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September 7, 2006
The Summer War
[Ed Note: Shoshana Bryen, JINSA's Director of Special Projects, assesses
medium-to-long-term "winners and losers" of the Hizballah-Israel war,
concerned that punditry has been too quick to pronounce Hizballah and
Iran the winners. " There is no reason for friends of Israel and the
West to make the case for their own failure while the outcome is still
in play. The opposite - announcing the a priori failure of pro-Western,
pro-Lebanese diplomacy sets the conditions that make that failure a more
likely possibility."]
It was immediately, and remains generally, fashionable to say that
Israel achieved at best an indecisive standoff with Hizballah in the
Lebanon war. Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and
International Studies was more negative. "At most, if you take the most
dramatic claim (of Israeli success), they probably got about 15 percent
of Hizballah strength, and that includes wounded as well as killed in
the forward area, which is not a decisive type of battle. If anything,
you now have very large numbers of very experienced combat people who
have spent more than six weeks in active engagement with the (the IDF)
and have, if not won, learned enough so they will be a far more serious
problem in the future."
That might be true if the Summer War was the whole war. Hizballah's
stand against the IDF and ability to fire missiles into Israel, Israel's
failure to neutralize short-range missiles or retrieve its soldiers, and
the almost immediate international backtracking on the terms of UN
Resolution 1701, would be all there was. Hizballah, then would have
"won" and Israel "lost."
But the Summer War was, in fact, a battle in the larger war against
terrorists and the states that harbor and/or support them. There was no
possibility of a final military victory in August; long-term success or
failure in the in the process remains at issue.
Hizballah is an arm of Iran via the Syrian pipeline, running a
state-within-a-state in Lebanon from among a
generally-but-not-totally-supportive Lebanese civilian population that
receives little help from the Beirut government. Israel is an integral
part of the economic, political and social fabric of the West,
threatened at several levels by violent Islamic radicalism and
nationalist irredentism orchestrated and funded by Iran.
Iran not only bankrolled Hizballah's social service network in Lebanon,
but paid for digging and hardening the bunker system; the electronic
warfare systems; long- and medium-range rockets as well as thousands of
Katyushas; Russian Kornet anti-tank missiles; Chinese C-802 anti-ship
missiles; high-powered sniper rifles; British night-vision goggles and a
lot more. They paid the freight for shipping from Iran to and through
Syria. They paid for the training and upkeep of hundreds to thousands of
Hizballah terrorists and paid to keep hundreds of their own Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corps in Lebanon.
Whatever isn't gone has been exposed, degrading its value to its patron.
The Iranian arsenal wasn't there for Hizballah to play with. It was
there to ensure that Israel had to watch its back in case it had
intentions of attacking Iran. Israel now knows the extent of Hizballah's
capabilities and has degraded them - long-range rockets are unlikely to
reappear. Israel knows Hizballah's tactics and how better to counter
them - the Northern Command can make adjustments and improvements.
Israel knows what can happen to northern Israel, how the Israeli public
responds to large-scale rocket attacks and can improve the Homefront
Command. Israel knows not only what Hizballah can hit but, maybe more
important, what the Israeli public will tolerate. The threat is deeply
discounted and it isn't an accident that immediately after the arsenal
was exposed, Israel named a key general to be "in charge of Iran."
From the "knowledge is power" perspective vis a vis Lebanon, it is
better to be Israel than Iran.
Reconsider Cordesman's assertion that Hizballah's eight-week experience
with the IDF will make it a more formidable foe in the Lebanese theater.
Two problems quickly emerge:
a) Israel also "spent more than six week in active engagement." The
IDF, as a modern fighting force in a democratic country, is much more
likely than Hizballah to learn lessons and implement useful changes,
plus rectify shortcomings in the supply chain. The IDF has already
planned extensive changes in military intelligence.
b) Without major new infusions of equipment, tactics and training
(unlikely in the near or even medium term) Hizballah would be unable to
spring surprise capabilities on Israel, but the reverse is not true.
On the assumption that Hizballah will be resupplied despite the UN or
because of the UN, from the planning and operational perspective, it is
now better to be Israel than Hizballah.
And from the "who worries about what you worry about" perspective, it is
better to be Israel than either Hizballah or Iran.
