directly to cognitive deconstruction: the systematic dismantling of the logical foundations that hold a society’s shared beliefs together. When enough contradictory “truths” flood the information space simultaneously, the result is not mere confusion — it is informational nihilism, a paralysis of collective will in which citizens cannot organize a coherent response to aggression because they can no longer agree on what is happening. The enemy does not need to bomb your cities. It needs only to assassinate your shared sense of reality.

Geography as a Weapon: The Distributed Deterrence Network

The axis stretching from Tehran to Beirut, Baghdad, and Sanaa is not a political alliance in any traditional sense. It is a distributed deterrence architecture — a deliberately decentralized network designed to make any decisive first strike geometrically impossible. No single strike can neutralize all nodes simultaneously. But more importantly, the network’s true leverage is not military — it is geo-economic. Control the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb simultaneously, and you do not threaten a country. You threaten the global economy. Local conflict becomes international crisis. The pressure to de-escalate shifts from the battlefield to the boardrooms of Beijing, Brussels, and Washington.

The Brinkmanship Doctrine: When the Abyss Becomes Policy

“Managed brinkmanship” — the art of dancing on the edge of catastrophe to extract political concessions — entered a new phase in 2026. When threats escalated to the language of civilizational erasure, the calculus transformed entirely. The response was not retreat but clarification: a doctrine of catastrophic punishment that tied the survival of an adversary’s energy and economic interests to the survival of the targeted state. The abyss stopped being an emergency condition. It became permanent operating policy — a geopolitical fact of life that no regional actor can afford to ignore.

Active Strategic Patience: Winning by Waiting — But Never Passively

This is perhaps the most misunderstood concept in the contemporary strategic literature. “Active strategic patience” is not about absorbing punishment until conditions change. It is an offensive doctrine disguised as restraint. The premise is simple and devastating: great powers and technologically superior militaries have a finite tolerance for open-ended, inconclusive conflict. By avoiding the single decisive blow — which might provoke an overwhelming response — and instead pursuing what might be called the “strategy of a thousand cuts,” a less powerful adversary can systematically erode the political legitimacy, economic reserves, and social cohesion of a stronger enemy. The goal is to bring the adversary to a point of spontaneous collapse — not by defeating it in the field, but by making its own continued existence an unsustainable burden.

Field Diplomacy: The Battlefield as Negotiating Table

In 2026, military operations did not precede negotiations — they were the negotiations. Every missile, every drone strike, every territorial gain was simultaneously a diplomatic message, a vote cast in real time at an invisible negotiating table. This is “field diplomacy”: the doctrine that treats tactical military achievements as binding clauses in a political agreement that is being written while the fighting continues. The language of this diplomacy is not legal argument — it is operational reality. When the adversary attempts to raise its political demands, the response arrives not in a communiqué but in a recalibrated strike. The front line does not just determine military outcomes; it determines what is politically possible.

The Power of What the Enemy Doesn’t Know

The final — and perhaps most elegant — concept to emerge from 2026 is deterrence through deliberate ambiguity. After suffering severe setbacks in 2024, Hezbollah’s demonstrated capacity for tactical surprise in 2026 transformed ignorance itself into a weapon. By maintaining a persistent gap between declared capabilities and actual capabilities, a combatant force can freeze the enemy’s decision-making apparatus entirely. When commanders cannot accurately assess what they are facing, they are compelled to plan for worst-case scenarios — and worst-case scenarios are rarely scenarios that authorize offensive action. The unknown becomes a wall. The unseen arsenal becomes the most effective deterrent of all. The element of surprise is hovering around the landscape.

The Bottom Line

What 2026 established, with uncomfortable clarity, is that the dominant paradigm of 20th-century warfare — overwhelming force, decisive victory, clear surrender — is giving way to something far more complex and far more durable. The new grammar of war is written in functional paralysis, epistemic manipulation, distributed networks, managed catastrophe, structured patience, real-time battlefield diplomacy, and the weaponization of uncertainty.

