Why Restrain Israel?
Their Victory is Ours –– and Lebanon’s 

By Nicholas M. Guariglia
July 14, 2006

                One of the most unusual aspects of the last four years has been how Hezbollah camps in Lebanon have remained undestroyed.  You would think any serious effort to democratize Lebanon, or to eradicate terrorism, or to discredit undemocratic Islamist dogma would incorporate some semblance of an attempt to disarm, disband, or dissolve the Iranian-backed jihadist organization.  And yet both the supposed confrontational governments in Washington and Tel Aviv have, for far too long, played dove to Hezbollah’s hawk, holding a different standard to the Shi’ite theocrats than we do with the Wahhabis of al Qaida.
                Perhaps it is because we falsely believed Hezbollah could politicize itself, moving away from its terroristic past and, in heroic Robin Hood-like fashion, embrace the social aspirations and meet the humanitarian needs of the good Lebanese people?  Perhaps it is because we wrongly feared Iranian retribution if we were to obliterate its ganglia in the Bekaa Valley?  Perhaps it is because we preferred the “stability” of an untouched fascistic nerve center to the messiness of annihilating terrorists from the sky, and all the fireballs, smoke clouds, and global condemnations that come with it?
                Whatever post facto excuses will be used to justify the abject appeasement of Hezbollah, the good news we can all now rejoice in is that such postmodernist hopes and wishes have been exposed as not only silly but suicidal.  If a bunch of gangsters in Jersey City were to launch hundreds of rockets into Manhattan –– with thousands remaining and unfired –– most New Yorkers would respond with both horror and anger, and demand retaliatory measures to ensure their security.  And if the local Jersey City mayor was unable to control his own militants, it would not be unjustified whatsoever if New York’s finest opted to cross the Hudson and put and end to the violence themselves.

                So stands the Israeli government and the United States ought not to hinder or obstruct Olmert’s actions.  If anything, the current hostilities in Gaza and Lebanon underscore two overriding principles of counterterrorism: withdrawing from territory without first demolishing terrorist infrastructure guarantees persistent violence, and secondly, the cancer is not the act of violence itself but the continued existence of the perpetrators of violence.
                What purpose does Hezbollah serve in Lebanon anyway?  Sent as an Iranian, not Lebanese, creation, it has little indigenous legitimacy.  Deployed as a battler of Marines and Jews, the United States withdrew its peacekeepers over twenty years ago and Israel left back in 2000 (on the condition that Hezbollah would not restart its terror campaign).  Having killed more Americans than any other organization (up until Sept. 11), its tentacles and poisonous ideology have reached as far away as Southeast Asia and Latin America.
                The reasoning is clear to anyone without blinders on: Hezbollah exists as an Iranian buffer in what should be a sovereign Lebanon.  Up until last year, so did Syrian occupiers.  If we had paid attention to recent Middle East experiences, we would have known that the 1983 U.S. extraction and the Israeli withdrawal six years ago served the purpose of strengthening Lebanese territory as a jihadist enclave.  When problems are not boldly and firmly addressed at their inception, and are instead replaced with so-called “talks” to “ease tensions” that go nowhere fast, the crisis will have to be dealt with in the future in a far more difficult and deadly manner.
Abandoning the Afghans after the Soviet withdrawal, so-so aid for the secular Northern Alliance, and blasé attitudes after the al Qaida attacks of 1993, 1995, 1996, 1998, and 2000 only allowed Emir bin Laden and Dr. al Zawahiri to set up shop in Afghanistan.  Withdrawing from Gaza allowed Hamas, a once second-tier jihadist group, to ascend to power and actually constitute its own state in that hellhole slum.  Not pushing on to Baghdad in 1991 guaranteed seventeen ceasefire violations, Ba’athist belligerence, continued corrupt sanctions, and an inevitable second war.  Worries over less than two-dozen dead U.S. servicemen and hightailing out of Somalia in 1993 promised the eventual rise of the Taliban-like Islamic Courts Union (who will have to be dealt with in their own right).  And this doesn’t just apply to Arab or Persian diplomatic standoffs.  Signing the phony Agreed Framework with Kim Jong Il in 1994 meant more famine on the Korean peninsula and the construction of the Taepodong-2.

