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.