The states and strategists who learn to read this grammar fluently will shape the next era of international order. Those who cannot will find themselves checkmated by adversaries they persistently underestimated — not because those adversaries were stronger, but because they understood the new rules of the game while others were still playing by the old ones.

Since the collapse of the ceasefire understanding that came into effect on November 27, 2024, followed by the return of large-scale confrontation in March 2026, a new wave of Western and Israeli assessments has emerged, centered around one fundamental question: does Hezbollah still constitute a strategic deterrent force despite the massive blows it has sustained?

What is striking is that most recent assessments have become far more nuanced than those produced after the 2006 war—or even those issued in late 2024. They increasingly describe:

• Hezbollah as “exhausted, but not defeated.”

• The group’s transition toward a flexible war of attrition.

• Israel’s failure to achieve total military decisiveness despite overwhelming firepower.

• The inability to eliminate the threat permanently.

Taken together, Western and Israeli analyses published after the 2024–2026 war—particularly following the collapse of the ceasefire arrangement and the renewed confrontation in March 2026—reveal a profound shift in how Hezbollah is perceived. The organization is no longer viewed merely as a military actor, but as part of a broader regional equation intertwined with Lebanon’s internal political crisis.

The latest war did not produce the image of a decisive victory for either side. Instead, it exposed the limits of power on both fronts and pushed the conflict into a new phase defined by prolonged attrition and the reshaping of deterrence dynamics.

On one hand, most Western and Israeli evaluations agree that Israel succeeded in inflicting unprecedented damage on Hezbollah. This included the assassination of senior commanders, the destruction of significant portions of its military and missile infrastructure, and deep intelligence penetration that disrupted the group’s command-and-control networks. The war also demonstrated Israel’s clear superiority in aerial technology, precision targeting, and electronic warfare, significantly weakening Hezbollah’s ability to wage a broad conventional confrontation of the kind seen after 2006.

Yet these same assessments acknowledge that such achievements did not translate into a final strategic victory. Despite the scale of its losses, Hezbollah neither organizationally nor militarily collapsed. Instead, it demonstrated a notable capacity for adaptation and repositioning.

Gradually, the group shifted away from the model of a “heavy missile deterrence force” toward a doctrine of “low-cost intelligent attrition warfare.” This transformation relied on decentralized cells, inexpensive drones, electronic ambush tactics, and technologies inspired by lessons drawn from the Russia–Ukraine war.

Recent estimates suggest that Hezbollah has become increasingly aware of the limits of a full-scale confrontation with Israel. As a result, it now appears more focused on managing the conflict rather than decisively winning it, while maintaining the northern front as a constant, low-cost pressure point.

At the same time, Israel itself seems to have moved away from the objective of “completely eliminating Hezbollah” toward a more pragmatic strategy centered on containment, the creation of security zones, and reducing the level of threat rather than eradicating it altogether. This shift alone amounts to an implicit acknowledgment of the difficulty of achieving total military resolution.

On the Lebanese domestic front, these assessments point to a growing crisis surrounding Hezbollah’s political legitimacy, particularly amid expanding debate over its weapons. An increasing segment of Lebanese public opinion has begun linking the continuation of war to economic collapse and international isolation. Western and Israeli studies also indicate mounting efforts to reshape Lebanon’s political environment through a “state-first” framework—one aimed at restricting arms exclusively to the state and reducing Iranian influence inside Lebanon.

Nevertheless, most of these analyses also concede that Hezbollah still retains significant sources of strength, most notably:

• A flexible organizational structure.

• A relatively cohesive social base.

• Extensive combat experience.

• Rapid adaptability.

• Continued Iranian support, albeit through mechanisms different from those of the past.

