Strategic Desperation

Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists have attempted to attack the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, according to various reports. Al-Nahar reports that the attack consisted of only three assailants, one of whom drove a vehicle packed full of explosives, and Syrian security forces killed all three.

Do not discount the timing of this attack. Syrian security services still have a tight lock on what happens in Damascus; there are no shadowy groups that operate below the government's radar or without the government's consent. Furthermore, the Assad regime has promoted the use of purported random acts of violence as part of its agenda to increase its power over Lebanon for a long time now. This strategy backfired in October 2004 and in February 2005, but these setbacks did not deter the Assad regime from continuing to use terrorism and assassinations to try to reverse the ever-increasing gap between itself and Lebanon through extorsion and blatant threats.

Now the Assad regime's desperation for "dialogue" has hit a new mark. This attack was undoubtedly intended to demonstrate to the United States (and Europe, for that matter) what awaits its strategy of isolating Syria. Considering the increasingly vitriolic and accusatory rhetoric emanating from Hizbullah lately, this attack appears to contain a message to those Lebanese who support the March 14 coalition as well.

Update: See Mustapha's ironic take on this event here.

Update 2: From Stratfor's updated analysis:

Not only were the IEDs poorly constructed -- meaning they probably lacked sufficient power to even breach the embassy compound's perimeter wall, let alone damage the interior of the compound -- the attacking force also was completely inadequate for hitting a hard target such as the embassy. The compound is surrounded by Syrian security forces, and guarded on the inside by U.S. Marines. Although small details suggest the embassy was the target, it is hard to believe such an attack would have been so botched.

An analysis of the preliminary details of the attack suggests the Syrian response was swift and aggressive. Plainclothes Syrian security officers appear to have engaged the attackers before they were able to position themselves for the attack. As the shooting began, some of the attackers reportedly ran into a nearby building and continued firing from there. At least two of the attackers reportedly were seen running toward the embassy, firing automatic rifles and throwing at least one grenade. The fighting lasted for 15 minutes to about half an hour, according to different witnesses.

Consider also:

The U.S. Embassy is located in Damascus' Rawda district, an area that also houses many other foreign embassies and Syrian government buildings, as well as palaces used by Syrian President Bashar al Assad. One of these palaces is within 980 feet of the U.S. Embassy, which is partly the reason for the tight security in the area. Because of the number of high-value targets in the area, however, only a serious investigation into the attack would reveal the true target -- and U.S. investigators probably are not going to be allowed close to this one.

And the fact that:

Due to the tension between Washington and Damascus, the degree of Syrian surveillance around the U.S. Embassy in Damascus is equal to that which was in place outside the U.S. Embassy in Moscow during the Cold War. In addition to the approximately 30 Syrian guards posted around the embassy on any given day, the compound is under constant and heavy surveillance by Syrian intelligence and security forces. This surveillance begins several blocks out, and all locals in the vicinity are watched by the Syrians as possible U.S. intelligence sources. Anyone acting suspiciously near the embassy immediately attracts the attention of Syrian security forces.

Stratfor blames a lack of insurgent proficiency for the failure of this attack to cause harm to embassy personnel or property. More pertinent than the failure of the terrorist mission is the timing of its occurrence at all. At this time a weakened Hizbullah agitates in Lebanon to attempt to cause the Saniora government to fall. Meanwhile, a cornered Assad attempts to make last-ditch maneuvers to avoid the inertia of the Hariri murder investigation. Save for Iran, to whom Assad has committed himself wholeheartedly, he has no friends left in the internati0nal community; domestically, he has committed himself to an unprecedented religion-based cultural revival in an attempt to buy off the religious interests that may otherwise try to compete with him; he has cultivated terror as a crop for export, and he has established Lebanon as its primary destination (now that Iraq has made the trade in cross-border jihad more risky than the payoff can warrant). At the same time, Assad knows full well that another misadventure in southern Lebanon involving Hizbullah may cost him the remainder of Hizbullah's weapons and his own standing army. It appears that Assad, having squandered his diplomatic options on avoiding the prying fingers of the Hariri murder investigation, spent his military ones on Hizbullah's recent fireworks display. Assad now triumphantly possesses only terror as his sole source of diplomatic, geopolitical, or even military initiative. I find it very curious indeed that Assad's bungling of his own foreign affairs may have inadvertently and ironically created what all dictators crave - an enviable level of efficiency.

Gambling on Golan

Much has been made about the current political position of Syria, with competing calls for American and European political powers either to talk or not to talk to Syria regarding the various sources of tension in the region. American policy has remained quite clear on the issue, and the opinion prevails that talks with Syria have been wholly unproductive in the past, and so they will probably be in the future. Syria's position remains to try to extort talks from the region's players, primarily using the brutalization of Lebanon as the primary source of instigation as well as context. With Syria cornered by American, French, and Arab pressure on all sides to cooperate more fully with the Brammertz investigation into the assassination of Rafiq Hariri and to fully implement UNR 1559 (i.e. ensure the disarmament of Hizbullah) on the other, Syria has been desperate to find avenues in which to maneuver.

Stratfor indicates that the Assad regime thinks that it has found the solution to all its problems – how to shoot its way back into the international community and try to influence Israel:

Syria has been denied involvement in the cease-fire agreement, and has been conspicuously excluded from the current talks to exchange prisoners of war between Hezbollah and Hamas on the one hand, and Israel on the other. As a result, the Syrians appear to be turning to their traditional method of handling foreign relations: explosives.

The chatter among pro-Syrian forces in Lebanon has included talk of a Syrian plan to activate a low-intensity conflict with Israel in the Golan Heights. Already there have been indications that Syria is preparing for such a confrontation. Sources in Lebanon report that a group of Iranian military experts belonging to the central training unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps recently arrived in Syria and is training Syrian army officers in operating advanced anti-armor
missiles. In addition, the Iranians are providing long-range missiles and are aiding Syria in constructing large numbers of bunkers and tunnels.

…

Syria is fully aware of its military impotence relative to Israel Defense Forces, but its plans are surprisingly ambitious. Sources claim that Syria intends to attack all of Israel's airfields in order to render its runways inoperable and neutralize the Israeli air force when things heat up in the Golan Heights. The Syrians may be gravely miscalculating that Israel's internal preoccupations and lack of an alternative to the al Assad regime will hold back Israel's military response. Israel has already been proclaimed the loser in the war against Hezbollah and has a pressing need to reassert itself militarily in the region. The Israelis continually count on Syrian miscalculations for opportunities to demonstrate their military prowess, and the Syrians could end up doing Israel a favor by inviting an Israeli military reprisal in the Golan Heights. Israel is not likely to allow Syria to dictate the level of intensity in the region.

Considering that Israel does not consider Hizbullah to be unfinished business, the chances of a military threat developing in the Golan Heights certainly represents a third front in its milieu of problems for its deterrence. Stratfor believes that Syria will not instigate a hot war using any such militia, the reason being that Assad understands (if we can assume that he is a rational man) that the other Arab regimes will not come to his assistance in any further military adventures. However, Assad seems to be able to count on Iran to provide whatever help he needs in attempting to combat Israel, and the result will probably be a low-level insurgency patterned on Hizbullah's actions between 2000 and 2006.

From the Israeli perspective, a threat in Golan effectively surrounds Israel with low-level paramilitary insurgent-style threats, most of which are sponsored by Iran. I'm not going to get into details about how all this relates to the current political environment, Iran's nuclear weapons, possible military actions against Iran and so on and so forth. Most of you have heard this all before. More than likely a threat from the Golan has not developed to fruition yet. However, Hizbullah has been moving quickly to reassert itself in southern Lebanon and re-consolidate its military capability in the Bekaa Valley (outside the mandate of the new UNIFIL force, of course). For now, the Lebanese front will remain the one that concerns Israel the most. Most Lebanese I speak with on a regular basis fear a re-ignited conflict with Israel. I fear that they are probably correct.

Weekend Reading List

Call this a weekend reading list or shameless self-promotion, whatever you like. Truth is that, due to other commitments and inherent limitations, I have had little time lately to mull over recent developments in Lebanon or anywhere else. As a lackluster substitute, I am providing a list of some of my posts that were best received back when I wrote them. Some have turned out to be fairly prescient, while others have fallen far short of their intended marks (to say the least). Your comments are always welcome.

Nefarious Intent
What's In a Ceasefire?
Iran, Syria, Hizbullah – The Death of Pragmatism
Ships of Fools
The Ties that Bind
Syrian Four-Corners Offense, Pt. II
Iranian Spin Control
The Logic of Contempt, The Peril of Weakness
Asymmetric Diplomacy
Nasrallah to U.S. – Bring 'Em On!

Update: "Political navel-gazing" in Beirut - Finally, another American who saw what I saw at AUB. I would have warned him.

Commandos, Rumors, and Foregone Conclusions

Stratfor yesterday:

An unconfirmed report originating inside Hezbollah indicates that the real objective of an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) raid Aug. 19 near Baalbek in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley was to secure the release of the two captured Israeli soldiers. According to the report, one of the two Israeli soldiers actually managed to run away from his captors and head toward an Israeli helicopter that had landed before he was seized again by Hezbollah.

Although unconfirmed, the information does offer a plausible explanation for Hezbollah's heavily fortified presence in Baalbek and IDF's continued focus on the area. The Israeli raid, which was never intended to be leaked to the press, took place in Bodai, a town near Baalbek in northern Lebanon. In spite of the cease-fire, Israeli warplanes reportedly launched missile attacks against a Hezbollah facility near Bodai while Israeli commandos were dropped from helicopters in the area for a brief time, clashing with Hezbollah fighters, according to Hezbollah's Al Manar television.

IDF said the raid was strictly intended to prevent Hezbollah fighters from receiving arms shipments from Iran and Syria. However, it is important to note the intense IDF focus on Baalbek before the cease-fire. One of the highlights of Israel's war against Hezbollah was the Aug. 2 Baalbek raid near the Dar al-Hikmah hospital. IDF sent dozens of attack helicopters to the site and engaged in a large-scale operation in the vicinity, but only ended up capturing five low-level Hezbollah militants. There was some suspicion that senior Hezbollah figure Sheikh Mohammad Yazbek was being treated at the hospital or that the facility was a major Hezbollah command center. However, the operation's abundant resources and high level of risk did not add up -- unless IDF believed the heavily guarded location was where the Israeli captives were being held.

