COMMENT The danger of an
unequal struggle By Ehsan
Ahrari
Reading the headline of Beirut's
Daily Star of July 13, "Lebanon Under Attack", one
is reminded of another military campaign, the US
invasion of Iraq. The chief similarity between the
two was the tremendous power asymmetry that
existed between the US and Iraq then - and between
Israel and Lebanon now.
Lebanon's "crime",
according to Israel, is that it cannot control
Hezbollah, an organization that has sowed ample
fear in the minds of the Israeli leadership
through its military skirmishes with the powerful
defense forces of the Jewish state during its
occupation of a portion of southern Lebanon in the
1990s.
Israel is also involved in a "war"
against the Palestinian nation. The enormous power
asymmetry of that situation is also equally
apparent. We know well where
the asymmetric war between the US is heading: an
unmitigated disaster in Iraq. The question now is
where will the asymmetric war between Israel and
the Arabs (Palestinians and Lebanese) lead? It
seems like another disaster in the making.
Israel and the Palestinian nation are at
war. Hamas refuses to recognize Israel and
negotiate with it. The recent escalation is the
decision of Hamas' military wing to kidnap and
hold an Israeli soldier. Its demand is a prisoner
exchange, which Israel rejects as a terrorist
demand, a tactic they learned from Hezbollah.
But even before that, Israel was
determined to do everything to make the demise of
the democratically elected Hamas government a
reality. The United States fully supports Israel
in that objective. President George W Bush and
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert are finding out
that democracy, when it comes to any Middle
Eastern country, is not likely to be friendly
toward either of them.
In the
post-September 11, 2001 era, using military
prowess to cow and pacify Arab defiance and anger
has become a common tool of the US and Israel.
That has emerged as the first rule of that era.
Bush spelled that out in his doctrine of
preemption and regime-change even before he
invaded Iraq. The military campaign in Iraq was
driven by the desire to create "shock and awe",
which was aimed at nipping in the bud any
aspirations of the Iraqi military to confront or
defy the American forces through the use of
overwhelming power.
However, the Arab
world - or Muslim world, to be precise, because
the same thing is also happening in Afghanistan -
like the US, is operating under a different rule
of the post-September 11 era. This is the second
rule of that era. It states that the use of
awe-inspiring power begets equally devastating
confrontation and resistance.
One side
fights with awesome high-tech weapons; while the
other side fights with whatever it can get its
hands on. The Iraqis (and now the Afghans) did not
invent the art of asymmetric warfare, but they
seem to be writing a new chapter. In the process,
Iraq and Afghanistan are steadily sliding toward
mayhem. The "victor" in this war will be the one
that has the political capability and resolve to
outlast the other side.
The critical
question of the day in the strategic community of
the US is how to pacify Iraq and how to win in
Afghanistan. American experts are studying Islam.
Writings of every minor or major functionary of
al-Qaeda and other Islamist organizations are
being translated into English by numerous
counterterrorism experts who wish to make a name.
It is not hard to find specialists who can
intelligently discuss the theological differences
between Sunnis and Shi'ites, or those who have
more than passing familiarity with the history of
Iraq or Afghanistan, or those who have some ideas
about how to resolve the Iraqi and Afghan mess.
However, both Iraq and Afghanistan
continue to defy all "quick fixes" or
silver-bullet type solutions. The asymmetric war
does not show any signs of deescalation. In fact,
it appears to be a war without any end in both
theaters.
Now Israel is fighting an
asymmetric war against the Palestinians in the
occupied territories and against Hezbollah in
Lebanon. Israeli ground forces and air force have
let loose their fury on the Palestinians. Then
Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed
eight in the aftermath of the decision of the
government in Jerusalem to send troops into
southern Lebanon.
Declaring that it is at
"war" with Lebanon - since Hezbollah guerrillas
operate from that country - the Israeli air force
struck targets in Lebanon, including its
international airport, and created a land and sea
blockade. The US supports these Israeli actions.
