Lessons Learned
|
Courtesy of Michelle Malkin
|
"This Middle East crisis," says analyst Michael Barone, "is different from all other Middle East
crises." Ever since 1967, the attacks on Israel followed a familiar pattern. Palestinian supporters would
attack Israel. Israel would effectively and decisively respond. The Israeli military was top rate. Their opponents
were laughingstocks. One favorite joke: "FOR SALE, Egyptian rifles - never fired, only dropped once."
The world community would send out a wail of anguish about the never ending cycle of violence against helpless
victims. Various ineffectual folks would suggest that Israel give up land for peace. They would. Then everybody
would take a break to rest, recover and spend the grants of fresh money they got from the West. Every couple of
years, the whole sequence would start again.
Not this time. There are major differences from the past.
Root Causes. There are two and only two. The first is that the Jews want to live in their historic homeland
and the Arabs don't want them to. Both justify their stances by appeals to their religion.
The second is the new factor - Middle Eastern oil is mostly selling at the rate of $10 or more of income for every
dollar of expense. All major economies are oil-dependent, so the 18-22 million barrels per day market will remain
as long as the economies are healthy. Newcomers China and India are growing at a rapid pace. There are simply gobs
of un-traceable cash swirling around the world. There is enough wealth in the Middle East to fund any ambition.
Here is what Iran has spent its wealth to get.
Professional Military. Hizballah is perhaps the strongest Arab army in the Middle East. It fights like a
professional military. It can fight and maneuver at the company (100 men) or at the platoon or squad level. It
has specialized units, including trained infantry, mortar teams, missile squads and logistical personal, according
to counter terrorism expert Bill Roggio. It operates command and control centers. Its training, tactics, techniques,
procedures and weapons have surprised Israeli military and intelligence services.
Hizballah has mortars, RPG's, anti-tank and anti-personnel mines, anti-tank missiles, and in some cases surface-to-air
missiles. It has sophisticated communications equipment, body armor and night vision goggles. It has too much training
and equipment to be dealt with from the air. According to returning Israeli troops, the forces are well-trained
and fight hard. The core army is estimated to be 3-5 thousand with perhaps 20 thousand in reserve.
Seamless Local Existence. Hizballah is a state-within-a-state (the extended enclave) which exerts independent
control over some 25 percent of Lebanon's territory. Book authors William Bennett and Seth Leibsohn estimate that
some 400,000 of Lebanon's 4 million citizens live under Hizballah control.
- Hizballah collects its own taxes - 20 percent of all income. It runs its own schools, based on an Iranian syllabus.
It operates clinics, hospitals, social welfare networks, and centers for orphans and widows. In addition to meeting
the needs of the poor, such operations also make Hizballah a principal employer of the middle class.
- They employ staff and operate their own media. Their media includes Al-Manar (the lighthouse) satellite television
which is seen all over the Arab world, four radio stations, newspapers, magazines and several book publishing companies.
Obviously, it maintains an extensive, world-wide public diplomacy effort.
- The political arm of Hizballah controls the elected municipal councils and appoints local officials. It has
two appointed ministers of the national government and 13 members of Parliament. It operates its own system of
justice based on Sharia law. That requires its own police force, courts and prisons.
- To complete its status as a virtual state, Hizballah operates unofficial "embassies". Its one in
Tehran is larger than the Lebanese embassy itself.
Civilians as Weapons. In the world of gruesome innovations, the Iranian mullahs may have created the
next step beyond the butchery of Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap. He was, you will recall, the developer of programs
to use Western Media to deliver his propaganda in such a manner that they had a direct impact on the outcome of
the war.
The Tet offensive was a military loss for him but a psychological victory because both the American press and politicians
abandoned support for the war when Walter Cronkite told them the war was a loss. It was that experience that caused
General Giap to conclude that America lacked resolve. They could not stand high casualties and they would not stay
the course to victory. It's a precept that dominates radical Islamic thinking yet today.
What the agents of radical Islam have added to the mix is the cynical use of civilians in total war. For Hizballah,
its army wears no uniforms, its equipment is unmarked, its storage facilities and offices are deliberately put
in civilian areas. Its armaments are stored in houses, schools, mosques and hospitals. Its primary attack weapon,
a small unaimed short range rocket loaded with shrapnel. It is fired at civilian areas. While not very effective
as a weapon, it is tremendously effective as a terror tool. Fear shuts down the local economy and does millions
in damage as well as creating enemy citizens who no longer wish to fight.
The indiscriminate rockets succeed when they work and succeed when they fail. If they hit something, everyone within
a certain radius will be killed by the shot gun effect. Often they are first with a time-delay to attack first
responder. When they fail to hit anything, they provoke a response. Incoming artillery, for example, cannot be
aimed at aggressors without causing collateral damage to the innocents they hide next to.
Moral Confusion. Hizballah is a non state actor attacking from within a sheltering state. This is a situation
that the international community and international law are ill-equipped to handle. How do regularly-formed nation
states sanction entities that transcend borders and are privately funded? No such mechanism exists. Israel is not
at war with the state of Lebanon. Now what? Hizballah is not the only one. This battle is not the last one.
Finally, there is one more by-product of these Iranian efforts. Middle East expert Michael Totten warns that 30
days after a cease fire, the unity of the Lebanese people will wear off. Fear of Syria will return. At that point,
they will want revenge on Hizbullah for destroying their country. The Lebanese Christians, Sunnis and Druze will
re-arm. They may well reform their personal militias they had disbanded for the sake of the nation. Sectarian tensions
and hatreds run deep in Lebanon. Beirut went from being the Paris of the Middle East to being the Mogadishu of
the Middle East. Someone has to pay.
Once Israeli bombs are silent, a terrible internal reckoning awaits.
July 28, 2006
|