Israel's continued interest in Baalbek and its environs, despite the cease-fire, suggests that something of high strategic value remains in the area. Israel has a pressing need to rescue the kidnapped soldiers and thereby deprive Hezbollah of any bargaining chips and give Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert a boost at home. There is a strong likelihood that Hezbollah has moved the Israeli soldiers out of the vicinity by now, but Israel will not allow the cease-fire to prevent it from conducting raids in Lebanon to secure their release.

There's more than meets the eye here. Even if this report is not true regarding the real purpose of the raid, precise commando raids generally mean that Israel had active intelligence sources in the area, regardless of the reason for which they were utilized. Hizbullah certainly demonstrated their acknowledgement of such a phenomenon immediately after the raid, as their fighters were seen setting up check points and questioning individuals who they recognized as not from the area.

Having said that, intelligence can come from a number of types of resources - visual observation, intercepted communications, the result of interrogations, and reports from willing individuals, just to name a few. It is still highly likely that Israel retains intelligence assets inside this part of Lebanon (meaning the Bekaa Valley and environs), considering that they had them there during heat of battle and may still consider the strategic importance of the territory in the Bekaa Valley to be worth the potential risk to personnel and equipment involved in such activities as concealed observation posts and tactical signals intelligence missions. This concept of risk to personnel and equipment pertains to highly trained personnel such as commandos as well. The IDF will not risk these personnel without confirmation of intelligence from multiple sources; that is to say that an intercepted telephone call is not enough to generate a commando raid. Whatever the purpose of the mission, the raid itself probably resulted from several different intelligence sources reporting the same information. This does not automatically mean that Israel maintains many active intelligence assets in the Bekaa Valley, but it certainly increases the likelihood that they do. Put it this way: it is nearly impossible that they have none.

Some sectors of the Israeli government and military have blamed the IDF's lackluster performance against Hizbullah on a dearth of good information on how and where Hizbullah operates - on a lack of good intelligence, if you will. Israel remains in a position in which it must still consider Hizbullah to constitute an active threat to its security. Therefore, the presence and utilization of Israeli intelligence assets in Lebanon goes far beyond such short-term projects as supporting commando raids and small incursions. As I have argued in previous posts, Israel will eventually seek a second round against Hizbullah as a matter of its own security almost as certainly as Hizbullah ultimately seeks a decisive round against Israel as a matter of purpose. For that, Israel must seek strategic advantages. It is already clear that Hizbullah has taken such steps already. Both sides will seek what military strategists call intelligence prep of the battlefield; most likely we are getting fleeting glimpses of such activity now. That Lebanon itself remains and will remain a battlefield is, unfortunately, a foregone conclusion.

Mohammad Goes to Washington

What's the difference between 4 million Lebanese citizens and one former Iranain president? Answer: The former Iranian president can get a visa to the United States. From Stratfor today:

Reports surfaced on Wednesday that the United States has agreed to issue former two-term Iranian President Mohammed Khatami a visa, and that the U.S. State Department has apparently already processed his application. This follows reports that Khatami plans to come to the United States on the invitation of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, to participate in a conference Sept. 5-6 aimed at promoting global dialogue. Khatami is slated to address a gathering at the Washington National Cathedral on Sept. 7, and sources tell us that he has planned speaking engagements at Georgetown, Harvard, the University of Chicago and the University of Virginia.
...
That a former Iranian head of government -- moderate or not -- will be visiting the United States is no small development. Tehran and Washington have not had formal relations for more than a quarter of a century. Khatami's visit is happening because it is something that both the United States and Iran want to see happen. It is safe to say that Khatami could serve as a potential channel of dialogue between Tehran and Washington.

I find this too optimistic, but I don't have time to go into details. Hopefully you don't need them.

Micro-Developments

Major developments are lacking in Lebanon at the moment, in spite of a recent Israeli raid; empty threats from Lebanon's defense minister that he will simultaneously call off Lebanon's military deployment to the south and punish anyone violating the ceasefire on the Lebanese side of the border; and a whole lot of United Nations preaching to Israel about how it should defend itself (I have my doubts that anyone in Israel is listening, I don't know why). Rather, the micro-developments are catching my eye instead. Of these:

- Hizbullah hands out Great Satan Currency to the tune of USD 12,000 (Dahyeh) and USD 10,000 (Bekaa) per family in a bid to outflank Shiite restlessness over destroyed homes. Meanwhile, a local Mt. Lebanon business owner tells me that he cannot find anyone to work in his shop; every unemployed refugee he has asked has refused the opportunity. I guess if I had a 12K wad in my pocket right now, I might find an excuse to put off work for a while, too.

- Hizbullah fighters are re-claiming former positions in southern Lebanon and even doing so publicly. Lebanese media is chock full of these guys feigning concealment of their identities while they discuss openly the operations that took place in southern Lebanon. There is an definite sense of arrogance beginning to emerge.


-Contrast the foregoing with remarks from President Bush regarding the disarmament of Hizbullah; the U.S. regards Hizbullah as unfinished business. Message delivered to Israel: get ready for round two. Message received by Hizbullah: ya awlad, sub al-beton 'asra3 shway (pour that concrete faster, boys).

- The feckless Arab League will hold discussions on Lebanon's reconstruction next month. Implicit message to Lebanon: "If we wait long enough, we won't have to do anything at all. But why waste another opportunity to sit at nice tables, make serious faces, and practice our rhetorical flourishes?"

Roundtable

I have found that most comment threads on most blogs tend to veer from the original topic within five to eight comments, and then they tend to get vulgar and nasty within twenty. However, may I suggest some light reading: this thread from four days ago is still ongoing and has yielded some interesting discussion on Hizbullah and its future within the Lebanese political landscape. I fear that this thread may supplant the rest of my blog's content if this keeps up.

Drones Over Bekaa, Beirut

Stratfor reports that Israeli aircraft took anti-air fire during operations in the northern Bekaa Valley in Lebanon; they further speculate that this report suggests Israeli jet, helo, and drone activity in this area. The unspecified aircraft in question reportedly did not return fire.

Local sources also tell me that drones were active over much of Lebanon today and have become audible nuisances. One source even reported that drones were visible and audible over east Beirut and in mountain areas east and north of Beirut. With an Israeli fleet still posted offshore and blockading Lebanon's ports, it appears that barring ground activity, the Israeli military still views Lebanon as a battlefield and is treating it as such. It is unclear what kind of political ramnifications this may have, but Lebanon's normalization may still be a long way off.

Update: Stratfor elaborates:

Israeli troops have pulled back to the border but are still in several small villages inside Lebanon. A heavy Israeli air force (IAF) presence remains over Lebanon, particularly the Bekaa Valley. While no airstrikes have been reported, the IAF is almost certainly closely monitoring the border with Syria, watching for signs of weapons shipments. An IAF plane took fire Aug. 18 but did not return it.
....
Thus far, the transition has gone smoothly. Lebanese and Israeli forces have given each other a wide berth and Hezbollah has cooperated with the cease-fire. The first step for Lebanese forces will be to establish relationships with the major players in the towns they hope to control. So long as Hezbollah does not display its arms in the open, those arms may end up being fairly secure, since the Lebanese army is unlikely to begin kicking in doors all across the south. Of course, Hezbollah will make concessions to the army, and some stockpiles of weapons will certainly be uncovered. But if those stockpiles are consistently found to contain Hezbollah's oldest equipment, then it will be a sure sign that more is going on behind the scenes.

Stratfor asserts that the Lebanese Army managed to cough up 10,000 volunteers for five-year contracts; so there seems to have been an unusual source of able bodies to do some long-term soldiering in the south that suddenly came available. We can certainly expect a bit of teaming between the Lebanese Army and Hizbullah, of course. Another valid question is: who is paying for 10,000 non-conscript volunteers? How about this one: what is their sectarian breakdown? I have a feeling that the overwhelming majority of these "volunteers" will bear a striking resemblance to Hizbullah rank-and-file when finally presented for inspection.

So yes, it appears that there is plenty of cause to think that there is something going on behind the scenes.

Update 2: Ceasefire Tested
Israel conducted a combined arms raid in the eastern Bekaa Valley yesterday, AP reports. Lebanon's defense minister has threatened to recall the Lebanese army from its advance to the southern border. Stratfor elaborates, implying that this should come as no surprise:

Israel Defense Forces appears to be conducting limited operations against Hezbollah guerillas in their Bekaa stronghold after the Israelis said that they would target traffic between Syria and the area in order to prevent the replenishment of the Lebanese Shiite movement's arsenal. At the moment, it does
not appear as if these operations carried out by Israeli forces will lead to a breaching of the cease-fire, unless Hezbollah decides to escalate the situation by resuming the launching of rockets into Israel. That said, limited military encounters between Israeli forces and Hezbollah guerillas could continue until the deployment of the United Nations peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, which is when Israel has said it would affect a complete pullout from Lebanon.

Türkçe dersi?

Turkey to send troops to Lebanon? In light of the recent French about-face on the subject of its leadership of a U.N. mission in Lebanon, Stratfor makes the case that such a development would be welcome in several different sectors:

Turkey's relations with Israel and Iran are such that Israel would be happy to see Ankara managing the confessional state more efficiently than Syria's Alawite government, while Iran would not harbor too many objections to Turkish troop deployment in Lebanon because of Ankara's statement that it will not be involved in disarming Hezbollah.

This means the only problem Turkey could run into is Syria, given that to deploy a Turkish military force in Lebanon successfully would demand that Turkey develop a robust intelligence capacity throughout Lebanon, as well as establish links with of all of the country's sectarian groups. Damascus would interpret this alone as a threat to its interests in Lebanon -- not to mention that a Turkish deployment to Lebanon would mean Turkish troops would have Syria surrounded to the north and southwest. The Syrians have not forgotten Turkey's 1998 threat to invade if Damascus did not surrender Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan. After an initial Syrian refusal, Turkey rolled tanks to the nations' shared border -- after which Syria expelled Ocalan.

Damascus is already coping with the pullout of its forces from Lebanon, which has made conducting its business in Lebanon quite difficult. Turkish troops trying to run the peacekeeping operation will become entangled with Syrians pursuing their interests in the country, which will put Syria in a very tight spot. For Turkey, this is a major opportunity to assume a leadership role in the region. Ankara is fully prepared for this task militarily and geopolitically, given its generally good relations with all parties involved in the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict. Should Ankara assume the role of peacekeeper, it will enhance its status as an international player, considering that it has forces to its north in Georgia too. An entry into Lebanon would give Turkey a much stronger negotiating position with the United States with regard to PKK guerilla operations out of Iraq.

