Baalbek the last stand?

An interesting conversation about the folly of the neocons in Israel and in the Bush Administration.
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Read the full conversation with Brzezniski below:

Nathan Gardels: Israel beat the big Arab states in six days of war, but it wasn't able to defeat Hezbollah after more than a decade of occupation before it withdrew in 2000; and it hasn't been able to stop missile strikes now after three weeks of intensive air and artillery pounding, plus special operations on the ground. Does that mean Hezbollah has "won" by standing up to Israel, damaging the Israeli deterrent by revealing it is not invincible?

Zbigniew Brzezinski: It is important to recognize that Israel defeated formal armies led in most cases by inefficient and often corrupt regimes. Hezbollah is waging "asymmetrical" warfare against Israel based on increasingly radicalized and even fanaticized mass support. So, yes, Israel will have much more difficulty in coping effectively with this latter in contrast to the former.

Gardels: Over the years, Israeli hardliners like Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu have argued that Israel lives in a "tough neighborhood" where its enemies only listen to force. The American neocons argued the same -- that going into Iraq unilaterally would provide "a demonstration effect" of overwhelming U.S. might that would scare the "tough neighborhood" into compliance with U.S. goals.

Hasn't this turned out to be wrong? Doesn't military superiority as a blunt instrument lead to eternal enmity, not security? Touring the devastation of towns across southern Lebanon after Sharon's invasion in 1982, one could predict that something like Hezbollah's hatred of Israel would emerge years later.

Brzezinski: These neocon prescriptions, of which Israel has its equivalents, are fatal for America and ultimately for Israel. They will totally turn the overwhelming majority of the Middle East's population against the United States. The lessons of Iraq speak for themselves. Eventually, if neocon policies continue to be pursued, the United States will be expelled from the region and that will be the beginning of the end for Israel as well.

Gardels: Don't the deaths of so many innocent civilians in Qana in the south of Lebanon -- like the massacre in Haditha, Iraq, by American troops -- send a message to Arabs and Iranians that the "new Middle East" coming from the U.S. and Israel will amount to occupation, carnage and bloodshed? Even Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian dissident who won the Nobel Peace Prize, told me recently that Iranians would rather suffer the mullahs for now than the horrors they see in Iraq.

Brzezinski: This is precisely why neocon policies are recklessly dangerous both to America and Israel.

Gardels: Beyond the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, where does U.S. diplomacy for the region go from here?

Brzezinski: The new element today is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to separate the Israeli-Palestinian problem, the Iraq problem and Iran from each other. Neither the United States nor Israel has the capacity to impose a unilateral solution in the Middle East. There may be people who deceive themselves into believing that.

The solution can only come in the Israel-Palestinian issue if there is serious international involvement that supports the moderates from both sides, however numerous or few they are, but also creates the situation in which it becomes of greater interest to the warring parties to accommodate than to resist, both because of the incentives and the capacity of the external intervention to impose costs.

When Iraqi Prime Minister (Jawad) al-Maliki recently harshly criticized Israel in the Lebanon conflict, it was an indication of things to come. The notion that the U.S. was going to get a pliant, democratic, stable, pro-American, Israel-loving Iraq is a myth which is rapidly eroding. That is why the U.S. needs to start talking with the Iraqis about the day of our disengagement. We shouldn't leave precipitously. U.S. Ambassador to Iraq (Zalmay) Khalilzad told me that four months would be precipitous. I agree. But we should agree that the U.S. will disengage at some period beyond that.

As far as Iran is concerned, we have made an offer to the Iranians that is reasonable. I do not know that they have the smarts to respond favorably or at least not negatively. I lean to the idea that they'll probably respond not negatively but not positively and try to stall out the process. But that is not so bad provided they do not reject it.

While the Iranian nuclear problem is serious, and while the Iranians are marginally involved in Lebanon, the fact of the matter is that the challenge they pose is not imminent. And because it isn't imminent, there is time to deal with it.

Sometimes in international politics, the better part of wisdom is to defer dangers rather than try to eliminate them altogether instantly. To do that produces intense counter-reactions that are destructive. We have time to deal with Iran, provided the process is launched, dealing with the nuclear energy problem, which can then be extended to involve also security talks about the region.

