Dimensions of the Lebanon crisis

I am now, finally, back home, and intend to focus like a laser over the coming days on the strategic (as well as humanitarian) aspects of what is unfolding in Lebanon. Obviously, the balances in Lebanon, regionally, and internatinally will all be affecting the diplomacy over the newly introduced draft for a Security Council ceasefire resolution.
I make the following comments on the basis of my 30-plus years of close following of political trends inside and concerning Lebanon, marked by (among other writings) my despatches from Lebanon to the Christian Science Monitor and other publications, 1975-81; my 1985 book The Making of Modern Lebanon; various chapters of my 1991 book The Superpowers and the Syrian-Israeli Conflict; chapter 7 of my 2000 book The Israeli-Syrian Peace Talks: 1991-96 and Beyond; my spring 2005 Boston Review article on the history of Hizbullah; and various JWN posts about Lebanon.
Here are some preliminary notes to an analysis of the present situation:
Note 1: Israel getting bogged down (already) in Lebanon
The veteran Israeli peace activist and former Member of Knesset Uri Avnery had it completely right when he wrote on August 5,

We are conquering South Lebanon as flies ‘conquer’ fly-paper. Generals present maps with impressive arrows to show how Hizbullah is being pushed north. That might be convincing – if we were talking about a front-line in a war with a regular army, as taught in Staff College. But this is a different war altogether. In the conquered area, Hizbullah people remain, and our soldiers are exposed to attacks of the kind in which Hizbullah has excelled from its first day.

Actually, the whole of Avnery’s analysis there is very informative, especially his compilation of the shifting (and ever-diminishing) list of political “goals” that Israeli PM Olmert has declared for this military assault on Lebanon.
Ze’ev Schiff captured some of the same political dynamic that Avnery described– and pushed its geopolitical implications even further– when he wrote this:

The IDF must …do everything possible to avoid the modus operandi it used during its protracted stay in Lebanon after the 1982 Lebanon War. Israel must not remain in southern Lebanon. It must not base its operations and deployment there on supply convoys, or on transporting soldiers for furloughs in Israel and then back to their bases in Lebanon, or even on permanent military bases in Lebanon, even if they are fortified. These are convenient targets for guerrilla fighters, and this is the kind of situation that Hezbollah anticipates.
A problem will arise if no international peacekeeping force can be found to which the IDF can hand over the territory that it now occupies in southern Lebanon. In such a scenario, Israel will be faced with a dilemma: Stay in southern Lebanon, or withdraw, even if Hezbollah returns to set up bases there? If confronted with this question, Israel must choose withdrawal – in order to avoid again finding itself waist-deep in the Lebanese quagmire.

This analysis is interesting and significant, coming as it does from someone who (a) is extremely well connected with successive generations of the Israeli high command, and (b) was just a few days ago urging a rapid and extensive ground-force advance into Lebanon. (What happened in the interim, Ze’ev? Did you Israelis discover that your ground forces weren’t such hot stuff after all– or that the Hizbullah fighters have been able to put up a far tougher, braver, and smarter defense of their homeland than you had expected? Probably a combination of both factors?)
Note 2: Disarray and splits in Israeli decisionmaking
It seems that originally, the fairly new IDF Chief of Staff, an air force commander called Dan Halutz, thought that air power alone would be enough to realize Israel’s war goals in Lebanon (whatever they were). The widely publicized photographs of the destruction wrought throughout Lebanon since July 12, primarily by Halutz’s air force, are shocking indeed. Especially the “before and after” satellite pics of the destruction of whole blocks of densely populated areas in the south-Beirut Dahiyeh.
But air power (supplemented by the use of other stand-off weaponry) did not suffice. It did not stop Hizbullah from continuing to deploy its coordinated and disciplined squads of rocketeers in the south, or prevent Hizbullah’s territorial defenders from putting up a wily fight against the IOF’s ground incursions. More crucially still, Israel’s massive use of destructive airpower did not turn the Lebanese population against Hizbullah, as the Israeli commanders had hoped; quite the opposite.
… So it was about 10 days ago that Olmert and Halutz apparently turned toward using a ground incursion into Lebanon to try to suppress the source of the rockets’ fire– while still, of course, continuing with the use of massive standoff weapons delivered deep into Lebanon by air and sea. But all along, there seems to have been disagreement over how far the ground forces should go.
Schiff writes:

