The (Ex) Washington Realist

I do not see any winners among the parties involved. Just the pieces got moved around a bit.
This war did not move the needle for anyone's strategic objectives; Israel, Lebanon, Syria, US, Palestinians, Iranians etc.

Russia picked up a few crums here and there.
 

I'm intrigued by the notion of Iraq being a loser, since it was not directly involved. But perhaps in order to be able to concentrate on Lebanon and be able to pressure Iran more credibly, the administration is going to begin to downgrade Iraq.
 

I cannot see USG concentrating on Lebanon; it is peripheral to the War on Terror, Arab-Israeli Conflict. USG cannot but continue with its involvement in Iraq. It will, at the same time, go through with its containment strategy against Iran. USG has no other viable choices.
 

Since when has policy ever been made around what are "viable choices", Anonymous 11:48? Hussein had no connection to 9/11 but repeat it often enough (Nick do another Colbert word on wikialty) and it becomes so important to stay there because if you don't then airliners will be blown out of the sky. If they want they can spin Lebanon becoming the newest front of war on terror and war for democracy.
 

This government has no other choices.

USG has painted itself into a corner and does not have the time to pull itself out in its remaining time in office.

About Iraq: it was a gamble but was not so presented. I wonder if the President was aware that this was a gamble.
 

No, president bought the line about being welcomed as liberators and everyone wanting freedom.
 

Nikolas - I think your observations are exactly right. But I would like to dissent from the festival of gloom about the immediate prospects for Israel that seems to have attended the ceasefire resolution. Perhaps I am just pessimistic on a different level, because I don't think the larger situation in the Middle East may improve, but I think Israel may have won a victory here.

1. The international force won't come unless Hezbollah agrees to withdraw its armed men north of the Litani river. If there is any uncertainty about armed Hezbollah south of the river, foreign forces simply won't come and the war will resume.

This will raise the stakes for the international community if Israel won't accept a quagmire or a situation in which Hezbollah can resupply itself with rockets capable of hitting Israel.

Either Israel gets what it wants this time (armed Hezbollah pushed north of the river) or it gets what it wants after another round of fighting that brings a bigger scare of wider war in the Middle East.

2. If Hezbollah is forced north of the Litani river, this is very bad for Iran. To hit Israel from farther away, Iran would have to resupply Hezbollah with longer-range missiles that have an obvious Iranian origin. Iran must either play it safe and resupply Hezbollah north of the river with weapons that cannot hit Israel, or if it supplies longer-range rockets, Iran must accept the higher risk of a confrontation with Israel in the event the rockets are used.

If Iran is ready for all-out war with Israel and the United States, then it might resupply Hezbollah with longer-range missiles. But I think Tehran wants to get a supply of nukes before they risk a larger war.

3. Consequently, I think Israel may have bought itself peace on its northern border until Iran gets a nuclear second strike capability. Not a very good prospect in the long run. But it is hard to see the Lebanese border becoming a quagmire unless Israel allows Hezbollah to rain missiles on Israel from sanctuaries that Israel is unwilling to attack. That is simply not likely.
 

David Billington

Israel does not have the infantry to control & patrol the area south of Litani.

Hizbullah is already south of Litani; it is called Shia Muslims.
 

Anonymous 2:32,

Israel doesn't need to occupy the area south of the Litani. They need only to prevent the area from becoming the launch site for rockets into Israel.

If a foreign force can't or won't prevent rockets from returning to the area south of the river, and if Israel cannot do the prevention itself, then Israel will threaten to go after the suppliers. Unless Syria wants a war with Israel, it will halt the use of its territory for transshipment of missiles to Hezbollah south of the river, and Iran will have to make a decision about whether to resupply longer-range missiles to Hezbollah north of the river.

The Shias south of the Litani don't threaten Israel unless they have access to rockets. I don't see what set of circumstances would require Israel to acquiesce in the return of rockets to this area.
 

Precisely my point. Potable rockets will find their way there. Israel cannot cannot go after Syria unless it is also prepared to go to a war with Iran. I do not think that is in the cards.

But we shall see.
 

Did you see Larry Johnson's take on all of this? An excerpt:

How Not to Degrade Hizbullah
by
Larry C Johnson

Perhaps Israel will want to consider electing Forest Gump to replace Ehud Olmert. Since Forest fought in Vietnam, he understands the importance of a clear plan and objective before you commit your forces to battle. At least Forest knows, "Stupid is as Stupid does". After 34 days of fighting, Israel is occupying a portion of Southern Lebanon but has failed to accomplish its original objective of "destroying" Hizbullah.