In the final analysis, Iran is a serious country; it's not Iraq. It's going to be there. It's going to be a player. And in the longer historical term, it has all of the preconditions for a constructive internal evolution if you measure it by rates of literacy, access to higher education and the role of women in society.

The mullahs are part of the past in Iran, not its future. But change in Iran will come through engagement, not through confrontation.

If we pursue these policies, we can perhaps avert the worst. But if we do not, I fear that the region will explode. In the long run, Israel would be in great jeopardy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathan-gardels/beginning-of-the-end-for-_b_26247.html

 

I don't know, I have 160 rockets launched today that says I'm right.

I do not deny the obvious push and their realization. However, the 200 or so dead Hezbollah Israel claimed were not the result of a body count. If I am to choose between a number estimated by people performing strategic bombing and the number provided by people actually on the ground and burying their dead, I'd choose the latter. Refute the foxnews article? For one thing, you provided no link to your last article, another? How about the last withdrawal of Israel troops and how about the launching of 160 rockets? Israel may say they've weakened Hezbollah, but where is the concrete proof? Are Israelites any safer since the beginning of the conflict?

NO, YOU'RE WRONG. Yea huh! Nah Uh! Yea huh! Nah Uh! Yea huh! Nah Uh! If you're going to dispute something, can you include some facts? I would love nothing more than to have a history lesson from the all knowing ROXRAN.

 

PLO??? Gee... golly... did they appear out of thin air?

 

Looks like we will have to discuss this today -- the largest Hezbollah rocket barrage of the conflict 8/2/06:

Hizbollah rockets hit Israel after commando raid

Soon after he spoke, one of at least 206 rockets launched by Hizbollah landed just inside the West Bank after flying further than any fired at Israel in the past three weeks.

Israeli police and Hizbollah both said it was the highest number of rockets fired into Israel on one day since the war began. The barrage, which killed one person near the northern city of Nahariya, followed a two-day lull in such attacks.

link

 

Doing the w****?

Seriously though, it's a lot of fun having you around, ROXRAN. You provide a much needed comic relief.

 

ROXRAN, that logic assumes Israel is able to interdict rockets sent from Syria and is unable to resupply. Do you have any evidence of this? I doubt even Israel knows to what extent they are able to resupply. The U.S. can't stop weapons pouring into Iraq from Iran, what makes you think Israel can stop Syria from doing the same?

 

ROXRAN
I'm sure that is the plan, and indeed they might be getting squeezed... but I ask you to look into history and find a war won without striking the "center of gravity" of the opposing force. It's happened, but I can't think of an example where sanctuary and resupply is near to the conflict. Hezbollah will adapt, unless they are fools, and find another way to get rockets. They know Israel wants to keep this a limited engagement, and will exploit this the same way the North Vietnamese used Cambodia and Laos.

 

wait, ROXRAN is arguing that increased rocket attacks on Israel are a good thing because it exhausts the supply of rockets? LOL you can't make this stuff up!

 

Smugglers have been treading the mountains and countryside of the area for thousands of years. They know ways we would never guess. What Israel is doing certainly makes things tough, but resupply will continue, IMO. One should look to where the supply originates, and even that is difficult, with billions of $$ worth of Soviet era weapons having been sold to various states, as well as weapons from Eastern Europe and the West. There are the 2 obvious sources, of course, Syria and Iran, but is attempting to do something about it worth the effort? Our history with Iraq suggests otherwise.

From a Senate hearing today:

Head of U.S. command: Iraq civil war possible

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Under tough questioning from U.S. senators, the head of U.S. Central Command, Gen. John Abizaid, acknowledged Thursday that Iraq could descend into civil war.

"I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I've seen it, in Baghdad in particular, and that if not stopped it is possible that Iraq could move toward civil war," he testified at a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Fueling this possibility, he said, was the combination of "sectarian violence, al Qaeda terrorists, insurgents and Shia militants."

"Failure to apply coordinated regional and international pressure ... will further extremism" and could lead to a widening and more perilous conflict, he said.

Abizaid was joined by Gen. Peter Pace, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, whose exchanges with Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York were polite but testy.

