The Thirty Three Day War

[bemildred]

From Mania to Depression

By URI AVNERY

Tel Aviv.

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THE RESULTS of the war are obvious:

* The prisoners, who served as casus belli (or pretext) for the war, have not been released. They will come back only as a result of an exchange of prisoners, exactly as Hassan Nasrallah proposed before the war.

* Hizbullah has remained as it was. It has not been destroyed, nor disarmed, nor even removed from where it was. Its fighters have proved themselves in battle and have even garnered compliments from Israeli soldiers. Its command and communication stucture has continued to function to the end. Its TV station is still broadcasting.

* Hassan Nasrallah is alive and kicking. Persistent attempts to kill him failed. His prestige is sky-high. Everywhere in the Arab world, from Morocco to Iraq, songs are being composed in his honor and his picture adorns the walls.

* The Lebanese army will be deployed along the border, side by side with a large international force. That is the only material change that has been achieved.

This will not replace Hizbullah. Hizbullah will remain in the area, in every village and town. The Israeli army has not succeeded in removing it from one single village. That was simply impossible without permanently removing the population to which it belongs.

The Lebanese army and the international force cannot and will not confront Hizbullah. Their very presence there depends on Hizbullah's consent. In practice, a kind of co-existence of the three forces will come into being, each one knowing that it has to come to terms with the other two.

Perhaps the international force will be able to prevent incursions by Hizbullah, such as the one that preceded this war. But it will also have to prevent Israeli actions, such as the reconnaissance flights of our Air Force over Lebanon. That's why the Israeli army objected, at the beginning, so strenuously to the introduction of this force.

CounterPunch

[Warren Stupidity]

1. As noted elsewhere on DU

* the green zone of Baghdad is now looking very vulnerable.

[azurnoir]

2. The results of this

"war" were obvious from the beginning, which was why I opposed Israels actions. How has Israel been helped by this, it has not unless it has learned that maybe more talk, less reaction could be a wiser course.

[bemildred]

3. Three comments:

1.) The war was a stupid idea to start with, there was no reasonable expectation of success in any of the ways that "success" was defined before the war began. The best one could have hoped for was to - at great expense - inflict some serious damage on Hizbullah.

2.) Even within those limitations, it was done badly, planned badly, orchestrated badly, fought badly.

3.) It would be the height of folly to think that another round would come off better, any time soon, without serious self-criticism and reform.

[eridani]

4. One good thing, anyway

When the IDF realized that the only option for victory was genocide, they backed off.

[pelsar]

5. it will start again...

at this point, Hizballa is back, they're now rearming, this time alongside the lebanese soldiers. The UN contingent seems to be minimal and Hizballas aim and reason to be is still intack: destroy israel.

if they go back to their usual antics with roadside bombs, the sniping and missles every so often, there will be another round. Since israel is already at the intl border, the"kidnapped palestenain that hizbala wants was actually a terrorist from the PLO that snuck in to israel and killed israelis before being captured (hardly a "kidnapped lebanese), there isnt much to 'negotiate" with Hizballa, which isnt their end game anyway.

like iran, the long term goal is:
take over lebanon, parts if not the whole as they were doing, and turn it into a smaller version of iran
remove israel

and they're pretty clear about it, so the war will start up again sooner or later.

[Stockholm]

6. As an op-ed in FT today states

snip

The key issue now is Hizbollah, which is positioning itself on three levels: first, it is signalling Shia solidarity with Iran. Second, it is appealing to Lebanese nationalism by presenting itself as a pivotal element in Lebanese domestic politics. Third, it is fomenting Arab militancy against Israel and the US. Hizbollah triggered the conflict with Israel as an internationalist movement eager to relieve pressure on Hamas. But Mr Nasrallah’s recent “victory speech” portrayed the organisation as the champion of Lebanese interests and nationalism. Hizbollah will not be disarmed or marginalised; the only way to deal with it is to push for a new Lebanese polity in which it plays a central role, as a Lebanese party.

If the west wishes to counter the synergy between Arab nationalism, Sunni militancy and the Shia crescent, which will link battlefields from Afghanistan to Lebanon, it must draw Islamist movements such as Hamas and Hizbollah further into the mainstream. This means encouraging a proper settlement in Lebanon involving all Lebanese actors without interference from Syria or Iran; supporting democratisation of Syria and negotiating with Hamas. It also means Israel must renounce its policy of “bunkerisation”, withdrawing behind a fortified border and hammering at any perceived threat.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/b5e204be-2e17-11db-93ad-0000779e2340.html

[Warren Stupidity]

7. Of course we are and have been moving in exactly

the opposite direction. Hezbollah's victory in the 33 day war signals the final collapse of this latest neocon mideast initiative.

While one would think that the Big Thinkers in strategic planning would be tossing the PNACers out the door and going 24/7 to come up with a new approach, nothing at all like that is going on in this administration. They are never wrong, they never change course. The same players are simply rearranging their phantom armies readying the next failed offensive. It will be full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes.

How can this government possibly act to "draw Islamist movements such as Hamas and Hizbollah further into the mainstream" having spent the last 6 years treating these same groups as equivalent to al qaeda and worthy of extermination? Are our leaders about to do an about face, about to stop cheerleading targeted assassinations and brutal military incursions in favor of treating the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah with respect and engaging in negotiations with these groups? Is that a realistic possibility?

"This means encouraging a proper settlement in Lebanon involving all Lebanese actors without interference from Syria or Iran" - just interference from us then. As always American Exceptionalism is blind to the arrogant way we view our role in the world. Lebanon, by the way, has managed something like a proper settlement and has ended its bloody civil war and achieved something like peace. Syria is out of Lebanon. Lebanon's problems with interference from its neighbors are most obviously with its belligerent troubled neighbor to the south, which recently interfered to the tune of 1,000 dead Lebanese civilians and a devastated infrastructure.

"Democratization" has become synonymous with military invasion and occupation. We need to stop lecturing other governments about their level of democracy and worry more about our own failings in this respect at home. Until the image of the recent 'Democratization' of Iraq fades from the world stage, all such talk from American governments will be rightly viewed with deep suspicion.