Hezbollah Probably Lost the War, But They May Never Have Been In It To Win
It seems increasingly clear that Hezbollah took a military drubbing in Lebanon II - its elite forces degraded by 25%, its medium and long-range missile arsenal all but wiped out, and its underground infrastructure exposed. It also seems increasingly likely that Nasrallah badly misjudged how the war would play out in the Lebanese public - he's managed the rare feat of generating criticism from Lebanese Shiites, Sunnis, and Christians all at the same time.
The problem with this kind of analysis is that it has very little to do with how Hezbollah evaluates success and failure. Ditto for their admirers in Gaza and Syria. Hezbollah's goal was never to draw Israel into a war - quite the opposite, it's now very clear that their strategy depended on Israel reacting with only the usual symbolic and inefficient air raids. So if Hezbollah wasn't trying to change the military dynamic in the Middle East - let alone to score an actual victory over Israel - then it's not unreasonable to both point out that the military defeat that they were handed doesn't really get at the dynamics of the conflict.
Nor does Lebanon figure overly much in Hezbollah's calculus of what matters and what doesn't. Hezbollah's aims are ideological and theological, not territorial. If it was ever a Lebanese resistance organization, it certainly isn't that any more. Moreover, just about everybody knows that - we're skeptical that there are more than a handful of people outside American Muslim organizations that would even try to make that case with a straight face (inside American Muslim organizations, on the other hand, people are so ideologically dense that Hezbollah's admitted role as an Iranian proxy stands little chance against convenient anti-Israel fantasies). Hezbollah doesn't even seem all that concerned about inciting children against Israel any more - their children's programming is all about how Jews in general have to be eradicated. Nasrallah takes his orders from Tehran, and he's got enough ammunition, money, and troops to make sure that he can keep taking those orders from inside Lebanon - an additional reason why the "Israel is losing Lebanese hearts and minds" meme was, to put it generously, a distraction. So while Lebanese opposition to Hezbollah is certainly a welcome sign, its potential to change dynamics on the ground is uncertain at best.
It's obvious that Hezbollah never intended this kidnapping to have military consequences and it's at least tenable that Nasrallah is more or less indifferent to rising levels of anti-Hezbollah Lebanese sentiment. His strategy was, if not more subtle, then at least more careful. It was the same strategy that Nasser used when he closed the Straits in 1967, and it's quite similar to the strategy that drives Ahmadinejad's seemingly clownish Holocaust denials. The goal is to change the kind of terms of the relationship that either Israel's enemies or the rest of the world have with Israel. At least according to Abba Eban, Nasser's goal was the humiliation and slow economic strangulation of Israel without conflict. Ahmadinejad's strategy is to undermine Israeli legitimacy by changing what is OK to say out loud and what isn't. In the same vein, Nasrallah's hope was to make kidnapping of Israeli soldiers just one more thing that Israel's Arab enemies more or less routinely do - to make it a routine part of the conflict.
This is what Fatah and the PFLP did with international terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s - until terrorism was just one of the ways that Israel's Arab enemies attacked it, with the expectation that Israel respond only with rational and measured reactions as if this crime was a normal tactic.
This is what Hamas did with suicide bombings in the 1990s - until suicide bombings became just another one of the ways that Palestinians 'reacted to the Israeli Occupation', with the expectation that Israel respond only with rational and measured reactions as if this crim was a normal tactic.
And that's what Nasrallah hoped to do with kidnappings and with massive bombing of Israeli cities. Now it's impossible to measure whether or not he accomplished his goals. It's undeniable that Hezbollah attacked Israeli civilians with tens of hundreds of rockets - just as it's undeniable that the world channeled the vast majority of its energy and vehemence into criticizing Israel for targeting civilians. It's similarly undeniable that Hezbollah committed an act of war outside the normal cycle of Arab-Israeli violence - just as its similarly undeniable that within days the world was demanding that Israel limit itself to a proportionate response, as if crossing borders and attacking soldiers was entirely within the normal economy of violence. Nasrallah succeeded precisely where he wanted to: he managed to change what counts as "normal" violence against Israel - and thus to diplomatically constrain Israel's maneuvering room when these previously unprecedented attacks become routine in the future.
This isn't just a theoretical matter, nor is it just speculation. Raining down rockets on Israeli cities and kidnapping Israeli soldiers are now just more or less part of the Arab arsenal against Israel - which means that any Israeli reaction is almost certain to be an "overreaction." And we don't have to guess whether or not Israel's enemies recognize this new dynamic. The evidence is that they're rushing to adopt Hezbollah's tactics.
