15 August 2006
Do We Have A Winner?
I'll be interested to see, over the next few weeks, whether the Administration benefits from Israel's failure to destroy Hezbollah. Will people conclude that if the Israelis, with all their experience and advantages, had trouble with Hezbollah, then the Americans can't be blamed too much for having trouble with the insurgents?
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5 comments:
Perhaps I am missing something, but it seems likely to me that Hezbollah has, for all practical purposes, been destroyed.
I don't see how it can any longer operate within Lebanon as it has until now. Hezbollah seems to have two choices: either become Lebanon, making it an answerable entity, or sublimate itself to Lebanon's foreign policy.
This didn't turn out well for Israel, but I think Hezbollah will be far more constrained in the future.
Destroyed seems overly optimistic, but I agree that Hezbollah lost the military fight. Their infrastructure was destroyed and their fighters were killed. I'm sure that they were firing off their rockets as fast as they could to keep the Israelis from bombing them in their bunkers. All that is good.
But Hezbollah as an organization still exists, Iran is still eager to rearm it and use it as a threat against Israel, and Syria is still willing to let Iran send it munitions. Both Iran and Syria got off untouched and Syria got the additional benefit of having the world clearly see the impotence of the Lebanese government. Hezbollah even got the UN to take its claim to the Shebaa Farms seriously, all through use of violence against a member state. Just be surviving, Hezbollah increases its stature with the Arab and European street.
All in all, a tactical win for Israel but a devastating strategic loss.
It seems to me to be too early to decide who was the greater victor.
Since there was no clear winner, it really depends on what happens over the next few years.
O: Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic, but my instinct is that if Israel isn't the clear winner, then it's the loser.
David:
Perhaps I was unclear. The odds that Hezbollah can continue to exist as an unaccountable entity within Lebanon are not very good.
If they are to continue the exterminationist goals, they must become the Lebanese government. Not only does that constrain their behavior, the gaining of true accountability ensures future cross border attacks will be met with maximum ferocity, and no truck for cease fires.
I believe the short term for Hezbollah looks a lot better than even the medium term.
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