I remember the problems that Bosnian Serbs had with the concept of German NATO troops arriving in Sarajevo, considering the legacy of Germany's occupation of Yugoslavia through WWII. I sense more than a few symbolic issues with Lebanon's very dynamic Armenian population, as well as other potential gripes and squabbles of an historical nature here and there from other groups in Lebanon. Aside from that, this is probably an excellent idea. In my experiences I found Turkish troops to be well-led, tough, and professional. Syria's military is no match at all for the Turkish army, and Turkey remains a firm ally of the United States. This is an interesting development.

Hizbullah's Rearmament Agenda

Stratfor sums up the political situation in Lebanon vis a vis Hizbullah and paints the Lebanese government as window dressing to Hizbullah's future plans:

Hezbollah is trying to figure out how best to thwart the disarmament condition attached to the cease-fire agreement. Though estimates of Hezbollah's casualties vary widely, its forces did take a beating from the Israeli military campaign and need time to regroup. If its fighters remain in southern Lebanon and refuse to disarm, Hezbollah would either have to battle the Lebanese and international peacekeeping troops or give Israel an excuse to restart military operations. Hezbollah's core objective at this stage is to deprive Israel of an excuse to revisit the issue of neutralizing Hezbollah's military capabilities. The group's leaders are closely observing how Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government has come under attack for its mismanagement of the war, and it cannot rule out the possibility that the Israeli government could soon undergo a major transition. A hard-line prime minister, such as Benjamin
Netanyahu, could come into power and attempt to finish the job of crushing Hezbollah.

As a result, Hezbollah is just as interested in recreating a buffer zone in southern Lebanon as the Israelis are. The agreement struck between Hezbollah and the Lebanese government likely involved a plan for Hezbollah to cede control of security posts and patrols to the Lebanese forces in select areas south of the Litani River. Since Hezbollah's presence south of the Litani is scarce following the war, the main task of the Lebanese army would be to take over the land from U.N. forces after U.N. forces gain control of territory that was temporarily seized by Israel Defense Forces during the war. Meanwhile, Hezbollah can use its Shiite influence in the armed forces to infiltrate Lebanese military units in the south. If Hezbollah gives some of its arms to the Lebanese army in the south, but keeps its most valuable weaponry in strongholds north of the Litani and in the Bekaa Valley, the group can still allow the Lebanese government to
gain some credibility by showing its ability to elicit cooperation from Hezbollah. At the same time, Hezbollah can be seen at home as a national movement more interested in cooperating with the Lebanese government than in putting troops in harm's way by prolonging the conflict with Israel.

That the Lebanese government can actually convince Hizbullah to conform to a national plan outside of the party's own interests is pure wishful thinking. Rather, the situation that is unfolding right now is plainly the opposite. It is the Lebanese government that will conform, not Hizbullah. And here's why:

The nominal displacement of Hezbollah forces in the south does not mean that Hezbollah will cease to be a military power. After demonstrating its ability to survive in a war against one of the world's most sophisticated militaries, Hezbollah cannot afford to give up its arms at a time when it is being celebrated as the region's most potent resistance movement, especially if an Israeli resumption of hostilities is likely in the cards. Nasrallah made it clear in his speech that the only issue related to disarming that is up for discussion concerns Hezbollah positions south of the Litani, indirectly signaling that Hezbollah strongholds in the Bekaa and in southern Beirut will remain intact. Moreover, many of the Shiite inhabitants in the south are Hezbollah guerrillas. Even without weapons, these fighters could be quickly reactivated and resupplied when the need arises.

Hizbullah may be doing a real bang-up job on the humanitarian front, but the party's real influence is irretrievably tied to its weapons. Why would the party ever want to give them up, even in return for whatever residual legitimacy that Saniora's government could confer upon them (if they had it to confer in the first place)? Hizbullah's ability to fight another day is the operative concept here and drives all other strategies that the party adopts. This is precisely the reason that Nasrallah agreed to a tentative ceasefire and quickly moved to stop the rocket fire on Israel when Israel ceased offensive operations. He actually appeared to want the ceasefire to hold. The reason is simply that Nasrallah needs time - time to patch up his restless communities, time to re-stock weapons supplies, time to engage in the political maneuvering that will strengthen the party's position over time.

Update: Should we be surprised at Nasrallah's success? Wretchard at Belmont Club explains how the asymmetric angle works at a very fundamental level. Includes appropriate classic film quotes.

On Criticism, Deprivation, and Denial

Israel's Defense Minister Amir Peretz has formed a committee to investigate the conduct of Israel's war against Hizbullah, AP reports. Considering that the IDF's performance has already been given a trial of sorts in the Israeli media (and few positive performance reviews, to say the least), it appears that the situation is unfolding as would be expected. That is to say that Israel's military deterrence will probably undergo a thorough examination and tasking will be disseminated regarding the making of necessary improvements. Clearly, considering that the IDF suffered about 118 soldier deaths and hundreds of wounded (the overwhelming majority among dismounted infantry, no doubt) in 34 days of hard fighting, Israel's defense establishment most likely feels that there is plenty of room for tactical and strategic improvement. (Non-euphemism-laced translation: expect heads to roll.)

There will obviously be no such introspection on the side of the Lebanese government or Hizbullah. Having claimed victory already, Hizbullah obviously feels no need to account for some 35,000 destroyed buildings, a ruined international airport, damaged port facilities, 400 miles of damaged roadway, 150 destroyed bridges, and over 1000 civilian deaths, all of which could have been avoided had Lebanon been able to put up an effective defense or found a constructive way to avert Israel's invasion. Obviously, nobody in Lebanon or in Hizbullah can be held responsible for such a catastrophic failure in defense strategy. Also, the Lebanese government seems to have ignored the fact that Lebanon lacks any kind of air raid warning system similar to that utilized with great effectiveness in Israel (saving scores of lives). And finally, among the frenzied efforts to erect more high-rise buildings out of the rubble of the Dahyeh, will the Lebanese government consider examining ways in which lives could have been saved or infrastructure spared? Don't hold your breath for this and many other necessary questions to be answered.

Don't worry, we get it: the unfamiliar taste of victory somehow absolves the winning side of self-criticism in the Arab world. It's a totally new dynamic, but it rings with the familiar tune of that classic hymn, "Our Masses Become Unmanageable When We Deprive Them of Denial." However, Lebanon may, at the very least, want to install a workable early warning radar system just in case Israel gets the crazy idea that it still has unfinished business in Lebanon. Just a thought.

Consolidation and Manipulation

Hizbullah will continue to consolidate its "victory" in southern Lebanon, with Hassan Nasrallah's order for the Shi'a to return to their homes as the first step in this process, DebkaFile reports. * As such, Hizbullah becomes the guarantor of its own destiny in southern Lebanon, reacquires its state within a state, and becomes "host" to the following "guests":

- One Lebanese Army, 15,000 members
- One enhanced UNIFIL force without Chapter 7 mandate, 15,000 members
- All non-Shiite residents of southern Lebanon
- Unspecified numbers of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps
- Unspecified numbers of Syrian mukhabarat.

Hassan Nasrallah has the next chapter of this adventure all planned out - the battle may have been tough, but he is still the sheriff in town. The only thing that he has agreed to do as part of any compromise is to be a good host and not visibly show off his weapons to his guests. His fighters are on their way back to acquire and rebuild their former positions that the IDF bulldozed and blew up, and at least given the flow of events of the past two days, Nasrallah appears to be attempting to go back to the status quo ante.

Actually, the status quo ante is not Nasrallah's goal. He has threatened to topple the Lebanese government over the issue of his weapons and accused the March 14 opposition of collaboration with Israel (or in Hizbullah parlance, "the Zionist Entity"). Nasrallah seeks more than just consolidation of his stalemate with Israel; he seeks to leverage that performance against the entire government and acquire an entire state for use against Israel in the next war. Nasrallah's full-throated victory declaration does not mean that he has denied himself the lessons of Hizbullah's own losses on the battlefield. He knows full well what happened to the PLO back in 1982-83 when it ran its own state-within-a-state in southern Lebanon and tangled with Israel. Unlike the PLO, Hizbullah has survived on Lebanese territory. It has not been escorted to Tunisia or sent into hiding in Syria. It remains a vital, active force that will give trouble to Israel again once it recovers its resources and implements some of its lessons learned. But first, Nasrallah will make every effort to topple the Lebanese government, for it no longer provides as much cover as his Iranian lifeline needs right now.

What we are looking at now is a progression, writ large of course, similar to American experiences in Fallujah I and Fallujah II in Iraq. That is to say that international pressure to end the battle superceded anyone's ability to impose a solution on the area at the time. The ceasefire mandate was legally too weak to hold up, the forces who agreed to implement it were driven out by insurgents, and the area turned into a great big insurgent safe area. The second battle was decisive but costly, and probably not entirely necessary had the U.S. military been able to operate free from political constraints the first time. Unfortunately, we are about to see this happen again on Lebanese territory.

*I mention this report with all the usual caveats; alarmist it may be, but my "spider senses" indicate more than a few grains of truth therein.

Update: No need to mention that Lebanon and Hizbullah have already violated U.N. Resolution 1701 even before the ink had dried on the signatures. Israel needs little convincing that its own Fallujah II is a strategic inevitability.

Traffic Report

In the wake of yesterday's shaky ceasefire in Lebanon, local sources inform me that most roads remain packed full of cars heading to the south following Hassan Nasrallah's order to the Shi'a of southern Lebanon to return to their homes. He added that if there is nothing but dust remaining of their homes, then dust is what they shall have for a home for the time being. Nasrallah also stated that all residents of southern Lebanon whose houses were damaged will have them repaired and will be provided with new furnishings. Nabih Berri has apparently delivered a similar order to his supporters. Berri's and Nasrallah's standpoints remain relatively similar, although there exist glaring differences as well.

Local sources also report that southern Lebanon's minorities (Christians, Druze, et al.) are not returning at all, at least not yet. First, no similar order has been given in any of these communities (at least not that I am aware); second, many Christians and Druze in southern Lebanon had family members elsewhere in Lebanon and therefore did not end up in public schools and parks. Third, my sources tell me that many former residents are afraid to return given the highly charged environment in the south right now as well as the open presence of Hizbullah fighters. Local television media in Lebanon has been interviewing Hizbullah fighters who emerged from their intact tunnels beneath the rubble to speak about how they "fought" (i.e. avoided) the advancing enemy. Considering Nasrallah's explicit threats to certain elements within the Lebanese government (threats which are already being interpreted on a sectarian basis), do not expect non-Shiites who try to return to their villages in southern Lebanon to be treated well - that is about as euphemistically as I can say this.

