Hassan Hassan and Kareem Shaheen write:

The killing of Hassan Nasrallah in Israeli strikes on Friday surpasses in significance those of Osama bin Laden in May 2011, Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in January 2020 and other towering figures who have shaped the region’s violent modern history. With Nasrallah’s demise, we are witnessing the fall of a figure whose influence extends well beyond Hezbollah, Iran and the “Axis of Resistance.”

For both foes and followers, Nasrallah was larger than life, occupying a place in the Arab world that rivals the mythic aura of Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser. Nasser’s legacy was one of pan-Arab nationalism. He was a unifying figure across the region. Nasrallah, by contrast, operated from within a Shiite-Islamist framework, one tied tightly to Iran, though his influence often crossed sectarian lines. His death strikes at the heart of an entire axis of regional power, creating ripple effects that will not easily be contained.

Those who view such figures as mere operators or strategists would probably compare Nasrallah to recent figures such as Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds Force, who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in 2020. They might even conclude that Soleimani’s killing was a worse blow for the Iranian axis than the loss of Nasrallah. But this would be to overlook the visceral hold that Nasrallah had in the region, unlike the shadowy figure of Soleimani. The comparison is nonetheless useful because it illustrates why Nasrallah’s demise will be damaging to Hezbollah and the Iranian axis writ large. [Continue reading…]