Accordingly, it can be argued that the latest war did not end Hezbollah, but fundamentally altered its nature, role, and strategic function. The organization has moved beyond the era of “deterrence superiority” that followed the 2006 war and entered a new phase centered on survival, attrition, and the management of long-term threat dynamics.

The conflict itself is no longer merely a military confrontation along the border. It has evolved into a multi-layered struggle encompassing:

• Security and intelligence.

• Economics and financial pressure.

• Public opinion and political legitimacy.

• The very identity of the Lebanese state.

In light of these developments, the region appears to be heading toward a prolonged and open-ended model of conflict in which neither side possesses the ability to secure a definitive victory. Instead, each actor seeks to manage the balance of power and prevent the other from imposing a complete strategic equation.

Consequently, Hezbollah’s future will not be determined solely by its military capabilities, but also by its ability to redefine its role within Lebanon and adapt to rapidly evolving regional and international realities.

How Israel’s Media Is — and Isn’t — Reckoning with the Hezbollah Loitering Munitions Dilemma that Rewrote the Rules of War

There is a weapon circling above modern battlefields that doesn’t rush to kill. It waits.It watches. And when the moment is right, it dives Kamikaze style. Hezbollah’s top notch Game of Drones is becoming a terrifying pain and a nightmare to the Israelis. How Israel’s media covers that explosive laden FPV ( First Person View) drone reveals something profound about how it understands war itself.

Three major Israeli television channels — Channels 11, 13, and 14 — have each taken a radically different approach to Hezbollah loitering munitions dilemma, and together they form an accidental mirror of the strategic blind spots that plague military discourse in the region.

Channel 11 asks the long question. Its coverage frames loitering munitions not as a new gadget but as a civilizational shift in warfare. The analysis is architectural: these weapons collapse the traditional separation between intelligence-gathering and strike execution into a single, low-cost platform. They hover. They redirect mid-mission. They impose a state of perpetual operational uncertainty on any force they target — not merely through destruction, but through the psychological weight of not knowing when the sky will fall. This is war reimagined, not war re-equipped.

Channel 13 asks the urgent question. Its focus is immediate, visceral, and tactical: what does this weapon do right now, on this battlefield, to this soldier? The answer it delivers is unsparing. High precision. Live operator feed. Near-impossible to intercept in real time — especially the fiber-optic variants immune to jamming. Cheap enough to proliferate. Simple enough that military expertise is optional. Channel 13 treats Hezbollah loitering munitions as a tactical emergency requiring immediate solutions, not a philosophical reckoning about future warfare.

Channel 14 asks nothing at all (Netanyahu’s mouthpiece). Its airtime is consumed by political theater, leaving the military dimension entirely unaddressed. In a media environment already fragmented by partisan loyalties, this silence is not neutral — it is a choice, and it has consequences.

Bottom Line:

A weapon that can loiter, observe, choose its moment, and strike with pinpoint accuracy at a fraction of the cost of traditional munitions is not a marginal development — it is a restructuring of the battlefield’s power dynamics. The gap between Channel 11’s strategic depth and Channel 14’s deliberate silence is not merely a difference in editorial priorities. It is a measure of how seriously a society is engaging with the wars being fought in its name. When a cheap drone can do what once required a sophisticated missile, and when half their media ecosystem is busy counting political points instead, the real vulnerability may not be in the sky. It may be in the room where no one is watching the screen.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

The objective is neither ambiguous nor negotiable: the dismantlement of Hezbollah and the forced reconfiguration of Lebanon’s internal balance of power. This is not a framework for de-escalation; it is a blueprint for strategic erasure. By insisting on maximalist outcomes—security restructuring to the Litani, total disarmament, and the rejection of interim arrangements—Israel effectively positions diplomacy as a demand for surrender dressed in procedural language.

The doctrine of “negotiating under fire,” amplified by figures such as Danny Danon, rests on a familiar illusion: that sustained pressure will fracture the resistance’s political and social base. Yet this logic repeatedly collapses against Lebanon’s structural reality. The more coercion intensifies, the more (the resistance) is recast not as an anomaly, but as a necessity—an embedded deterrent within a fragmented state that cannot outsource its own defense.

