The Washington Post reports that the Israeli attacks on Hezbollah positions in Lebanon have caused the Lebanese government to consider efforts to disarm Hezbollah and gain control over the southern part of the country, currently dominated by the Iranian-supported terrorist group:
[I]n the wake of Syria's withdrawal of its troops from Lebanon in 2005, the disarmament of Hezbollah has emerged as one of the foremost issues in Lebanese politics. Since the fighting with Israel started Wednesday, calls for Hezbollah to relinquish its weapons have gathered urgency. The violence began when Hezbollah fighters captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border incursion, followed by an Israeli attack on roads, bridges, power stations and airports.
Lebanese critics as well as allies of Hezbollah insist that the Israeli response was disproportionate. But at the same time, in meetings Thursday, Lebanese officials began to lay the groundwork for an extension of government control to southern Lebanon.
According to most experts, the democratically elected Lebanese government lacks the firepower to take on the much better armed Hezbollah forces. However, if the Israelis can do enough damage to Hezobollah, the terrorist group might be sufficiently weakened to enable the government to disarm it and take control of the Lebanese-Israeli border in the aftermath of an Israeli attack. Although the anti-Hezbollah Lebanese probably have little love for the Israelis, the Christians and moderate Muslims who control the government are unlikely to use the border as a staging ground for rocket attacks into Israel, as Hezbollah has been doing. Indeed, many Lebanese factions, particularly various Christian and Druze groups, have cooperated with the Israelis in the past when it was in their interest to do so.
Hopefully, this scenario, or something like it is the Israeli objective. The worst outcome would be for the Israelis to stop after inflicting only minor damage on Hezbollah. This would subject Israel to international condemnation and increase Hezbollah's prestige for "standing up" to Israel, while producing few benefits for either Israelis or Lebanese. Obviously, a full-fledged campaign to crush Hezbollah would lead to greater casualties in the short run than a more "proportionate" retaliation. But it is likely to save numerous lives in the long run on both sides of the border. It could also help the Lebanese to consolidate their still-fragile democracy by eliminating the most serious domestic threat to it.
UPDATE: Since I wrote this post, the Israelis have announced that they do indeed plan to pursue this strategy, and the Lebanese Prime Minister, while denouncing Israel, has pledged to take control of southern Lebanon:
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora . . . said Saturday at a press conference that his government would reassert government authority over all Lebanese territory - an allusion to the possibility of deploying the Lebanese army in south Lebanon, which is effectively controlled by Hizbullah.Senior sources in the [Israeli] Prime Minister's Office said that dislodging Hizbullah from southern Lebanon and getting the government in Beirut to assert its authority over the area as called for by UN Security Council Resolution 1559 were among the primary goals of the IDF's current campaign.
The traditional Middle Eastern method is wholesale slaughter. Ask Iraq's Sunni Arabs. They're on the short end of a war of extermination they started. It's a tough neighborhood.
As a practical matter though, it won't happen to Lebanon's Shiites until Iran's mullah regime is kaput. Then Syria's Baathist regime will go down and the Alawite minority composing it will also experience the joys of ethnic cleansing, if not genocide.
Note that it is Arabs massacring Arabs in Iraq now. It will be Arabs massacring Arabs in Lebanon and Syria too. They don't need American or Israeli help. They're doing it to each other. The real horrors will come when the Saud regime goes down, and if &when Islamic nutballs take over in Egypt and slaughter the millions of Coptic Christian Arabs there.
I repeat, it's a tough neighborhood.
It certainly is. Let’s not forget “Black September” in 1970 when King Hussein ordered his army to attack the PLO. The PLO had become a “state within a state” in Jordan, openly carrying weapons, stopping vehicles, extorting money, carrying their own identity papers, and so fourth. Ultimately Hussein’s security forces killed thousands of Palestinians to put a stop to the chaos and bloodshed visited on Jordan by the Palestinians. Sound familiar? The more things change the more they stay the same. Only now technology is moving faster than our ability to control events-- bigger and more accurate rockets, and ultimately nuclear weapons.
