Bring It On!

A costly blunder that wasn’t made by Bush?

August 29th, 2006 | by Craig R. Harmon |

Amir Taheri calls the cross border snatch of two Israeli soldiers “a costly blunder.” I wouldn’t say that Israel won anything in their war but that doesn’t mean that Hizbullah or their leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, won anything, either or that they didn’t lose worse than Israel…if what Mr. Taheri says here is right. Anyway, I provide it for what you think it’s worth and invite you to discuss.

UPDATE: It may be that Israel eeks out a win in this war, after all, if Taheri this proves to be the case:

“And that could be good news for Lebanon as a nation. It is unlikely that Hezbollah will ever regain the position it has lost. The Lebanese from all sides of the political spectrum are united in their determination not to allow any armed group to continue acting as a state within the state.”

Not quite the dismantling of Hezbollah, but perhaps the next best thing. Anyway, time will tell.

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  1. 4 Responses to “A costly blunder that wasn’t made by Bush?”

  2. By Paul Merda on Aug 31, 2006 | Reply

    I think with the rebuilding efforts being undertaken by Hezbollah is going to go a long way to re-establishing their legitimacy.  I also think Hezbollah made more friends in the ME because of this.  After all, they stood up to the regions strongest power and were firing rockets at Israel until moments before the cease-fire.  If it was Israel main objective to stop the rockets,which they said it was, they failed.  I don’t think this guy is right…

  3. By Craig R. Harmon on Aug 31, 2006 | Reply

    Paul,

    Hi! You may be right but maybe not. How well, really, does “I know we’re responsible for destroying your home and neighborhood, businesses, families and friends over two Israeli soldiers…here, we’ll rebuild it and make it better” sound like it will go? How would it go with you?

    According to this article, Hezbollah lost a lot more fighters than they claimed so, if that’s true, they ARE a lot weaker than they’d like to let on. As for all of those rockets, they were mostly very ineffective. Yes they kept firing, mostly uselessly, right up to the cease-fire so that means they are out a lot of rockets, which is why stopping rearmament is so important. Are they weaker for having fired off thousands of rockets? For the time being, yes. That’s why Israel is so insistent about stopping rearmament and not lifting the blockades. I’d say they went a long way toward dearming Hezbollah simply by having them fire so many of their rockets into the countryside, killing so few and causing such little damage.

    I think this guy is making a lot of sense.

  4. By Paul Merda on Aug 31, 2006 | Reply

    Good points.  I guess only time will tell in the end.

  5. By Craig R. Harmon on Aug 31, 2006 | Reply

    “So, I would say on every count this was a huge strategic defeat for Hezbollah”

    That’s from an interesting interview with Tom Friedman, New York Times Columnist that contains an interesting bit on the topic (part 1 & 2):

    “DS: So how does Hezbollah come out of this? Do they come out stronger?

    TF: Well as we sit here today–and I’m glad I’m vacation right now so I don’t have to write a column this week–I think this was a devastating defeat for Hezbollah. Wars are fought for political ends. They aren’t fought for pride; they aren’t fought for how many people will put your poster up or how many times your face will appear on al-Jazeera. Wars are fought for political ends. Well let’s look at the two political ends of this war. It appears as we sit here today, that we’re going to get a French-led, European peacekeeping force in South Lebanon, that will escort the Lebanese army down to the border and will serve there as a permanent peacekeeping force. That’s a huge achievement for Israel… This is a huge strategic loss for Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah. Being able to touch Israel, and provoke a war like this, was a real strategic advantage for them. They could turn it on and off anytime they wanted. They can’t do that anymore….

    That’s number one. Number two, Hezbollah was given these rockets by Iran, one assumes, as a deterrent, so if anyone–if Israel–ever struck Iran’s nuclear facilities, Iran could hit back through south Lebanon. First of all, now it’s fired off a lot of these rockets, got a lot of them destroyed, and while they of course they can be resupplied…. Israel will study this whole war, and learn the lessons of it. So, militarily Hezbollah is weaker. And politically speaking, inside Lebanon, many Lebanese are very angry about this war. They’re sitting back and saying, especially in their own community–and you may not hear that in the press here, but believe it’s going on–”What is this war about? What did this war achieve? Pride? But I lost my house. My factory. The bridge that got me to work. What was this all about? Who did we do this for? A third country?”

    Now just those questions alone make it much harder for Nasrallah to act in the future. So, I would say on every count this was a huge strategic defeat for Hezbollah.

    DS: So you think that the Lebanese people are apportioning a significant amount of the blame for the destruction to Hezbollah?

    TF: Yes. You always have to look, David, not at the morning after, but the morning after the morning after. Oh, the morning after, Nasrallah is a hero, everyone applauds, you know. The morning after the morning after, when people come home and survey the damage, that’s a whole ‘nother question. And we’re now in the morning after the morning after. And that goes on for a long time.

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