Is Israel trying to drag America into a war with Iran?

00:00 07:42

Paul Wood has narrated this article for you to listen to.

The American general David Petraeus famously asked of the invasion of Iraq: ‘Tell me how this ends.’ That’s the question as Israeli bombs and missiles fall on Lebanon and the few missiles Hezbollah has sent in response are intercepted. Iran’s ‘axis of resistance’ seems paralysed with indecision. Does Benjamin Netanyahu take this as a win, the vindication of the enormous chance he took by opening a new northern front? Or, like a gambler intoxicated by success at the tables, does he press on? More airstrikes, followed by an invasion of Lebanon… and then the bombers fly on to Iran? 

Some Israelis commentators are already calling this the Third Lebanon War (after the wars of 1982-2000 and 2006). That’s a fair description, given how many Lebanese have been killed, at least 600 at the time of writing. How long these punishing airstrikes continue depends, in part, on how many of Hezbollah’s rockets have been destroyed, and how many Israel’s war cabinet believe must be destroyed before the campaign can pause.