It is too early to assign victory or defeat. Much will depend on the pusillanimous politicians of Lebanon. Will those enraged at the behavior of Hizballah boot out the paid Syrian agents, such as Emile Lahoud? Will Siniora stop his undignified spectacles, his solipsistic display of sympathy for Lebanese "victims"? (Quite a few of those victims were instantly, unthinkingly, toted up as part of the "civilian" scorecard that Hizballah and Arab propagandists shrilly ululated their fake grief about all over Arab and Muslim radio and television stations, and in the hysterical press of those countries.)
Will Siniora think carefully about the duties of a government, of any government, to retain a monopoly on violence? Will the Christians, the Druse (Walid Jumblatt, varium et mutabile in his alliances, has gone too far out on an anti-Syrian and anti-Hizballah limb this time to climb back down that particular tree), the Sunni Arabs (like Hariri's aide, Siniora), and even some of the more intelligent and aware Shi'a manage to patrol the only border that counts -- not that between Israel and Lebanon, but that between Lebanon and Syria, in order to keep out the Iranian agents and weaponry?
The Shi'a, who multiply faster in Lebanon, as in Iraq, than any other ethnic or sectarian group, could destroy Lebanon. A sample of the destruction that they brought was on display during the last six weeks. It was only a sample. Either Hizballah remains armed, or Lebanon will disappear. The choice is that of those who consider themselves Lebanese first, and whose loyalty is not to some supra-national idea or hatred. That idea, that hatred, comes from Islam. It can even effect those whose Islam comes secondhand, through growing up surrounded by others who are either Believers, or by being told that they are "Muslims" and therefore must think as Muslims "must think." Socioeconomic resentments, like every other kind of resentment, are described and felt in Islamic terms. The ultimate enemy is always to be located in the camp of Infidels. Shi'a in Lebanon may have felt economically marginalized by the richer Sunni Arabs and by the Christians and others, but Hizballah has harnessed that resentment on behalf of Greater Islam and the current contender for the title of Smiter of Infidels, the Islamic Republic of Iran (a year, or a decade hence, the title will pass to some other group or state).
The most important result of the war against Hizballah should be, must be, a change in the understanding of Israelis as to the power of their enemy, and the necessity for not giving back, ever again, an inch of territory -- not the Golan Heights to Syria, not the "West Bank" to those among the local Arabs who since 1967 have been carefully called "Palestinians," not to anyone. If that is the outcome, then this will have been a decisive victory for Israel's future, and -- though many in the West do not realize it, do not make the connection -- for Infidels in Western Europe, who are casting about for models as to how to deal with their own internal threat, that inevitably will grow and grow. No amount of government-funded "integration" programs or appeasement in foreign policy, and then in domestic policy, will make that threat smaller, much less cause it to disappear.
Siniora, he of the crooked mouth and crooked politics, is not financially corrupt, but rather morally corrupt. We now see that by his failure to stand up to Hizballah and demand that it, as simply one more "militia," be disarmed. After all, this is the best moment to do so -- the Lebanese now can present themselves, to the Hizballah bullies, as having been "forced to acquiesce" to the dismantlement of Hizballah ("much as we appreciate all you've done for us, Hizballah"), with the protection afforded by American and other attention.
Lebanon is akin to a Wild-West town. Little by little it has been taken over. The law-abiding townsfolk have themselves to blame for doing nothing for six years. They assumed that somehow those 12,000-15,000 missiles were there just for fun, and would never be used, never threaten anyone. (Yes, this script has its anachronisms, just like the telephone wires glimpsed by the camera over the saloon's swinging doors, or the shot of a plane's contrail picked up over some saguaro cactus in Monument Valley.)
Very well then. Siniora will probably not rise to the occasion. He figures he has too much to lose if he comes out for the disarming of Hizballah, even if there are hints that possibly even the French government would like, just a bit, to help decent and quasi-decent and not-decent-at-all-but-nonetheless-non-Hizballah Lebanese to recover something like a semblance of sovereignty. Even the French may recognize that Hizballah is a permanent menace that has now been weakened by Israel's attacks, and that now is the time to put the blame for whatever damage has been done to non-Hizballah targets on Hizballah, on hated Syria, and on distant and fanatical Shi'a Iran.