"Under your leadership, there have been numerous errors in judgment that have led us to where we are in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Clinton, a possible 2008 Democratic candidate for the White House.

Her criticisms included not enough U.S. troops; the re-creation of the disbanded Iraqi army; and the lack of planning to maintain stability after Saddam Hussein was overthrown.

"You underestimated the nature and strength of the insurgency, the sectarian violence, and the spread of Iranian influence," said Clinton.

The United States is boosting troop levels, not decreasing them, she said, and civilian and military casualties were also rising.

Clinton also criticized Rumsfeld for underestimating the Taliban, when he said in late 2002 that the group no longer existed in Afghanistan. The Taliban, which harbored Osama bin Laden, has since resurfaced with a vengeance.

The defense secretary responded to Clinton. "Are there setbacks? Yes. Are there things that people can't anticipate? Yes. Does the enemy have a brain and continue to make adjustments on the ground requiring our forces to make adjustments? You bet," he said.

"Is that going to continue to be the case? I think so. Is this problem going to get solved in the near term about this long struggle against violent extremism? No, I don't believe it is."

British envoy warned of civil war

The hearing came on the heels of a leaked diplomatic cable, in which Britain's outgoing ambassador to Baghdad, William Patey, warned that civil war was more likely than a successful transition to democracy in Iraq. (Details)

Sen. John McCain asked Pace and Abizaid if they had anticipated sectarian strife between Sunnis and Shiites a year ago.

Pace said he hadn't expected it. Abizaid said it was clear tensions were rising, but he did not expect such a high level of sectarian violence.

Abizaid defined three main objectives in dealing with the Middle East, which he said he has "rarely seen ... so unsettled and so volatile." Those aims were defeating al Qaeda; deterring Iran; and developing a comprehensive solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

He was optimistic, however, that the "slide can be prevented."

"The army is holding together ... and the government is committed to bringing the sectarian violence under control," Abizaid said.

Sectarian killings in Iraq have escalated since the February 22 bombing of the Shiite Askariya Mosque in Samarra. Nearly 6,000 people died in Iraq violence in May and June alone, according to a recent U.N. report.

McCain was also concerned that U.S. troops are moved from one trouble spot to another. "What I worry about is -- we're playing a game of whack-a-mole."

He cited Falluja and Ramadi as examples. "Everybody knows we've got big problems in Ramadi, and I said, 'Where are you going to get the troops?' 'Well we're going to have to move them from Falluja.'

"Now we're going to have to move troops into Baghdad from someplace else," he said referring to the deployment of U.S. troops to the capital to support Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's crackdown on insurgents. "It's very disturbing."

Nearly 2,600 U.S. service members have been killed in the 3-year-old war.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/08/03/iraq.hearing/index.html


As usual, Rumsfeld takes no responsibility for the ****-up in Iraq. Why that man wasn't forced to resign a long time ago is astonishing. Do we really want to face the same, or worse, in other Middle East states? Would it do anything other than result in tens of thousands of more civilian deaths, and the deaths of those in the armed forces of those countries, who don't see themselves as radicals, and in my opinion, in the main are not, but as patriots defending their own soil? Do we really want to go down that path?

No, not with George W. Bush as President. Absolutely not. And regardless of who's President, it is a decision fraught with risk, and most likely a disaster waiting to happen. I think we all need to step back and consider just what road the United States is on regarding Middle East foreign policy. I think under the current President, it is a road to chaos, bungling, needless death and injury, absence of accountability, and the refusal to take responsibility for failure, on many levels, including the very top. The failure of leadership from George W. Bush.



Keep D&D Civil.

 

The fact of this is Israel has utterly underestimated Hezbollah's resources and fighting abilities.

Roxran my friend your analysis of this military action is very flawed.

 

It appears that it will unite 90% of Lebanon against Israel, strengthen Hezbollah politically, increase antagonism toward Israel in virtually the whole world, convince more Americans of an open mind that lsrael is a morally equivalent player to the Palestinians and once again show the limits of neocon warmongering.

 

Hezbollah cannot defeat Israel. Israel cannot defeat Hezbollah. Therin lies the problem.