Kidnapping Israeli soldiers is now so much a part of normal warfare that even Syria - which would not dare to get close to any action that would risk an Israeli ground invasion - feels comfortable enough to take a try:
A previously unknown group threatened Wednesday to abduct Israeli soldiers to swap them for Syrian prisoners in Israel. In a statement faxed to foreign news agencies in Damascus, a group calling itself the Men of the National Syrian Resistance threatened to "take the necessary measures" to secure the release of 16 Syrians jailed in Israel. It listed the names of four men it said have been detained in Israel for 22 years. The group said the men had been charged with "resisting Israeli occupation in the Golan... The continuing detention of our comrades makes us exert all-out efforts to secure their release," the statement said. The group called theirs a "humanitarian and just demand."
If Assad thought that there was a chance that Israel would be able to invade in reaction to a Syrian cross-border kidnapping, these gentlemen would be dead. But what used to be a justification for a massive Israeli retaliation is now a kick that Israel has to roll with.
Ditto for the Palestinian confidence that Israel can't do all that much against missile attacks:
Israel's security agency says Palestinian terror groups, studying the recent conflict in Lebanon, are stepping up smuggling of long-range missiles. Yuval Diskin, head of Shin Bet, told foreign and defense affairs committees that these groups are studying the recently ended Lebanon conflict to look for Israel's weak points, reports the Jerusalem Post. He said these groups are trying to bring experts who can build and launch the long-range missiles against Israel.
Now, the glib answer to all of this is that Syria and Hamas aren't reaction to new norms - they're emulating Hezbollah's tactics because they think that Hezbollah achieved a military victory. The problem with this line of reasoning is that nobody really believes it. It's so absurd that even Nasrallah all but admitted that the Israeli military onslaught sliced Lebanon into ribbons. He can afford to indulge himself in attacking Israel, because he doesn't care about Lebanon. Syrian leaders in Damascus and Hamas operatives in Gaza don't have that luxury - they know that if Israel reacts to them the way that it reacted to Hezbollah then they will get decimated. What they're counting on is that there is a new dynamic on the ground - that Israel can't respond with the same force, because when Hezbollah did those things they were outrageous crimes, but when Syria and Hamas will do them they'll just be attacks. Now there's a hope that they're wrong, and that Israel will ignore international pressure and respond to acts of war by making war. But there seem to be a lot of people on the ground with a lot of confidence that they won't be able to.
The problem with this kind of analysis is that it has very little to do with how Hezbollah evaluates success and failure. Ditto for their admirers in Gaza and Syria. Hezbollah's goal was never to draw Israel into a war - quite the opposite, it's now very clear that their strategy depended on Israel reacting with only the usual symbolic and inefficient air raids. So if Hezbollah wasn't trying to change the military dynamic in the Middle East - let alone to score an actual victory over Israel - then it's not unreasonable to both point out that the military defeat that they were handed doesn't really get at the dynamics of the conflict.
Nor does Lebanon figure overly much in Hezbollah's calculus of what matters and what doesn't. Hezbollah's aims are ideological and theological, not territorial. If it was ever a Lebanese resistance organization, it certainly isn't that any more. Moreover, just about everybody knows that - we're skeptical that there are more than a handful of people outside American Muslim organizations that would even try to make that case with a straight face (inside American Muslim organizations, on the other hand, people are so ideologically dense that Hezbollah's admitted role as an Iranian proxy stands little chance against convenient anti-Israel fantasies). Hezbollah doesn't even seem all that concerned about inciting children against Israel any more - their children's programming is all about how Jews in general have to be eradicated. Nasrallah takes his orders from Tehran, and he's got enough ammunition, money, and troops to make sure that he can keep taking those orders from inside Lebanon - an additional reason why the "Israel is losing Lebanese hearts and minds" meme was, to put it generously, a distraction. So while Lebanese opposition to Hezbollah is certainly a welcome sign, its potential to change dynamics on the ground is uncertain at best.
It's obvious that Hezbollah never intended this kidnapping to have military consequences and it's at least tenable that Nasrallah is more or less indifferent to rising levels of anti-Hezbollah Lebanese sentiment. His strategy was, if not more subtle, then at least more careful. It was the same strategy that Nasser used when he closed the Straits in 1967, and it's quite similar to the strategy that drives Ahmadinejad's seemingly clownish Holocaust denials. The goal is to change the kind of terms of the relationship that either Israel's enemies or the rest of the world have with Israel. At least according to Abba Eban, Nasser's goal was the humiliation and slow economic strangulation of Israel without conflict. Ahmadinejad's strategy is to undermine Israeli legitimacy by changing what is OK to say out loud and what isn't. In the same vein, Nasrallah's hope was to make kidnapping of Israeli soldiers just one more thing that Israel's Arab enemies more or less routinely do - to make it a routine part of the conflict.