One of the IDF’s original objectives was to clear a one- to two-kilometer strip of territory north of Israel’s border and prevent Hezbollah’s return to that area. The idea was that, since its forces would not remain in Lebanon, Israel would thwart Hezbollah’s attempts to return to the border by firing from within Israeli territory.
Now a decision has been made to widen the strip to six kilometers, and Israel’s military operations seek to achieve that objective. Although important, this objective cannot offer an effective response to the network of short-range missiles in southern Lebanon.
In a recent cabinet debate on the ground operations, only one minister favored an extensive, immediate, multipronged ground campaign in southern Lebanon: National Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, who once held the defense portfolio. Justice Minister Haim Ramon backed him to an extent, proposing a multiphased ground campaign: Initially, ground operations would be confined to a strip close to the border, and only afterward would a decision be made on whether to expand them. Apparently, the basic assumption here is that the IDF still has plenty of time to achieve its operational goals. This line of thinking, along with the cabinet’s decisions, has allowed Hezbollah to fire its rockets freely from southern Lebanon. And that is precisely what is happening today.
Let us assume that the government will instruct the IDF to embark on a new phase and seize extensive territory in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah would then move some of its rockets further back, and their range vis-a-vis Israeli targets would be shortened. According to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Israel intends to hold the parts of southern Lebanon that it captures until their transfer to a new international peacekeeping force….

The also well informed Aluf Benn writes:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz were at odds last night over the extent of the Israeli ground offensive in Lebanon.
Peretz favors expanding the incursion as far as the Litani River, with the objective of controling the area from which the short-range rockets are fired at Israel. He announced yesterday that he had instructed the army to do so.
Olmert, for his part, is not enthusiastic about the idea; he feels that holding more ground in southern Lebanon will not solve the problem of Hezbollah’s medium- and long-range rockets.

Amos Harel writes:

Will the ground operation do the trick? Defense Minister Amir Peretz announced yesterday that he instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for “a swift takeover of the entire area south of the Litani [River]” and to operate in all the rocket-launching areas.
An examination of the ground forces’ achievements to date shows that they have not hit more than ten launchers. The immediate goal of the fighting is not stopping the rockets, but eliminating Hezbollah’s southern unit, the Nasser, on the assumption that this will crack the organization’s fortitude. Hezbollah’s losses are already estimated at some 380 combatants. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is convinced that Hezbollah’s breaking point is near. The army is more skeptical.
Peretz’s aides say the rockets can be destroyed after the territorial takeover, but it is important to reach the river before a cease-fire is announced, perhaps as soon as Monday.
As for the long-range missiles, Peretz admits that Hezbollah will still be able to fire them from north of the Litani, but says that the IAF has had more success in dealing with them.
The rush to reach the Litani is controversial. Some officers fear that inadequately trained reserve units will sustain heavy losses. The death of fathers and husbands could undermine the home front’s support for the war.
In any case, Israel intends to hold the security zone as a bargaining chip until a multinational force arrives. The bargaining chip, however, could become a burden if the troops remain in Lebanon for any length of time. Over time, troops on the ground develop a routine, and guerrillas know only too well how to take advantage of this.

