This Isn’t Good
For all intents and purposes, Charles Krauthammer thinks Israel has lost against Hezbollah. I rather hope he's wrong.
America's green light for Israel to defend itself is seen as a favor to Israel. But that is a tendentious, misleadingly partial analysis. The green light — indeed, the encouragement — is also an act of clear self-interest. America wants, America needs, a decisive Hezbollah defeat.
Unlike many of the other terrorist groups in the Middle East, Hezbollah is a serious enemy of the United States. In 1983 it massacred 241 American servicemen. Except for al-Qaeda, it has killed more Americans than any other terror organization.
More important, it is today the leading edge of an aggressive, nuclear-hungry Iran. Hezbollah is a wholly owned Iranian subsidiary. Its mission is to extend the Islamic Revolution's influence into Lebanon and Palestine, destabilize any Arab-Israeli peace, and advance an Islamist Shiite ascendancy, led and controlled by Iran, throughout the Levant.
America finds itself at war with radical Islam, a two-churched monster: Sunni al-Qaeda is now being challenged by Shiite Iran for primacy in its epic confrontation with the infidel West. With al-Qaeda in decline, Iran is on the march. It is intervening through proxies throughout the Arab world — Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army in Iraq — to subvert modernizing, Western-oriented Arab governments and bring these territories under Iranian hegemony. Its nuclear ambitions would secure these advances and give it an overwhelming preponderance of power over the Arabs and an absolute deterrent against serious counteractions by the United States, Israel or any other rival.
The moderate pro-Western Arabs understand this very clearly. Which is why Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan immediately came out against Hezbollah and privately urged the United States to let Israel take down that organization. They know that Hezbollah is fighting Iran's proxy war not only against Israel but also against them and, more generally, against the United States and the West.
Hence Israel's rare opportunity to demonstrate what it can do for its great American patron. The defeat of Hezbollah would be a huge loss for Iran, both psychologically and strategically. Iran would lose its foothold in Lebanon. It would lose its major means to destabilize and inject itself into the heart of the Middle East. It would be shown to have vastly overreached in trying to establish itself as the regional superpower.
The United States has gone far out on a limb to allow Israel to win and for all this to happen. It has counted on Israel's ability to do the job. It has been disappointed. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has provided unsteady and uncertain leadership. Foolishly relying on air power alone, he denied his generals the ground offensive they wanted, only to reverse himself later. He has allowed his war cabinet meetings to become fully public through the kind of leaks no serious wartime leadership would ever countenance. Divisive cabinet debates are broadcast to the world, as was Olmert's own complaint that "I'm tired. I didn't sleep at all last night" (Haaretz, July 28). Hardly the stuff to instill Churchillian confidence.
I think there is still more to this than Krauthammer distills it down to. Michael Totten, no fan of the Israeli effort, did see some signs of hope. I don't think it's a good idea to write this all off yet.
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A Blog For All — Friday, 4 August , 2006 @ 12:11 pm
By farfrom6t746where, Thursday, 3 August , 2006 @ 11:07 pm
The article quote says: “America wants, America needs, a decisive Hezbollah defeat.”
In the interview with Olmert at
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2296832,00.html
Olmert indicates that the goals of the Israel invasion are to re-estabilsh deterrence and set conditions for which an international force can enter lebanon in order to fulfill unresolution and disarm hezbullah and return control of the entire country to the Lebanese government. The purpose is not to prevent missile attacks or destroy hezbullah.
The article quoted says: “Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has provided unsteady and uncertain leadership. Foolishly relying on air power alone, he denied his generals the ground offensive they wanted, only to reverse himself later.”
The ground offensive got off to a “slow” start because the IDF Generals wisely took time to learn about the weapons and tactics of hezbullah and to see how well Israeli weapons and tactics held up before comitting a large force.
The lessons learned were used in training for additional troops called up. In this light, it is amazing how quickly the IDF got involved, assessed what to do, and then committed a large force.
The following quote is from: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525793842&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
“One of the first results of the IDF’s experiences facing Hizbullah antitank missiles has been the quick adaptation of new training for reserve units that have just been called up. In addition to weapons and first aid refresher lessons, the men mobilized this week have all received special training on detecting and avoiding the missiles.”
By crosspatch, Friday, 4 August , 2006 @ 12:42 am
What I will do when all is said and done is to look at how things are situated on the ground. If there is actually a strong force put in as a buffer that is not afraid to shoot at Hezbollah, then Hezbollah has lost. If Israel is forced to hold the ground then I don’t know. Hezbollah surviving isn’t so important in the long term. What will be most important is that Israel kicked the heck out of Hezbollah without Syria getting involved, without Iran getting involved, without any great material rally (other than words) from other Arab countries.
No matter what happens, Hezbollah has had some of the lead knocked out of their pencil and if later this year push comes to shove with Iran, any Iranian threats to use Hezbollah as a proxy force to use against Israel will have lost a lot of credibility. If nothing else, this has weakened Iran. It would be the loss of a rook on their chess board. Israel, on the other hand, has experianced no great loss out of this. Everyone realizes that Israel could have used much more force than they have to date.
By phil, Friday, 4 August , 2006 @ 2:07 pm
To think that Hezbollah could be winning is bizarre - as this would mean Isreal was pushed back into their own territory. Has hezbollah inflicted damage and fear - yes of course. Have they lost - no.
This one will be like a prize boxing fight - Israel will win points - but hez won a few by standing up to Israel. In the PR camp, not sure. Both sides have taken big hits.
I think this is like every other conflict in the Middle East, all sides get a bit bloodied up - and the PR machines run overtime and the rest of the world waits for the next flare up. Like a mini-series…
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