Crucially, this strategy misreads Lebanon itself. It assumes a centralized authority capable of decisive realignment under pressure. In truth, Lebanon is a layered, decentralized system where power is diffused and legitimacy is negotiated, not imposed. Attempts to forcibly separate the state from the resistance do not resolve this complexity—they collide with it.

Even the reliance on the United States government as an external enforcer reveals its own fragility. American leverage is conditional, episodic, and constrained by competing global priorities. It can amplify pressure, but it cannot manufacture compliance where the underlying political terrain rejects it.

What emerges, then, is not a pathway to stability but a “managed” escalation cycle—one that institutionalizes confrontation while mistaking it for leverage. Agreements extracted under duress rarely endure; they incubate the next round of conflict.

From the resistance’s perspective, the equation is straightforward: a strategy built on coercion against a society conditioned to absorb and reinterpret pressure is less likely to dismantle the adversary than to reinforce it.

But perhaps the most revealing aspect of this entire exercise is its quiet premise—that Lebanon can be engineered from the outside, and that the resistance can be negotiated out of existence. A bold theory, certainly… just not one that has ever survived first contact with reality.

Bottom Line:

What is unfolding is not a peace process but a coercive bargaining model in which military force and diplomacy are fused into a single instrument. The objective is not de-escalation, but the forced restructuring of Lebanon’s internal and security architecture under sustained pressure. The viability of this strategy is highly uncertain—and may produce prolonged instability rather than resolution.

Governments, first and foremost, have chosen the language of international law as both shield and alibi. Yet this legalism conceals a deeper fragmentation: a North Africa split between alignment and ambiguity; a Southern African bloc waging a principled legal campaign; an East African corridor quietly aligned with the Gulf and Washington; and a Sahel that opens windows to Tehran without closing its doors to the West. There is no single African position—only African positions.

The elites mirror this dissonance. One camp, steeped in “Global South” consciousness, reads the war as an extension of Western hegemony, while another views Tehran as a sectarian and expansionist force. Between them, Islamic currents attempt a precarious balancing act—condemning Washington and Tel Aviv, yet recoiling from Iranian strikes on Gulf states. Even the religious sphere fractures: Al-Azhar rebukes Iran, while South African churches condemn Israel through the moral lens of apartheid.

Yet if the state is divided and the elite conflicted, the street is strikingly coherent. From Rabat to Johannesburg, from Dakar to Nairobi, a popular consensus crystallizes against the war. The digital sphere amplifies it, forging a transnational chorus that rejects both aggression and normalization. Here, Africa speaks in one voice—angry, historical, and unmistakably political.

And then comes the decisive arbiter: economics. The war’s true shockwave is not ideological but material. Fuel surges, food supplies tighten, fertilizers grow scarce, and financial conditions constrict. These four pressures have reordered priorities with brutal clarity. Even the most rhetorically defiant states cannot insulate themselves from the price of oil or the disruption of Red Sea shipping. Hence the “eloquent silence” of many capitals: not indifference, but constraint.

Externally, the contest for Africa intensifies. Russia projects more rhetoric than capability, China calibrates its stance with calculated ambiguity, and Turkey advances assertively where others hesitate. Iran, for its part, seeks to convert war into diplomatic leverage, extending its reach into the Sahel and the Horn of Africa. Yet none of these powers offers Africa an escape from its structural vulnerability.

Africa is not a bloc but a mosaic of competing imperatives. Governments hedge, elites divide, and publics converge. Law is invoked, but economics decides. External powers compete, but none resolve the continent’s core exposure.

Bottom line:
Africa is not choosing sides in this war—it is choosing survival. And in that choice lies the quiet truth: principles may shape the discourse, but prices write the decision.