And about that “home front” meanwhile, the Haaretz editorial on Sunday has this to say:

Over the past weeks, it has become clear that the entire pyramid of government – from the prime minister to the Home Front Command, and including ministry accountants and legal advisers – was unprepared for the massive attack that paralyzed life in the north of the country.
The lack of preparedness was reflected in all areas: Essential public buildings were not fortified; bomb shelters were not prepared in advance and proved to be unsuitable for people to live in for more than a few hours; and the food and water supply system, public transportation and support systems for families whose homes were destroyed are all collapsing under the strain of events. The army leadership now claims that they knew all along that Hezbollah had been accumulating long-range weapons that could strike large population centers, but despite the warnings of a few diehards, not even minimal investments were made in fortifying and preparing bomb shelters…
The slogan “strong in the rear, victorious at the front” rings hollow. Since January 1991, given the hundreds of terror attacks and the proven connection between war and peace, on one hand, and the socioeconomic situation on the other, Israeli governments should have known that the distinction between the rear and the front is no longer relevant. The citizens sitting in airless bomb shelters; the employees of community centers and local municipalities, hundreds of whom are still owed months of unpaid government wages; the staff of the Ministry of Education’s psychological services; and even youth movement counselors – all of these are now on the front lines, and none are receiving backing from the state.

Note 3: Territorial dimension of the ceasefire
Hizbullah has given its agreement to the seven-point ceasefire plan proposed a couple of weeks ago by Lebanese PM Fuad Siniora. That plan included an Israeli withdrawal from both the Shebaa Farms and any other parts of Lebanese territory that occupied by Israel– which at that point was not very much indeed.
The Israeli leadership seems to have concluded from that that it should try to occupy as much Lebanese land as it could before the ceasefire took effect– in order to have territorial “bargaining chips” to play with. This, it seems to me, was a flawed judgment. Because so long as Israeli forces are occupying certified-Lebanese territory– and not just the Shebaa Farms– then there is no hope that Hizbullah can be persuaded by anyone to promise not to act against those forces. (Hence, the worries Schiff and others have now articulated about the danger of Israel getting bogged down inside Lebanon.)
It is quite possible that Hizbullah might agree to a (short-term) ceasefire-in-place in which it would stop sending rockets into Israel in return for Israel not attacking any points north of the then-existing line of Israeli deployment in south Lebanon– indeed, that was the crux of the deal that Nasrallah outlined just recently. It was also, in essence, the nature of the ceasefire that was concluded in April 1996, at the end of Shimon Peres’s brutal (and politically counter-productive) assault against Lebanon titled “Operation Grapes of Wrath.” That ceasefire allowed Hizbullah to continue to enjoy the political kudos that comes, in the Arab world and the broader Middle East, from “standing up to” Israel, while it also allowed it to continue to build up its civilian political strength in central and eastern Lebanon.
So far, the Olmert government seems to have committed all the mistakes that Sharon made by invading Lebanon in 1982, in addition to all those that Peres made in 1996. Quite an ‘achievement’, Ehud!
(You can read a short account of how the 1996 operation backfired on Israel in my Boston Review piece, and a longer account in my 2000 book on Israel and Syria.)
And if no ceasefire is concluded for a while? Hizbullah can stomach that, too. Although any continuation of the active fighting promisesto be incredibly damaging to the population of Lebanon, there are absolutely no signs yet that the population there or anywhere else in the Arab/Muslim world is about to turn against Hizbullah. Quite the contrary. Israel’s leaders seem to have become so completely out of touch with the reality of the region in which they live that they haven’t come close to understanding how politically damaging their brazen displays of military force against Lebanon and Palestine have proven to be to any hopes that they can make or keep any friends in the Middle East. Instead, they seem to have been living in a self-referential, imperialistic bubble in which they imagined it was still, say, the late 1800s and they were a European colonial power “subduing” the natives of some sad African terrain with an overwhelming display of firepower…
Hullo? Earth to Ehud? The world ain’t like that any more! Now we are in the 21st century, and most people in the world believe in human equality and think that a dead Arab child is just as tragic as a dead Israeli child: they have good global communications; they see your disproportionately lethal, bullying ways and resent you deeply for it. And yes– this feeling extends far beyond the Arab and Muslim worlds.
