[lbo-talk] Anatol Lieven on Lebanon war and how to solve everything

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Thu Aug 10 10:35:34 PDT 2006


URL: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/08/09/opinion/edlieven.php

THURSDAY, AUGUST 10, 2006

International Herald Tribune

Europe's role: Help Israel abandon its failed strategy

Anatol Lieven

WASHINGTON During the Vietnam War, a Communist leader famously told

his U.S. counterpart that the United States could kill 10 Vietcong for

every American who died, and yet would still lose in the end. The same

is true of Israel and Hezbollah.

Israel is losing for the same reasons that it lost its previous

struggle with Hezbollah: Bombardment from the air is ineffective;

occupation on the ground has to be permanent, and involves an

unacceptable stream of Israeli casualties; and outright massacre is

(presumably) out of the question.

It is instructive in this regard to compare what is happening in

Lebanon to Russia's victory over the militants in Chechnya.

To achieve this took the Russians seven years, thousands of Russian

dead, tens of thousands of Chechen dead, and several well-publicized

atrocities that have severely tarnished Russia's image in the eyes of

the world.

Moreover, since Chechnya is legally part of Russia, it was possible

for them to reintegrate Chechnya as a republic of the Russian

Federation, giving local power to one Chechen faction and handsomely

rewarding its leaders.

None of this is possible for Israel. The most Israel can do is to

conduct repeated punitive expeditions. These kill numerous civilians,

but if anything only strengthen Hezbollah, while damaging Israel's

economy and relations with the wider world, and America's position in

the wider region.

For whatever President George W. Bush may believe, Hezbollah is not

simply a "terrorist organization," if that implies that it resembles

Al Qaeda. It is much more like the Irish Republican Army and its

political wing, Sinn Fein, which so many Americans supported for so

long in their fight against the British.

The IRA used terrorist methods, but it was also a political force with

massive political support in its own community and beyond. The

suggestion that the British could have "eliminated" or even "disarmed"

the IRA by bombing, raiding or occupying the Irish Republic was always

self-evidently ludicrous. Such actions would only have enormously

increased the IRA's power, menace and influence. Instead, the end of

IRA terrorism was achieved only through a long and arduous negotiating

process involving concessions by both sides and the progressive

political integration of the IRA and its constituents.

In view of these facts - which are hardly complex or difficult to

grasp - the Israeli government and Israel's people need to rethink

their entire strategy, not only in Lebanon, but toward all their

neighbors, including the Palestinians and Syria. For Israeli strategy

in Palestine has failed just as obviously as it has in Lebanon.

If Israel is prepared to do this, then the international community,

led by Europe, should step up with really serious guarantees of

Israel's security.

In the short term, these should include a large- scale peacekeeping

force for southern Lebanon to protect northern Israel from attacks by

Hezbollah. In the longer term, a much larger force should be made

available as part of a final settlement between Israel and the

Palestinians, to ensure that a Palestinian state will not be made a

base for aggression against Israel. Ideally, this should form part of

a process by which both Israel and this Palestinian state should

eventually be invited to join both NATO and the European Union.

For any of this to happen, however, Israel has to be prepared to

negotiate agreements with its neighbors that are regionally and

internationally acceptable; and it has to do so simultaneously, as

part of one giant package. As every experience not just of the past

few months but of many years shows, the different conflicts in the

region cannot be solved in artificial isolation.

Hezbollah came into being in the first place to resist an Israeli

invasion of Lebanon intended to destroy the Palestine Liberation

Organization. Syria supports Hezbollah largely in order to put

pressure on Israel to give up the Syrian land it conquered in 1967.

The Hezbollah attack that set off this latest war was mounted to

support Hezbollah's Hamas allies in the face of an Israeli attempt to

destroy their government in the Palestinian territories; and so on.

So we should agree with Bush when he says that it is necessary not

only to stop the immediate violence but solve its deeper roots; but we

should draw very different conclusions from this statement. Although

it may seem harsh to say so, an international peacekeeping force for

southern Lebanon under the terms so far proposed amounts to helping

Israel avoid having to confront the fact that its strategy has failed,

and avoid having to engage in a very painful but absolutely essential

national debate about what to do instead. This is not in the long-term

interest of Europe, the Middle East, the United States - or indeed, in

the long run, Israel itself.

Instead, the Europeans should recognize that for the first time in

many years, the increasingly visible failure of Israeli and American

strategy, and Tel Aviv and Washington's need for outside help, have

given Europe real leverage. They should press this advantage

relentlessly to help bring about a real solution to the Middle East's

manifold and interlinked conflicts.

Anatol Lieven is a senior research fellow at the New America

Foundation in Washington. His latest book, "Ethical Realism: A Vision

for America's Role in the World," co-written with John Hulsman, will

be published next month.

International Herald Tribune Copyright © 2006



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