Ret. US colonel on what could happen next between Israel and Hezbollah

Tonight, the Pentagon is ordering two American carrier strike groups to remain in the region after a major flare up of strikes between Israel and Hezbollah. Here to help me break it all down is retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton. So let's start with this order for the Pentagon to have these carrier strike groups remain in place. What is the significance of this? It's huge, actually, Paula, because when you look at this part of the Middle East and you see Israel here in Lebanon, here the eastern Mediterranean is a perfect jumping off point for the US to exercise some degree of influence. But more importantly, it also, these carrier strike groups also allow the US to collect intelligence in this area. They can provide tactical intelligence to the Israelis so that the Israelis better defend themselves through the Iron Dome system and other systems that they have to protect themselves from a missile attack or any other kind of rocket attack. Now, we saw attacks coming from both Israel and Hezbollah. Talk about the significance about this exchange. So when you have this is very interesting because you had Israel, of course, doing preemptive actions in Lebanon. So they would be attacking areas in the south right along here. This is where Hezbollah is concentrated. So what the Israelis did was they made a preemptive strike against all of these areas. They employed over 100 aircraft, and these aircraft would go in and attack these areas. One of the types of aircraft that they used was this F-35. They used this along with several other aircraft, including F-16s, aerial refueling, to actually conduct operations in this area. Now, what was important here was they struck these areas first. But what Hezbollah was doing once the Israelis attacked Hezbollah, attacked targets or tried to attack targets in Israel. Now, they weren't able to actually strike many of the targets in Israel. And what they were able to do with the Israelis were able to do was they were able to intercept almost all of the missiles that were coming in that were going to strike certain military targets or certain civilian areas. And that was a key element in what what the Israelis were able to do in this particular case. Another key question here. What is the possibility of a possible response from Iran? Well, that is something that is actually quite possible because, Hezbollah, this is Lebanon right here, is of course, concentrated right here, but they are a proxy for Iran. Iran has this vast land area right here. But we'll remember back in April, they used over 300 missiles and rockets and drones to attack Israel, basically about a thousand miles from the Iranian border to Israel. And they were able to do this. But all of this was intercepted through the Iron Dome system that the Israelis had. And the Iron Dome system is designed to detect incoming, missiles, rockets, drones and really find out where they are. They kind of have algorithms that predict exactly where these rockets might strike. they assess whether or not that's going to happen. And when they intercept this using the Tamir missile, for example, they will hit the missile, right where, at this point, but they won't hit it directly. What they'll do is dismissal will blow up in the proximity of the incoming projectile, and it will actually take things out. So when the Iranians, did this, this strike back in April, they loved a lot of stuff in Israel. but because of the Iron Dome and U.S. intelligence and radar activity, and allied activity, they were able to keep all of these, the Iranian, efforts, really? They held them at bay and made the Iranian strike ineffective at that point. What are you watching for over the next 48 hours? So over the next 48 hours, one of the key things to look for is what happens next with Hezbollah. They're going to be operating still in this area. Are they going to use some of the missiles that they have in the in the northern area of, of Lebanon, right in this area right here? this area is an area where they store some of their intermediate range missiles. they could launch some of those just from a tactical military perspective. but the other thing is what is happening in the peace talks which are happening here in Cairo, are they going to the ones that are affecting these, the peace talks affecting Gaza? Are they going to have any impact on what, Hezbollah does, but broadening this out to the region? what is Iran going to do if Hezbollah is satisfied? Iran might be satisfied, at least in the short term. And if the peace talks, actually bear fruit, Iran might hold their fire for a while and might not be acting in an offensive fashion. but that remains to be seen whether or not they actually do that.