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