My comments last night on BBC-World. Here’s a summary of what I said:

My sense is that neither Israel or Iran want an all-out war, and the US certainly doesn’t want to get involved as it would have to if Israel was attacked in a major way. Iran’s missile attack on Israel was likely understood by Iran to be more for show than for impact. So the likelihood is that Israel will retaliate in a way that does not provoke worse responses in the future. (Unless Netanyahu wants the conflict to continue in order to embarrass Biden and enhance the chances of Trump winning the November election). But the likelihood is that in a few days this will be over.

Netanyahu’s mission was to degrade the military capacity of Hezbollah, and they have largely achieved that, though this is a short term victory. As with the huge assault on Hamas that has killed tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians, it will neutralize the military capacity of Hezbollah and Hamas for many months. But in both cases the animosity it has created will likely strengthen both movements in the future. This has been the pattern in the past when Netanyahu tried to destroy Hamas by killing its founding leader, Sheikh Yassin and the predecessor to Nasrullah as the leader of Hezbollah. Both movements roared back stronger than before. 

So although these attacks buy Netanyahu some relief for a few months — perhaps enough time to get him re-elected– they are not a long-term solution. Far from it.