One source informs me that the Druze village of al-Mari has remained intact with little damage at all from either Hizbullah or Israeli activities, largely due to the vigilance and fighting spirit of the residents who remained behind; Hizbullah failed to enter and Israel bypassed the village in their assault. Electricity has not yet been restored, and residents are not yet returning. I am not aware of the conditions of other specific villages in the area, except that nearby al-Khiam has for the most part been destroyed.

This concludes today's traffic/migration report.

Choose Your Metaphor

Stratfor on the contradictions inherent in the current cessation of hostlities that strengthen Hizbullah's position, in a piece that sums up very well the situation as we find it on the ground in southern Lebanon:

A series of Catch-22s has meanwhile ensued. Israel has reserved the right to take defensive action against Hezbollah while its troops are in Lebanon. At the same time, Hezbollah has voiced its right to respond militarily to any provocations by Israel. The Lebanese army thus far has refused to deploy to the south until Hezbollah voluntarily disarms. Hezbollah has vowed not to leave southern Lebanon until Israel withdraws, and Israel has refused to withdraw until international troops enter southern Lebanon. The cease-fire has enough caveats in place to break the entire agreement apart with a single explosion. The cementing of the cease-fire will come from the political deals sealed in the following days.

And from a second analytical report today centered on Hassan Nasrallah's victory speech:

It is clear from Nasrallah's speech that Hezbollah does not intend to disarm fully in the near future. The leader has emphasized that Hezbollah will absolutely retain arms in its territory north of the Litani River, and that any disarmament discussions should be strictly confined to Hezbollah positions south of the Litani.

Nasrallah said he is open to discussing the issue of disarming within the National Dialogue -- a series of meetings held in Beirut between the major leaders of Lebanon's main Shiite, Christian and Sunni factions. The National Dialogue meetings, however, repeatedly have been used by Hezbollah as vehicles to stifle serious discussion of disarming militias in Lebanon in accordance with U.N. Resolution 1559.

And the real source of Hizbullah's power, now strengthened under the crisis conditions brought on by the current conflict:

Hezbollah's presence in the government has enabled the group to paralyze the Lebanese political system whenever it feels its interests are threatened. A return to the National Dialogue will not offer a resolution to the crisis or add weight to the current cease-fire. Sunni and Christian leaders in particular will be reluctant to join these talks, now that the conflict has put them in weaker positions compared to Hezbollah. Any discussion on disarming Hezbollah now will be on Nasrallah's terms.

Ultimately the cost of Israel not dealing Hizbullah a complete defeat will be borne not only by residents of northern Israel, but also by the Lebanese political factions that do not support Nasrallah's grand plan. The Shiites will inevitably do what Nasrallah demands of them, but if there are no reassuring (and convincing) messages of national unity forthcoming, many Shiites will regard Christians and Druze as traitors to the resistance and will react accordingly (i.e. take matters into their own hands). Hizbullah's enhanced position within the Lebanese government will only exacerbate the sitiuation. However, Lebanon's minority communities know well how to live on the defensive and how to protect themselves; they have done it before. Nasrallah may have counted on such social tension already; perhaps he has a plan for ameliorating it or dealing with it constructively (although I doubt that he has one that would work). The next few days will be crucial.

Failing any such gestures in the interests of national unity, the seeds will have thus been sown for sectarian strife - a page right from the Assad playbook. Bashar al-Assad is counting on the international community not to remember the lessons of 1976, 1989, and 2000. For Israel not to remember them as well could sweeten the experience all the more for Bashar and his friends.

Choose your metaphor - dominoes, house of cards, what have you. The current ceasefire has a very weak foundation and there are simply too many weak joints between all its moving parts. Its dissolution is inevitable.

What's in a Ceasefire? Part 2

Armed Human Shields: Stratfor's sources report that Hizbullah utilized Palestinian militants and other pro-Syrian fighters to fire rockets into northern Israel, thereby preserving up to 90 percent of the party's elite fighting force. While I sincerely doubt the statistics, the point is clear – a guerrilla force's advantage comes from its ability to manage its position within its civilian cover. The mere existence of armed Palestinian militants in southern Lebanon provides a theoretical force multiplier that fits very snugly with Hizbullah's distinct brand of asymmetric warfare. Any militia commander interested in winning against a tactically superior foe would have done the same thing. If Hizbullah really was trying to preserve the bulk of its fighting force while simultaneously engaging the very enemy that defines its entire existence, then one must ask – for what reason were they saving their energy and manpower? What could possibly be more important than defending against an Israeli invasion? (Open discussion, those who still read this blog… I have my own ideas, of course; I am interested in hearing others.)

Future Human Shields: Local sources report that Hizbullah ordered Shiite residents back to the south to occupy their homes wherever possible. Same sources report massive convoys of cars and lorries carrying large numbers of Shiites, many waving Hizbullah flags and honking horns wildly, flashing victory signals, etc. Two things about this particular gesture on the part of Hizbullah interest me: (1) that Hizbullah maintains very tight control over the segment of the population that it represents (and probably a good portion of its newly-acquired fan base as well); and (2) that Hizbullah is interested in creating as much confusion for Israeli ground troops as possible in the near term. Remember, Hizbullah never agreed to stop shooting at any time. Shipping as many civilians back into the war zone (most of whom fled the area in spite of Hizbullah efforts to discourage such activity) in order to maximize the number of human shields in the wake of a new, temporary, untested cessation of hostilities will do just that. With most of the local population stripped away in southern Lebanon, the IDF largely kept the initiative and momentum on the terrain; however, with residents returning, the situation will quickly evolve into one in which Hizbullah operates most effectively.

Therefore, I stand by my original position on this issue of ceasefires – the recent "ceasefire" has created a situation very favorable to Hizbullah and has settled none of the issues central to Israel's military objectives. Hostilities will begin again. It is only matter of time.

Update: Thomas Friedman reacts to the concept of Hizbullah's declared victory-cum-standstill via its proof-of-concept "balance of terror" tactics:

Sorry, been there, heard that, and I don’t buy it. What matters in war, alas, is the balance of destruction on the ground and the political weight it exerts over time.

On the morning after the morning after, Lebanese war refugees, who had real jobs and homes, will start streaming back by the hundreds of thousands, many of them Shiites. Tragically, they will find their homes or businesses badly damaged or obliterated. Yes, they will curse Israel. But they and other Arabs will also start asking Nasrallah publicly what many are already asking privately:

“What was this war all about? What did we get from this and at what price? Israel has some roofs to repair and some dead to bury. But its economy and state are fully intact, and it will recover quickly. We Lebanese have been set back by a decade. Our economy and our democracy lie in ruins, like our homes. For what? For a one-week boost in ‘Arab honor?’ So that Iran could distract the world’s attention from its nuclear program? You did all this to us for another country?”

Unfortunately, Nasrallah will insure that few of his people ever get to view the problem in this way. It is now Nasrallah's turn as defeated dictator trying to recover his position by selling victory to his despondent masses. The mantra that Israel is the root of all evil has been a tried and tested formula for recovering one's position in this regard (Nasser and Saddam Hussein come to mind). Nasrallah will continue to sell the line that hating Israel in the name of "honor" is far more important than peace, secure borders, prosperity, and rule of law. His people will buy it, and most of them will continue to follow him time and again in this manner until they are too exhausted to care about the alternatives.

Update 2: DebkaFile (hold your groans until this is over, please) provides information that either confirms my post above or indicates that others in the Israeli defense establishment are just as concerned. Honestly, it seems completely intuitive to assert that, considering how Hizbullah's political situation translates militarily, it needs three important things in Lebanon right now: (1) civilian cover, most of which left weeks ago; (2) more fighters; and (3) a way to get these fighters to the south. Streams of eager, homeward-bound residents provide the perfect opportunity to accomplish the foregoing and to confuse the military situation in southern Lebanon. Hizbullah's goal is a quagmire for Israeli and international troops alike, and if they can manage it, to create appearances that indicate an Israeli withdrawal under Hizbullah fire. Nothing would make Nasrallah happier than that.

Great Leap North

Stratfor reports eyewitnesses sightings of Israeli helicopter operations in the vicinity of Zahle in the western Bekaa valley. Apparently these were not combat operations but potentially a supply or logistics run related to long-range surveillance or reconnaissance operations. Considering the location of this operation, such an operation indicates a deep penetration into the Bekaa Valley. As the map indicates, Zahle is an important crossroads within the Bekaa; from there one can monitor both north-south and east-west traffic patterns; the town's proximity to Syria makes it an extremely important strategic location. Also, there are several mountain ridges in the area from which large swaths of the Bekaa can be monitored.

Pokerface

Are Israeli grunts getting a weekend furlough? If AP's stories are any real indication, IDF operations may take a weekend break and consequent back seat to diplomatic efforts as the U.S., France, and the Arab League seek to break the existing deadlock regarding specifics on what kind of ceasefire to implement in Lebanon.

Stratfor, on the other hand, provides reasonable doubt for this hype:

Israeli troops have moved into Marjayoun -- a Lebanese town about five miles due north of the tip of the Israeli panhandle, where Israeli soldiers had been massed. This move is important, in that what follows will show Israel's intent. From Marjayoun, the troops can move due west along the northern bank of the Litani River, move north into the Bekaa Valley, or do both.

Marjayoun is a mostly-Christian village some 5-6 miles north of the eastern border zone that the IDF entered more than a week ago. Local sources tell me that there is still fierce fighting in the Hizbullah stronghold of al-Khiam and westward, with the IAF pummeling militia strongholds there. Not so with nearby Marjayoun. Stratfor says that the IDF has effectively seized Marjayoun and has been using it as a staging area for follow-on operations. For Stratfor, this indicates a change in strategy. For others who may believe that it was the IDF's intention all along to head into the Bekaa Valley, it does not. Stratfor does agree with such analysts, however, that the IDF has seized the initiative in that they now control the flow of events to come.

