Today's Situation

Strategic or tactical solutions Wednesday, July 19, 2006

The diplomatic activity that began yesterday with the UN delegation’s visit to Jerusalem is facing an uphill struggle. European Union foreign policy boss Javier Solana was here today. But Israel meanwhile has a public green light from the U.S. and what seems to be a hidden green light from at least some in the Arab world, let alone Western Europe, to do what it can to weaken the Hizbollah if not destroy it completely. Early in the hostilities, the IDF bragged it was able to crush the Hizbollah, but it has meanwhile backed down to saying that it would make do with significantly weakening the guerrilla group. The army says it needs two more weeks of air strikes over Lebanon to do that, but the green light apparently will turn yellow next week some time -- if U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice does actually finally step in, whether to save what is left of Lebanon or to guarantee that Israeli gains against Hizbollah last more than a few months.

There has been tens of billions in damage done to Lebanese infrastructure and there is no Rafik Hariri any more, to bravely invest his own money to repair his country. The big question is now going to be who will pay for the reconstruction. If it is Saudi Arabia, which astonished the Arab world and its observers with an unprecedented public attack on Hizbollah for ‘adventurism,’ that will be a sign that Lebanon is continuing down the track of reforms and a pro-western approach. But if it is Iran that does the financing, it will mean that despite everything, Hizbollah has come out of the hostilities with the upper hand.

Meanwhile, there is a debate underway now between the experts over whether Iran set the entire affair into motion, to distract international attention from its nuclear weapons program. Some say that Tehran obviously was interested in such a distraction, but others are saying that since its fingerprints are so clearly identifiable on everything Hizbollah-related, a Hizbollah action would only further alienate Iran from the West -- and at least the Sunni majority of the Arab world. There are also experts who say that Iran is so self-confident, largely because of rising oil prices that give it an economic independence that immunizes it from sanctions, that it does not care if it is further alienated or not from the West.

The same debate slips over into questions about Syria’s responsibilities for the events. Israeli army officials pointedly noted last night that IAF planes had bombed a convoy of weapons being transported from Syria to Lebanon, in an apparent Hizbollah effort to either drag Syria into open support of it, or to try to deceive Israel by keeping rockets still stored in Lebanon under cover. In any case, there is also a debate whether Syria’s still passive support for Hizbollah is the result of Bashar Assad’s inexperienced folly, or because of pressure on Damascus from Tehran, now Syria’s only ally.

And experts are equally divided on whether Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has gambled once too many times on what he has long called Israel’s ‘spider web’ society, meaning a fragile and easily broken one, or whether Israel has fallen into the trap of believing it can defeat a guerrilla group the way it can defeat any army in the region. Nasrallah, in any case has not been directly heard from in three days. With each appearance, Israeli commentators and experts seem to compete at who can describe him as less cocky, less confident, and less credible and impressive. The army admits it does not know where he is, though it continues to bomb what it believes to be the sites of underground, Iranian-built bunkers in south Beirut, and eastern Lebanon, in the hope that he is hiding in one of those underground sites and one of the bombs gets through.

Nasrallah has become the new icon of evil for Israelis, who meanwhile are still accepting the rocket attacks on the north and the threats to the center of the country as their fate -- as long as the army and air force keeps promising that it will prove to be victorious. The rockets landing in Israel and the air force attacks on Lebanon continue to overshadow the ongoing Israeli campaign against Gaza, where the IDF and the Shin Bet believe that Gilad Shalit, the captured Israeli corporal, is still being held by Hamas-affiliated militiamen. Meanwhile, in Nablus, fighting between armed Palestinians and Israeli infantry trying to make arrests, saw at least six Palestinians killed. In Gaza, at least 19 Palestinians were killed in overnight clashes with Israeli troops.

The international diplomatic efforts will likely try to square both circles. If the Americans are able to muster the commitment and creativity necessary for the task, they will want to strengthen Fouad Siniora’s government in Beirut and Mahmoud Abbas’ hand in Palestine, without toppling the Hamas-run Palestinian Authority completely, and at the same time enabling Israel to at least feel it came out of the conflict with the upper hand while not insulting the Arabs, particularly those who condemned the Hizbollah attack on Israeli troops that set this latest round of violence into motion.

It’s a task requiring at the very least Kissingerian skills. It’s not at all clear that President Bush and Rice, who have displayed no interest in this part of the Middle East since they began running the world six years ago, are up to the task. Israel insists on a strategic solution, regarding the outbreak of hostilities as part of much wider conflict -- the war on terror. The U.S. probably wants the same thing. But given tattered U.S. prestige in the region, the question remains whether the diplomatic track will be able to lead to anything more than tactical solutions to local problems that will resurface within months if not weeks after the effort is made.

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