War of Fog

To the Editors:

In “The War of Fog” (Azure 26, Autumn 2006), David Hazony asserts that there was more “good news” to emerge from Israel’s war with Hezbollah than bad.

I, for one, fail to see how Israel can be said to have won its war with Hezbollah when Hazony himself concedes that Israel achieved “none of the objectives” it declared at the war’s outset. Moreover, even the areas in which Hazony rightly finds that Israel did well–weakening Hezbollah and its standing in the country, debunking the wisdom of unilateral disengagement, identifying Iran as the unmistakable regional menace, and demonstrating the resolve of the Israeli people–none of these, even when combined, amounts to victory in the immediate sense of the term.

Israel, it goes without saying, could have gained much by delivering a fatal military and, in turn, political blow to Hezbollah. With the benefit of six months’ hindsight, neither of the two has actually happened. Media reports now suggest that Hezbollah is as, or more, equipped today than it was before the war. This is because Iran and Syria have continued to arm Hezbollah, undaunted by yet another feckless United Nations Security Council resolution for stabilizing Southern Lebanon. Hezbollah has also demonstrated a newfound ability to manipulate the Lebanese government, its ministers quitting the cabinet the moment it suits them. At present, Hezbollah’s military and political health are so vibrant that the United States has been forced to bolster, or better, rescue Prime Minister Fouad Siniora with a $770 million military aid package.

This is all of secondary concern to the war’s long-term implications, which, as Hazony recognizes, are of greater consequence. To my mind, these outweigh any short-term tactical successes that the Israel Defense Forces did or did not have.

Now in doubt, as Hazony points out, is Israel’s status as a strategic United States ally, as well as Israel’s deterrence factor. Indeed, the Bush administration must privately be stewing and fretting over the IDF’s failure to deal Iran’s front-line proxy a crippling blow. Yet this is more than an academic point. Why? Because if the United States, or Israel for that matter, believes that only a military strike can prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, either country might ultimately refrain from such a strike given the probability of renewed Hezbollah attacks against Israeli population centers–which Israel will apparently not devote the manpower to stopping.

Israel’s unfulfilled declarations in 2006 have surely hastened the likelihood of another round of fighting in Lebanon. If the mood in Israel now smacks of the initial disaster of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, as Hazony notes, one can only hope that history serves as a lesson to teach the IDF the dangers of arrogance and unpreparedness.