[With the seizure of Marjayoun] it would appear that they are returning to a more traditional Israeli model of mobile warfare. It opens the door to envelopment and/or deeper penetration into the Bekaa Valley, which remains Hezbollah's redoubt. It is not at all clear what Israel will do -- and thus, there exists the kind of strategic uncertainty that the Israelis historically
have sought to create in war.

Stratfor focuses on the relative senses of "balance" inherent in the contrasting strategies of the IDF and Hizbullah. Hizbullah's static defense, naturally, remains the most stable and immune to the IDF's development of tactical uncertainty. Defending in depth and numbers is not rocket science (quite literally), and it is hard to fake out fighters holed up in bunkers. However, with the IDF now invading in depth and numbers, compounded by air superiority and massive standoff capability, should Hizbullah need to engage in maneuver (such as rapid reinforcement of strong points, re-supply, etc.) they will probably be cut to pieces, as I suspect some of their efforts have already. Stratfor continues:

Therefore, Israel has now seized the initiative, but it is an initiative against an enemy that cannot respond. Israel can strike here it wants, but it still deals with an enemy that doesn't seem inclined to crumble tactically and that lacks strategic options. Therefore, it is an enemy that really can't be thrown off-balance. The Israelis need to figure out how they can destabilize ezbollah's forces. Hezbollah has to figure out how to remain table. At a certain level, it comes down to morale -- the illingness of the defender to stand and fight where he is. So far, Hezbollah as the morale that is needed.

In previous wars, when Arab armies were mobile, Israel's superior command and control allowed for a degree of razzle azzle that threw the enemy off-balance, but Hezbollah seems to have anchored itself so that its enemy can't do that here.The bottom line in all of this is that Israel has reached a point in which it has strategic options. But in the end, the Israelis will have to go into southern Lebanon and dig out Hezbollah -- and do the same if it moves up into the Bekaa. According to the IDF, 15 Israelis were killed Wednesday, which means that casualties are increasing. Israel is casualty-averse, and that can increase the length of time an operation lasts.

That the IDF remains casualty averse remains contrary to Hizbullah's assumptions. Hizbullah had banked all along on Israel's inability to fight a series of protracted, tough, close-quarters engagements. It is also clear that they relied on two other important intangibles: the Israeli public's lack of stomach for war, and the United States' unwillingness to stand alone in support of Israel. Both assumptions have cost them dearly so far.

Stratfor mentions that currently that the international community is in "disarray." They also mention that the latest American diplomatic announcement criticizing the Israeli security cabinet's decision to expand the ground war has an apparent ring of insincerity, even appearing "pro-forma" and feigning ignorance of the reality that there is indeed a war happening.

I tend to agree, and I would also agree (had Stratfor made this assertion, which they did not), that under these circumstances it makes no sense at all for Israel to say that they will decrease their operational tempo to allow for greater coalescence of diplomatic options. Considering three things: (1) the current deadlock between the U.S. and France; (2) that Israel remains the spoiler for any initiatives anyway; and (3) that we have a weekend coming up and most of the United Nations will be too busy getting on with their leisure time; under these circumstances it makes no sense that the Israeli security cabinet would choose now as the time to allow for diplomatic developments. Therefore, with Stratfor's help, I am calling the Israeli government's bluff - this announcement is simply another attempt to gain greater initiative and rescue what little element of military surprise that they can manage under the circumstances.

Al-Mari Update: Local sources tell me that in the chaos of battles with Israeli troops outside al-Mari, a few Hizbullah fighters managed to infiltrate the town with the intention of hiding around or inside abandoned residents' houses. IDF observers apparently found out and called in precise air strikes, damaging some of the houses in the village. I am not sure as to the extent of the damage. My source says that so far there have been no deaths or injuries as a result, at least among the town's residents.

Also, Israeli troops are reportedly (local source) massed not just in Marjayoun, but also in the small town of Rachaiya al-Foukhar and the mountainous area around it. This area is just northeast of al-Mari but apparently not easily accessible from there directly. It is this particular occupation that I find interesting - a large presence here does not really serve the interest of cutting off supply lines; it's simply too far out of the way. However, heading north into the Bekaa looks like it would be fairly easy to do from there, as there are no towns that might obstruct the main road. We shall see soon enough.

The New Middle East, Iranian Style

Stratfor sketches out the Iranian sector of the environment in which we can contextualize the current conflict in Lebanon:

Iran's goal is to have an increasing say in Middle Eastern affairs, and ultimately to become the main player in the region. Iran seeks to realize this aim by trying to create a new regional bloc -- one in which Tehran holds the leadership. Over the weekend, the Iranian news agency ISNA reported that Mohsen al-Hakim, the envoy to Iran of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) -- Iraq's largest Shiite group -- called for a new security structure in the Middle East, one with the capacity to deal with changes at the regional and international level. Al-Hakim said that organizations such as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have lost their ability to deal with issues threatening the region.

However, any new Iranian-led group is unlikely to be a security organization -- Iran lacks the military capability to lead such a bloc. Moreover, Tehran does not want to trigger a backlash from the United States or Israel by announcing a new security grouping. At this point, the Iranians realistically can only hope to challenge the Arab states who currently are the main regional players.

Following the rise of the Iranian-leaning Shiite forces in Iraq, Tehran sought to enter into a power-sharing arrangement with the Arab states in the region by pursuing an observer status in the League of Arab States (LAS). It also tried to normalize ties with Egypt, which is the mover and shaker in the LAS. On both counts, the Arabs snubbed the Iranians; they realized that allowing Iran entry into the regional bloc would only help it realize its ambitions.

...

A new regional entity -- even if it is only symbolic -- will help Iran consolidate its gains in Iraq and Lebanon. Such a grouping would include Iran and Syria at least, and to varying degrees would seek to incorporate Iraq and Lebanon. It would look like a security alliance, but in reality would be an alternative political pole in the region, trying to compete with the LAS and GCC.

The Saudis are not ignorant of such regional designs by the Iranians. Saudi Arabia already attempted to avert a financial crisis in Lebanon by shoring up the Lebanese Lira with a cash infusion into the Lebanese Central Bank. This was not just charity - it was an attempt to pre-empt the Iranians and to send a message about whose sphere of influence is whose. Once the shooting stops in Lebanon, we will in all likelihood see even more Saudi-sponsored messages in the form of cash windfalls and aid packages to Lebanon. In the longer term, Iranian encroachment will certainly cause the Saudis to get very defensive; where their money goes (and how much) will indicate to what extent. This topic certainly deserves greater development; perhaps I will revisit it again at a later time.

Victory, Pyrrhic and Postmodern

Haaretz' Amir Oren defines victory as Israel must find it in this conflict:

In order to vanquish Nasrallah once and for all, the campaign must end in a manner similar to the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, not like the previous cease-fire that ended the first war in Iraq, in 1991. The invasion of Kuwait (the Iraqi equivalent to the abduction of the Israel Defense Forces soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser), which to Saddam's surprise raised the ire of the U.S. administration that he had previously scorned for its weakness, provoked a chain of events that weakened Saddam, but left him in place. Notwithstanding UN resolutions and the American power that enforced no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq, he survived another dozen years and carried on mocking the world. Even more than Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, who lost gubernatorial races but came back and won the presidency, Saddam was the comeback-kid of the Middle East.

Even as Amir Oren sees the conflict as Nasrallah-centric in a parallel manner to the U.S. Army's obsession with finding Saddam Hussein after its 2003 Iraq invasion, Stratfor notes that the IDF cannot look too far beyond the next ridgeline or mountain pass in this series of operations:

Israeli troops continued to engage Hezbollah fighters all along the Israeli-Lebanese border Aug. 7. Reports suggest Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has pushed into Dibel. Casualties have turned up in Bent Jbail again. Fighting in southern Lebanon has been slow and deliberate. If it continues as is, the southern thrust will only reach the Litani River in a drawn-out slog of
attrition warfare that will last -- at this pace -- another month at least.

And from an earlier analysis of how the IDF has been forced to operate in southern Lebanon's rocky terrain:

The war is going as quickly as it can under the circumstances. Hezbollah is clearly well armed, well motivated and, above all, well dug-in. The Israelis do not plan to take any more casualties than are needed. That means extremely slow going, as strong point after strong point is systematically attacked while the Israelis try to avoid tactical mistakes. That sort of careful, meticulous attack against competent forces takes a long time.

Hezbollah has the advantage of the defense. It also is configured that Hezbollah is, in any reasonable time frame, immune to Israel's favorite mobile tactics. It is not dependent on lines of supply or communication. This is also Hezbollah's disadvantage: It will not be re-supplied or reinforced, nor will it be able to move to the offensive. Israeli firepower and its concentration of force are too great for that. But it is clear that Hezbollah's bunkers are also its launch sites, or that the two are collocated. That means that the Israelis cannot simply ignore the bunkers. They must systematically and in detail destroy them, and do so with minimal exposure to Hezbollah fire.

That is a war that takes a long time. A great deal is happening, but all of it measured tactically and strategically in half-miles, not in dozens of miles. If the Israelis are going to eliminate the threat in southern Lebanon, it must be eliminated in very small steps, which is why the war appears to be at a standstill. But it is at a standstill only from the outside. Inside it is a slow, brutal meat-grinder, and it will take as long as it takes.

With relative concepts of victory being bandied about on all sides, it appears at least superficially that, were all the players involved - the hapless Arab League (a player!), the United Nations, Israel, the United States, et al.), Hizbullah would emerge claiming full-throated victory. In an immediate sense, this is how many will perceive their campaign, for Hizbullah will have succeeded in selling it in that manner.

But such privileges will have been expensive, and hardly permanent. Hizbullah will preside over a ruined Shiite community and once its unquestioned hegemonic territory in southern Lebanon now torn to shreds and pummeled to dust. Its weapons have been worn out, its warriors exhausted, its supply lines battered, and its international backers counting the cost of an extended war. Compounding any such difficulties will be the needs of Lebanon's own Shiites from the Beirut's southern suburbs and southern Lebanon, which will certainly overwhelm the skeletal remains of Hizbullah's social network. Many Shiites will continue to have to rely on the charity of other communities - such as Walid Jumblatt's Druse community in the Chouf Mountains (and some areas in Mount Lebanon), and even the somewhat less patient Maronites and Orthodox communities as well. Any social destabilization that results will have been the privilege of Nasrallah to bring about.

