Last week, an Israeli patrol in southern Gaza chanced upon the person who had been at the very top of their kill list for more than a year: Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the architect of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. When his death was confirmed, it immediately raised some big questions: How much of a blow would this be for Hamas? How should Israel’s strategy now change? And if Sinwar was the person Israel was blaming for a lack of progress on a hostage deal, would removing him change that equation?
Big moments in a war can feel defining. But as several writers at Foreign Policy have argued, Sinwar’s death might not be the turning point many imagine. There’s a long history of states killing leaders of militant or terrorist groups only to see another leader step in.
How should Israel calibrate its strategy after killing Sinwar? And, similarly, what changes after killing Beirut-based Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah? I spoke with Gen. David Petraeus to try and get at some of the dilemmas inherent in gaming out wartime strategy. Petraeus ended a 37-year military career running the United States Central Command, which includes all of the Middle East, Central Asia, and parts of South Asia. He was deeply involved in combating terrorist groups in those regions amid the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Petraeus later had a short stint as CIA director under the Obama administration.
Subscribers can watch the full discussion in the video box atop this page. What follows here is an edited and condensed transcript.
Ravi Agrawal: Let’s start with the death of Yahya Sinwar. From your experience with counterterrorism in the Middle East, how does this actually impact Hamas’s capabilities?
David Petraeus: Well, it’s a huge blow. Symbolically, this is massive. Operationally, it’s significant, as well. He had to be exercising considerable operational security given how much the Israelis were pursuing him.
But he still was the individual who was saying yes or no, really no, on cease-fire deals. He was the ultimate authority, however difficult it was to get to him, or for him to get to his subordinate commanders in very seriously degraded units. This is still a very, very significant achievement for the Israelis. And how interesting that it was a patrol that chanced upon him, not a special mission unit operation.
But there will be another leader. Some are speculating that it could be his younger brother, Mohammed. I’m not sure that they’ll have the combined political and military leader in the next leader that you had with Sinwar. Perhaps [Khaled] Mashal in Qatar will take over the political role like Haniyeh before he was killed in Tehran. But it is very disruptive and it’s yet another very significant achievement in the degradation of Hamas.
But Hamas has not yet been destroyed. Keep in mind that there were three objectives set out by the prime minister at the beginning of operations in response to the horrific tragedy of Oct. 7, the mastermind of which was Sinwar. And these were to destroy Hamas, ensure Hamas never governs Gaza again, and, of course, get back the hostages. Number one and two are in big tension with number three.
Destruction means that you cannot reconstitute. Israel is conducting the equivalent of “clear and leave” operations, similar to what we were doing in 2006 in Iraq. And when the surge began, we recognized that only we could provide security for the people and therefore we had to clear areas and then hold them, and then rebuild them, and restore basic services, etc. In the absence of those kinds of operations, reoccupying Gaza by the Israelis, there is neither security nor a denial of Hamas’s ability to reconstitute, nor a denial of Hamas’s ability to influence or govern in the way that they used to. And, of course, the Palestinian people are in a very, very desperate situation. There is really a humanitarian catastrophe in many areas where people have been displaced multiple times. Issues like hygiene, water, and food security are really quite desperate.
Another very significant Israeli achievement is the control of the southern border between Gaza and the Sinai, the so-called Philadelphi Corridor, including the Rafah crossing. Much of the weapon systems, ammunition, explosives, and then materiel used by Hamas to build this extensive 350-mile underground infrastructure came through that crossing and through the tunnels under that corridor. I think they have to hang on to that. It should not be bargained away.
RA: That, of course, general, is an issue of debate right now. It’s a sticking point in the negotiations.
DP: This is why I think it’s unlikely to see a cease-fire. What Hamas will want in these negotiations is for Israel to leave Gaza for all time and give up control of the Philadelphi Corridor. Neither of those can be acceptable to Israel. They have not completed the destruction of Hamas. They haven’t ensured that Hamas cannot reconstitute. There’s plenty of recruits out there, given the damage and destruction that have been part of this campaign to degrade Hamas.
And then, of course, it has no vision for the Palestinian people. And from the beginning, I’ve noted that there really needs to be a vision for the future of Gaza because that could guide the military as they’re crafting their campaign.
RA: General, on that point, you’re taking me back to almost exactly one year ago when we had a very similar conversation like this on FP Live. I was looking back at that conversation, when you said that military action was necessary for Israel, but then added that vengeance isn’t a strategy and that there has to be a vision for what follows. When you look back at the last year of Israel’s response to Oct. 7, did they follow your advice?
