I hope the IDF does pull off a Coup d'etat!

Inside the White House

by Bill Koenig

President Bush gave Ehud Olmert many options to move forward aggressively in his war with Hezbollah but he dragged his feet and fumbled many opportunities. Olmert made public statements that the war would be over in one to two weeks; some believe that was to buy more time.

The international media fed Lebanese war pictures for 30 days, which heightened the call for a ceasefire deal. Sadly, there are 900,000 Lebanese displaced and many have had their homes destroyed. Some wonder why Israel did this — couldn't there have been a less destructive method of uprooting Hezbollah? — but Hezbollah's strategy is to hide among civilians.

Furthermore, if Israel had been more aggressive early on with their ground troops, this war could have been finished or close to finished.

Olmert’s indecisiveness and double-minded thinking could cost Israel dearly and affect his relationship with the Bush administration, which really stuck its neck out for Olmert. This, plus the lack of results, could also cost him a no-confidence vote in the Knesset and topple his government.

Analysis: IDF Fumes Over Denied Victory (The Jerusalem Post)

Just a day earlier, the situation had looked drastically different. The security cabinet had approved the army's request to send thousands of troops up to the Litani River and beyond in an effort to destroy Hezbollah's infrastructure and to stop the Katyusha attacks. After the cabinet meeting, one division actually began moving north from Metulla. Its goal — to clear out al-Khiam and Marjayoun and to reach the Litani.

But then, under pressure from the U.S., Defense Minister Amir Peretz made a frantic call to Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz and ordered him to stop the division in its tracks. "We need to give the diplomatic process one last chance," Peretz told Halutz. The orders trickled down the chain of command; and by the time they reached 366, it had already reached Marjayoun, a stone's throw from the Litani.

With the U.N. Security Council on the verge of passing a ceasefire resolution, the IDF understood on Thursday that Operation Change of Direction was ending, for better or for worse.

The IDF was disappointed. Senior officers said they had been looking forward to the fight. Reaching the Litani and eliminating Hezbollah from the villages on the way could have provided, senior officers believe, the victory that Israel has been trying to obtain since July 12. By Thursday night, the chance of that happening was drifting away.

The only way to hurt Hezbollah, a high-ranking officer in the Northern Command said, was to use the military. "Diplomatic processes will not achieve the right effect," he said, acknowledging that the incursion up to the Litani was not to be. "The key is the military operation. That is the only way to stop Hezbollah."

But the political echelon thinks differently; and from the first day of this war the politicians, senior officers said, held the IDF back from escalating its offensive and hitting Hezbollah hard. First it was the massive air campaign. Then came the limited, pinpoint ground raids. Only when all that failed did Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his cabinet approve a large-scale incursion into Lebanon and the re-creation of the security zone.

This wishy-washy decision-making process cost the IDF lives, according to one senior officer. "A military force always needs to be on the offensive, pushing forward and keeping the enemy on its toes," he said. "When you sit still for too long, you turn into a target and you begin to get hit again and again."

Conclusion

It appears Israel will settle for a ceasefire with Hezbollah, unless there is another sudden course change. If this happens, the decision will likely come back to haunt Israel. They had a chance, but they dragged their feet and were indecisive — which caused the U.S. to call for an end to the battle.

Below you will read very interesting insight from former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Israeli Foreign Affairs official Yoram Ettinger, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer and Jerusalem Post columnist Carolyn Glick detailing the importance of a major victory against Hezbollah.

Kissinger: Disarming Hezbollah Key to Mideast Peace

The crisis in the Middle East boils down to a very basic issue: whether Hezbollah is disarmed, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told FOX News Wednesday.

"The fundamental issue that all Americans need to keep in mind is either Hezbollah is disarmed or it is not," said Kissinger, who served under presidents Nixon and Ford.

"If Hezbollah wins, armed by Iran, with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in their forces, and if Hezbollah remains intact, then it doesn't matter what's written in the resolution," Kissinger said, referring to a Middle East ceasefire proposal being debated in the United Nations Security Council.

"Chaos and tensions in the Middle East will continue," he said. "That is the simple problem that has to be dealt with. [But] what the Israelis are doing with their military is sometimes inexplicable to me."

"If Hezbollah is not disarmed, then the moderates in the Middle East are going to be discouraged," he said. "Lebanon is likely to be taken over by Hezbollah sooner or later, and this whole crisis will repeat itself. That is the fundamental issue, and not all of these tactical moves."

Kissinger said that if Israeli forces or a multinational police force manage to disable the militant Islamic group, moderate Arab countries can work with the rest of the international community on "the Palestinian issue" and other matters of significance in the region.