At the same time, Nasrallah has earned himself the legendary status as marked man, international man of mystery, that secret cleric extraordinaire completely consistent with Shiite legends. With Israel's security and intelligence establishment now tracking his every move, it will probably be a long time before we hear a live speech from Hassan Nasrallah, if we ever hear from him again. As Martin Kramer noted, he has been bin-Ladinized; he has become another Hidden Imam, sent into occultation and most likely rarely heard from again, and never again in public before hundreds of thousands of followers. His loyal community, unaccustomed to his sudden unavailability, most likely are not prepared for his absence; his safety and security will become a challenge and liability for which Hizbullah cannot be fully prepared right now.

And in the end, what exactly has Hizbullah won for its efforts? Since it is too soon to judge Hizbullah's "balance of terror" strategy as a successful deterrent to the Israeli threat, we can look at how this all began. Nasrallah began this war for all intents and purposes back in January when he announced that he would engage Israel in the south and seek hostages with which to exchange for the final few Lebanese prisoners still residing in Israel. In all the fighting and furor, with all the opportunity that waves of Israeli soldiers assaulting Hizbullah positions would provide, has Hizbullah taken a single additional prisoner? We would certainly know if they had, considering Hizbullah's own media initiatives. Also, Hizbullah has not succeeded in downing a single Israeli combat aircraft. Considering that Syria, Jordan, and Egypt all managed to take Israeli prisoners and shoot down Israeli aircraft in wars they clearly lost, where does this leave Hizbullah's war effort? Where are the true symptoms of victory aside from the postmodern assertion that it's somehow in the eye of the beholder?

Update: Fouad Saniora weak? Not so, says Abu Kais, seeing only feigned weakness masking a deliberate and intentional end-around play that may allow hin to tiptoe into Hizbullah-land. Not all would agree; read the whole thing.

Half-Miles, Half-Measures

Right now we have more odds and ends. The Arab League has met in Beirut to discuss the ongoing crisis. The United Nations debates this and that, Fouad Saniora hems and haws, and not even Stratfor has much to say except that it was probably foolish to think that Israel's ground campaign would take the form of Blitzkrieg (anyone who knows the terrain in southern Lebanon should understand this). Unfortunately for us who are trying to see through the fog, the IDF nevertheless controls the tempo in this conflict, if only for the simple reason that their bombs are larger and they have established sizeable inertia already.

I would announce an open thread, but I don't think that enough people read this blog for that to be productive. However, your questions and answers are welcome.

Odds and Ends

-Stratfor reports fog of war, no more, no less. Both sides appear to maintain message and information control. Still, if you would like a copy of Stratfor's daily summary email me at editor at bliss street journal dot com.

-Al-Mari update: Consistent with the character of IDF operations in southern Lebanon, al-Mari has been spared damage, largely due to the fact that the tiny Druze village held off Hizbullah infiltrators early on in the conflict. My source says that partial water service has been restored, electricity runs for an hour a day, and it's generally share and share alike for what remains of the town's resources. Most residents have left. My source says that the bombing of al-Khiam immediately to the west has been as devasating as it has been visible. Hizbullah apparently still controls that town, though.

Drowning in Resistance

Hizbullah will continue to fight as long as Israeli troops remain on Lebanese soil, a Hizbullah member of Lebanon's cabinet announced today. Meanwhile, the Arab League summit is set to take place in (what remains of) Beirut on Monday, and the United Nations set to debate the text of a resolution put forth by the U.S. and France to end the fighting in Lebanon. Amid the diplomatic cacophony and Israel's ongoing military offensive, the stage seems set for the emergence of wildly divergent intentions, political messages, and diplomatic initiatives.

Ironically, it appears that the only parties that confidently remain on the same sheet of music are the Israelis and Hizbullah, with the understanding that the fighting is not yet finished. Locked in fierce combat in southern Lebanon, Hizbullah's objective has turned from resistance into mere survival, while Israel may eventually be forced to accept nuances in their set of objectives that may have been considered unacceptable just days ago. The IDF most likely cannot obtain the total dismantling of Hizbullah and quite possibly not even a total stoppage of rocket fire from the militia's array of hidden bunkers and easy-to-prepare launch sites. More than likely Israel will eventually be forced to accept that the remainder of their mission be accomplished by less capable international peacekeepers and monitors less sympathetic with Israel's strategic goals.

However, the IDF has managed to engage Hizbullah in combat to the point where the party has managed to do little else. With most of the population that it represents displaced and funds and infrastructure stretched to the breaking point, Hizbullah finds itself hopelessly distracted and quite unable to care for the masses that depend on it. If permanent defeat eventually comes to Hizbullah, it will come not necessarily from force of arms from Israel (although the effects of such force remain obvious), but from the specter of its own failure - to be more precise, failing the people who have lent their uncritical, un-nuanced support and even accepted this impossible mission into which the party quite unapologetically dragged them.

Meanwhile, if al-Manar's TV broadcasts are any indication, Hizbullah intends to continue to rally its masses on the basis of continued bombast, invented statistics, and heroic victories that probably never occurred - hundreds of IDF soldiers killed and scores of Merkavas destroyed, if one is to take their broadcasts seriously. In the final analysis, would such unverifiable results really matter in the face of destroyed neighborhoods, ruined civilian infrastructure, a looming humanitarian crisis that threatens to eclipse that of the Bosnian civil war, and numerous other plainly verifiable collateral results? While hospitals run out of supplies and food and fuel become increasingly scarce, Hizbullah's propaganda battle rages on, more or less oblivious to the real battle itself (and its real results) or to the diplomatic attempts to save Lebanon from further destruction.

Calling the Assault

Many of us have been made aware of the IDF's use of pack animals, specifically llamas, in its foot patrols, a rather unorthodox albeit effective sort of tactic for ground troops (even CNN featured photos of them). . Stratfor has taken this to mean something very dramatic, and for once I might wholeheartedly agree:

At first glance, it appears like an odd role-reversal when Israeli reconnaissance units are leading pack animals into battle while Hezbollah fighters are wielding modern anti-tank weapons. But as U.S. special operations forces calling in airstrikes from horseback in Afghanistan showed, mountain and fourth-generation warfare present new challenges that must be met on the ground.

Sustained special operations deep inside enemy territory have always meant heavy loads of food and ammunition, now compounded by the need to haul modern communications and surveillance equipment. While raids based on intelligence can be inserted by helicopter, move to the target and pull out, pack animals indicate invaders plan an extended stay. This is generally indicative of long-range patrols and reconnaissance units setting up observation posts deep inside enemy territory. Even in the era of surveillance satellites, some of the best intelligence still comes from human observation. Israeli patrols fitting this description were spotted returning from Lebanon a week ago. We suspect many more are now well-positioned to observe much of the southern Bekaa Valley.

Elsewhere, on Aug. 4, the Israeli air force (IAF) knocked out a power station supplying the Kiraoun area at the southern end of the Bekaa. Every power plant in Lebanon has been available as a potential target for the IAF for more than three weeks now, yet Israel did not strike the Kiraoun station until now. In air campaigns, attacks on power infrastructure often signal impending ground assaults, since such attacks wreak havoc on command-and-control infrastructure -- but usually only temporarily, as those experiencing such attacks bring generators on line and make other adaptations. Thus, attacks on power generating infrastructure are an excellent way to knock the enemy off-balance immediately before a major escalation.

Such a strike also forces generators into use. In order to run the most rudimentary command-and-control infrastructure (PCs, radios, satellite phones, etc.), Hezbollah will require power. No matter how briefly those generators are turned on, they create a detectable electromagnetic signature and thermal exhaust plume. And Hezbollah posts in the area now will be forced to burn through limited fuel supplies that cannot easily be replaced.

In short - pack animals mean long-range long-duration reconnaissance in areas where vehicles may not be as maneuverable, which in turn means that the infantry is coming en masse. Destroyed power stations in turn mean reduced sustainability for the defenders. Stratfor seems to think that the IDF's massive lingering force will head up toward the Bekaa; we will know more very shortly.

Syria's Other Proxy

...will be waiting for the IDF just short of the Litani River. There are more than 400,000 of them resident in Lebanon.

Update: "There is no battle on the ground to occupy Lebanon," said Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal from the comfy environs of his Damascus headquarters. "If this happens, God forbid, every Lebanese and every Palestinian will defend this land because this is an Arab land and all will defend it." See the entire interview here.

From the NY Sun article:

An expert on the Levant at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Tony Badran, said he saw Mr. Mashaal's interview as further evidence of Syria's and Iran's role in manipulating the current terror war against Israel."Mashaal's comments point to Syrian insistence to keep the tracks combined and Iranian insistence on keeping its link to the Palestinian issue through the ongoing alliance of Hamas and Hezbollah," he said.

In December, Mr. Mashaal traveled to Tehran, Iran, and told the Arabic and Persian press that Hamas would respond in Israel if the Jewish state were to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. Hezbollah's cross-border raid on July 12 was conducted on the same day that the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council formally withdrew their offer of a package of incentives in exchange for Iran abandoning its uranium enrichment plans.

Iran borrowing Lebanon's Palestinians to further their own regional ends, you say? Highly likely - Syria has been doing it for decades.

The Agony of Stalemate

Israel entered the conflict in Lebanon with several counts against it - mainly related to the ability of its army to transcend the political environment in which the Israeli government must operate with respect to Lebanon, the Arab world, and the United States. The first, it seemed, was what many people saw as the absolute political necessity of the military mission. The new prime minister was running the risk of appearing weak in front of his sworn enemies, and it appears that in a way this conflict was forced upon him by an eager public and an impatient defense establishment. The second count appears to be the inherent difficulty of the military mission itself - digging out enemy combat infrastructure deeply embedded within a state that the Israeli government would prefer not to antagonize. The third appears to be that Hizbullah not only had no fear of the Israel Defense Forces, they expressed particular disdain for the Lebanese government, even to the point of encouraging its collapse. The fourth is that the public relations aspect of the war favored Hizbullah from the conflict's outset. The IDF's particular initial strategy - taking out infrastructure from the air with very little ground combat activity - played directly into Hizbullah's strategy of using civilians and civilian infrastructure as cover for military operations. The tragedy and simultaneous PR fiasco of Qana was in every way an inevitability given the IDF's over-reliance on air power. The fifth was that however counterfeit the message of Hizbullah and no matter how skeptical common Lebanese were of it, an Israeli onslaught would push a majority of Lebanese into their camp. The sixth and last problem I will mention here is that the Israeli government understood from the beginning that they would not be given a permanent green light and blank check from the U.S. to blast away on the territory on which the U.S. had recently invested so much diplomatic capital and political energy. There would be a time limit.

