Brilliant analyses of Israel and Lebanon from the Middle East...

I am open and hoping that I am wrong that Israel's most recent offensive in Lebanon will not serve as the kind of effective deterrent to Hezbollah's future activities that they and I would like it to be...

And this morning I read several analyses of the situation from Middle Eastern sources...two of which I thought worthy of sharing since my own analyses is now and forever fallible and limited by my not being embedded, daily, in Middle Eastern politics as these sources are...

Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, Interdisciplinary University, and editor of The Middle East Review of International Affairs, filed this fabulous analysis of the situation with the Lebanese Daily Star this morning, and is a brilliant analysis of the situation...

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=5&article_id=74393

I agree with Barry about almost everything he writes here except his second conclusion that this attack will likely serve as a deterence in practice against future Hezbollah attacks from the North...it is possible that this will occur and that Hezbollah will be sufficiently scared of superior Israeli firepower on the border that Hezbollah's presence will be more permanently removed from the area...but there is much, much history to suggest the opposite...that Hezbollah, at worst will find more creative ways to target Israelis and innocent civilians, and, at best, will return to the area outside of effective Israeli firepower...and will, regardless, remain a serious terrorist threat to Israeli civilians and military personell...

And Iranian author and journalist, Amir Taheri, contributes this analysis to the Jerusalem Post, this morning, that offers much hope that Hezbollah's overreach, here, as much if not more than Israel's reaction, will help to dillute Hezbollah's support in Lebanon...

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1153292052893&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

The short term military advantage that Israel might claim, in this situation, as Barry Rubin argues, would be an important one, if it can be achieved...I doubt that it can be achieved, given a long history to the contrary, but we can always hope that Israel might dislodge one of its terrorist border threats by pushing them back and having them stay back...As Barry argues, an international force might contribute to staving off Hezbollah, and, as he argues, ideally Lebanon would put its armies at the border...the fear of civil war is the reason that the Lebanese government has not worked more dilligently to disarm the popular Hezbollah military forces, and a similar reasoning may be at work in Palestine...though it does leave Israel with few options other than the current one, absent a workable peace...

That is the downside to the current offensive, though...it makes a workable peace all the more out of reach...and it turns opinion in the Arab and Iranian world for Hezbollah and against Israel, which emboldens Hezbollah (and Hamas) and fortifies their will to persist, despite consistent military defeats...more precise and genuine efforts to arrest rather than assassinate leaders (obviously people will die if arrests result in threats on the lives of Israeli soldiers) and more genuine peace efforts might undermine that support which is the lifeblood of terrorist groups...

As Barry Rubin explains...

"That is why the kind of tactics that work well in conflicts elsewhere in the world do not function in the Middle East. The rules of the game are supposed to be like this: The side that loses recognizes that it is weaker and makes a deal involving concessions to avoid another costly conflict. The stronger side then gains deterrence, because recognition of its power stops the other side from going to war in the first place. Wanting to avoid war, all sides solve disputes by compromise, end the conflict forever, and move onto other things.

Instead, Hizbullah and Hamas thrive on fighting as an end in itself. Moreover, Hizbullah and its friends present themselves as absolute victors no matter what happens. And millions of Arabs and Muslims, given regime and media propaganda, believe them."

That, support for Hezbollah amongst a strong plurality of Lebanese, continued support for Hezbollah from Iran and Syria, and the fact of Hezbollah resources and forces being out of reach to Israelis and not likely to be engaged by the Lebanesse government who has more access, is why Barry argues, and I agree, that the current offensive is not likely to dismantle Hezbollah...and why I believe, and I would imagine Barry agrees at some level (only because I can see no other real options) that a peace process is the only realistic and fundamental solution to the current situation along Israel's borders...

Having said all of that, I an open to being wrong and to good coming from this offensive...though, regardless, I still think that it is questionable the potential good that comes from rerouting Hezbollah rather than eliminating them (which is very unlikely to happen here, I think) relative to the lives of more than 500 Lebanese, 50 Israelis, and the displacement of more than 800,000 in Lebanon, as well as certainly far more border attacks (190 rockets have landed in Israel, thusfar, this morning, the largest Hezbollah attack over the course of this war), when a peace process will likely be the only real and sustainable way out of this mess, in the first place...

I am very much open to suggestions for another way out other than a peace process, but I am far from convinced that military action -- after more than 80 years of fighting between Israel and her neighbors -- will, somehow, once and for all, eliminate the threat at Israel's borders...and it seems to me that, at some point, the burden needs to be met by those arguing for military solutions, when peace processes have clearly created results in Israel's relationships with Jordan and Egypt, and when efforts to negotiate peace with terrorist groups in Northern Ireland have clearly netted peaceful results...

And, particularly, when the one very clear result from military engagements up to this point is a sadly and stubbornly persistent terrorist presence and support for that cause in the region...

Amir Taheri gives us hope that support for Hezbollah may be waining after this most recent action on their part...and that Lebanese democracy and representation for Hezbollah, as with the Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland, is likely, in significant part, responsible for that weakening support...

Hezbollah military leader, Hassan Nasrallah, acted independently of Hezbollah's political leaders, after meeting independently with Iranian and Syrian leaders, and Hezbollah's political leadership makes no bones of its resentment of its activities...and Shiite support for Hezbollah in Lebanon is on the wain -- both because many Shiite look to the U.S. as an unexpected ally helping to create power sharing for fellow Shiites in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in Lebanon, itself and because of divides between Shiites looking to Lebanese Shiite leadership and those looking to Iranian religious leadership -- as well as schisms within Lebanese Hezbollah circles between traditional Hezbollah guerillas and "Lebanists" wanting to pull back from regional military engagements...

It is this political support for Hezbollah (and Hamas) that must be, ultimately, undermined if Hezbollah is going to ever embrace face-saving peace negotiations (it is very unlikely, I think, give their history, that Hezbollah or Hamas will ever admit defeat, no matter how heavy their losses)...and, tragically, the most recent incursion in Lebanon not only has killed and displaced many innocent Lebanese (being used as human shields by Hezbollah, to be fair to the Israeli leadership), but it has revived support in the Arab and Iranian worlds for Hezbollah and, I would imagine, Hamas...

I hope I'm wrong about all or most of that and that the most recent Israeli incursions will do final damage to Hezbollah that will finally demolish its ugly military apparatus or at least push them back far enough that they will not pose a threat to the Northern Israeli border and to Israel, generally...

But I doubt that the current skirmish will do enough damage to warrant the undermining of the larger political goals of weaking political support for terrorism on Israel's borders so that peace can be negotiated...

But I very much understand Israel's frustration with the situation...and I hope their gamble proves me wrong...even as I mourn the deaths and serious disruption of lives of innocent Lebanese as well as innocent Israelis...

Love,
Ben