Let us be precise about what is happening. Lebanon is not at a negotiating table. Lebanon is on the negotiating table — splayed open, examined, and parceled out by powers whose primary interest is not its sovereignty but the architecture of a regional order that serves Washington and Israel first and Beirut last, if at all.

The American framework that has governed Lebanon’s so-called diplomatic engagement — from UN Resolution 1701, to the 2022 maritime border agreement, through the post-September 2024 “Mechanism Committee,” and now the pressure triggered by the 2026 Al-Aasf Al-Ma’koul operation — follows a single, consistent logic: manage the threat, not the wound. Strip Hezbollah of its military leverage, dress the Lebanese state in the costume of sovereignty, and sell the whole performance as progress.

It is not progress. It is choreography.

What Washington Actually Wants

Think tanks in Washington — the Washington Institute, the Middle East Institute, among others — have been unusually candid about the limits of this process. The concept of “Zones of Possible Agreement” (ZOPA) floated in their analyses is revealing precisely in what it excludes: a just settlement, a real peace, Lebanese agency. What it includes is a narrow band of concessions calibrated entirely by Israeli security thresholds. The negotiation, as one analysis admits, is “not a complete peace.” It is a containment mechanism with diplomatic branding.

The structural fragility is acknowledged, even by the architects of this process. Lebanon as a state cannot enforce what it agrees to. Washington knows this. Yet it proceeds — not despite the futility, but because of it. A negotiation that cannot produce binding results is not a failure of diplomacy. It is diplomacy performing a different function entirely: buying time, fragmenting resistance, and generating the optics of process while the facts on the ground calcify.

The Real Negotiation Isn’t With Lebanon

Here is what Reuters, and the sharper corners of the American analytical community, have quietly confirmed: the meaningful negotiation is with Tehran. Lebanon is a variable in an Iranian-American equation. The Lebanese state — isolated from the Resistance, stripped of its most significant bargaining chip — enters the room as a pawn dressed as a player.

Iran’s insistence that no deal is valid unless it addresses Lebanon and halts the war on the Resistance forced Washington’s hand. The pressure on Israel to engage is not a concession to Lebanese interests — it is a structural adjustment to keep the Iranian track alive. Lebanon’s “negotiations” are, in this reading, a sub-function of a larger transaction.

This is not conspiracy. It is architecture.

The Military Shadow Over Every Sentence

American strategy does not separate the diplomatic from the military. The pressure exerted through negotiation runs in parallel with military escalation — each feeding the other. Diplomacy extends time horizons; military pressure converts battlefield gains into political leverage. The two tracks are not alternatives. They are instruments of the same score.

Which means that any Lebanese official who sits at this table without military and political counterweight is not negotiating. They are ratifying — providing the procedural legitimacy that transforms imposed conditions into signed agreements.

The Bottom Line

The American vision, distilled: a narrow possible agreement, defined by Israeli security imperatives, enforced by a weak Lebanese state, serving a regional strategy whose endpoint is Iranian containment — not Lebanese dignity.

This is a temporary ceasefire architecture, not a peace. It is crisis management, not conflict resolution. It is, in the bluntest terms, Lebanon being used as a stage prop in a play written elsewhere.

So here is the question that should haunt every Lebanese official who picks up a pen at that table:

If the negotiation is designed to fail, if the agreement is designed to be temporary, if Lebanon’s role is to provide legitimacy for conditions it did not choose — then who, precisely, are you representing when you sign?

Zeinab AL Saffar is a scholar specializing in resistance movements and regional geopolitics.

What unfolded was neither.

It was something far more surgical: a denial campaign that quietly, but decisively, blocked Israel from achieving its core strategic objectives.

From the outset, the battle turned on a single, calculated decision—timing. By entering the confrontation in parallel with Iran, the resistance forced Israel into a multi-front strain it was neither structured nor prepared to manage. This was not about matching firepower; it was about fracturing focus. The Israeli military, stretched across geography and priorities, lost the one asset it depends on most: initiative.

