Lebanon: So, What The Hell Happened?

One thing has been bothering me about the Lebanese war that appears to be just winding down: how is it possible that I'm smarter than the Israeli Defence Forces?

I've been saying all along (on-line and off) that Hezbollah cannot be destroyed by an air campaign, nor indeed by any military means at the IDF's disposition. Yet Israel attacked it, and stated at the beginning of the attack that its war aim was its destruction. In other words, they set themselves up for failure.

The Guardian writes that according to Sy Hearsh the whole shebang was planned between the Israelis and the Americans as a sort of general rehearsal for an attack on Iran's nuclear research centers.

Normally I tend to be sceptical of conspiracy theories, since accident, the seven deadly sins, and common stupidity are usually enough to account for most man-made horrors we come across. However, this one sort of make sense... if you make a couple of assumptions, that sort of make sense if you have a particular mind-set.

Suppose the Bush administration was determined to stop Iran from acquiring nukes, whatever the cost.

Suppose they had already decided that diplomacy was unlikely to do the job. (On that count, by the way, I agree with them. I believe Iran is determined to acquire nukes, and no amount of diplomatic sticks or carrots will dissuade them.)

That only leaves the famous "military option" -- an option that this particular administration has been more than eager to use before.

However, the disastrous failure of the Iraq campaign has severely reduced America's capacity to project military power. The USA is simply not capable of launching a frontal military assault on Iran. It just doesn't have the troops, equipment, nor (most importantly) the political capital.

What's left? An air campaign, of course. The USA is certainly capable of striking any nuclear facility in Iran... if it knows where it is, that is.

There's just one problem with this scenario: the fact that Iran would certainly retaliate against Israel (and America, where it can).

Iran has four ways of doing this: making trouble in Iraq, international terrorism, attacking Israel directly with long-range missiles, and... Hezbollah. So, in order to be able to attack Iran's nuclear capability, the USA must somehow deal with each of these three threats.

Let's leave Iraq out of the equation for now; it's fucked anyway, and the US army in Iraq mostly consists of underpaid Mexicans whose lives are clearly not worth much to the Bush administration. It's unlikely that the Iraqi Shi'a militias would be able to rack up dramatically more casualties than the US is currently suffering anyway, as long as the Yanks just hunker down and stay put in their bases (which they're mostly doing anyway).

International terrorism is obviously no worry to the Bush administration. On the contrary, an attack on American territory (or even better, a foiled attack on American territory) would make them jump with joy -- just look at how they pounced on the British liquid-explosive plot. So clearly the threat of Iranian terrorism on American territory won't deter them.

The old saying is that general are always fighting the last war. So at this point, let's look at precedents.

The first precedent is the 1991 Iraq war. At that time, Israel was also threatened by long-range missiles. They didn't do much damage. So, the fighting-the-last-war thinking goes, nothing much to worry about there -- Iranian missiles are unlikely to be much more dangerous than Iraqi Scuds. (Very likely true.)

So, that leaves us Hezbollah. And the second and third precedents. Namely, Belgrade and Baghdad.

The NATO air campaign against Serbia achieved its goals very cleanly (from the NATO point of view). While it was actually almost completely ineffective against the Serbian military, the strikes against civilian infrastructure caused the home front to crack, and resulted in a quick and comparatively cheap capitulation. Consequently, NATO generals -- especially American generals -- have been trying to go for a re-run of this war ever since.

The next place they tried it was Baghdad, during the beginning of the second Gulf War. It worked too, sort of: the US military got to Baghdad with very little trouble, yanked Saddam down from his pedestal, and waited for the locals to show up with the rose petals. (We know what happened next, but that's not important in this context.)

The (erroneous) lesson to be learned is something like this:

When fighting a war against any country whose capital starts with a B, you can win a war cleanly by frightening the populace through an aerial bombardment campaign, even if the bombs don't do much damage to the actual military capability of the enemy you're fighting. (Tehran starts with a T, though. I wonder if they thought of that?)

So, since Beirut also starts with a B, it's only logical to fight the Serbian war all over again. Carpet-bomb the enemy military whenever you can find it, carpet-bomb the areas of its support base on the pretext that the enemy you're fighting operates from there (Shi'ite lives are cheap, these days), do some mostly psychological bombing of the enemy capital, and the populace, terrified, will turn against its leaders and do your dirty work for you. Hezbollah problem solved, Iran's ability to retaliate against Israel neutralized. The democratically-elected, anti-Syrian, progressive Lebanese government strengthened, the Lebanese people eternally grateful for the kind Israelis having solved their Hezzie problem for them. Everybody goes home happy. Right?

Only this isn't what happened. Beirut starts with a B, but the Lebanese didn't turn against the Hezbollah, the Hezbollah didn't get demoralized, and after a full month of pounding, Hezbollah probably fired more rockets into Israel than got destroyed by the IAF. What went wrong?

Obviously the Americans and the Israelis made a miscalculation somewhere. Perhaps the first letter of the capital isn't the determining factor after all. Because, seriously, other than that (and the fact that both former Yugoslavia and Lebanon are multiethnic countries with mountains) they don't have much in common.

For starters, the Lebanese are all war veterans. They've gone through fifteen grueling years of bloody civil war. When they get bombed, they get more angry than scared (and they get plenty scared, like anyone does who gets bombed, so you can only imagine how angry they'll get). They know what to do, how to handle it. They never expected the country to be "normal" anyway.

What's more, the Hezbollah doesn't give a hoot about what Beirut thinks. It doesn't obey the Lebanese government, except when it suits them. They're the strongest military force in Lebanon by far. The idea of the Lebanese army (or any army, for that matter) disarming them by force is ridiculous. In other words, terrorizing the Lebanese civilian population can only have one consequence -- since it can't do a thing about Hezbollah anyway, the only logical reaction is to rally around it.

What still beats me, though, is how come the Israelis thought that Lebanon is like Serbia just because Beirut and Belgrade sound sort of similar. Perhaps stupidity is contagious, and they caught it from America. Or perhaps it's just Olmert's lack of military experience, rivaling that of George Junior's.

I would never, ever have imagined that I'd be saying this, but... I kinda miss Sharon. Whatever else he was, he was not a complete moron about military matters. I have a feeling that he would've given George Junior something to think about, when presented with this damn-fool scheme.

I wonder what this bodes for Iran, though? Any guesses, anyone?