There are other lesser reasons that could be enumerated here as well. These problems going into the IDF's operation meant that military dilemmas became political ones, and vice versa. As Stratfor notes in a report this evening:

Israel's problem is twofold. First, from where we sit, the operation looks to be going slowly. That could be because Israel is moving cautiously to reduce Hezbollah positions with minimal casualties to Israeli forces. Alternatively, it could be because Hezbollah is putting up stiff resistance. It is hard to tell from a distance, but Nasrallah's statement seemed to concede what logic would indicate, which is that Hezbollah is fighting hard but is unlikely to win in the south.

The second problem is that simply taking Lebanon up as far as the Litani River achieves neither of Israel's goals. One of these goals is to eliminate the threat of rocket attacks. To do this even for the short-range rockets, Israel must move beyond the Litani, by at least ten miles; to completely eliminate the threat they must move substantially further north, at least into the Bekaa
Valley. Its other stated goal is to crush Hezbollah as a fighting force. That means eliminating Hezbollah forces not only south of Beirut but in the Beirut area and in the Bekaa Valley. If Israel simply stops at the Litani, it has only a partial solution. On the other hand, the Israelis have not even finished Hezbollah in the south.

So, Stratfor maintains that facts on the ground would indicate that the IDF has neither time nor ease of mission on its side. Other problems remain:

One of the things that the Israelis said Thursday was that there is an intelligence problem. There were stories in the Arab press that the Israeli raid on the hospital in Baalbek was intended to capture Nasrallah -- who indeed was captured, but it was the wrong Hassan Nasrallah, captured while playing cards with friends. We don't know if this story is true, but we do know that Israel has not been able to shut down Hezbollah rocket fire, which is more an intelligence problem than a targeting issue. There are too many rockets in too many unknown places.

Meanwhile, Uzi Dayan -- former commander of Sayeret Matkal, an elite unit -- said Israel needs "bargaining chips" in the form of Hezbollah leaders, in order to secure the return of captured Israeli soldiers. That was an interesting statement, not because it was official -- it wasn't -- but because it indicated the mood of senior Israeli military leaders. If you are looking for bargaining chips, you expect to be bargaining.

Curious Timing

I have not yet seen the entirety of Hassan Nasrallah's taped speech from earlier today; I have only read brief translations of snippets of his comments obviously intended to boost the morale of the faithful and to threaten Israel. Apparently he hints at ceasefire conditions, knowing full well that the sooner the fighting ends and he can render an inventory of what remains of his combat forces, the sooner he can claim victory, take his Iranian money, and get on with the business of making decisions for Lebanon's tragically indecisive government.

Meanwhile, halfway around the world, another man decides to go on a nine-day vacation, possibly rendering the entirety of Nasrallah's speech a series of moot points. Does Nasrallah have nine days left in him? We shall see.

Update: Tayyar.org posted a summary of the speech here (Arabic).

Enablers

The U.S. will train and equip the Lebanese Army, AP reports. Perhaps this is the next chapter of Robert Kaplan's incomplete yet underrated book Imperial Grunts. This has been going on quietly for some time; now you see formal announcements. Look for Syria and Iran to press hard on their usual sweet spot with Lebanon - that getting involved with the United States is tantamount to giving up all their sovereignty. Also note the paradoxes inherent in such claims. As I noted in a comment on Anton Efendi's blog some months ago, character is key:

Regarding outside assistance, perhaps those critics who project Syria's or even Iran's intentions on to U.S. actions need to examine the character of American actions themselves. With practically no diplomatic fanfare, FBI agents lend their assistance, and military advisors help train the Lebanese military. What DOES this mean? While most of the world jumps at the opportunity to judge American intentions based on the Iraq model, the U.S. military operates in about 150 other nations, albeit very quietly, with as small a footprint as possible. With numbers like this, and with assessments like I see[emanating from Syria], there would be no such thing as sovereignty anywhere in the world as long as the U.S. is around. Simply put, the logical fallacies employed by those... who don't
"trust" the United States are out of place in this context.

The operative concept here is "train," not "equip." The U.S. already equipped the Lebanese Army long ago with obsolete Korean War vintage museum pieces. Training will amount to a set of relationships that extends beyond business or charity, and will provide enormous benefits for both sides. There will be obstacles - many of them - but I find this to be a positive development.

How Not to Negotiate

Many analysts see a strengthening of Iran's hand in the current crisis in Lebanon. For example, from Stratfor today:

At the moment, however, it appears that Iran -- from a geopolitical standpoint -- has won the initial round. It has been able to project influence into the Levant, gaining recognition from a number of quarters that Tehran has to be brought into the political process to resolve the Lebanese crisis. French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy on July 31 described Iran as a significant, respected player that is a stabilizing force in the Middle East, and stressed that contacts with Iran are necessary to resolve the crisis in Lebanon. Other European states reportedly share the French view that Hezbollah's backers, Iran and Syria, need to be engaged in order to resolve the conflict. It won't be long before the Russians and the Chinese will be picking up on this theme.

The Iranians also seem to have successfully driven a wedge between the Arab states and their masses, and between different Arab countries. It should be noted that the Shia in Saudi Arabia's oil-rich Eastern province -- in an extremely rare development -- have held two pro-Hezbollah demonstrations since July 30. We also are seeing Washington's Shiite allies in Iraq come out in clear support of Hezbollah.

The Arab states initially hoped that Israel would be able to take care of Hezbollah, and with it the means by which Iran was invading their geopolitical space; but the situation has backfired for them. Hezbollah continues to fight back, and Lebanon has become, well, a war zone. The Egyptians, the Jordanians and the Saudis are latecomers in this game -- they initially came out criticizing Hezbollah for plunging the region into the crisis, and are all now rushing to show their support for Lebanon.

Ideally, the United States, Israel and the Arab states want to keep Iran out of any deal-making process on Lebanon, by focusing on Syria. But given the Iranian connection to Hezbollah, it does not look like the Iranians can be kept out of the process. Tehran's aims in the Levant, meanwhile, are connected to its dealings with the United States regarding Iraq, and to the back-and-forth over the nuclear issue.

It may seem tempting to hold the position that Iran holds several keys to the solution to the problems in Lebanon. Defeating this logic involves projecting oneself several months into the future and reflecting upon events as they occurred in the past. Iran's position would have greatly benefited from remaining silent on their long-term goals, trying to make nice, and communicating its willingness to accept short-term solutions regarding its position on Israel. However, there remain two distinct problems regarding Iran's strategy to remain relevant at this point. The first is that President Ahmedinejad remains too honest; he simply cannot keep his big mouth shut. As AP reports today, Ahmedinejad stated specifically, "Although the main solution is for the elimination of the Zionist regime, at this stage an immediate cease-fire must be implemented."

There will be no hedging on the long-term goals, Iran says. In fact, there will be no compromise on how they will even talk about their standpoints publicly. For now, Lebanon must change, America must change, Israel must change, but Iran simply will not. The last time I checked, artificially hardening your position by falling back on old ideology and ignoring ground-level facts is not good negotiating strategy.

The second problem is that Iran is in the process of losing its tool to "liberate" that pesky Zionist-controlled land. Without Hizbullah as a viable entity within the Lebanese Shiite community, positioned effectively to influence the Lebanese government, Iran's strategic exporting of its revolution that began in 1982 will, for all intents and purposes, come to an abrupt end. Iran will be back to square one, faced with having to rebuild its revolutionary network from its tattered remains, if it at all is to be expected to continue the fight against Israel and consequent control of Lebanon. And it will have to accomplish this under strengthened international supervision. If Iran is to get America's attention, it will only have the Iraqi Shiites at its disposal to do so. Ultimately, Iran will have very little to contribute toward stabilizing Lebanon, yet being left out of any negotiations will compromise its foreign policy even further.

Under these circumstances, it is difficult to conceptualize what Iran brings to the table regarding Lebanon, except possibly the same thing that Syria brings to the table. That is, to put it mildly (and contrary to what the French are saying), the ability to utilize open-ended escalation for the purpose of establishing its ability to create further escalation. Without Hizbullah, even this useless task becomes more difficult.

Natovska Agresija

The following post represents an effort to take further ownership of my blog. Every once in a while I like to write something drawn from my experiences that has very little to do with Lebanon, the Middle East, Lebanese culture, or Arab politics. This post is the result. Or is it? Perhaps there are parallels.

Propaganda fascinates me. The particular flights of fancy that result from the pursuits of politically-motivated persons have always triggered my funny bone, and to me seem distinctly human, even if in a somewhat self-destructive sort of a way.

A little more than seven years ago, after finishing my service in the Marine Corps, I worked as a contract translator for the NATO stabilization forces in Bosnia. That year, if you remember, the U.S. started bombing Serbia as part of a campaign to get then Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic to remove his army from Kosovo. Yugoslavia was reeling from the economic strain brought on by years of war and internal strife, and Serbs no doubt felt surprised by Bill Clinton's and Madeline Albright's intentions to unleash the powerful military forces they had at their disposal. Serbs historically never had a beef with Americans, and most could neither believe nor understand what could be causing the United States to threaten their people this way. The U.S. government tried to reassure the Serbian people that the purpose of the operation was not to punish the srpski narod, only to discourage the malicious deeds of the government of Slobodan Milosevic. In this case, if you have forgotten, these happened to be ethnic cleansing against Kosovar Albanians.

A few days before the bombing began, I tooled around our workshop on the base where I worked and assembled a TV antenna McGyver-style, complete with aluminum foil, chewing gum, and duct tape. My hooch-mates and I set it up outside the plywood shack that served as our living quarters. We lived in a place that most Serbs would call vukojebina (literally, where wolves copulate), i.e. the middle of fucking nowhere, yet I never figured that I would not be able to receive any kind of television signal. Surely there must be something on TV even out in the periphery of Muslim Bosnia – local access channels with whirling dervish competitions or programs about how to make Turkish coffee, at least. I set it up on top of a berm about a score of meters away from our quarters, ran some coaxial cable through a hole I illegally drilled in the wall (the soldiers who ran the base didn't like this stuff), and hooked it up. After some rudimentary experimentation with antenna height and direction, I realized that the only signal we could get was SRT (Srpska Radio-Televizija), literally Serbian State Television, a network designed to serve the wants and needs of the Serb community in Yugoslavia (which seemed to be most of what was left of it, after several wars). Cool! we thought, the Serbs are seeing fit to propagandize to us on the other side of the border. Suddenly this felt a bit more like war.