The United States is threatened by the same confluence of forces and so
are Europe, Russia and China. Many in the last three would be loathe to
admit that a) they stand on the same side of the divide as Israel and
the U.S., and b) their pro-Iranian/pro-Palestinian/pro-Hizballah
policies buy them no pass from those who would restore the Caliphate, or
even those with less lofty but still dangerous ambitions, including
Uighurs, Chechens and disaffected third-generation-Algerian Frenchmen.
But there they stand.
And they (and we) have allies - states that believe in the primacy of
Sunni/Arab Islam in the region. Egypt and Saudi Arabia, along with
Jordan, Bahrain and other small countries fear the Shi'ite arc of which
Sunni-majority-populated but Alawite-minority-ruled Syria is an adjunct
member. Luring Syria away from Shi'ite/Persian Iran and back to its
natural home with the Arabs should be one of the Arab world's priorities.
The August War may have produced a shifting of strategic tectonic
plates, not necessarily at the surface, but somewhere underneath,
gathering force until the anti-Iranian tsunami becomes visible - unless,
of course, this loosely constructed group with
something-but-not-everything-in-common loses its nerve. In that case,
Israel may find its defensive options limited.
Much has been made of the "missing mandate" in UN Security Council
Resolution 1701 - UN troops will not engage Hizballah to disarm it, and
Kofi Annan appears ready to agree that the force will not be placed
along the Syrian/Lebanese border, not to mention that Annan appears to
accept Syria's "word" that it will police its own border. This certainly
does not bode well for the good guys, but it does provide an opening for
Arab diplomacy to convince Syria that it's long-term interests are with
the Arab, not the Persian, world. Which should be preceded by American
diplomacy to convince the Saudis, the Egyptians, et al., that such
forward regional diplomacy is in their long-term interest as well.
If Arab diplomacy succeeds, it would be better to be Israel than Iran.
Even if it fails or never gets off the ground, Israel is no worse off.
Some of the delay in deploying European forces is rumored to be the
unwillingness of French and other military commanders to undertake an
unclear military mission and one without clear rules of engagement -
hence French engineers, not combat forces, being first on the ground.
They are finally beginning to arrive in Lebanon in some number. It
should be remembered here that European peacekeepers failed to prevent
massacres in Bosnia in the not-too-distant past, and Blue Helmets have
been accused of a range of crimes including rape and extortion in
Africa. It is unlikely that they would commit troops to so public a
mission in order to watch them fail.
Italy's Foreign Minister said last week that "the world will not
tolerate" Syria rearming Hizballah. Germany will provide warships backed
by surveillance aircraft to prevent weapons being smuggled to Hizballah
guerrillas. The German Defense Minister said, "German soldiers have to
be prepared against the will of ships' captains to board ships suspected
of smuggling weapons." Russia and China are unlikely to directly cross
lines manned by German sailors to supply Hizballah by sea, and their
shipments to Syria can be monitored. Turkey has been grounding or
sending back Iranian planes suspected of carrying weapons for Hizballah.
If we take the Europeans at their word and they succeed, it will be
better to be Israel than Hizballah. If we take them at their word and
Israel finds an unacceptable threat looming again, Israel's options will
be constrained by the presence of so many Europeans in so small a
theater. The situation can conceivably push Israel to address the threat
by attacking Syria or even Iran. In which case, it would probably be
better to be Israel than Syria or Iran.
Yes, everything can go horribly wrong. The Arabs may revert to form, the
Europeans may revert to form, the U.S. may fail in its diplomatic
efforts, and Iran and Syria may play us all for fools - could all well
happen. But there is no reason for friends of Israel and the West to
make the case for their own failure while the outcome is still in play.
The opposite - announcing the a priori failure of pro-Western,
pro-Lebanese diplomacy sets the conditions that make that failure a more
likely possibility.
Israel, the Europeans, the U.S., the Arab states, the Turks, and Lebanon
- more talked about than talked with - have every reason to want the
political-military processes in which they are engaged to succeed. Even
the Chinese and the Russians standing on the sideline cannot want Iran
ascendant; if they are unwilling to take on Iran's nuclear capabilities
in concert with us, they may at least be willing to do this.
In which case, it is better to be all of us than them.
To view this JINSA Viewpoint online click on the link below.
http://www.jinsa.org/articles/view.html?documentid=3529
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