To those Americans who side with the Palestinians against Israel and their own government: remember the PLO kills Americans. You are supporting people who want you dead, side with your enemies, and cheer when American buildings get blown up.
A strangled Hezbollah is in everyone's interest, and would mean the Lebanese military itself could come into South Lebanon and get control, something they have not been able to do before.
Your answer to my implicit question is a nonsequitur. I didn't say no damage was being done to Hezbollah. I did say I feared that while minor damage might be done to them, there could be seriously destabilizing effects of Israel's attacks. That's the point. (But while we're at it, I would think that destroying roads would limit both Hezbollah's and government forces' mobility. Of course, if you destroy all of Hezbollah's forces, then that doesn't matter. But then neither does governmental access to the South. In any case, this point is much smaller than the one you haven't addressed.)
Now, events are proving that U.S. stage managed "democracy" (as illustrated by the electoral success of Hezbollah and Hamas and Shi'ite fundamentalists in Iraq) is not such a panacea after all.
Unfortunately, the most likely warblogger response to this failure will be demand that plow ahead and and get more deeply involved in this mess. Perhaps they should re-read Hayek's insight on the unintended consequences of social engineering.
The claim by Israel, and others, is that by strangling Hezbollah, the pernicious influence they have and the strength they have to keep it will be so diminished as to allow Lebanese government forces (which is not exhausting military resources right now) will be able to step in with stronger force. Think in terms of military supply, not other supplies. The balance of strength prior to this means Lebanon could not disarm Hezbollah. After going to war with Israel, Hezbollah will be so weakened, and as long as their supply line is destroyed, the balance of power swings towards the government.
Will this work? That's a good question. But it's certainly not a nonsequitur, which would have been the case had I said something like, "Because tortoises live in the desert and turtles live in the water."
Now, events are proving that U.S. stage managed "democracy" (as illustrated by the electoral success of Hezbollah and Hamas and Shi'ite fundamentalists in Iraq) is not such a panacea after all.
Unfortunately, the most likely warblogger response to this failure will be demand that plow ahead and and get more deeply involved in this mess. Perhaps they should re-read Hayek's insight on the unintended consequences of social engineering.
I don't see how these recent events in any way undermine "warblogger" support for the Cedar Revolution, elections in Iraq, etc. Indeed, by removing Syrian troops from Lebanon, the CR makes it easier to crush Hezbollah without an all-out war between Syria and Israel.
As for Hamas, I don't think that a Hamas-led government is any worse for the West or for Israel than the Fatah one was. Indeed, it may actually be better, because there is less international opposition to Israeli military action against the former. Finally, the ruling coalition in Iraq is made up of many groups, some religious, some secular. To write them all off as "Shiite fundamentalists" is seriously misleading.
Is the Middle East situation ideal? Far from it. Would it be better if Syria were still occupying Lebanon, Saddam Hussein in power in Iraq, and Fatah still controlling the PA and raking in the dough from the EU? I think not.
Finally, invoking Hayek to criticize democracy promotion is a distortion of his position. Hayek strongly supported Western efforts in the Cold War and also the US-led effort to transform Germany, Italy, and Japan after WWII (though he criticized some aspects of the implementation). Hayek was indeed opposed to "social engineering" in the sense of government central planning of the economic system and civil society.
But he also recognized that outside intervention is sometimes necessary to establish the basic institutional framework needed to support constitutional democracy, individual liberty, and free markets.
Even the most just wars entail accidental civilian casualties. That was true of the Civil War, WWII, and the intervention in Afghanistan. As David Bernstein notes in his previous post, the Israelis have actually been quite careful in their targeting. Moreover, a hefty share of the blame for civilian casualties must go to Hezbollah itself for siting its missile launchers in civilian areas and for not requiring its troops to wear uniforms that distinguish them from the general population.
