Thursday, July 20, 2006
Then again, maybe Lebanon is the enemy...
According to the Jerusalem Post:
The Lebanese Minister of Defense warned Israel Thursday that if IDF ground forces are sent into southern Lebanon, Lebanese troops will fight along with the Hizbullah against Israel.
As usual, the Middle East is difficult to fathom, and events take bizarre turns. I guess it is hard to blame the Lebanese from taking this position given that their country is indeed being attacked, but it is hard to imagine how it will help their cause. I doubt it will do much to deter Israel, and it certainly complicates the prospects for an international solution. They'll huff and puff about sovereignity, no doubt, ignoring the fact that there has already been a foreign army on their soil in Hezbollah.
Perhaps a statement such as this is required at this time for the government to avoid collapse. Regardless, it seems that this mess gets more complicated and will take a long time to clean up. All the more reason, IMO, to finish the job and wipe out Hezbollah, if such a thing can actually be accomplished. I suspect the engagement of the Lebanese army will not be the deciding factor in the outcome here.
MORE from TigerHawk: Stratfor put out an analysis ($) this morning that explains why Israel is targeting Lebanese army positions, and why the Lebanese army will not deal with Hezbollah. An excerpt follows, but the short version is that the Lebanese army is riven with supporters of Hezbollah, and the officer corps was heavily influenced by Syria.
The Israeli air force has attacked a number of key Lebanese army outposts in recent days. It may strike some as peculiar that Israel is targeting Lebanon's armed forces when the Lebanese government has essentially declared itself helpless in the current conflict and has refrained from defending itself militarily against Israeli aggression. Israel's reasoning lies in the complex composition of the Lebanese army.
The Lebanese government and military operate on a shaky ethno-sectarian system reflecting the country's explosive mix of religious sects. The armed forces consist of about 60,000 men divided into several brigades, most of which are also divided along sectarian lines. Most army recruits come from rural areas in Lebanon, such as Akkar in the north, Iqlim al-Kharroub in the Shouf Mountains southeast of Beirut, and from southern Lebanon. Approximately 70 percent of the enlisted men are made up of Sunnis and Shia, divided almost equally.
Lebanon's military vastly outnumbers Hezbollah's cadre of trained fighters, but still lacks the ability and will to overtake Hezbollah bases in southern Lebanon and force the Shiite guerrilla force to disarm, a demand Israel says must be met before any move toward a cease-fire can be made. This is largely due to the significant number of Hezbollah sympathizers and members operating among the army's conscripts.
When the French created Lebanon in 1941, Paris sought to ensure Maronite Christians would monopolize the armed forces' top brass, which was intentionally designed to remain a small, defensive force out of fear that a strong Lebanese army would become embroiled in wider Arab regional conflicts. When Syria became the de facto ruler of Lebanon as result of the civil war in the 1980s, however, the Syrians decided to do some remodeling. Damascus played a direct role in putting Hezbollah members in important positions in the Lebanese army -- to the extent that Hezbollah now occupies many of the important positions previously held by Maronites. When Syria withdrew its approximately 20,000 troops from Lebanon following the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, it maintained a powerful presence in Lebanon's political, military and intelligence circles, keeping Hezbollah's position intact.
Considering the number of Hezbollah sympathizers and members in the Lebanese armed forces, it comes as no surprise that the militant group is receiving logistical and intelligence support from the army to stage its missile attacks. Hezbollah recently attempted to launch missiles from mobile launchers near the Kfar Shima army base, located in a Druze-Christian area just outside Beirut's southern suburbs. The Israeli air force subsequently destroyed the launcher and killed 10 Lebanese soldiers. Of particular concern is the transfer of technology, such as the French Milan and U.S. TOW anti-tank guided missiles, which are known to be in the Lebanese arsenal and may very well now be in Hezbollah hands in southern Lebanon.