DP: Certainly some, but not all of it. And that’s why this campaign is still incomplete if you measure it against the actual stated objectives.
I don’t think that a strategy of “clear and leave” is going to ensure the destruction of Hamas, nor will it provide a better future for the Palestinian people. And you’ll recall during the surge, we would go to the citizens of Fallujah, and we would tell them in advance that we are going to make your lives better by getting al Qaeda and the Sunni insurgent organizations out of your lives, and then keep them out by creating walled-off neighborhoods in which you painstakingly clear every building room, cellar, and, in this case, tunnel. You issue biometric ID cards, which allows them to come and go. And then, in an organized fashion not possible in Gaza right now, you can pump in substantial humanitarian assistance, begin the restoration of basic services, get people back at least in the vicinity of their homes, and then start improving their lives. So it’s “clear, hold, and build.”
If that’s done, then you’ll see Arab forces willing to come in. You could bring in Palestinian security forces that are trained and equipped by the United States and the Jordanians at the International Police Training center. You’ll see NGOs and international organizations in there. And only if there is security can you do what I’ve laid out, and only then is there a better future for the Palestinian people with the possibility that Palestinians in Gaza can live side by side with their Israeli neighbors in peace.
It’s really vital that Israelis take advantage of the opportunity presented by the killing of Yahya Sinwar by announcing, “This is our plan to achieve our objectives and to improve the lives for our fellow human beings, the Palestinians in Gaza.” I believe that if Gazans are provided a better life in this approach that I have described, I think that the Palestinian people—just like the people of Fallujah and Ramadi, Baqouba, Mosul, and others—will recognize that, “We should not jeopardize this by allowing extremists to ever run our communities again.” That remains to be seen. There are those who may argue that is not possible. But if that’s the case, then you’re in a really difficult situation.
RA: We’re in a difficult situation, anyway. What advice would you have, in this scenario, where everything you’re saying just strikes me as something that the Palestinian people will hear and reject?
DP: During the first four months of the surge, all the metrics tracking civilian deaths, suicide bombings, our own casualties, were going down. But people came out to Iraq and said, “You’ve got a bit of a PR problem out here.” And I said, “Really? That’s not a PR problem. It’s a results problem. And when the results are demonstrably undeniable, the PR problem is going to go away.”
Now the damage and destruction in Gaza is much greater, frankly. The tunnels have required use of very large munitions that can penetrate the ground to get at them. But you have to start somewhere. My suggestion has been to start in the north and work your way south, creating this series of gated communities. It’s hard, but I believe it is the only solution that achieves the first two objectives of Israel and over time will achieve the third. Because once you have combed every building, room, cellar, and tunnel, you will get the hostages and also provide a better future for the Palestinian people and a possibility of a sustainable situation at the end of all of this loss of life, and bloodshed, and sacrifice.
RA: Let me ask you a military question. When you look at the death toll in Gaza and the growing one in Lebanon, how much of this was avoidable? It’s a fraught question.
DP: A very fraught question. Look, I had people looking over my shoulder and second-guessing me, and I’m reluctant to do that. It’s always about the military imperative and then always trying to minimize civilian casualties, damage, and destruction of infrastructure. But that military imperative can be so significant that you still have to carry out an operation, sometimes knowing that there is going to be loss of innocent civilian life. Without being inside, it’s very hard to judge.
We do know that the damage and destruction is very considerable. We know the magnitude of the loss of civilian life. We know that loss of particularly women and children, who are not likely to have been members of extremist organizations, is considerable.
Because of that loss, there’s a lot of potential recruits for Hamas, too. There’s a great deal of public popular resentment, and that’s going to have to be dealt with over time. And the way to deal with it is show you care about them and that you want to make their lives much better, so much better that they don’t ever want Hamas back in their lives, recalling that it was Hamas that brought this on them.
RA: Behind a lot of this, of course, is Iran. There’s a big debate in D.C. about how to manage Iran’s role in funding groups like Hamas or Hezbollah. There are also calls from some quarters to take this opportunity and attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, especially now that Hezbollah has been degraded. Others say those calls are completely foolhardy because America would get involved and that would just lead to a big regional war. Where do you fall on that debate?
DP: The risk of that would be very considerable. The United States has to be involved because there are certain targets that only we can deal with.
It’s publicly out there [that] in response to the 180 ballistic missiles that Iran shot from their territory to Israel, Israel intends to strike military targets. I think that is appropriate. And I strongly believe that Iran should never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. Our stated policy from Republican or Democratic administrations for decades has been that we will not allow them to do that. And presumably, if they were to enrich weapons-grade [uranium], the level of enrichment that they’re just below, I actually am confident that the United States would ensure that they cannot create a nuclear device.
