Saving Hizbollah?
Much of the rhetoric from here on will have as a central purpose preventing the significant harming of Hizbollah. Another way of saying this is to say that the status quo worked for a lot of people, in the region and beyond
Staying Power Adds To Hezbollah's Appeal. When Hizbollah states that they will win by surviving only, I doubt this. Something about physics, mortality, and this material world we live in. Having fierce war spirit is fine
Hezbollah says hi-tech tanks and jets are no match for its fighting spirit - World - Times Online, but they should not doubt that Israel has that as well. Hizbollah can take massively disproportionate casualties, destruction of surrounding infrastructure - homes and towns, but they have to do more than survive merely. Israel has made its mind up that Hizbollah can not be allowed to remain intact
Israel Vows to Press Ahead With Offensive - New York Times especially as current perception favors them
The Globe and Mail: Farewell to arms for Hezbollah is unlikely, experts say. The question is: At what cost
Hezbollah Fires Over 200 Rockets Into Israel - New York Times? For months there has been low level but continuous and deadly cross border attacks from both sides. Hamas kidnaps an Israeli soldier killing three others during a campaign of rocket attacks. Israel bombs and moves tanks into Gaza. Hizbollah kidnaps two Israeli soldiers, killing several others, apparently just to fork the Israeli effort, open a second front and show solidarity with Hamas. Why is this happening now? When Ariel Sharon had his stroke momentum on his grand vision stalled. The Gaza and West Bank territory trades begin to look like less like an acceptable deal for both sides. Isolated non contiguous enclaves and lack of free air and sea port facilities do not equal a genuine state. The Palestinian authority is constrained by its commitment to the official peace process. In this vacuum are bids for regional preeminence. Hizbollah strives for the public opinion in Lebanon and the arab world, but this occurs against the growing uniformity in Israeli opinion
How ceasefire hopes foundered on rock of Israeli public opinion - World - Times Online. , and in U S opinion in favor of Israel
Summary of Findings: Americans' Support for Israel Unchanged by Recent Hostilities. For all it is unclear whether this new rigidity is a short term or long term phenomenon and what things affect this. For Hizbollah there is gain in standing up to the Israelis
Israeli strikes may boost Hizbullah base | csmonitor.com, but they gain little from standing through repeated rounds and stand to lose greatly the longer the war continues. Someone needs to around at the end to take advantage of it. Lebanese opinion may turn against Hizbollah, if after all this there is little to show for it. Let's say that Hamas and Hizbollah's actions speak for themselves - they believe that the Israelis retreat under pressure. Let's also keep skeptical about whether they really do believe that, despite what they say, despite that this is what others are eager to attribute to them, and recognize that this is merely a variant of "the only thing an arab respects is force" argument
Can force fell Hizbullah? | csmonitor.com. This a cultural and racial prejudice. A hatred not a human insight. [this was conjecture when I wrote it, but I have seen Israeli's interviewed on TV in the last few days state this with considerable conviction.] Not-with-standing this there is room here for a skillful statesman to maneuver, because Hamas and Hizbollah cannot destroy Israel only harass it. There is a gap between their rhetoric and abilities. Trying to follow the myriad reasons Hizbollah's sponsors Syria and Iran
Iran helped cultivate Mideast crisis, US says - The Boston Globe may or may not have encouraged this war
Hezbollah - Lebanon - Israel - Middle East - New York Times is too much inside baseball even for me (see especially the graphic the NYT includes with this article). For instance Syria may have egged Hizbollah on just so they could say to Israel, Europe and the U S - 'See, you needed us in Lebanon after all. In Iran's case the more straight forward need for misdirection, drawing the international communities attention away from them, taking our eyes off the ball (bomb) while they work out the kinks in their nuclear program. Israel seems to have been looking for a reason to have this war
Israel's goals in the present conflict | csmonitor.com. It can be seen they had this operation planned for a year or more
Israel set war plan more than a year ago / Strategy was put in motion as Hezbollah began gaining military strength in Lebanon (via
War and Piece "Matthew Kalman: ". Now that the plan has moved from theory to practice is this fight helping Israel? Probably not; the best outcome after three weeks of war is to put things back in the boxes they came out of
Britain fears assault on Hezbollah will backfire - World - Times Online. Stop the rockets and remind the world that Hizbollah can start wars, but can't finish them. Israel needs to reflect on the fact that push-back from Palestinians and allied groups does not occur in a vacuum - the constant desire of the Israeli government to belittle the PA and its leadership to physically demonstrate again and again the PA is Israel's creature is what empowered Hamas and brought them into the government. As well the practice of keeping Gaza and the West bank in virtual lock-down. Keeping them safely in line, but allowing no outlet or recourse for growing discontent. Israel could not act on or deal with Palestine resentment because down that path lay acknowledgment of legitimate reasons for it. In fundamental ways Israel did not accept the existence of a Palestinian state any more that the Arab world accepts Israel. Israel's main line of argument is that sooner or later this was a necessary war. A nation, Palestine, Lebanon, or Iraq, certainly no democratic nation can endure with armed militias within its polity