Note 4: International dimensions of the ceasefire
Back in 1996, Hizbullah and its Syrian allies won an important political “victory” over the US-Israeli axis in that (a) they succeeded in getting the creation of a robust monitoring mechanism included in the ceasefire, which prevented Israel from launching unnoticed provocations and escalations, and (b) this mechanism included– along with the governments of Lebanon, Syria, Israel, and the US– the Government of France. France’s inclusion was seen, back in those days, as offering a crucial “counterweight” to the presence of the US in the monitoring committee.
I sincerely doubt whether France’s inclusion in a monitoring committee would be seen in the same light today! Since 1996, France has changed it position toward the US role in the Middle East– and most particularly, in Lebanon. In August 2004, it was Chirac’s government that worked closely with the Bushites to pass the highly intrusive, anti-Syrian and anti-Hizbullah resolution in the UN Security Council known as resolution 1559. (It’s still unclear what Chirac’s reasons for doing that were.)
This time around, if Syria, Lebanon, and Hizbullah are to have some reassurance that the “out-of-region” components of the monitoring process won’t be stacked against them, then France won’t credibly be in a position to play that role… Interesting, therefore, to see that the draft resolution talks of the existing UN force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, playing the ceasefire monitoring role.
Note 5: Make-up of the planned “international force”
Well, we’ve made a lot of progress from the early days of the Israeli assault, when much of the talk in the US was of a NATO force playing this role. (NATO? What were they smoking?) Now the draft text talks of forming a UN force, under Chapter VII of the Charter (i.e., a force potentially empowered to fight to protect its mandate), that would, “support the Lebanese armed forces and government in providing a secure environment and contribute to the implementation of a permanent cease-fire and a long-term solution.”
But how would such a UN force actually be constituted? No word on that yet. Potential contributors to the force want, quite understandably, to see what its mandate will be before they sign up.
In fact, having a draft resolution that talks of the UN running this force already looks like a considerable setback for Israel, which has long been very wary of (or even hostile towards) the UN, as well as wary of having any capable international force along its borders anywhere. Israel’s traditional worry has been that the presence of such a force would crimp its ability to act offensively whenever and however it pleased.
UNIFIL, which has been deployed in south Lebanon since Israel’s first sustained ground incursion into the country in 1978, was never a militarily capable force. In 1982 and on countless other occasions, Israel’s tanks and aircraft have acted offensively inside south Lebanon while completely ignoring UNIFIL’s presence (at best), or carelessly swatting some of its force members as it acted, at worst– as it did when it killed four UNIFIL members just ten days or so ago.
But the new force looks as though it is planned to be considerably more capable than UNIFIL.
The diplomacy is starting to become very interesting. But I still strongly believe that the “root causes” of all this strife in the Israeli-Arab region need to be addressed as an integral part of ramping down the presentcrisis… That is, all the remaining strands of the Israeli-Arab peace process need to be resolved, plus– I pray to God!– a regionwide disarmament regime established that will take all these very lethal weapons out of the hands of governments and non-governmental actors that show themselves so very damagingly ready to use them.
Note 6: The US role
Washington’s role in the unfolding crisis was aptly summed up by veteran strategic analyst Anthony Cordesman, in a quote he gave to the NYT yesterday:

“Far from Israel being the American proxy in a war against Iran, we’ve become Israel’s proxy in its war against Hezbollah,” he said. “Israel’s miscalculations have been so serious that its only hope for victory is to have the United States and the international community do for Israel what it can’t do militarily, which is defeat Hezbollah, assemble an international force in Lebanon and bring some sort of endgame to all this.”

What Cordesman did not spell out in detail there is that there is no way the US can achieve all these things on its own– and most especially not at a time it is itself so bogged down in Iraq. That’s why the US will need some serious help from the whole “international community” (and not just France), if it is to have any hope of getting calm restored to Lebanon.
However, the “international community” is quite likely at this point to demand that the diplomatic agenda be widened, and that the conclusion of a comprehensive, regionwide peace be placed back at the top of the international agenda. The US has monopolized Arab-Israeli diplomacy since 1974– and has brought us, under Pres. George W. Bush, to the present string of catastrophes throughout the region. Move over, Washington. It’s time for the UN to take over the diplomacy– and not just the peacekeeping.