Bush noted from Germany that a "group of
terrorists [referring to the Hezbollah] wanted to
stop the advance of peace" and added that Israel
had the right to defend itself, but its action
should not weaken the Lebanese government.
Like the US in Iraq, the Israeli response
was aimed at creating shock and awe. Like the US's
"war strategies" that were focused in the 1991 and
2003 military campaigns in Iraq on destroying its
civilian and military infrastructure, Israel is
concentrating on the destruction of the most
primitive infrastructure in the occupied territory
and relatively well-developed civilian
infrastructure in Lebanon.
The purpose is
to escalate the economic and political costs of
the Lebanese government for its "support" of
Hezbollah. There is no consideration that, in a
weak state, such support might not even be an
outcome of a deliberate policy.
An
important aspect of Hezbollah's strategy is, in
the words of its leader Hassan Nasrallah, "to draw
attention to the plight of Lebanese, Palestinian
and Arab prisoners in Israeli jails" and to
negotiate the exchange of captured Israeli
soldiers for those prisoners.
In the case
of the Palestinians as well the Lebanese, the past
has proven that they have the capacity to absorb
misery and continue their struggle. That reminds
one of the third rule of the post-September 11
era. The Arab side is convinced that there is such
a thing called the "Vietnam syndrome" in the US.
That describes a psychological fear of remaining
involved in a protracted and ostensibly losing
war. It also describes a low to very low quotient
for absorbing human losses in a war.
The
evidence of that syndrome has already emerged in
the case of Iraq. There is heated debate inside
the US to set the timeline for troop withdrawal or
even to withdrawing within a year or so. That
syndrome is also serving as a catalyst for the
Iraqi insurgency. Al-Qaeda number two Ayman
al-Zawahiri, on more than one occasion, has issued
statements to the effect, that the insurgents are
winning the war and that the US is getting ready
to pull out of Iraq.
Of course, there is a
palpable degree of exaggeration to any suggestion
that the US is "getting ready" to withdraw from
Iraq; however, that phenomenon is very much in the
making.
Israel has proved itself to be
resilient in this regard. There is no Israeli
version of the Vietnam syndrome. Except for its
decision to withdraw from southern Lebanon in May
2000, Israel has decided to fight fire with fire
as a matter of policy. However, the question is
whether Israel can absorb casualties and continue
the use of overwhelming military power.
The Palestinian version of "fire" is
reliance on asymmetric warfare. The same thing is
true with Hezbollah of Lebanon.
What is
emerging from the Israeli use of its superior
military power is that the Palestinian nation is
being destroyed; its infrastructure - which was
extremely dilapidated to begin with - is being
decimated. Israel has started to use the same
tactics in Lebanon, by focusing on destroying its
infrastructure. US Air Force General Curtis LeMay,
famously (or infamously) suggested in 1965 that
the US should bomb Vietnam into the Stone Age.
That was his "solution" to resolve the Vietnam
conflict. No one knows whether that strategy would
have worked then; however, Israel seems to be
implementing that very same strategy against the
Palestinians. By declaring a "war" against
Lebanon, in all likelihood, the same strategy will
be applied against that country as well.
But what makes Israel believe that it can
succeed by using this strategy against the
Palestinians?
If the struggle between the
Arabs and the Israelis were to boil down to a war
of nerves between two highly asymmetric military
powers, then the outcome of that struggle is not
likely to be determined through the use of
military power alone. The Palestinians for the
past several years have proven their capacity to
survive the shock and awe of Israeli military
prowess.
Hezbollah has similarly proven
its credentials in the 1990s. What is favoring
them is the fact that the weak do not have to
worry about the outcome as long as they are
willing to absorb the human and material costs of
such a struggle. However, the strong have to think
long and hard whether they want to live with the
political consequences of a Pyrrhic victory.
Ehsan Ahrari is the CEO of
Strategic Paradigms, an Alexandria, Virginia-based
defense consultancy. He can be reached at
eahrari@cox.net or stratparadigms@yahoo.com. His
columns appear regularly in Asia Times Online. His
website: www.ehsanahrari.com.
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