Mission Accomplished II

President Bush declared in a speech, “Hezbollah attacked Israel. Hezbollah started the crisis, and Hezbollah suffered a defeat in this crisis?” Isn’t it a little premature to declare victory in a war which was a stalemate at best and ended in a ceasefire? This is reminiscent of President Bush’s speech on May 1, 2003, on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, where standing under a banner which read “Mission Accomplished, he.proclaimed, “The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September 11th, 2001 and still goes on.” After more than three years, the battle for Iraq is still raging, the US forces are still tied in Iraq and the mission whatever it was, still remains unaccomplished.

The war between Israel and Hezbollah has revealed a few hard facts. Firstly, Israel is no longer an invincible force that it was in the past. The US-Israeli plan to launch a heavy and swift attack on southern Lebanon to mortally hurt Hezbollah, by demolishing its stronghold and incapacitating it for future attacks, did not materialize. Hezbollah continued firing its rockets into Israel until the last day. According to Steven Erlanger (Testing How Long the Mideast Cease-Fire can Last, The New York Times, August 15, 2006), “Israel’s vaunted military invincibility, which has been a big part of its defense strategy has taken a serious knock. Israel was not even able, in the cease-fire resolution, to get the immediate return of its two captured soldiers, meaning an extended negotiation with Hezbollah over prisoners, prisoners of war and the bodies of dead fighters.” He also wrote, “Hezbollah is still standing and was able to fire more than 200 missiles on the last day before the cease-fire, and Sheik Nasrallah has survived. ..But if Hezbollah is down, it is not out, and this may not be an end to the war but a respite, even if (it) lasts for a number of years.”

Secondly, the war has shown that whereas Hezbollah might not be able to fight a conventional war against Israel to a successful conclusion, it has the guts, will and power to withstand and resist Israeli invasion. This is something which was absent in the previous wars between Israel and the Middle Eastern Arab countries.

Thirdly, whatever the United Nations resolution says, it is unlikely that the Arab world will emasculate Hezbollah which can repulse Israel in armed conflict. This is the only Arab force which has outwitted Israel. According to Joseph Panossian (Israel begins pullout amid fragile truce, Yahoo! News, August 15, 2006), “In Damascus, Syrian President Bashar Assad said the region has changed because of the achievements of Hezbollah and turned US dreams of a ‘new Middle East’ into an ‘illusion.’”

The outcome of the war has also shown the impact on Israel’s psyche. It did not insist on the immediate release of two Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah, which became the apparent cause of the war although it had continued insisting on their release through out the course of the war. Conversely, “They said 13 Hezbollah prisoners and the bodies of dozens of guerrillas could be offered in exchange for two captive soldiers, who were taken in cross-border raid July 12 that touched off the worse Arab-Israel battles in 24 years.”

Israel has started partial withdrawal from Lebanese territory although it was suspected that it would only grudgingly withdraw its forces from the captured territory. It might be viewed as a goodwill initiative which Israel had seldom shown in the past; it can also be seen as a sign of weakness which has been exposed in the war.It seems that Israel doesn’t want any prolonged tension with Hezbollah.

Although nothing is still very certain; anything may happen to a shaky ceasefire negotiated by the UN, it is a hopeful sign that both sides are willing to observe truce as much as possible. Like the earlier UN resolutions, the current resolution also may not be enforced in its entirety. According to Steven Erlanger, “Hezbollah’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, said in a television speech that his fighters would accept the cease-fire. Yet he insisted that Hezbollah would continue to fight in violation of it so long as Israeli troops remained on Lebanese soil. And whether Hezbollah intends to let its fighters be banned from the kingdom it built for itself in southern Lebanon, with the lavish help of Iran and Syria, is another open question.”

This war did not help reduce the hatred that the Muslim world has towards President Bush; it has increased several folds. The insurgency in Iraq has degenerated into the sectarian civil war with both sides, the Shias and Sunnis, hating the US. If the US had believed that the outcome of Israeli invasion would help the US in Iraq by weakening Hezbollah and putting Iran and Syria on notice for similar consequences, it did not happen. On the other hand, Hezbollah gained a lot politically and it is unlikely that it would stop aiding the insurgents in Iraq.

Now the next test of wills is Iran’s reaction to the impending UN sanctions if it did not halt its uranium enrichment program. Iran has to respond to the UN by the end of the month. If the Israeli invasion had been intended to frighten Iran into submission, it failed and that might also not happen. The stalemate in Lebanon has boosted Iran’s morale if it had ever sagged.