Time to face the facts; Israel has punted and opted instead to settle for "degrading" Hizbullah capabilities. So, how did they do? Well, at the start of the invasion Hizbullah was firing less than a hundred rockets a day into Israel. Yesterday (Sunday) Hizbullah launched 250 rockets into Israel. I suspect Hizbullah was just plain worn out from lugging the rockets from their storage bunker to the launching sites. All of that lifting and shooting can make a terrorist tired. Here's a news flash for the IDF and the Bush Administration--if your adversary can fire more missiles/rockets after 34 days of combat then they did at the start your degradation campaign did not work. It is called "failure".

Maybe Barbara Bush can call her son and break the bad news to him. After Bush's dismal press conference today it is clear that no one has briefed the poor rube on the reality in Lebanon. He sincerely believes Israel won. How many more such "victories" can Israel endure and remain secure?
 

The disturbing fact was watching the President Of the United States exulting in the (alleged) military victoy of a foreign power in a war in which US has no dog.
 

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
 

India is being asked to take some losses in the same way the U.S. asked Great Britain to suffer through the IRA.
 

Nikolas, I'm interested to see if you think the democracy movement *should* be the loser, or is just *likely* to be.

Here's my case: compare the Shia militant movement in the ME to the Sunni militant movement. Which of these is actually strategically wedded to incessant terrorist attacks against Western civilians over the past 10 years? Answer: The Sunni one, not the Shia one.

Now, one of these movements, the Shia - the militants are in democratic states and/or have direct control of the institutions which surround their population. They're the ones *not* launching terrorist attacks everywhere.

The other movement, the Sunni movement - the militants have power nowhere, they're all in Sunni states whose governments (mostly) cooperate with us. Few or none of the states are democracies, and look - here's where all the undetterable terrorists are coming from.

So, what's the *logical* case for backing off democratization? It's based on conflating the Shia and Sunni behavior and conflating the military threat of the Sunnis areas with the terrorist threat of the Sunni ones.

It's also based on a reaction to US failure in Iraq - but the lesson is not backing off *democracy*. It's backing off promoting it through *Western military occupations!*

Jordan W' 02
 

I think "democratization" is the loser not because democracy in and of itself is bad (!) but because the U.S. is not prepared to live with the results of sudden democratization. As I argued in the Orbis piece so many years ago, an evolutionary approach combined with the active engagement of an emerging middle class produces a segment of the electorate more inclined to be supportive of U.S. goals--but we've gone for the sudden big bang approach and been unpleasantly surprised. Because we don't seem to have the patience or staying power, I think democratization tends to be the loser. Also because I don't think the U.S. political establishment is prepared to accept the results. As I argued then and still do now, we want democratization to produce Adenauers, we don't want to live or deal with Nehrus.

I don't think that being Sunni or Shi'a intrinsically makes one pro- or anti-American. Sunnis can be quite pro-American when it suits their interests, and Shi'as have no compunction about attacking U.S. targets. In the end, I think it still largely boils down to interests.
 

Susenjit:

I don't mean to sound callous about losses of life. What I meant was that Britain was asked by the U.S. to hold in check its full response against the IRA and not to use all possible means. One could draw similar parallels with the UK with what you raised about India--presence of Irish in the country, growing acceptability of Catholicism in UK ruling circles, etc. but this did not lessen desire of Northern Irish Catholics to want to leave the UK.

Pakistan is not a help to India in war on terror but is help to US in fighting the global war so what I mean is that India is being asked to tolerate sins of Musharraf government because it is providing help that if Musharraf disappeared or was brought down would not be forthcoming and would not make situation for India any better either.
 

Nikolas K. Gvosdev:

Democratization has to be institutional.

US & EU could play a huge role in some states to promote this without facing an antagonistic government as a result (they might get a pricky but manageable government).

I'd like to point out that US & EU never stood for this process over the last 50 years.

I think George Bush at least was moving in the right direction but he was trying to get there too fast and at the same time-antagonized too many states.

The loosers, as always, are the young people in ME and NA that will have nothing.
 

It's not that Sunni or Shia are inherently pro or anti-American.

It's that the Shia militants have states (Iran) or essential self-governance (Hizballah.. Iraq on the way) and thus are relatively deterrable. The Sunni militants do not control the countries they live in, and thus, what a coincidence, the anti-west terrorism we've seen since the 90's has been almost entirely Sunni.

The core ideas aren't super-radical - everyone already accepts that oil-propped despots in the ME are spilloff for anti-western terrorism - it's just another look at the different behaviours of the two communities based on their generally different governance circumstances and relationships to power. What you come out with is that the Iran scenario is preferable to the Al-Queida scenario.

And that the choice is more binary than we realize.

Jordan W. 02'
 

Almost forgot to mention that as to how it should have been done, I agree with you.
 

jordan:

Iran is a functioning state.

It also succeeded where no other Mulsim polity had before: amalgamating the principles of Islam and the principles of Republicanism.

However, it will never evolve to be a liberal polity. It might become more democratic and less ardently religious though.