Restoring calm across the Israel-Lebanon border requires the international community to accept something about which it has long been in denial: Iran is fighting a cold war with the West. Hezbollah-Israel fighting is merely proxy warfare.

That fighting has dramatically ramped up over the last two weeks. Israel spent 12 months responding in a tit-for-tat fashion to 8000 Hezbollah rockets – hitting a rocket launcher here, a weapons store there. But over the past two weeks, Israel has successfully targeted Hezbollah’s entire leadership structure, as well as many of the tens of thousands of heavy payload missiles hidden in specially built spare rooms and basements in houses and apartments across Lebanon.