But, he said, turning over the job of disempowering Hezbollah to the Lebanese army is "totally unrealistic" because those forces haven't set foot in southern Lebanon since 1982.

Amateur Hour Is Over
(Caroline B. Glick)

Excerpt:

The bad news is that Israel's national leadership has so far managed to take every political and strategic advantage that Israel has, and turn it into an impediment.

Today, assuming Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will let us win, what three weeks ago could have been a rapid victory will now be costly and slow. Regionally and internationally, the threats that Israel faces mount by the day.

While all eyes are focused on Lebanon, Syria and Iran have both upped the ante. Diplomatically, Israel is a guppy swimming with the sharks. And as the dangers mount, far from learning from their mistakes, Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and IDF Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen Dan Halutz have gone from acting like rookies to acting like amateurs.

To date, in the interest of maintaining national unity, Israel's political opposition, led by Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu, has been unwilling to publicly criticize Olmert for his mishandling of the war. This approach has much to recommend it.

But what the government needs right now is some very tough love from leaders like Netanyahu, his fellow opposition members Natan Sharansky, Effie Eitam, Yuval Steinitz and Aryeh Eldad as well as from military leaders like former Chief of General Staff Moshe Yaalon. These men and others, who understand the nature of the war and the dangers Israel faces need to force Olmert and his colleagues to listen to reason and change course immediately.

Amateur hour must end. A difficult victory awaits us.

A Wake-Up Call: The Cost of Indecisiveness
(Yoram Ettinger, Ynet, August 6, 2006)

Washington has urged Jerusalem to accelerate to 150 miles per hour on the road to destroying the capabilities of Hezbollah, the Syria-Iran proxy, which murdered 300 Americans in Beirut in 1983 and is involved in anti-U.S. terrorism in Iraq in 2006.

However, Jerusalem does not press the pedal to the metal, and does not exceed 80 miles per hour. The pro-Israel Wall Street Journal, which generally reflects the Bush-Cheney worldview, has expressed the U.S. disappointment: "Israel has pledged not to stop without disarming Hezbollah; a defeat for Israel will mean more danger and far more casualties down the road … President Bush's entire vision for the Middle East would suffer a severe setback if the current fighting ends with Hezbollah still a credible military force …" (August 1, 2006).

The more Israel retreats from the original goals of the war (i.e., disarming Hezbollah), the more it undermines its stature as a producer of national security, which upgrades U.S. power-projection, and the more it is perceived as a consumer of national security, which seeks U.S. assistance.

The more Israel appears unwilling — or unable — to obliterate Hezbollah's capabilities, the more it advances Hezbollah's regional posture, adrenalizing the veins of terrorist regimes, weakening pro-U.S. Arab regimes such as Jordan and Kuwait, exacerbating Mideast instability, undermining Israel's and the U.S.' posture of deterrence, planting seeds for the next and more horrific war, and lessening U.S. interest to expand strategic cooperation with Israel.

The more Israel distances itself from its defiant tradition, which has been forged by the 1948 Declaration — and War — of Independence (in the face of a U.S. military embargo!), by the 1967 Six-Day War (resisting U.S. pressure and a French military embargo) and by the 1981 bombing of Iraq's nuclear reactor (in spite of U.S., U.N. and European threats), the less committed are many of Israel's staunch allies on both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue and in the Christian community.

The more protracted is the war, the more difficult it is for President Bush to sustain his staunch support of Israel's war on terrorism in the face of pressure by Bush 41st, Jim Baker, Brent Scowcroft, Richard Haas, the State Department and the CIA bureaucracies, the multinational oil and engineering companies, Saudi Arabia, Europe and the U.N.

The more Israel subordinates its military operations to diplomatic processes, to international public opinion and to extreme concern for collateral damage (unmatched by any western military!), the less effective is its military and the higher the level of Israeli fatalities. Moreover, the U.S. defense establishment is concerned whether Israel has misconstrued the "1982 Lebanon Quagmire." Is Israel throwing the "baby" (the necessary destruction of PLO capabilities to spray northern Israel with Katyusha missiles) out with the "bath water" (the ill-advised attempt to change the regime in Beirut)?

The more Israel engages itself with diplomatic processes — before it obliterates Hezbollah capabilities — the more the U.S. is sucked into these processes. The processes enhance the profile of the U.N., Europe and Foggy Bottom (which aim at Israel's retreat to the 1949 lines on all fronts), promote the role of the U.S. as an even-handed mediator at the expense of its position as a unique ally of Israel and yield undue pressure on Israel for sweeping and reckless concessions.

