Thursday, August 03, 2006
Lebanon: Winners and Losers
Lebanese civilians caught in the strife are the losers. That is one fact that stands out. They have paid with their lives (over 900 according to latest report). They have lost their homes and properties. Most of them innocent victims of what is being described as a "proxy war" between the U.S. and Israel on one side and Iran and Syria on the other. Currently, while terms of a cease fire are being argued, deaths and destruction continues. The United States is creating hatred and generations of potential Hezbollah recruits. Just as its grand scenario for a puppet regime in Iraq went down in flames, its plans for Lebanon are doomed to fail. Reading about Hezbollah loyalists in the Post reminded me of the Spanish Civil War slogan "No passaran" -- They shall not pass. "Three weeks into its war with Israel,Hezbollah has retained its presence in southern Lebanon, often the sole authority in devastated towns along the Israeli border. The militia is elusive, with few logistics, little hierarchy and less visibility. Even residents often say they don't know how the militiamen operate or are organized. Communication is by walkie-talkie, always in code, and sometimes messages are delivered by motorcycle. Weapons seem to be already in place across a terrain that fighters say they know intimately."
- Hezbollah admits to having suffered losses, but in the fighting so far, it has demonstrated its detailed planning since the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, ending an 18-year occupation. Fighters appear to exercise a great deal of autonomy, a flexibility evident along the region's back roads: ammunition loaded in cars, trucks in camouflage, rocket launchers tucked in banana plantations.
- Analysts say the militia could probably hold out a month without serious resupply. Fighters and supporters suggest that time is their advantage in a war that most suspect won't have a conclusive end. In conversations in southern Lebanon, the militia's supporters seem most adamant in trying to deprive either Israel or the United States of political gains from the military campaign.
- ISRAEL has finally conceded that air power alone will not defeat Hezbollah. Over the coming weeks, it will learn that ground power won't work either. The problem is not that the Israelis have insufficient military might, but that they misunderstand the nature of the enemy.
- Contrary to the conventional wisdom, Hezbollah is principally neither a political party nor an Islamist militia. It is a broad movement that evolved in reaction to IsraelÂs invasion of Lebanon in June 1982. At first it consisted of a small number of Shiites supported by Iran. But as more and more Lebanese came to resent IsraelÂs occupation, Hezbollah  never tight-knit  expanded into an umbrella organization that tacitly coordinated the resistance operations of a loose collection of groups with a variety of religious and secular aims.
Civil War in Iraq
Things are bad enough in Iraq but we could expect much worse. What General Abizaid said during his appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee was revealing and quite contrary to the rosy picture that the president continues to mention. The outgoing British Ambassador's assessment along the same lines was reported by BBC prior to General Abizaid's statement.
- The top U.S. commander in the Middle East told a Senate panel today that the recent wave of sectarian violence in Iraq threatens to push the country toward an all-out civil war.
- Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of the U.S. Central Command, also said U.S. forces could take more casualties as they carry out a new plan to reinforce Baghdad, and he cast doubt on earlier predictions that the U.S. troop level in Iraq could be drawn down this year.
- Abizaid, appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace, made the comments after the British ambassador to Iraq reported in a diplomatic dispatch that Iraq was more likely headed to "low intensity civil war" and sectarian partition than to a stable democracy.
- The BBC reported that the assessment was contained in the final diplomatic cable from William Patey to Prime Minister Tony Blair and top members of Blair's cabinet before Patey left the Iraqi capital last week.