                The other truism regards the inherent nature of the Iranian mullacracy, the Syrian autocracy, and the Hezbollah-Hamas hooligan conglomerate.  Why ignite a war against Israel at this time?  Certainly we in the West stupidly hold barbarians to the same enlightened standard and never actually take them at their word when they promise to destroy the Jewish state.  But is that the sole rationale for this upsurge in Palestinian, Syrian, and Iranian hostility?
                The question shouldn’t be “why.”  We know why.  They want Israel gone.  “Why now” is the more pressing inquiry.  Perhaps it is because Iran, having rejected a deadline on the West’s nuclear offer, knows its feet will be held to the fire?  Perhaps they were annoyed Pyongyang was getting too much attention and scorn after its own provocative missile tests?  Perhaps because Tehran, trying to hijack the infant constitutional state in Baghdad, knows its surrogate Muqtada al Sadr is a fringe lunatic disrespected by most Iraqis, which now yearn for reconciliation?  Perhaps because the Syrian dictator, Mr. Assad, knows we now know he is for sure not abiding by Resolution 1559 and will not hand over Hamas terrorist Khaled Meshal or disband Hezbollah?  Perhaps the democratically elected Hamas fascists want to change the subject from Palestinian water, or lack thereof, onto the mythically murderous Jews once again?  Perhaps because Sheikh Nasrallah is displeased with Hezbollah’s role in Lebanese democratization –– or the fact that he opposes democratization altogether?
                No matter the reason, we do know for certain that Hezbollah’s decision to war against the Israelis was both preemptive and unilateral –– morally neutral concepts, but only castigated when utilized by Washington –– but unlike Iraq, no such Lebanese parliament or congressional approval occurred.  Hezbollah, a small force inside a fragile new government, declared war on its own with its own vanguard paramilitaries and militiamen, with Iranian and Syrian authorization.  How odd.  Imagine for a moment a cabal of politicos in the House or Senate waging war against Cuba, using their own concocted army, on the orders of Canada and Mexico… and we are to believe the Lebanese are represented by the likes of Nasrallah?

                What the incursions into Lebanon represent is a manifestation of one of the most significant aspects of asymmetrical warfare.  Whereas we in the West are guided by classical Greco-Roman notions of shock battle, on the other hand fourth-generational and unconventional war –– terrorism, insurgencies, insurrections, etc. –– has little use for such conformist notions.  No longer must we fret over interstate war, or state-on-state; engaging Hezbollah inside Lebanon, while trying to preserve the Lebanese regime, represents intrastate war, a concept we are only now getting familiar with in places like Fallujah and Ramadi. 
                The key, of course, in intrastate conflicts –– fighting an adversarial entity within a friendly state –– is empowering indigenous natives to conduct the bulk of the counterterrorism operations themselves.  Since late 2001, we have done precisely this in the Philippines against the Abu Sayyef network, in Algeria against the GSPC jihadist organization, in Indonesia and Malaysia against Jemaah Islamiah, in Colombia, Djibouti, Mali, Jordan, and elsewhere.
                Replicating this, and this alone, is the only way to end the violence in Lebanon: continued Israeli airstrikes against Hezbollah fortifications for a time (not indefinitely) until all Israeli captives are returned and rocket attacks cease –– and then subsequent U.S. prodding of an otherwise unwilling Lebanese democracy to squash their terrorist enclaves and reject Syrian and Iranian omnipresence.  This will require an effort very much akin to our 2002 theater in the Philippine islands, where a small contingent of U.S. commandos –– perhaps Green Berets with their history of indigenous (and ingenious) training –– land on Lebanese shores, beef up Lebanese security forces, assist in counterterrorism operations, and end the despotic reign of Hezbollah.
This means a sustained American and hopefully international commitment.  What the Lebanese couldn’t do on their own –– implement Resolution 1559 –– we must assist with until they are capable of doing just that.  Monies, supplies, weaponry, and perhaps even bodies all must be dedicated to the fragile democratic government in Beirut.  Since the decisive and quick three-week takedown of Hussein and his Mesopotamian Khmer Rouge, we have been in an almost retrospective period where rather than see the Middle East within its strategic landscape, we instead prefer to grumble about why we did anything at all in the first place.  That three-year lull, either to our joy or dismay, is over.