Hizbullah's Victory
By Rahul MahajanHassan Nasrallah has emerged as the greatest Arab hero since Nasser; sales of Nasrallah posters in Palestine have eclipsed traditional favorites like Che, Fidel, Yasser Arafat, and Jesus. In Lebanon, the government is attempting to reassert its authority, but it now confronts a general situation of dual power and dual legitimacy. The government holds some legitimacy because it was elected (although Lebanese elections are not quite democratic; through the sectarian power-sharing accord, they give each Christian effectively one and a half times the vote of each Muslim – and the Shi’a, the largest group now, are not allowed to hold either of the important executive positions, President or Prime Minister); on the other hand, the government cannot defend the country’s borders and didn’t even try during this war. Hizbullah’s claim to be the defenders of Lebanon is now vindicated; this is the basis of the opinion poll showing 87% of Lebanese support Hizbullah now.
On the flip side, Israel is a loser in many ways. The Olmert-Peretz government has shown its inhumanity and its incompetence as stunningly as the Bush administration in Iraq; unlike the Bush administration, it is much more likely to collapse, necessitating a political realignment.
Once again, the extreme dependence of Israel on the United States in order to play its role as a regional hegemon has been highlighted. Israel can defend itself if threatened; its hundreds of nuclear missiles, if nothing else, assure that. But it cannot go committing aggression against other countries without heavy U.S. support. First, it doesn’t have a large enough population to occupy any sizeable amount of land in a sovereign nation with a hostile population. Second, in a modern war like the one against Lebanon, with the kind of rules of engagement that modern idea of legitimacy require, Israel cannot fight for more than a few weeks without getting massive resupplies of precision munitions from the United States. Israel seems to want to be the Prussia of the Middle East, but Prussia manufactured its own arms. This is in addition, of course, to the good offices of the United States in running diplomatic interference, making sure Russia doesn’t cut off oil supplies to Israel, etc.
Perhaps most important, the mystique of Israeli supremacy has been shattered. This has potentially profound repercussions from Palestine to Washington. Indeed, numerous hawks, including some neoconservatives have written hectoring op-eds telling the Israelis that their importance to the United States is predicated on the idea that they are a military asset, and that they might just be tossed aside if they fail to deliver. The threats are ridiculously overblown, of course; it’s hard to imagine what could prompt Congress to cut off military aid to Israel. Still, they indicate the potentiality of a new mood in Washington.
http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/3958/1/205/
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