The government of Lebanon is only formally legitimate. Yes, it won power through honest elections, the touchstone of de jure legitimacy in our legalistic age. However, like the young government of Iraq, it has not earned legitimacy by dint of establishing a monopoly on violence within its borders. Indeed, it is not even obvious that Lebanon's own army is a fully loyal instrumentality of the state.
11 Comments:
By 
, at
Thu Jul 20, 01:01:00 PM:
Do you think wiping out Hezbollah will be any easier than wiping out the insurgency in Iraq?
By 
Cardinalpark, at
Thu Jul 20, 04:08:00 PM:
who said anything about easy? Good and worthwhile achievements are rarely easy.
By Lanky_Bastard, at
Thu Jul 20, 05:18:00 PM:
Who could have possibly forseen that a country's army would attempt to defend the country from foreign invaders? What a bizzare event!
By Final Historian, at
Thu Jul 20, 05:58:00 PM:
"Who could have possibly forseen that a country's army would attempt to defend the country from foreign invaders? What a bizzare event!"
I trust that was sarcasm?
By ScurvyOaks, at
Thu Jul 20, 06:19:00 PM:
It's important to understand Israel's objective. I doubt that anyone really thinks that Hezbollah can be wiped out -- any more than anyone expects them to stopping wanting to destroy Israel. In terms of Israel's security, peace can only be achieved for brief chunks of time, and it's only relative peace at that. So the objective is to materially decrease Hez's ability to make war on Israel for the near future. I don't know whether Israel will accomplish that objective, but it seems possible. If I'm right in understanding that this is Israel's objective, it also seems appropriate to guage success or failure with reference to that objective (i.e., not with reference to the impossible standard of completely eliminating Hezbollah).
By Lanky_Bastard, at
Thu Jul 20, 09:03:00 PM:
Yes, sarcasm. I don't consider armies defending their country from the armies of people who bomb them to be "difficult to fathom" or a "bizzare turn". In fact, I believe it is the primary reason nations have armies.
Perhaps you should forward the question to the poster? I'm kind of curious what CV expected.
By , at
Thu Jul 20, 10:35:00 PM:
Contrary to the suggestion that it is impossible to completely destroy Hezbollah, I believe that is possible to do it by cutting its supply line: Syria and Iran. Will it be done? I do not know.
But, I agree that, unless it is done, Israel will buy only a short period of "peace" before having to confront a nuclear armed Iran. When that event occurs, nobody will have to worry about electricity in either country as both will glow in the dark.
What is your leftty opinion LB ?
By , at
Fri Jul 21, 03:31:00 AM:
Lanky_bastard:
"I don't consider armies defending their country from the armies of people who bomb them to be "difficult to fathom" or a "bizzare turn"."
So I take it you're fully in support of Israel?
By , at
Fri Jul 21, 07:24:00 AM:
It would appear that Israel is between a rock and a hard place. They need to move into Lebanon to achieve the objective.
However, Hezbollah has had six years to mine and fortify the area.
It will be bloody unless the Israelis have an alternate entry point.
By Lanky_Bastard, at
Fri Jul 21, 11:59:00 AM:
Since you asked, Annonymous, my lefty opinion is that Hezbollah and Israel have both escalated things to the point where the non-Hezbollah democratic Lebanon is the most likely casualty. I don't think Israel can actually remove Hezbollah and don't think it will matter in the long term if they do. Supposing they do get Hezbollah (though I don't see how), another anti-Israeli force will likely develop, just as Hezbollah developed in the power vaccum from the PLO. Someone will come to feed off the anti-Israeli mentality (strengthened by this war) and threaten their border. I wonder whether Israel hasn't just come to expect that every 20 years they're going to have to go "teach X-extremist-group a lesson" and that's why they respond as forcefully as they do. After all, if you have a routine chore like mowing the lawn, it grows back slower the closer you cut it to the ground. I'm open to that argument.