As for how many casualties would be justified, I doubt that anyone can give an absolutely precise answer. But given Hezbollah's long record of terrorism and the fact that it is the main obstacle to Lebanon's future development as a democracy, I suspect that the number is an order of magnitude greater than what the Israelis are likely to inflict in their operations.
We're talking about the Middle East. "Innocent" civilian casualties are the objective for everyone but Israel and us, and IMO both exceptions will get there eventually. It's a tough neighborhood.
Right now the Persians are playing the Arabs for suckers, which is traditional.
But while I have little doubt that Israel's military performs its missions in such a way as to complete them while killing as few innocents as they can, it also seems to me that the nature and extent of those missions makes the killing of innocents on a significant scale inevitable. By attacking deep in the heart of Lebanon, they also seem to reduce the strength of the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah themselves -- not that they likely had this strength in the first place.
Maybe Israel will be successful in weakening Hezbollah to the point where they can no longer threaten Israel, and maybe they will not. But Israel is not making any friends in the rest of the world through its actions: both the deaths of civilians and the "optics" of blowing up runways of a primarily commercial airport will only reinforce its low status in the eyes of Europe and may well erode its status in the eyes of the US.
"It is better to be feared than loved" - Machiavelli
The Middle East does not play by our rules. And both sets of rules are changing right now.
There is a significant possibility that a dribble of rockets with nerve gas and other chemical weapons warheads will be launched at Israel from both Lebanon and Gaza in the next week or two, both by Iranian forces, as part of a "de-sensitization" strategy.
You are looking a new war - one far different than any you are familiar with. It will go on until Iran's mullah regime joins Saddam's.
Try looking at it with fresh eyes.
The answer is as many as is need to achieve victory. The US killed more innocents in one night's bombing in Tokyo than Israel has killed in 58 years of existence. But you don't hear too many complaints about what a war criminal Roosevelt or Truman was do you? No, becuase they won.
The aim of war is to win. If 1,000,000 Iranians or SYrians or Lebanese or Palestinians have to die for them to unconditionally surrender, then so be it.
The Germans surrendered after about 5,000,000 "innocents" died. The Japanese took a little less. I think if 1,000,000 Palestinians were to be taken out, things ould be a lot different. 20 dead Lebanese isn;t going to do anything to Hezbollah. If 100,000 of them go up in smoke, like happened in Wurzburg or Nuremburg or Dresden or Tokyo or plenty of other places, then you'll see things start to change.
This 20 here, 10 there approach won;t change anything
There is no one for Israel to negotiate with who could deliver on the contract.
Hezbollah and Hamas have often stated that they want a war. They think they will win it.
But even if that were not so, there is no point in encouraging Cedar Revolutions or other delusions about Arab Muslim democracy. As the Syrian political scientist Bassam Tibi has been saying for 20 years, Arabs are not interested in democracy.
All the evidence shows he is right.
Please identify all American citizens killed in the last ten years by the PLO outside the borders of the state of Israel and the Occupied Territories. [/crickets chirping]
Which government is this? The one that has Hezbollah representatives in it? Oh yeah...
Plotter
Which government is this? The one that has Hezbollah representatives in it? Oh yeah...
Yes, the government has 2 Hezbollah members. But most of the other ministers come from parties opposed to Hezbollah, many very strongly so. The point is not that the Lebanese Govt. is made up of paragons of virtue, but that it would be a lot better if they were in control of southern Lebanon than Hezbollah.
If German terrorists started blowing up buses in Warsaw in an attempt to end the "occupation" of the Danzig corridor and reclaim East Prussia for its rightful owners, would Erlanger support them? Would the UN? What if they did the same in Prague or Paris in relation to the Saar region or the Sudetenland? What about all the German refugees? Do they have a right of return to Poland, France and the Czech Republic? If the Germans started blowing up, shooting and kidnapping French and Poles to achieve this, would the UN support them? Would Erlanger?
Erlanger is a putz.