A Nice Little War

The same thing happens in the biggest gamble of all: war. The leaders thatstart a war and get stuck in the mud are compelled to fight their way everdeeper into the mud. That is a part of the very essence of war: it is impossibleto stop after a failure. Public opinion demands the promised victory.Incompetent generals need to cover up their failure. Military commentators andother armchair strategists demand a massive offensive. Cynical politicians areriding the wave. The government is carried away by the flood that theythemselves have let loose.

That is what happened this week, following the battle of Bint-Jbeil, whichthe Arabs have already started to call proudly Nasrallahgrad. All over Israelthe cry goes up: Get into it! Quicker! Further! Deeper!

A day after the bloody battle, the cabinet decided on a massive mobilizationof the reserves. What for? The ministers do not know. But it does not depend onthem anymore, nor on the generals. The political and military leadership istossed about on the waves of war like a boat without a rudder.

As has been said before: it is much easier to start a war than to finish one.The cabinet believes that it controls the war, but in reality it is the war thatcontrols them. They have mounted a tiger, and can't be sure of getting offwithout being torn to pieces.

War has its own rules. Unexpected things happen and dictate the next moves.And the next moves tend to be in one direction: escalation.

Dan Halutz, the father of this war, thought that hecould eliminate Hizbullah by means of the Air Force, the most sophisticated,most efficient and the generally most-most air force in the world. A few days ofmassive pounding, thousands of tons of bombs on neighborhoods, roads,electricity works and ports - and that's it.

Well, that wasn't it, as it turned out. The Hizbullah rockets continued toland in the north of Israel, hundreds a day. The public cried out. There was noway round a ground operation. First, small, elite units were put in. That didnot help. Then brigades were deployed. And now whole divisions are demanded.

First they wanted to annihilate the Hizbullah positions along the border.When it was seen that that was not enough, it was decided to conquer the hillsthat dominate the border. There, the Hizbullah fighters were waiting and causedheavy casualties. And the rockets continued to fly.

Now the generals are convinced that there is no alternative to occupying thewhole area up to the Litani River, about 24 km from the border, in order toprevent the rockets from being launched from there. Then they will find out thatthey have to reach the Awali River, 40 km inside - the famous 40 km whichMenachem Begin talked about in 1982.

And then? The Israeli army will be extended over a large area, and everywhereit will be exposed to guerilla attacks, of the sort Hizbullah excels in. And themissiles will continue to fly.

What next? One cannot stop. Public opinion will demand more decisive moves.Political demagogues will shout. Commentators will grumble. The people in theshelters will cry out. The generals will feel the heat. One cannot keep tens ofthousands of reserve soldiers mobilized indefinitely. It is impossible toprolong a situation which paralyzes a third of the country.

Everybody will clamor to storm forwards. Where to? Towards Beirut in theNorth? Or towards Damascus, in the East?

The Cabinet ministers recite in unison: No! Never ever!We shall not attack Syria!

Perhaps some of them really don't intend to. They do not dream of a war withSyria. Definitely not. But the ministers only delude themselves when theybelieve that they control the war. The war controls them.

When it becomes clear that nothing is helping, that Hizbullah goes onfighting and the rockets continue to fly, the political and military leadershipwill face bankruptcy. They will need to pin the blame on somebody. On who? Well,on Assad, of course.

How is it possible that a small "terror organization", with a fewthousand fighters altogether, goes on fighting? Where do they get the arms from?The finger will point towards Syria.

Even now, the army commanders assert that new rockets are flowing all thetime from Syria to Hizbullah. True, the roads have been bombed, the bridgesdestroyed, but the arms somehow continue to arrive. The Israeli governmentdemands that an international force be stationed not only along theIsraeli-Lebanese border, but on the Lebanese-Syrian border, too. The queue ofvolunteers will not be long.

Then the generals will demand the bombing of roads and bridges inside Syria.For that, the Syrian Air Force will have to be neutralized. In short, a realwar, with implications for the whole Middle East.

Ehud Olmert and Amir Peretz did not think about thatwhen they decided 17 days ago in haste and light heartedly, without seriousdebate, without examining other options, without calculating the risks, toattack Hizbullah. For politicians who do not know what war is, it was anirresistible temptation: there was a clear provocation by Hizbullah,international support was assured, what a wonderful opportunity! They would dowhat even Sharon did not dare.

Dan Halutz submitted an offer that could not be refused. A nice little war.Military plans were ready and well rehearsed. Certain victory. The more so,since on the other side there was no real enemy army, just a "terrororganization".

