Ellington

Here's more food for discussion on Lebanon, from Michael Young at Reason mag, who is also the opinion editor of the Daily Star newspaper in Lebanon:

With the war in Lebanon one month old this week, the jury is still out on whether the Bush administration can call the Israeli military campaign it is actively supporting a success or failure. The country will not return to the status quo ante which existed before July 12, when Hezbollah abducted two Israeli soldiers and killed three others in Israeli territory, and that's a good thing; but U.S. management of the diplomatic initiative since then has been halting, raising doubts again about whether the administration is better at launching bold initiatives than successfully seeing them through.

The thing is, the Israeli plan has to date failed to achieve much on the ground. Hezbollah continues to fire rockets into Israel, retains control over much of south Lebanon, and has leveraged this to claim it is defeating Israel. Nor are there signs the Israelis quite know what they want to do next, with the government of Ehud Olmert saying it might make a grand thrust into Lebanon, pushing Hezbollah to the Litani River, but also worried this might provoke casualties and drag Israel back into a quagmire. On Wednesday the long-awaited Israeli invasion seemed to have started; on Thursday, however, Olmert said he would allow more time for diplomacy. Some Israelis are criticizing the initial over-reliance on air power, while others say the government was never offered an operational plan by the military.

This is not good news for the Bush administration. If the gist of the American plan was to subcontract Hezbollah's military elimination to Israel (and is the flip side of this a future American attack against Iran?), the U.S. is now dependant on Israeli dynamics over which it has limited control. Indeed, as the Israeli planning stumbled forward, so too did American diplomacy. Earlier this week the administration and France agreed a draft U.N. resolution that would begin the process of resolving the crisis. Since then, the two sides have differed over a Lebanese desire to amend the proposal, and they are currently trying to reconcile their views. Whatever the merits or demerits of Lebanon's position, it was the Lebanese, not Rice, who appeared to be better playing the negotiation process.

The outcome of the Lebanon war remains very uncertain. The likelihood is that things will escalate much further before getting any better. Israel needs to prove to the U.S. that it can be militarily effective, while no one--not the international community, not the Arab states, not most non-Shiite Lebanese, and not the Siniora government--can afford to let Hezbollah, and the party's Svengali, Iran, emerge from the free-for-all in a better position. But in all this confusion it would be reassuring to know the Bush administration has a better grasp of the endgame. In fact exactly the opposite looks to be true.

Be sure to read the entire piece (Ironghost).

Previous Comments

ID

88741

Comment

I read this yesterday. Nothing new we didn't cover in the other thread. Israel is in a tough strategic and tactical position. Hezbollah prepared this battlefield and has the advantage. If Israel goes for a cease fire now, Hez will be even more of a threat in the future. If Israel defends itself and attacks Hez., it will bring down world opinion on it because Hez has made heavy use of human shields and there is no way Israel can fight Hez without civilians being killed. These are people that build schools over ammo depots and bunkers. I don't think Bush was subcontracting this out and to some degree is at Israels mercy here. Israel has a very angry population and I doubt they will go for a cease fire. I would not say Condi is clueless, its just that Iran and Hezbollah are intent on waging war against Israel and Israel has to fight back and won't look good regardless of how it does it. I don't see much of what Condi can do.

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-08-10T23:44:02-06:00

ID

88742

Comment

Kingfish writes: Hezbollah prepared this battlefield and has the advantage. If Israel goes for a cease fire now, Hez will be even more of a threat in the future. Depends on whether Israel can negotiate a deal with teeth. Israel can't agree to an unconditional cease fire under any circumstances--that would be a simple retreat, and would do Hezbollah all kinds of favors--but put 15,000 U.N. troops and a guarantee from the Lebanese government to crack down on Hezbollah, and it could be a classic good cop/bad cop scenario where Hezbollah bows down to the local authorities so as not to get done in by Israel. It seems to me that an obvious condition of the cease fire should be the return of the Israeli troops, and I hope that the fact that this is not on the table reminds any powers involved of how nasty Hezbollah is, and how badly it needs to be shut down. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-08-11T00:57:23-06:00