The more Israel calls for a multinational force in southern Lebanon, the more it is portrayed as a country which ignores the flight by such forces from Lebanon (i.e., the U.S. and France in 1983), and which relies on subcontractors for its own defense, even when the subcontractors constitute a human shield for terrorists and a major hurdle for Israeli hot pursuits of terrorists. A multinational force in Lebanon would severely undermine the relations between Israel and the components of the multinational force.

The longer the war lingers on, the more thoroughly will the Hezbollah experience be implemented by Palestinian terrorists in Judea and Samaria and (especially) in Gaza, which is rapidly becoming Hezbollistan, adding fuel to the fire of regional anti-U.S. terrorism.

President Bush and Vice President Cheney do not consider Israel a puppet; they consider the Jewish State a unique ally with shared values, mutual threats and joint strategic interests, a critical First Yard Line outpost in the third World War between western democracies and Middle East-based Islamic terrorism. Therefore, they have not approached Israel even-handedly.

In fact, they have prodded Israel to resume the daring and the determination which catapulted the Jewish State from being the remnant of the Holocaust in 1948 to a major non-NATO ally of the U.S. since 1988. Israel's resolve to devastate Hezbollah into submission — and not just to win — requires a shift to a higher gear, driving at 150 miles per hour.

Israel's leaders are well-advised to study the U.S. colloquialism: "If you can't roll with the Dobermans on the street, stay on the porch with the Poodles."

America's Green Light for Israel Is an Act of Clear Self-Interest. America Wants, America Needs, a Decisive Hezbollah Defeat.
(Charles Krauthammer)

There is fierce debate in the United States about whether, in the post-Sept. 11 world, Israel is a net asset or liability. Hezbollah's unprovoked attack on July 12 provided Israel the extraordinary opportunity to demonstrate its utility by making a major contribution to America's war on terrorism.

America's green light for Israel to defend itself is seen as a favor to Israel. But that is a tendentious, misleadingly partial analysis. The green light — indeed, the encouragement — is also an act of clear self-interest. America wants, America needs, a decisive Hezbollah defeat.

More important, [Hezbollah] is today the leading edge of an aggressive, nuclear-hungry Iran. Hezbollah is a wholly-owned Iranian subsidiary. Its mission is to extend the Islamic Revolution's influence into Lebanon and Palestine, destabilize any Arab-Israeli peace, and advance an Islamist Shiite ascendancy, led and controlled by Iran, throughout the Levant.

Krauthammer on America's War

America finds itself at war with radical Islam, a two-churched monster: Sunni al-Qaeda is now being challenged by Shiite Iran for primacy in its epic confrontation with the infidel West. With al-Qaeda in decline, Iran is on the march. It is intervening through proxies throughout the Arab world — Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army in Iraq — to subvert modernizing, Western-oriented Arab governments and bring these territories under Iranian hegemony.

[Iran's] nuclear ambitions would secure these advances and give it an overwhelming preponderance of power over the Arabs and an absolute deterrent against serious counteractions by the United States, Israel or any other rival.

The moderate pro-Western Arabs understand this very clearly. Which is why Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan immediately came out against Hezbollah and privately urged the United States to let Israel take down that organization. They know that Hezbollah is fighting Iran's proxy war not only against Israel but also against them and, more generally, against the United States and the West.

Hence, Israel's rare opportunity to demonstrate what it can do for its great American patron. The defeat of Hezbollah would be a huge loss for Iran, both psychologically and strategically. Iran would lose its foothold in Lebanon. It would lose its major means to destabilize and inject itself into the heart of the Middle East. It would be shown to have vastly overreached in trying to establish itself as the regional superpower.

The United States has gone far out on a limb to allow Israel to win and for all this to happen. It has counted on Israel's ability to do the job. It has been disappointed.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has provided unsteady and uncertain leadership. Foolishly relying on air power alone, he denied his generals the ground offensive they wanted, only to reverse himself later. He has allowed his war cabinet meetings to become fully public through the kind of leaks no serious wartime leadership would ever countenance. Divisive cabinet debates are broadcast to the world, as was Olmert's own complaint that "I'm tired. I didn't sleep at all last night" (Ha'aretz, July 28). Hardly the stuff to instill Churchillian confidence.

His search for victory on the cheap has jeopardized not just the Lebanon operation but America's confidence in Israel as well. That confidence — and the relationship it reinforces — is as important to Israel's survival as its own army. The tremulous Olmert seems not to have a clue.