NPR : Analyst: Hezbollah Must be Disarmed (although I know of people who read the 2nd amendment just that way). The conduct of the conflict has opened Israel up to criticism. It was conceived as an air war. The entire concept of of a campaign of surgical strikes, of degrading the material military capability of the militias only is a misreading of the nature of air power. Air power is a weapon of terror. It always has been. It always will be. Tactical use will be ancillary to broader campaigns. It is imprecise even with precision, ignorant of guilt or innocence, it is prejudicial, it is indeterminate. It is a punishment of peoples from a distance. That is its reason for being, its virtue, its ideal. That is why militaries love air power. When something bad happens; even if you spin and the "leaks" coming out of the Israeli investigation of the Qana incident smell of spin
The Qana Conspiracy Theory - World Opinion Roundup -- even if you obscure the circumstances of an occurrence or claim it is managed event. You are either saying the enemy deliberately murdered their own people. Or that these people were not killed by the bombs you are dropping, but somehow in some other way. The entire burden of proof is on you making such claim, either prove it, or live with the facts as they are. Trying to gain in public relations in a situation like Qana is a fools errand, because even if you succeed, tomorrow another plane will drop another bomb, and you may be right back where you started. War is not (a NYT reporter quoted this phrase and came close to comprehending) a "clash of ignorant armies across the darkling plain"
A New Enemy Gains on the U.S - New York Times. Not now, not then, not in the last 20,000 years, it will never be. Our current military and our notions of warfare are an aberration existing in a bubble scarcely over a generation old. Primarily war is the rape and murder of the weak and unarmed by the strong and armed. Nations and tribes make war against each others people. This is what war is, what it will always be. It is not glorious, it does not build character, it does not focus grandly the national resolve, it does not clarify, it does not simplify. A question at this point is what is the U S lookout. Is this war helping the United States. There has been some commentary that what we are seeing here is the unintended consequence of democracy promotion in the region. An election will not always bring the wisest leaders forward, but I believe that often and regularly held elections will
Don't Blame Democracy Promotion. There are also some questions on whether our program is sincere or whether it is "Democracy promotion as a mere technique of political engineering" [Eberhard Kienle off the dust jacket of Democratization and development : new political strategies for the Middle East edited by Dietrich Jung. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York, N.Y. : Palgrave Macmillan ; [Copenhagen] : Danish Institute for International Studies, 2006.]. There are those who say there is deliberate rhetoric conflating the interests and activities of the regions groups not aligned with U S interests, to try to make this conflict answer for nearly seven years of misguided policy
Bush Ties Battle With Hezbollah to War on Terror - New York Times. The whole enterprise of the war suffers from the problems of militarism. The myth of effectiveness, the conception of the course of war as the path of direct and effective action. Added to this is the myth of the Israeli omnipotence and invincibility in operation and intelligence; however attractive such a image is, it becomes dangerous and problematic to put it to test
Israel Is Powerful, Yes. But Not So Invincible. - New York . Even if it proves victorious it is returned to the realm of the real. Having produced a lot of documentation, that, high tech network-aware warfare, and overwhelming preponderance of means will always prevail. Particularly the new generation of high precision air to ground weapons and remote surveillance systems favored by western nations. It must be noted that this is a thesis yet to be proven
Reuters AlertNet - ANALYSIS-"Air power" assumptions shot down over Lebanon. A nod to part of what David Frum said on last fridays Diane Rehm show Diane Rehm Show for Friday July 28, 2006. Neither Hizbollah or Hamas have accepted the existence of the Jewish state and therefore the way forward - the two state solution. On their way to becoming the popular front in their localities both took on certain governmental roles and activities, but there was no concurrent move to true governing responsibilities and state integration - in Lebanon or Palestine. The PLO or at least the PA has tried and failed at both, becoming merely a corrupt gangster-like regime neither leading nor serving its people. Further I would argue that the very basis of the Islamic militias mode of struggle their way of war. The militaristic ethos they champion. Tribal, dehumanizing, denying of innocence, in-distinguishing of noncombatants (all the things they claim Israel is guilty of) forms a powerful force that works to preclude them from ever making the transition to legitimate peaceful government. In Hizbollahs case it must be recognized [whether or not they see this themselves] that is not their purpose. Their paid purpose is to be the tool of Syria and Iran. Their own destiny marginalized and left to chance.
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