The word "Lebanese" is used as casually, and as misleadingly, as is the word "Iraqi." Nothing at all, other than the fact of both being citizens of a geographical spot called Lebanon, links or connects the thoroughly Western man, a Christian Lebanese, an admirer of, say, Charles Malik or of the late Antoine Fattal (author of the best book on the legal status of non-Muslims under Islam), with those who have those in their rooms and in their minds pictures of Nasrallah, the Qur'an, and a kalashnikov: the Three Pillars of Hizballah Faith. We should not want "democracy" in Lebanon if, through mere head-counting, those whom we should support would lose out: the Christians of Lebanon, and those clever or advanced enough among the Druse and even some of the Sunni Arabs. (For some Muslims in the Middle East, those most familiar with a coherent and confident non-Muslim group such as the Christians in Lebanon or the Jews in Israel, are the beneficiaries of an unrecognized "mission civilisatrice," the secret ministry performed merely by observation of those non-Muslims, by contiguity with them).
Lebanon is a geographical designation. The "Lebanese" we care about are the Lebanese who call themselves "Lebanese," who explain when asked that they speak "Lebanese," who if asked if they are Arabs often reply, somewhat puzzlingly and incompletely, "I am a user of Arabic." Many of those people are now in exile; their ancestors left the region when it was ruled by the Ottomans, or later surrounded by a steadily growing population of Muslims. Others left in the last few decades. Not surprising -- what would you do if you were a Lebanese Christian? Imagine yourself as a thoroughly Western man, part of the Western world, in a place that had been abandoned by the Western world. Imagine yourself subject to Islam in the one place that had for centuries served as refuge and redoubt for the many Christians who, while they may have been forced to accept Arabic and may even possess Arab names, refuse to consider themselves as just one more subset of the many arabized and islamized peoples, now all convinced they are "Arabs," everywhere that Islam conquered.
But those that remain may still be able to make themselves heard.
This is a good history of Lebanon and its Christian roots http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article.jsp?id=2&debateId=57&articleId=2367
pusillanimous , Wow, I had to look that one up.
Thanks for the great insight. I would hope the people trapped by Islam would one day rid themselves of those "religious cleric" and "sheiks" and others who prohibit them from enjoying a much happier and healthier lifestyle.
I wonder, sometimes, if the people actually believe the tripe they hear everyday, or if they are just too scared to take action.
They could start by destroying that evil text , the Qur'an.
Hugh:
I'm shocked, truly shocked, to find you being an optimist in this skirmish.
The better heads think Israel lost and the Hesbos gained.
But I far prefer an optimist.
(but just in case you are wrong, I'll keep my spare Kalashnikoff oiled and provisioned)
This might interest JW'ers.
Jumblat blasts Syria
There are additional clickable links at the source, however bear in mind. I heard Wallid Jumblatt speak today on Mosaic at www.linktv.org, and his blast at Syria was tongue in cheek way of calling them cowards, because he also threatened them and blamed them for interfering in Lebanon..something that Juan Cole (as usual) glosses over or ignores, Jumblatt also chastised Hizballah for bringing on the crisis.
Anyone who wishes can go to Mosaic
Download and play the August 17th episode and listen for yourself to Jumblatt on Syria and Lebanon..his comments are laced with ironic taunting of Syria and Lebanon.
For Israel victory is to totally crush the enemy; anything less is defeat...Arab victory is to remain with at least one combattant standing; only total obliteration is defeat. (Do I remember correctly: Saddam declared the first Gulf War a triumph?)...So that's the mythology...
Now Israel did come out with some very positive results...maybe they're not worth the cost of the lives lost, but anyway...
it is unlikely that Israel will ever again retreat from one inch of territory...
patiotism bloomed a bit along with greater unity of purpose between the political left and right...
the armed forces now know just what technology they will need for future battles...
they understand which strategies will likewise be appropriate...
there will be a steelier resolve to return fire to wherever the source might be: if the Arabs choose to fight from amongst civilians that will be their bad...
But most impoprtant: Israel will not dither about the proper response to the next attack . It will come with breathless speed.
Sad. The Christian majority of thirty years ago is a distant memory. Thousands will come to the West each year . . . maybe tens of thousands. Let us welcome these Christians with open arms. The one strength of the Lebanese Christian community is that it is clustered in mountain strongholds.
"truly shocked, to find you being an optimist in this skirmish."
-- from a posting above
Not an optimist, cautious or incautious, and not a pessimist. I don't know enough about how many missiles were destroyed or seized or were used up, I don't know enough about the original Israeli plans, I don't know enough about what may or may not be going on with Iran or that is planned for the future.