But at this juncture, given the possibility of further escalation, the right approach is what reportedly has been agreed between President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu. They’ve agreed to a substantial attack against military-related targets to degrade and destroy a lot of the capabilities that Iran has built up that threaten Israel so significantly, as we have seen in the course of the two attacks that they have launched against Israel. I assume that as soon as the U.S.-provided THAAD system is set, they’ll be confident in their ability to defend against whatever it is that Iran might send back their way. Iran is going to have to make a tough decision here because it can keep going.
RA: There’s another strategic element to this. The United States and Israel are trying to isolate Iran in every single way they can. But Iran seems to be winning friends in the Arab world. It seems now that the images of war in Gaza, and now increasingly Lebanon, are bringing these two great rivals, Iran and Saudi, closer together. Is that your read, as well?
DP: I think it’s selective. I think it’s very transactional, frankly. There’s certainly no love lost for Iran in Riyadh or Jeddah. The real issue here was that the Saudis were getting very tired of having Iran-sourced projectiles shot at them by the Houthis from Yemen. It was clear to them that the Sunnis were not going to be able to prevail in the way that Saudis and the Emiratis had hoped in the Yemeni civil war. The Houthis proved to be quite resilient and tough. And they recognized that this is time to put an end to that.
Remember, there was an attack on the Abqaiq oil facility that shut down the production of about 5 percent of the world’s crude oil. And ironically, at that time, we did not respond. It wasn’t until an American was killed in Iraq that we took out Qassem Soleimani. That was unsettling to them.
So you have these transactional issues on which they are willing to negotiate or discuss with Iran. And I think that makes sense. But the overall feeling is still one of an enormous enmity.
There used to be three truths for Central Command when I was the commander. First is be very clear on who your enemies are and who your friends are. And Iran is an enemy. At the end of the day, they have sworn to destroy Israel and the U.S. presence in the Middle East. Number two is recognize that Las Vegas rules do not apply in the Middle East. What happens there doesn’t stay there. It tends to spew violence, extremism, instability, and, on occasion, tsunamis of refugees into neighboring countries and as far as the countries of our European allies. And then the third is we constantly are trying to leave the Middle East to pivot to Asia, which is a terrible term, because it’s very unsettling to your friends and emboldens your enemies. But leaving the Middle East is like Michael Corleone trying to leave the mafia. You just keep getting sucked back in. So recognize that. Have the kind of presence that is necessary. No more than that. But enough to reassure your friends.
RA: If you look back at American policy in the Middle East since 9/11, the reality is that America has lost so much soft power. It has hurt America’s ability to do other things it wants to do around the world; it has diminished its standing at multilateral organizations.
You could argue that Israel now is going through something similar. And I can’t stress this enough. If you set aside the Arab world for a minute, throughout the rest of the world, there is vast disenchantment with how Israel and the United States have responded to Oct. 7. If you were still in the military or in government, what would you advise?
DP: Well, start with where this began, which was the horrific, traumatic day. The most traumatic day for Israel in its history, the worst intelligence failure, the worst military-readiness failure, and the worst political analytical failure in the complete misjudgment of Hamas. And that’s the first of the fronts in which Israel is now engaged. Start by laying out a vision for how you bring that to a decent end, how you achieve your objectives relative to Hamas and getting the hostages back and providing a better future for the Palestinian people, and do it.
If you actually start to resolve Gaza in a favorable way for the people there by getting them out of this humanitarian disaster zone, the cause motivating Hezbollah will just not present. Plus, they’ve sustained enormous damage. Israel has decapitated Hezbollah, taking out some 18 of the top 20 leaders, including the heir apparent to Nasrallah. They’ve decimated the entire leadership structure because the leaders were the ones that had the pagers. And if Israel can continue reducing Hezbollah’s capacity with the airstrikes and ensure that Hezbollah can’t use that territory between the Litani River and the northern border, that would allow the 65,000 Israeli citizens to go home to northern Israel. Then, I think there’s going to be some kind of cease-fire deal that could be acceptable, and even desirable, compared with where Israel and Hezbollah were prior.
Then figure out what to do with Iran. You’re going to have to diminish the Houthis further, and then we can walk our way around the rest of the Gulf. Saudi Arabia is still, I think, eager to join the Abraham Accords, to recognize Israel and to have the kind of exchanges with Israel that the Emiratis and Bahrainis are enjoying. And over time, again, a better future for the Palestinian people—not just in Gaza but also in the West Bank. It’s going to take a long time but every long journey starts with a single step.
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