The strategic situation in the region could cause some confusion: on one hand, Israel enjoys unprecedented military, diplomatic, and technological superiority. On the other, the challenges facing Israel are more complicated than ever, and 2022 cannot be expected to make them any easier.
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The main challenge, of course, is Iran and its nuclear program. It's hard to find a scrap of hope in Israel that anything good will come out of the Vienna talks, and it appears that right now the choice is between a bad deal or a worse one. That doesn't mean that Israel is out of options, but it will require it to decide on its red lines and what it will do if they are crossed.
In the defense and security establishment, there is talk about capabilities of causing major damage to the Iranian nuclear program if a decision is made to launch a military strike, but this talk seems to be premature and mostly unnecessary. As Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said, this is the kind of matter that should be discussed less and acted on more, if there is a need to.
But Iran is a source of concern to Israel not only because of the nuclear issue. Its attempts to arm its satellites in the region with weapons that include cruise missiles and other precision capabilities continue ceaselessly. It's probable that one such shipment was the target of the airstrike on Latakia port in Syria early Tuesday, which appeared to be an unusually large-scale and successful strike, given how long the fires it caused at the port hangars continued to burn.
This was the second strike on Latakia attributed to the Israeli Air Force in the last few weeks, which demonstrates that the Iranians are changing up their methods of smuggling weapons to Hezbollah: sometimes they are sent by air via Damascus, sometimes on land over the Iraqi border, and sometimes by sea.
Israel is managing to thwart a high percentage of these smuggling attempts, but not all of them. This can be seen in the IAF's recent changes to its flights in Lebanese air space to accommodate the growing threat Hezbollah poses. This is a critical issue because the IAF's freedom to fly over Lebanon is vital to strikes in Syria – most of which, according to foreign reports, are carried out from Lebanese airspace to reduce the risk of aircraft being hit by Syrian anti-aircraft defenses – as well as ongoing intelligence operations on Lebanon itself and Hezbollah's activities there.
This past February, Hezbollah fired missiles at an IAF UAV that was flying over Lebanon on an intelligence mission. The UAV wasn't hit, but apparently the incident prompted the IAF to make adjustments to reduce the risk to its planes and flight crews. The Iranians have probably managed to smuggle an anti-aircraft system to Hezbollah; as far as anyone knows, the organization already has SA-8 and SA-22 systems, which it fired at the start of this year.
The reduced freedom of the IAF to maneuver over Lebanon is a concern not only operationally, but also psychologically.
Hezbollah, which presents itself as "the defender of Lebanon," wants to create an equation of aerial deterrence in Lebanon similar to what it has on the ground. For Hezbollah, the frequent flights by Israeli aircraft are grounds for it to attack; it chooses the attacks carefully to avoid going too far and promoting an Israeli retaliation.
But Israel has to decide, for itself and by itself, what it intends to do about this new threat. The years it spent wavering as Hezbollah accelerated its armament following the 2006 Second Lebanon War led to the current balance of power. Israel cannot allow a similar balance of power to exist in the air, as well, and might have to take preemptive action to take these capabilities away from Hezbollah before the organization makes another move and, heaven forbid, brings down an Israeli plane.
There is a similar dilemma about Hezbollah's constantly-expanding precision missile capabilities. Here, too, it would be better for Israel to take the initiative; localized clashes on the border or other tactical events could serve as a starting point. It's a shame Israel didn't do this back in February, when Hezbollah fired missiles at the UAVs, which was apparently what led to a strike on anti-aircraft batteries in Syria that Israel was hesitant to execute in Lebanon.
The IAF will obviously find tactical solutions to the problem, but these must not allow Israel to evade the main issue. As far as that goes – and given Iran's assiduous activity, which could increase the moment a new deal is signed – Israel might need to flex its muscles in 2022 to remind the neighborhood that it still has superiority, and can use it.
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