If this was indeed the case, it was a pretty sorry-ass attempt to do so. Srpska Radio-Televizija was to the layman a boring cocktail of talk shows and ancient, fuzzy movies from the Tito era, a clear indication of the financial state of the Yugoslavian entertainment business. News came on at 8 p.m. every evening. We never missed it, except for one evening.

That evening was some time in early March 1999. From what I understand, and I was not an eyewitness to the actual events, two Yugoslavian MiGs crossed into Bosnia from Serbian airspace. This had never happened before, of course, so when the air raid sirens sounded on our base (which was located in northern Bosnia), nobody immediately understood what this meant and nobody did anything. Eventually a small group of soldiers saw fit to panic, a reaction so contagious that most of the battalion that was not already out on patrol started running pell-mell for the sandbagged shelters, tripping, falling, crying, you name it. I did not like seeing soldiers panicking and crying, so I ran to my work site and decided to tell my coworkers that they were in a dangerous location. See, our work site sat not ten meters from a large rubber fuel blivot, looking like a giant beige gas-filled waterbed all distended and full of liquid explosive that would kill us if anything hot, like an enemy missile or one of the cavalry's panic-instigated misfired bullets, fell on it.

When I arrived at the work site, my colleagues told me that the MiGs had already been shot down by F-16s patrolling the border, and the Russians had recovered the pilots near Tuzla. And to make things worse, the air raid siren sounded about an hour after the MiGs were shot down. Either somebody was pulling the wool down over our eyes, or something was dreadfully amiss with SFOR's early warning system.

Bombardovanje – this is the Serbian cognate for "bombing" or "bombardment." We heard it every evening from eight to nine p.m. as this was SRT's favorite topic. As SRT's basic raison d'etre was to educate the Serb population about the non-Serb world, we happened upon yet another phrase that became a Serb buzzword for the next three months – natovska agresija. The NATO aggression. That was us – we were NATO, and I do suppose that one could, when pressed, characterize the strategic bombing of JNA targets (that's Jugoslovenska Narodna Armija – Yugoslavian People's Army) as some kind of aggression. After all, we were military types, trained to be aggressive. We liked aggression.

Serbs did not, at least not this aggression. However, at least for the first couple weeks, the pictures on SRT portrayed a nation in love with the concept of thumbing their noses at the United States, NATO, Bill Clinton ("Beel Kling-tone" in local speech), Madeline Albright, General Wesley Clark, and every American who had appeared in a newspaper for the past ten years. Serbs gathered on bridges to defy the planes to shoot at them. Large suspension bridges became the sites of massive bridge-defense parties, complete with sound systems, press coverage, local celebrities, and lots and lots of booze. One particularly enterprising Serb manufactured T-shirts and buttons with what looked like cartoonish archery targets on them. These little souvenirs eventually made their way across the Bosnian border, and it was not long before we began seeing local workers on our base wearing these buttons and T-shirts. Nobody said anything at first, and I didn't want to have to explain to any of the soldiers that I watched Serbian state television every evening, and that was the reason why I understood the significance of these things. Anyway, it appeared that a revolution was in the making on the bridges of Belgrade and Novi Sad, and SRT was giving it to us first.

After a couple weeks, most likely as a result of booze running low, a shortage of standing bridges, and possibly emigrating celebrities, the topics became more grim. SRT saw fit to string together stories about tragedies wrought by the bombardovanje juxtaposed with political evidence of the natovska agresija. This action against their country was an unprovoked act of state terrorism, no less, hatched as a nefarious plot to steal Serbia's valuable resources and usurp Serbia's strategic position as emerging superpower. NATO was attacking little Serbia because Serbia was small, because Serbia was different, because Serbia was inherently better. And NATO was jealous of all these things.

At the epicenter of SRT's grief was the United States of America and its critically acclaimed foreign policy. The U.S. essentially is the heart and soul of NATO, the common argument went, and the U.S. is heartless; if SRT could just put together the right progression of news stories, they could prove this to all. So stories would line up topically as follows: bombing stories were typically followed up by resistance stories, typified by interviews with Serbian volunteers who possessed smuggled large-caliber weapons in their homes. One particular story featured a group of guys who had their own anti-aircraft machine gun stored in their house – these guys were clearly more like Americans than they wanted to believe. These stories would usually be followed up with a story about some kind of heinous crime that occurred in the United States, like a murder or assault, complete with surveillance video footage, often with logos of American TV stations sitting right at the bottom of the screens. One evening SRT reported the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado sandwiched among about seven NATO bombing stories and casualty reports. The agenda became pretty clear at this point – SRT was out to prove that the U.S. was bombing little Serbia because we Americans were pathologically violent people predisposed toward purposefully hurting others. Not once did I see any other type of story about the United States on SRT, nor did I see any story reported about the specific political reasons that NATO was conducting air strikes in the first place.

This year I visited Belgrade for the first time. Very little damage from the bombing remains, and SRT is still poorly-funded and replete with crappy, boring programming. My Serb friends say they have never, ever watched SRT a day in their lives, not even during the bombardovanje. One did confess to partying on a bridge or two back then, though.

Loose Ends

(I am completely reconstructing this post due a difference of opinion that my wife and I had regarding the locations of a couple items that I posted before. Fortunately for all of us, she happens to be correct. )

In response to some private emails I received regarding my post on the village of al-Mari in Lebanon's southeastern border region, I am including the following clarifying information - locations, etc. Please see this map from the American University of Beirut's map collection. In order to find al-Mari on the map, you will need to click on the location of al-Khiam and allow the map to zoom downward. Al-Mari is just to the southeast in small lettering.

The Google Earth view, just west of Chebaa Farms:



Another view, including kibbutzim of northeastern Israel:



I hope that this helps.

In Case You've Been Wondering

German newspaper Die Welt sticks its neck out and reports what has been rumored for quite some time now: that Iran has been using its embassy in Beirut as a headquarters for Hizbullah (hat tip, Anton Efendi). I'll translate a small section here:

According to information from western intelligence agencies, Hizbullah occupied an entire floor of the Iranian mission, which was guarded by guards of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Not even the Iranian Ambassador has access to the areas, it is said.

A goal of this initiative by Iran is to preserve Hizbullah's chain of command in spite of violent air attacks from the Israeli army. At the same time the Iranian government would be able to communicate with Hizbullah's leadership at any time. The highest-ranking Hizbullah representative in the Iranian embassy is Talal Hamiya, the deputy chief of Hizbullah's military wing under Imad Mughniya.

The parallels between Hizbullah's military and political strategy seem fairly obvious, and the moral implications are clear enough. In fact, I won't even waste another word on the subject.

Fog of Endgame

Hizbullah has been firing its katyusha rockets well after dark this evening, CNN reports (video). We do not need to have spelled out for us what this means. Ground troops know well that even so much as a lit cigarette provides a beacon advertizing one's location for all to see. CNN's televised coverage speaks of "something in the air" indicating a measure of difference about this part of Israel's ground offensive. We can infer that Hizbullah has abandoned some of their usual discipline by firing their rockets at night, more content to get rounds downrange than to protect their coveted ammunition supply from destruction.

Stratfor's George Friedman reports that the IDF now operates in many villages in nearly all sectors of southern Lebanon. Hizbullah is defending in depth and numbers, he says, focusing on holding their territory and strong points and not engaging the IDF's flanks or supply lines (yet). This is a recipe for tactical suicide - any such defenders will only be speedbumps to Israel's oncoming assault. That said, unless the IDF continues its assault into the Bekaa valley and northward up the coast, there is little chance that they can inflict a final military defeat upon Hizbullah at all. It seems that the IDF would want to avoid such a thrust northward, since there are few serviceable roads and extended supply lines would be very easy to hit. Quite possibly Hizbullah wants the IDF to do just this very thing.

One very interesting development mentioned by Friedman:

Gen. Dan Halutz, chief of staff of the IDF and architect of that air campaign, was hospitalized for the third time July 31, complaining of stomach pains. Should Halutz go out of commission, his deputy, Moshe Kaplinsky, will take command. Kaplinsky is drawn from army, having commanded the Golani Brigade, with long experience in Lebanon. This brings expertise on ground warfare to the top spot in the IDF, particularly in combined infantry-armored operations in Lebanon. Israel has focused down on the main battle now. Hezbollah has been focused for a while. As the cliche goes, the outcome is in doubt, in large part because like all wars, the end of this one is political -- and the intersection of the political with the military complicates the war enormously.

This "illness" might be an unusual coincndence; I have my doubts. That a former commander of the Golani Brigade (kind of like an IDF version of the 82nd Airborne combined with 10th Mountain Division) has taken over the campaign is an important development. That this commander knows Lebanon is also very important. The effect on the outcome seems obvious - increased focus on light infantry engagements, small unit tactics, clearing operations, and air attacks increasingly taking the form of close air support (i.e. very precise and extremely devastating). It's classic soldiering, and it is probably the only way that the IDF can locate the majority of Hizbullah's rocket launchers.

All this taken together - Hizbullah stepping up rocket attacks at night for the first time since the start of the conflict, along with the IDF's expanded operations combined with a renewed focus on clearing operations - seems to indicate that Hizbullah has been very busy lately and will continue to have to defend many or all of its strong points simultaneously. Hizbullah simply cannot win this battle on a tactical level.

Consistent with what Friedman mentions, Hizbullah's fate will be determined at the unpredictable junction between military and political operations. The two do not always support each other's objectives. I am not convinced that the logical follow-on operations from the IDF stand a chance at succeeding (heading up the coast and into the Bekaa simultaneously, that is). More than likely Israel will have to content itself with the satisfaction that it has demonstrated something that Hizbullah will not publicly admit - that the party can and will lose when it takes on its great nemesis. Israel will have to be satisfied with having only helped prepare the table for negotiations; Hizbullah will have to be satisfied that only by the skin of its teeth did it avoid having terms dicated to it; and Lebanon - poor, pathetic Lebanon will have to be satisfied with yet another opportunity to suck down billions of dollars in international reconstruction money.

Update: AP confirms operations ongoing west of Baalbeck in the Bekaa vally involving vertical envelopment (helicopters). This sounds like a commando operation, and it is too early to tell if this will be followed by any further ground incursion this far north. Of course, it's a fluid situation there and it cetainly appears that the IDF still maintains the initiative.