Soccer Dad

What must Israel do to win?

Following in the footsteps of Ralph Peters

Our support for Israel has always been costly to our foreign policy, yet it was justified on several grounds: morally imperative backing for a Jewish homeland after the Holocaust, moral and practical support for a fellow rule-of-law democracy and the knowledge that Israel would fight to win.

But Israel isn't fighting to win this time: It's been tossing bombs and hoping for a miracle.

With the Muslim world infuriated and Hezbollah reaping the benefit, the Olmert government's fecklessness has boosted the cost to Washington of supporting our old ally. We can't help Israel if Israel won't help itself.

So far, the Olmert government has been a disastrous aberration in Israel's history of wartime Cabinets - and a gift to Hezbollah. Israel needs leadership, not Clintonesque equivocation. President Bill Clinton's weakness led to 9/11. Olmert's weakness led to Qana.

Bret Stephens

Generally speaking, wars are lost either militarily or politically. Israel is losing both ways. Two weeks ago, Israeli officials boasted they had destroyed 50% of Hezbollah's military capabilities and needed just 10 to 14 days to finish the job. Two days ago, after a record 140 Katyushas landed on Israel, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told visiting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice he needed another 10 to 14 days. When the war began, Israeli officials spoke of "breaking" Hezbollah; next of evicting Hezbollah from the border area; then of "degrading" Hezbollah's capabilities; now of establishing an effective multinational force that can police the border. Israel's goals are becoming less ambitious while the time it needs to accomplish them is growing longer.

It is amazing how much can be squandered in the space of three weeks. On July 12, Israel sat behind an internationally recognized frontier, where it enjoyed a preponderance of military force. It had deterrence and legitimacy. Hezbollah's cross-border raid that day was widely condemned within Lebanon and among Arab leaders as heedless and provocative. Mr. Olmert's decision to respond with massive force enjoyed left-to-right political support. He also had a green light from the Bush administration, which has reasons of its own to want Hezbollah defanged and which assumed the Israelis were up to the job.

Michael Oren argues in TNR (subscrition may be required) Last Chance

For three weeks now, Israel has presented a textbook case of how not to wage a war. As a result, the European Union is demanding a cessation of hostilities, and the United Nations seems poised to demand a ceasefire; and both will likely pressure the Bush administration to arm-twist the Israelis to comply. An immediate end of the fighting will leave Hezbollah largely intact militarily and with its political prestige greatly enhanced. Syrian and Iranian influence will be immeasurably strengthened. A disaster of regional and perhaps global dimensions appears imminent--unless Israel seizes its last opportunity to regain the initiative and deliver a decisive blow to Islamic extremism.

Israel entered this conflict under supremely advantageous circumstances. Most of the world recognized Israel's right to defend itself against a terrorist organization that had violated an international boundary, killed and kidnapped Israeli soldiers, and bombarded Israeli towns. Even Arab states such as Egypt and Jordan expressed sympathy for Israel's case. The Bush administration gave Prime Minister Ehud Olmert an unequivocal green light to eliminate Hezbollah's independent army in Lebanon. But instead of exploiting this latitude by uprooting the Hezbollah mini-state in southern Lebanon, Olmert embarked on a massive air campaign that killed large numbers of Lebanese while failing to reduce rocket fire into Israel. The fact that Hezbollah is fighting behind a civilian shield is now ignored by a world that increasingly views the Israeli response as brutal. The terrorists and their Syrian and Iranian backers stand to win a stunning victory.

Oren still sees that Israel can fix its mistakes of the past 3 weeks (Stephens does too)

Israel, the Middle East, and the international community cannot afford such a calamitous outcome to the crisis. But to avert it, Israel will have to shift its tactics away from aerial strikes against infrastructure to a massive ground campaign to gain control of southern Lebanon up to the Litani River. By clearing the terrorists from the area adjacent to its northern border and by eliminating Hezbollah's most strategic strongholds, Israel will have won a concrete achievement. And though long-range rockets will continue to be launched at Israel from central Lebanon, Israel can address that threat by surgical aerial attacks while ensuring that the more plentiful short-range katyushas will be removed.

The operation is not without its dangers. Six years after it evacuated southern Lebanon, Israel is liable to become once again bogged down in an open-ended occupation. Israeli military causalities, which until now have been relatively low, will certainly mount in direct clashes with Hezbollah forces. But while the cost to its own troops will be greater, Israel can reduce the collateral damage to Lebanese civilians and garner the time necessary to attain its objectives. Israel can state that it will remain in southern Lebanon until its soldiers are relieved by those of an international force capable of preventing Hezbollah from reestablishing itself in the area. Even if efforts at international intervention fail, Israel can withdraw to its own border knowing that it has substantively diminished Hezbollah's power and prestige, while sending a message of deterrence to Syria and Iran.

And that seems what Israel is inclined to do right now.

Israeli officials have said their soldiers were to go as far as the Litani, about 18 miles from the border, and hold the ground until an international peacekeeping force comes ashore.

Still Daniel Pipes doesn't think that this will be enough.

"There will be an international force [in Lebanon], because all the key players want it," an American official asserted recently. He appears to be right, as even the Israeli government has embraced the plan, announcing it "would agree to consider stationing a battle-tested force composed of soldiers from European Union member states."

The key players might "want it," but such a force will certainly fail, just as it did once before, in 1982-84.

That was when American, French, and Italian troops were deployed in Lebanon to buffer Israel from Lebanon's anarchy and terrorism. The "Multinational Force" collapsed back then when Hezbollah attacked MNF soldiers, embassies, and other installations, prompting the MNF's ignominious flight from Lebanon. The same pattern will no doubt recur.

Still at least clearing out the area between Israel and the Litani should be a good starting point. If enough of Hezbollah's leadership and materiel are destroyed, incapacitated or captured during those operations, it will be a victory and an excellent start.

Judith Apter Klinghoffer has additional advice for Israel.

Technorati tags: Lebanon, Hezbollah, Israel.

Posted by SoccerDad at August 2, 2006 4:18 PM