How hotly the desire was burning in the hearts of Olmert and Peretz isattested by the fact that they did not even think about the lack of shelters inthe Northern towns, not to mention the far-reaching economic and socialimplications. The main thing was to rush in and gather the laurels.

They had no time to think seriously about the war aim. Now they resemblearchers who shoot their arrows at a blank sheet and then draw the rings aroundthe arrow. The aims change daily: to destroy Hizbullah, to disarm them, to drivethem out of South Lebanon, and perhaps just to "weaken" them. To killHassan Nasrallah. To bring the captured soldiers home. To extend the sovereigntyof the Lebanese government over all of Lebanon. To establish a new-old SecurityZone occupied by Israel. To deploy the Lebanese army and/or an internationalforce along the border. To rehabilitate deterrence. To imprint into theconsciousness of Hizbullah. (Our generals love imprinting into consciousnesses.That is a wonderfully safe aim, because it cannot be measured.)

The more the nice little war continues, the clearer itbecomes that these changing aims are not realistic. The Lebanese ruling groupdoes not represent anybody but a small, rich and corrupt elite. The Lebanesearmy cannot and will not fight Hizbullah. The new "security zone" willbe exposed to guerilla attacks and the international force will not enter thearea without the agreement of Hizbullah. And this guerilla force, Hizbullah, theIsraeli army cannot vanquish.

That is nothing to be ashamed of. Our army is in good - or, rather, bad -company. The term "guerilla" ("small war") was coined inSpain, during the occupation of the country by Napoleon. Irregular bands ofSpanish fighters attacked the occupiers and beat them. The same happened to theRussians in Afghanistan, to the French in Algeria, to the British in Palestineand a dozen other colonies, to the Americans in Vietnam, and is happening tothem now in Iraq. Even assuming that Dan Halutz and Udi Adam are greatercommanders than Napoleon and his marshals, they will not succeed where thosefailed.

When Napoleon did not know what to do next, he invaded Russia. If we don'tstop the operation, it will lead us to war with Syria.

Condoleezza Rice's stubborn struggle against any attempt to stop the warshows that this is indeed the aim of the United States. From the first day ofGeorge Bush's presidency, the neo-cons have been calling for the elimination ofSyria. The deeper Bush sinks into the Iraqi quagmire, the more he needs todivert attention with another adventure.

By the way: One day before the outbreak of this war, our Minister of NationalInfrastructures, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, took part in the inauguration ceremony ofthe big pipeline that will conduct oil from the huge Caspian Sea reserves to theTurkish port of Ceyhan, just next to the Syrian border. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhanpipeline avoids Russia and passes through Azerbaijan and Georgia, two countriesclosely aligned with Israel, like Turkey itself. There is a plan to bring a partof the oil from there along the Syrian and Lebanese coast to Ashkelon, where anexisting pipeline will conduct it to Eilat, to be exported to the Far East.Israel and Turkey are to secure the area for the United States.

Must the sliding into a war with Syria happen? Is thereno alternative?

Of course there is. To stop now, at once.

When President Lyndon Johnson felt that he was sinking into the morass ofVietnam, he asked his friends for advice. One of them answered with five words:"Declare victory and get out!"

We can do that. To stop investing more and more in a losing business. To besatisfied with what we can get now. For example: an agreement that will moveHizbullah a few kilometers from the border, along which an international forceand/or the Lebanese army will be deployed, and to exchange prisoners. Olmertwill be able to present that as a great victory, to claim that we have got whatwe wanted, that we have taught the Arabs a lesson, that anyhow we had nointention of achieving more. Nasrallah will also claim a great victory,asserting that he has taught the Zionist Enemy a lesson it will not forget, thatHizbullah remains alive, strong and armed, that he has brought back the Lebaneseprisoners.

True, it will not be much. But that is what can be done to cut losses, asthey say in the business world.

That can happen. If Olmert is clever enough to extricate himself from thetrap, before it closes entirely. (As folk wisdom says: a clever person is onethat gets out of a trap that a wise one would not have got into in the firstplace.) And if Condoleezza gets orders from her boss to allow it.

On the 17th day of the war , we must recognize thatsoon we will be faced with a clear choice: to slide into a war with Syria,intentionally or unintentionally, or to get a general agreement in the North,that will necessarily involve also Hizbullah and Syria. At the center of such anagreement will be the Golan Heights.

Olmert and Peretz did not think about that in those intoxicating moments onJuly 12, when they jumped at the opportunity to start a nice little war. Butthen, were they thinking at all?