But this cycle is unsustainable for a number of reasons. First is the increased proliferation of nuclear weapons. I think that cat was let out of the bag when we gave India and Pakistan a get-out-of-jail-free after they had developed them. We had a treaty that worked for a few decades. When we decided not to enforce it, that sent a message to everyone. Absent a strong international authority (which we don't support) profliferation will continue. Given the pattern of aggression and escalation in the Middle East, I frankly wonder whether nuclear deterance is going to apply. So you might be right, the Middle East might start a nuclear WWIII. It sure would be nice if they could practice being peaceful and not hating each other before the nukes show up.
The second reason this pattern is unsustainable is the relative birthrates in the region. It won't be long before Arabs outnumber Jews even within Israel. If I were Israeli I'd push for a two-state solution before that happens. In the Gaza Strip there are something like 7 births per mother. It doesn't take long at that rate to change demographics. Again, it would be great if progress could be made on peaceful coexistance.
The potential break from this cycle (at least with respect to the North) would have been if the Israeli state had coordinated with the Lebaneese state, most of whom had just voted Hezbollah out of power. Maybe Lebanon isn't strong enough to root out Hezbollah today, but prior to this little war, saner more peaceful minds were coming into political power. Maybe they would have been strong enough in a few years to control Hezbollah - that option is probably gone now. I can't help but feel that Israel has lost an opportunity to nurture a fellow democracy and use societal pressures to eliminate an extremist threat. (Maybe I've been listening to too much GWB and buying into his democracy theories.) That's how I see it. I don't pretend to be an expert, and for me Israel doesn't have the special signficance it does for many here. It's a good ally and has a great and tragic history, but that doesn't mean it's automatically right in everything it does. I think they made a mistake in mowing the grass as usual. That grass was being choked out and now they're rescattering the seeds.
At the same time, Israel is losing international goodwill, and maybe making our job a little harder in Iraq. Those are intangibles, but maybe important to some. I hope whatever the outcome is, it minimizes the loss of civiliian life, and manages to salvage what's left of the Lebaneese democracy. Democratic Arab governments are few and far between. Since it was ostensibly in our national interest to spend half a trillion dollars creating one, it might be worth trying to preserve another.
By Dawnfire82, at
Fri Jul 21, 11:08:00 PM:
Your implied suggestion that Israel ought to have waited a few years (until the Lebanese government was stronger) before doing anything exists in a vacuum. That is, it sounds very nice and reasonable in a sterile, hypothetical environment but cannot function when applied in reality. What do you think would have happened if Israel did nothing to try to return their captured soldiers? It would become open season on them. Every two-bit Palestinian or Islamist freak who could muster it would start seizing Israeli troops whenever they could because there would be no forthcoming retaliation. Israeli morale would plummet, their domestic government might very well suffer a crisis, and there would eventually be a shooting of some innocent fools by spooked Israeli teenage privates convinced that they were about to be kidnapped. There's also the issue of applying a double standard... Hamas kidnaps Israelis and hell opens up on them, but Hezb Allah does it and crickets chirp? Unacceptable.
An alternative action that might be implied by your post would be for Israel to pressure Lebanon to do something about it and not begin an international conflict. Well, the Lebanese are not really in a position to do anything about Hezb Allah. That's why they haven't been disarmed yet in the first place; they're too weak. Secondly, the Lebanese are not keen on even trying anything that might start another civil war. Thirdly, Lebanon and Israel still technically exist in a state of war; there are no diplomatic relations between them and an Israeli request would likely be laughed out of the room, even if it were received in the first place.
"At the same time, Israel is losing international goodwill"
Interestingly, Israel seems to actually be gaining international goodwill where it counts... amongst populations.
Even Arabs (discounting the frothing Jew hating fanatics, a large minority) grudgingly admit that Israel is perfectly within its rights to attack Hezb-Allah, though mostly they talk about the poor Lebanese caught in the middle. At the very least they think that Hezb Allah was incredibly stupid for doing what they've done and ought to be taken down a peg. More than a few are upset that Israel hasn't simply bypassed Lebanon entirely and gone after Syria, who everyone knows is pulling the metaphorical strings here.
