WSJ.com - Global View -- Israel is Losing this War

Concerned Citizen: I am back from vacation -- how the world and its strategic situation changes in a couple of weeks.

Unfortunately, I have written previously on this blog about what I thought was the feckless prosecution of this war against Hezbollah by Israel's incompetent leadership, and the terrible toll that I thought it would take on Israel's deterrent value vis a vis the Arabs, not to mention what it would do to Israel's international standing (which was goign to suffer no matter what -- and hence the 60 year old wisdom of Israel's leaders, until now, that you "take care of business" first, worry about the world's views of you second). As we have reported previously,

1. Israel's deterrent value could only be re-established by way of a decisive victory -- anything less would be protrayed in the Arab world as a Hezbollah victory, burnishing its (and Iran's, and Syria's) reputation. See my article of July 18th (!?!) on this blog (right-hand column) regarding deterrence ("Why Israel is Losing this War...").

2. In order to achieve this, any Junior ROTC candidate would tell you that airpower would not suffice, and that an overwhelming ground operation of some sort would have to be undertaken -- unfortunately with concomitant casualties.

Israel was given the green light by not only the US, but by Egypt, Jordan and SAUDI ARABIA(!!!) to try such a bold venture to severely bloody the nose of Shiite radicalism that increasingly threatens the Mideast and our ostensible allies there. Based upon the Arab world's prior experience with Israel, it would have expected such bold action and respected it, even if military actions alone would have not resulted in an ultimate resolution of this part of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Instead, an inexperienced Israeli leadership, led by a hack mayor/lawyer, a labor leader and an inexperienced foreign minister, has shown a lack of confidence, and has pursued handwringing and hesitant incrementalism instead of bold action, telegraphing each of its actions in advance to its foes (for what purpose, we can't discern). Silly Israeli government dispatches, for public consumption, of the destruction of large amounts (50%, 70%, whatever) of Hezbollah's capabilities from the air, either bespeak gross negligence or wishful thinking, only strengthened the resolve of Israel's enemies who have become increasingly convinced of Israel's weakness of will. And at the end, Israel is on the verge of undertaking a large ground invasion anyway, but under much different circumstances now, devoid of any element of surprise.... Either way, Israel will have to face the issue of whether, or how much, to "stay in Lebanon", after the inevitable forced ceasefire is brokered (by the way, when Israel talks about the objective of clearing out a 1-2 mile buffer zone on its border with Lebanon, as if that will achieve a great deal for its security, why doesn't anyone ask how this will help against rockets and missiles with much greater ranges than that?).

I hate to sound shrill, but Israel has hurt itself. Hopefully, Israel has time to recover in this war from these mistakes, without causing greater casualties than would have otherwise occurred, and learns from this experience.

Watch for a change in Israel's government 6 months from now, when it will be OK for the Israeli people (and opposition politicians) to start aggressively asking questions about Olmert's prosecution of this war. It is worth noting that the Israeli people, whose children/soldiers would be put in harm's way by stronger military action, have been consistently and overwhelmingly supportive of a more robust response in this war, from its first days until now.

See the link to the Wall Street Journal article below for more on this subject.


WSJ.com - Global View