Thursday, July 20, 2006
War reductionism
Every time a read a press or blog account of Lebanon's prime minister, Fouad Siniora, I feel bad for the guy. He is always portrayed as a man with no moves, a leader who has to beg great powers for help. That's an especially humiliating spot for a democratically elected Arab leader, itself a virtual contradiction in terms. From this morning's New York Times:
“The country has been torn to shreds,” a desperate Lebanese prime minister, Fouad Siniora, said at a meeting he had called of foreign diplomats, including the American ambassador.
“Is this the price we pay for aspiring to build our democratic institutions?” he asked in a bitter and emotional speech. “Can the international community stand by while such callous retribution by the state of Israel is inflicted on us?”
Lebanon is, in fact, a catastrophe. So many people, particularly Westerners, so wanted last year's "Cedar Revolution" to be a harbinger of a new Lebanon, if not a new Arab Middle East. Even I -- a strong supporter of Israel and unreconstructed hawk on Islamist terror -- am extremely disappointed and saddened by the developments of the last week. The Lebanese who did not vote for Hezbollah last year deserve much better.
But then I remember not to be an idiot.
Here is the basic problem: Southern Lebanon is a "failed state," a place where the authority of the central government does not extend. Hezbollah has occupied that failed state and acquired much more deadly weapons than anybody ("anybody" meaning, in this case, the CIA, Israel's intelligence agencies, and anybody who would tell those people) imagined. It is using southern Lebanon as a base from which to wage a war against Israel. It has also built a global terrorist network that many observers believe has a greater capability for mass casualty attacks than al Qaeda.
Hezbollah has definite state sponsors. It reports to the mullahs in Tehran -- even if it sometimes acts without prior consultation -- and it gets lots of help from Tehran's sock puppet, Bashar al-Assad. It is the means by which Damascus retains power in Lebanon even after the Cedar Revolution, and it is the primary mechanism by which Iran can project force beyond the countries that it borders.
Hezbollah has got to go, and the entire world knows it. Even the United Nations Security Council managed to work up a consensus sufficient to pass Resolution 1559, which requires all militias in Lebanon to disband. All have, except Hezbollah.
Hezbollah is a heavily armed insurgent group that uses terrorism as a tactic. It has repeatedly attacked Israeli civilians, and not just in the past week. Only last December 27 it fired rockets into Kiryat Shmona, wounding three Israeli civilians. That attack roused Kofi Annan sufficiently for him to call on the government of Lebanon to exercise its monopoly on the use of force to disarm Hezbollah. This was, in effect, an invitation to civil war by the peace-leaving Annan, a request that Lebanon did not act upon. Annan issued this request because he understood that attacks on other countries from Lebanese soil, whether or not sanctioned by the government in Beirut, are the responsibility of the state of Lebanon.
Outside the Muslim world, which is blinded in this matter by its hatred of Israel, virtually everybody with two brain cells to rub together believes that Hezbollah cannot remain as an armed force, free to launch or plan attacks from southern Lebanon. Indeed, there are a great many people inside the Muslim world who agree, including most of the Sunni Arab governments of the region. No doubt, Prime Minister Siniora agrees.
So, the reductionist question is this: who is going to get rid of Hezbollah, enforce UNSC Resolution 1559, give the people of Lebanon a chance, end the targeting killing of Jews in the Levant, and deprive Iran of a major point of leverage in its foreign policy? Until you have a better idea than Israel, stop talking about a cease fire as if it is the solution to any problem.
4 Comments:
By 
Habu, at
Thu Jul 20, 09:37:00 AM:
At this point it appears as though no one will stop the Hez in Leb. It'l end up being a fly over when Syria gets hit and we flank the bastards...
so pump up the jam, we be into the Bekaa with nukes and Syria with fu-fu dust and blivets after a raindown of MOAB on Damascus ..you know all those places use to be beautiful cities ..we just ended colonialism 100 years too soon.
Pround member of the Curtis Lemay Group.
By Lanky_Bastard, at
Thu Jul 20, 10:30:00 AM:
Tiger, I'd agree with you except for 2 assumptions.
The first is that outside military forces can tear down an ideology. We didn't break the Cold War by invading the USSR. England didn't stop Sinn Fein by killing off the IRA. (Just imagine if they'd responded by bombing Dublin) Those ideologies ended because the people wanted better ones (prosperity, peace, whatever). The movements caved to economic and societal pressures. In the Cedar Revolution, Hezbollah was voted out of democratic power. The sun was setting on their power and popularity. Maybe the loss of moderates freed their hands to become even more violent, but it was clear Lebanon would win over Hezbollah in time. Maybe the abduction of two soldiers was a calculated political gambit by Hezbollah who was tired seeing their power diminish year after year. After all, they don't seem too upset that Israel took the bait.
The second assumption I'll argue is that any nation is going to side with an invading army over it's own people. How likely is that? You think the Prime Minister is going to urge his people against Hezbollah because he decides Israel was right and the country deserved to be bombed? When a democracy is attacked it votes for whoever is best able to reassure them of their safety and defence. On TV we have Hezbollah defiant and proud, and the PM (in your words) in a humiliating spot...who do you think gains domestic power?
It's fine to say Hezbollah must be disarmed/eliminated/whatever. Explain how an Israeli ground invasion accomplishes that. I'm of the opinion that Israel has strengthened Hezbollah in specific, strengthened Islamofacist anti-Western ideologies in general, and made new inroads into international disapproval of Israeli and US policies. Time will tell, but even from a position of rank advocacy of Israeli interests above all others, the nature of this offensive still may have been a blunder.
By allen, at
Thu Jul 20, 11:11:00 AM:
sirius_sir,
With respect, all I hear from Mr. Sinora is condemnation of "Israeli aggression", with a follow-up plea to the world to make it stop. He would, I believe also want reparation.
When I hear Mr. Sinora or any other member of the Lebanese government openly condemn the predatory Hezbollah and plea for the world's assistance to relieve Lebanon of the scourge, I will support that effort.
No member of the Lebanese government is likely to make the plea for two immediately apparent reasons: a) fear of Hezbollah and b) a pathological hatred of Israel.
By allen, at
Thu Jul 20, 04:53:00 PM:
sirius_sir; 12:23 PM
Do you get the feeling that this will be one of those times like that after the fall of the Soviet when operatives will come out of the woodwork to curse the corpse of Hezbollah?