I wanted, in the atmosphere of bewailment and ganshing of teeth, to make one main point: that the failure of Israel to win easily, to obtain all of its objectives, has had an important and salutary effect. Imagine, for a minute, that the Israelis had managed to destroy all the Hezbollah forces and weaponry within a week or two. What would have been the result? More complacency by the Israelis, more of that silly belief that they can always handle everything and the Arabs and Muslims will never be a real threat. And then what? Then Olmert would have been able to continue his suicidal policy of giving up the "West Bank" when all those who understand the significance of that area -- not religious significance, but military significance, and water-resource significance -- know or should know that it cannot possibly be given up, not one dunam more. In fact, the Israelis should be enlarging Jewish villages, creating new ones, and doing whatever they can to make clear that neither the "West Bank" nor the Golan Heights will ever again be in Arab hands (this could all have been handled, so easily, by simply annexing the whole area in mid-June 1967, of presenting the legal, moral, and historic basis for such annexation, and then creating a situation where out-migration by Arabs would have been encouraged in a hundred ways, and by now everyone in the Western world, and perhaps even some Arabs aware that with possession of those territories, Israel was not to be defeated militarily, would have long ago accepted the outcome -- as long ago as, say, the early 1970s).
That is the main benefit of Israel's inability to do what it wished to do, but could not do, given the insistence of Isral's army and government in being so solicitous of the enemy (thank god the American military is not like that -- but in Iraq, it's beginning, horribly, to do so, what with the idiotic desire to "win hearts and minds" instead of killing the enemy, and intimidating all those who, while not fighting against the Americans, hardly wish them well, wish them, in fact, ill for being the Infidels those Americans are).
And what is up in the air is the reaction of the Christians, mainly the Maronites (the Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholics are not nearly as firm, not nearly as sure of themselves, as ar the Maronites, and consequently more likely to appease the Muslims or promote, at least in part, their agenda), the Druse, and those Sunni Arabs who just want to make money in the manner of Hariri (not the saint and martyr everyone has decided to pretend he was, but rather a fixer, who became fabulousy rich in the way people get fabulously rich in Saudi Arabia, and we all know what that means) and his son Saad and "weepy" Siniora (if one can recycle the Homeric epithet affixed, more than fifty years ago, to Mossadegh)Hariri's aide in the rebuilding of the physical aspect of Beirut (the rebuilding of Beirut and Lebanon morally, intellectually, is a feat quite beyond them).
If Hezbollah, not right away, but in six months or a year, has been seen as sufficiently weakened so that others in Lebanon will do what they can to interdict other shipments (not out of love for Israel, but in order to prevent another bombing, and this time a real one, not the delicate affair, with precise targets precisely hit, and with leaflets and phone calls warning everyone to leave, but rather a different kind of bombing to stop a mortal enemy without being so solicitous of those who permitted that mortal enemy to rearm (that is a kind of collaboration, and invites retaliation from those threatened by such collaboration). For an example of this, see what the American, Canadian, and British airmen did to Germany, or what the Americans did to Japan, in order to shorten the war and minimize their own and other Allied casualties. A different standard should not be applied to Israel -- not by others, and not by Israel itself. It has been entirely too prodigal, as it was in Jenin, with the lives of its own soldiers, and far too solicitous of an enemy whose standards of behavior are... well, that meets no standards of behavior, none.
That's not being an "optimist." It's suggesting that the all the returns are not yet in, and one would be foolish to call an election, or a war like this, when so much is still unclear, and the reverberations are still being felt, and their effects not yet understood.
Hezbulluh has declared "Victory" (just like the Nazis won WWII) but God has already written their ending, and it isn't a pretty one.
Can THEY actually believe that THEY defeated Israel on the battlefield? Do THEY believe that the IDF's attack was repulsed ala Kursk or The Bulge? D0 they believe that they have their Inchon. Well, THEY talk as if they did, or is this just speeches for the MSM and the great unwashed masses? That's a lot of retorical questions even for me. Israel was robbed of a victory by the wavering support of The Bush- Rice axis.
The IDF top brass are examining the reports, assessing effectiveness of IDF and Hezbo tactics and weapons. Merkava tanks might get better armor protection; IDF troops will know what to expect. Next time it will be different. Hezbo and other "individuals" will rest on their "success" and get smashed.
Hezbo spokesmouths have crowed about their rockets and Israel's utter defeat. Katyush rockets are ineffective when launched by twos and threes. Watch combat movies taken by the Soviets during the attacks on Berlin to see how Katyushas are to be used. If Hezbo ever masses rockets in numbers to be truly effective, the IAF will have a turkey shoot.
Things are happening fast.
Hugh,
One hopes you are correctly gauging rising Western anger (which I too feel is rising).
And also hopefully we are being armed in this fight against a hateful ideology and are helping channel it.
Many thanks for elucidating.
Curious but liberating might be that JW is near or at the eye of the storm.
a report in the Toronto Globe & Mail the other day [link on the IRIS blog] says that the Shi`ites who returned to towns and villages in southern Lebanon and found the devastation of war did not have --or no longer had-- the sense that hizbollah had won the war.