This is what Fatah and the PFLP did with international terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s - until terrorism was just one of the ways that Israel's Arab enemies attacked it, with the expectation that Israel respond only with rational and measured reactions as if this crime was a normal tactic.
This is what Hamas did with suicide bombings in the 1990s - until suicide bombings became just another one of the ways that Palestinians 'reacted to the Israeli Occupation', with the expectation that Israel respond only with rational and measured reactions as if this crim was a normal tactic.
And that's what Nasrallah hoped to do with kidnappings and with massive bombing of Israeli cities. Now it's impossible to measure whether or not he accomplished his goals. It's undeniable that Hezbollah attacked Israeli civilians with tens of hundreds of rockets - just as it's undeniable that the world channeled the vast majority of its energy and vehemence into criticizing Israel for targeting civilians. It's similarly undeniable that Hezbollah committed an act of war outside the normal cycle of Arab-Israeli violence - just as its similarly undeniable that within days the world was demanding that Israel limit itself to a proportionate response, as if crossing borders and attacking soldiers was entirely within the normal economy of violence. Nasrallah succeeded precisely where he wanted to: he managed to change what counts as "normal" violence against Israel - and thus to diplomatically constrain Israel's maneuvering room when these previously unprecedented attacks become routine in the future.
This isn't just a theoretical matter, nor is it just speculation. Raining down rockets on Israeli cities and kidnapping Israeli soldiers are now just more or less part of the Arab arsenal against Israel - which means that any Israeli reaction is almost certain to be an "overreaction." And we don't have to guess whether or not Israel's enemies recognize this new dynamic. The evidence is that they're rushing to adopt Hezbollah's tactics.
Kidnapping Israeli soldiers is now so much a part of normal warfare that even Syria - which would not dare to get close to any action that would risk an Israeli ground invasion - feels comfortable enough to take a try:
A previously unknown group threatened Wednesday to abduct Israeli soldiers to swap them for Syrian prisoners in Israel. In a statement faxed to foreign news agencies in Damascus, a group calling itself the Men of the National Syrian Resistance threatened to "take the necessary measures" to secure the release of 16 Syrians jailed in Israel. It listed the names of four men it said have been detained in Israel for 22 years. The group said the men had been charged with "resisting Israeli occupation in the Golan... The continuing detention of our comrades makes us exert all-out efforts to secure their release," the statement said. The group called theirs a "humanitarian and just demand."
If Assad thought that there was a chance that Israel would be able to invade in reaction to a Syrian cross-border kidnapping, these gentlemen would be dead. But what used to be a justification for a massive Israeli retaliation is now a kick that Israel has to roll with.
Ditto for the Palestinian confidence that Israel can't do all that much against missile attacks:
Israel's security agency says Palestinian terror groups, studying the recent conflict in Lebanon, are stepping up smuggling of long-range missiles. Yuval Diskin, head of Shin Bet, told foreign and defense affairs committees that these groups are studying the recently ended Lebanon conflict to look for Israel's weak points, reports the Jerusalem Post. He said these groups are trying to bring experts who can build and launch the long-range missiles against Israel.
Now, the glib answer to all of this is that Syria and Hamas aren't reaction to new norms - they're emulating Hezbollah's tactics because they think that Hezbollah achieved a military victory. The problem with this line of reasoning is that nobody really believes it. It's so absurd that even Nasrallah all but admitted that the Israeli military onslaught sliced Lebanon into ribbons. He can afford to indulge himself in attacking Israel, because he doesn't care about Lebanon. Syrian leaders in Damascus and Hamas operatives in Gaza don't have that luxury - they know that if Israel reacts to them the way that it reacted to Hezbollah then they will get decimated. What they're counting on is that there is a new dynamic on the ground - that Israel can't respond with the same force, because when Hezbollah did those things they were outrageous crimes, but when Syria and Hamas will do them they'll just be attacks. Now there's a hope that they're wrong, and that Israel will ignore international pressure and respond to acts of war by making war. But there seem to be a lot of people on the ground with a lot of confidence that they won't be able to.