And once that initiative slipped, the rest followed.

The push to the Litani River—long the centerpiece of Israeli operational thinking—collapsed before it could materialize. Ground advances stalled. Momentum dissipated. What was meant to be a controlled escalation turned into a constrained, reactive campaign. In war, failing to achieve your objective is not a partial loss—it is the LOSS.

But the battlefield tells only part of the story.

Equally significant was the element of surprise. The preemptive strike didn’t just disrupt Israeli planning; it exposed a deeper miscalculation. The assumption that the resistance had been strategically degraded after 2024 proved not just wrong, but costly. Intelligence gaps widened. Decision-making faltered. The war began with Israel already a step behind.

And yet, this was not a story of overwhelming power on the other side. It was a story of adaptation.

Faced with a technologically superior adversary with massive AirPower , the resistance recalibrated—preserving operational secrecy, maintaining command cohesion, and sustaining logistical lines despite sustained pressure. This is not parity. It is something more dangerous: resilience under asymmetry.

Layered onto this was the broader regional architecture. The Lebanese front did not operate in isolation; it was amplified by Iranian engagement—militarily, by stretching Israeli capabilities, and diplomatically, by tying de-escalation to conditions beyond the battlefield. The result was a war and a confrontation that refused to stay local.

The consequences are now visible.

Northern occupied Palestine is no longer a stable rear. The long-promoted doctrine—buffer zones, forward deployment, managed security—has been punctured. Not destroyed, but exposed as insufficient. Deterrence, for now, has been rebalanced.

But here is where the narrative requires discipline.

This was not a decisive shift in the balance of power. It was a contained success. A denial, not a transformation.

The vulnerabilities remain—airpower asymmetry, economic strain, and structural exposure to prolonged conflict. And on the other side, Israel is already adapting. Doctrines evolve. Mistakes are studied. The next round, if it comes, will not look like the last.

That is the real takeaway.

At the center of this rhetorical escalation stands Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, steadily recasting the conflict as “Israel’s war”—a destabilizing project that subverts diplomacy, weaponizes escalation, and externalizes its costs onto the wider region. His foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, has gone further, warning of a broader strategic blueprint: a long war engineered to fracture the Islamic world, inflame sectarian and ethnic fault lines, and even instrumentalize sensitive dossiers like the Kurdish question.

This is no longer about Iran or Lebanon alone. In Ankara’s telling, the threat matrix is expanding—structurally, not incidentally. Israel’s actions are portrayed as part of a rolling destabilization doctrine, one that targets infrastructure, civilians, and the fragile equilibrium of regional security architectures. The subtext is unmistakable: today’s battlefield may be Tehran or Beirut, but tomorrow’s fault line could shift elsewhere—perhaps even toward Türkiye itself. All in the context of the “Greater Israel” aspirations.

Even more striking is the political subtext Ankara now attaches to the war. The prolongation of conflict is increasingly framed as serving the domestic calculus of Benjamin Netanyahu—a war not only fought outward, but instrumentalized inward. In this reading, escalation is not a byproduct; it is the point.

Yet beneath the rhetoric lies a deeper anxiety: that the region is being nudged toward a state of permanent crisis—where ceasefires are tactical pauses, diplomacy is performative, and instability becomes the organizing principle of order.

Ankara’s message, stripped of its diplomatic varnish, is blunt: this is a war with a strategy, and that strategy is expansion through fragmentation.

But perhaps the most impressive feat of all is this: turning perpetual conflict into a governing doctrine—and still expecting the region to applaud while it burns.

A military expert view notes that forty-five days into continuous fighting along Lebanon’s southern front, the situation around Bint Jbeil has become one of the clearest indicators of how the conflict is unfolding on the ground—far from the noise of competing narratives.

If you want to understand the reality of this front, you have to focus on Bint Jbeil—not as a symbol, but as a military case study shaped by geography, logistics, and shifting objectives.

