Comments on: The Nasrallah Interview

By: Kenneth Almquist

Kenneth Almquist — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 20:47:26 +0000

I think that Hezbollah did extremely well in this war. More to the point, I don’t see any way it could hope to do any better. If Hezbollah sees things they same way I do, it will adhere to the ceasefire because it has nothing to gain, and possibly a fair amount to lose, by breaking it.

By: neil

neil — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 17:38:26 +0000

Read Yossi Melman in Haaretz, he writes frequently for major American papers. He claims that towards the end of the war Hezbollah fighters were simply running away to avoid confrontation with Israeli soldiers. If this is true, I have no reason to doubt him, Hezbollah is already is bad shape and will avoid exposing it weakness in the future.
I’m sure this is true, but what does it prove? I don’t think it shows that Hezbollah is in bad shape; I think it shows that they’re not crazy. Were they retreating from strategic positions, or were they simply leaving the battlefield where they’re technologically outmatched? The IDF depends on air power, so Hezbollah is at its strongest when it’s launching missiles from fortified bunkers. I’ve not seen anything to indicate that they don’t still have this capability.
This article is written from a rather Gonzo point of view , but I think it’s worth reading.

By: shmuel

shmuel — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 16:32:13 +0000

Like Wimberley comments (as opposed to his posts about Israel, which I find to be tilted dangerously). Any direct dealing with the current issues is subject to PR fog and personal biases that have nothing to do with facts.
In the long run I offer several possibilities; they may be wishful thinking or flat wrong.
1. Hezbollah cannot repeatedly attack Israel anymore due the potential reaction.
2. Read Yossi Melman in Haaretz, he writes frequently for major American papers. He claims that towards the end of the war Hezbollah fighters were simply running away to avoid confrontation with Israeli soldiers. If this is true, I have no reason to doubt him, Hezbollah is already is bad shape and will avoid exposing it weakness in the future.
3. Despite Olmert’s attempts, he’ll end up paying to his failure to run an effective campaign.
4. Top Israeli generals claim that the war should have stopped after 3 days. That is, the future strategy might be to hit as hard as you can and gain the benefits and avoid the pitfalls.

By: James Wimberley

James Wimberley — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 14:17:50 +0000

In what sense did Britain win WW II? Churchill’s greatness lay largely in the fact that he knew that the war would mean the end of Britain as a Great Power, and that victory would be Pyrrhic, but insisted on fighting anyway. See Lukas’ “Seven Days in May”. ( = May 1940)
Wellington, another man who knew war fron the inside:
“Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.”

By: Morat20

Morat20 — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 13:48:32 +0000

It’s a nice story, but I think it’s just wishful thinking. Human nature being what it is — you blame the people [i]dropping the bombs[/i] for the explosions, not whatever idiots provoked them.
There MIGHT be an example of where some country blamed their own leaders for getting the crap bombed out of them by another country, but I’m not really coming up with any examples here.

By: Paul Gottlieb

Paul Gottlieb — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 13:28:34 +0000

It’s good to try to be optomistic, but let’s not lose our minds. I’m sure that there are many people in Lebanon who resent Hizbullah and hold them partly responsible for their suffering. But this is a mere drop in the bucket compared to the tens of thousands of Lebanese who now hate Israel passionately. Not too surprisingly, the people who bombed their homes and killed their husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, and children are going to get the lion’s share of the blame. The country whose forces fired all those artillary shells into residential areas and dropped those cluster-bombs on concentrations of civilians, and straffed and bombed cars carry refugees away from the worst of the destruction, is the one most people are going to blame. Trying to paint this as a favorable outcome for Israel is like putting lipstick on a pig: it doesn’t transform an ugly sitiuation. Olmert & co. seem to have drunk too much of that Richard Perle-Dick Cheney Kool Aid.

By: chad

chad — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 12:14:08 +0000

In this kind of asymetric war, public realtions is the measure of success. While it is no doubt true that there will be some backslide among the Lebonesse people, Hizbullah is the really big winner in this battle in a long term war. Further, Hizbullah seems to stil be on the offense.
Brute force can prevail in this kind of War but it will take more and over a much longer period of time. Super powers, even regional super powers, seem always to over estimate the whimp in their human adversary. This is particularly surprising in a people that have fought back against the worst that humanity can perpetrate.
Seems like there may be a fair amount of bigotry involved in this miscalculation.

By: Jay C

Jay C — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 05:27:26 +0000

Yes, Jonathan: an excellent post: but it seems that it is going to take a little more time yet for the Lebanese peoples’ attitudes towards Hezbollah, Israel, and the ‘06 war to work out. The easy CW trope of “well, the Lebanese will eventually blame Hezbollah for the destruction, and turn on them” doesn’t seem, yet, to have much traction outside of the usual-suspects in on the starboard edges of the blogosphere. Greg Djeredjian (http://www.belgraviadispatch.com/) has a post on Hezbollah’s quick leap into the forefront of reconstruction efforts: whatever their military record, they are still showing a firm grasp of the PR situation.