1. From Regional Isolation to City-Level Pressure

The most telling development isn’t what has been achieved, but what has been quietly abandoned.

Early operational patterns suggested an attempt to isolate the broader Bint Jbeil area—cutting it off from surrounding villages and supply routes. That objective now appears scaled down. The focus has narrowed to pressuring the city itself.

This shift matters. In military terms, reducing scope mid-operation usually signals friction: terrain challenges, resistance effectiveness, or logistical strain.

Several axes highlight this:

The Qawzah–Rashaf–Haddatha direction saw advances stall before reaching key positions.

The Ayta al-Shaab–Wadi al-Saluqi axis never fully materialized as a viable route.

Taken together, these aren’t isolated setbacks—they point to difficulty in achieving broader operational isolation.

2. Why Bint Jbeil Still Matters

Bint Jbeil isn’t just symbolic (its stadium which was leveled by the Israeli occupation army recently due to its symbolic value being the spot where Hezbollah former SG martyr Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah delivered his victory "spider web speech"  after the Israeli occupation’s withdrawal in May 2000)—it sits at the center of a geographic problem.

Across the southern front, advances have remained relatively shallow. Penetrations appear limited in depth, and more importantly, disconnected from each other.

This creates a structural issue: without control of a central node like Bint Jbeil, movements along the western and eastern sectors risk remaining fragmented rather than forming a continuous operational line.

In simple terms: you can move forward in pieces, but you can’t consolidate.

3. The Shape of the Pressure

Instead of broad encirclement, the approach has shifted toward multi-directional pressure on the city:

• From the southwest (Debel, Ain Ibl, Rmeish)

• From the northeast (Ainata, Ayta al-Shaab)

• From the south (Yaroun)

• From the southeast (Maroun al-Ras)

What stands out is the reliance on specific corridors—particularly through areas where maneuver may be less constrained.

That choice isn’t random. It reflects both terrain realities and the risks associated with advancing through heavily contested zones.

4. Inside the City: Caution Over Momentum

Urban warfare in Bint Jbeil appears defined by caution.Rather than large-scale pushes, operations seem measured:

• Limited troop exposure

• Reliance on drones for reconnaissance

• Use of stand-off methods like demolitions and controlled strikes

This suggests a preference to minimize direct engagement risks, especially in dense terrain where ambushes are more likely and visibility is limited.

5. What Has—and Hasn’t—Changed

Despite sustained pressure, key parts of the city remain contested rather than fully controlled.

Critical sites—commercial areas, public spaces, and religious landmarks—have not all been decisively secured. That doesn’t mean they’re untouched, but it does indicate that control is neither complete nor uncontested.

In urban combat, that distinction is crucial: presence is not the same as dominance.

6. A War of Friction, Not Breakthrough

What’s emerging is not a clean advance, but a pattern of engagement defined by repetition:

• Advance

• Contact

• Withdrawal or repositioning

• Renewed attempt

This cycle—common in high-resistance environments—points to a war of attrition rather than rapid breakthrough.

It also suggests that both sides are shaping the pace, not just reacting to it.

7. The Broader Picture: Bint Jbeil and Al-Khiyam

Bint Jbeil doesn’t stand alone. Its dynamics mirror what’s happening in Al-Khiyam—another key border city.

Together, they form two anchor points along the front. The inability to fully control or bypass them highlights a broader operational challenge: translating localized advances into strategic coherence.

Final Assessment

Strip away the rhetoric, and the picture becomes clearer:

Objectives have narrowed

Advances remain limited in depth and cohesion

Urban operations are cautious and incremental

Key towns remain contested rather than decisively controlled

This isn’t a story of total collapse or total victory on either side. It’s a grinding, unresolved fight shaped by terrain, resistance, and the limits of force projection. And that’s the part most narratives—on all sides—tend to avoid.