By: foolishmortal

foolishmortal — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 03:34:43 +0000

I think you’re engaging in a bit of wishful thinking here, but your argument contains more than a grain of truth
“Lots of people made confident predictions about how the war would strengthen Hizbullah. We just don’t know that yet”
“Nasrallah’s feeling that he had to give this kind of interview is a good sign.”
I can wholeheartedly agree with both of these statements, but the latter only with a caveat: Nasrallah very well may have meant it at least in part. You quote Totten asking “if the latest round against Israel were such a great epic victory, why say he wouldn�t have started it if he would have known how it would turn out?”. Presumably because of his deep love for Lebanon and all of its people regardless of party affiliation etc… . That he feels the need to reinforce this is as you say a good sign, but it is important to remember that the Israeli response was quite unexpected, and to be frank, batshit crazy. So while it may be debatable whether Nasrallah might have gone ahead anyway, it is quite credible that he did not expect strategic bombing.
Re:relative gains, this should not be described as “the” key notion in IR. It is paramount in only one of several schools of thought, namely (neo)realism. Furthermore, I’m not sure you understand just how bold a claim you are making re:the U.S. civil war. I’m fairly sure that it would have been cheaper for the US federal government to buy every slave on the continent for triple price than engage in civil war. Or give each southerner some ridiculous sum of money. Civil war is just about the worst thing that can happen to an economy, and ours was bigger than most. But both of these points are peripheral.
More salient is your analysis of the recent Lebanese conflicts in terms of relative gains. Measuring this conflict used to be a great deal easier: one could count soldiers killed, or land gained, etc… But Israel and Hizbollah are engaged in an essentially political fight.
Hizbollah killed very few people and had virtually no military impact by launching rockets, but it did it anyway. Why? Primarily, to demonstrate that it can, and to project images of Hizbollah rockets falling on Israeli soil on to people’s television sets. Despite Israeli strategic bombing, Hizbollah was launching just as many rockets at the end of the fighting as it was at the beginning, and relatively few Hizbollah fighters were killed. So why did Israel bomb? To convince non-Hizbollah Lebanese that Hizbollah was their enemy.
So we have our two combatants using military tactics not aimed at the opfor in the traditional manner, but rather at what could be called political targets. So how exactly is one to measure relative gains in this context? If soldiers killed and land gained are of at best secondary importance to the combatants involved, how can we use them to measure success?
To assess success, to some degree we need to understand goals and motivation, a tricky business at the best of times. For Israel, this is a great deal easier as they are a relatively open democracy. For Hizbollah it is a great deal harder, so must rely on shoddy metrics such as when Nasrallah finds it expedient to give speeches.
I would posit (cautiously) the following: the victor is Hizbollah by a whisker. Hizbollah was fighting a defensive war, and as such a return to the status quo (my tentative assessment of the current situation) is a modest victory. How can I claim that a conflict instigated by Hizbollah is a defensive war? By claiming that Israel’s response could not have been reasonably predicted. If this assertion requires further defense, please let me know.
Anyway, good post, made me think.

By: MRM in Hoboken

MRM in Hoboken — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 03:15:58 +0000

An interesting analysis, but I think we do need to see how this works out in Lebanese public opinion over the next quarter.
A few comments of my own:
If the Lebanese are upset at Hezbullah for capturing the two Israelis and setting off this mess, I suspect they are even more upset with the Israelis for a thoroughly over-the-top and indiscriminate response. Many non Shiite Lebanese who regarded Israel in the past with dispassion if not friendship are likely to have a more hostile view in future. We will see how this plays out in the next few months.
Regarding the Israeli prisoners, the articles I have seen state that Hezbullah took them in order to force a prisoner exchange. What Lebanese prisonsers is Israel holding, if any, and under what color of law? Are these held from before Barak’s decision to evacuate or were they captured in subsequent raids against Israel? I have seen very little discussion of this, and it seems a pertinent issue.
As for who won, most of the accounts I read depicted Hezbullah as skilled in small unit tactics and use of terrain, competent in using some complex munitions, and willing to take casualties and still come back to the fight. They did not fold overnight, and the Israelis did not present a commanding narrative by repeatedly claiming control of towns such as Bint Jbail. Undoubtedly the Israelis could have gone to the Litani River line, but presumably at a price they did not want to pay just now. We will see how this sorts out in future, but I think the current view in the Arab “street” and elsewhere will be of a Hezbullah victory and will stay that way.
I realize that the artillery rockets got most of the headlines, but it reads like much of the genuine damage to the IDF came from the TOW and laser-guided antitank munitiions. These were evidently a surprise, and constrained the actions of both infantry and armor. If these were really a surprise, someone in the IDF really screwed up.