Syria too has interests unrelated to Israel. Bashar Assad wants to maintain his grip on power. Israel can weaken Syria’s bond with Iran by threatening his regime. In the first instance, this should involve targeting Hamas headquarters and Hamas chief Khaled Mashal’s home in Damascus.
By targeting Hamas in Syria, Israel would be making clear that national borders are not sacred for states that sponsor terrorism. If attacking Hamas in Damascus is not enough to make Assad recalibrate his national interests, then Israel should attack the headquarters of the regime’s secret police as well as Syria’s Scud missile bases and its chemical and biological weapons arsenals.
By destroying Hizbullah and peeling away its client states, Israel would be striking a serious blow at Iran which is directing all the violence in Lebanon and Gaza as well as in Judea and Samaria and Iraq. Iran has made destroying Israel a central plank on its agenda because by attacking the hated Jews, Iran is successfully raising its stature as the leader of the Muslim world.
By leading the war against Israel, Iran has rendered itself immune to attacks from Arab states like Saudi Arabia and Egypt that, while objecting to Iran’s power grab, cannot condemn aggression against the same Israel they have indoctrinated their people to despise.
Iran’s proxy war against Israel follows the same strategy as its proxy war against the U.S. in Iraq. In both cases its goal is to defeat its enemies through a prolonged war of attrition that will defeat the will of the Israeli and American people to fight to victory.
Given the diverse interests of all the parties involved in the current war against Israel, the Olmert government rightly defined Israel’s objectives as destroying Hizbullah as a fighting force and compelling the Lebanese army to deploy along the border with Israel after Hizbullah is routed.
But is the Olmert government capable of achieving its stated objectives?
Disturbingly, several indicators lead to the conclusion that to the contrary, the government does not have the will to accomplish its declared goals. First, by early last week, the prime minister was signaling that he was ready to start negotiating a cease-fire through UN or EU intermediaries.
Since both the UN and the EU are organizations dedicated to ensuring the survival of organizations like Hizbullah and Hamas, Olmert’s willingness to use these groups as intermediaries exposes his willingness to stop far short of destroying Hizbullah.
Second, Olmert’s strategy in the south against Hamas and Fatah in Gaza shows that he does not understand that Israel’s terrorist adversaries are by their nature undeterrable. When Palestinian forces blew a hole in the wall separating Gaza from Egypt and so enabled hundreds of terrorists to pour across the border, they made quite clear that they have not been impressed by Israel’s military actions in Gaza.
Indeed, Israel’s continued support for Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas in spite of his group’s intense collaboration with Hamas both in the guerrilla raid that led to Cpl. Gilad Shalit’s capture, and in the rocket offensive against the Western Negev, is a clear indication that Israel is not serious about destroying its terrorist enemies.
Third, the Olmert government’s continued insistence on going forward with its plan to retreat from Judea and Samaria and partition Jerusalem indicates that the premier has not accepted the now obvious fact that Israeli withdrawals strengthen our enemies. Since the central policy of the government contradicts its stated objective of denying operating bases to terrorists, it is difficult to see how the government will muster the necessary enthusiasm to see its campaign in Lebanon to a successful conclusion.
Finally, the fact that the government has to this point largely limited the IDF campaign in Lebanon to aerial bombardment indicates that it is not willing to take the necessary actions to secure the country from Iranian-Hizbullah attacks. The IDF campaign recalls the NATO bombing campaign against Kosovo and Serbia in 1999. Yet the situation on the ground in Lebanon is more analogous to the situation in Afghanistan in 2001. It was possible to limit the campaign in Kosovo to aerial bombardment because the Serbian government was deterrable. Yet, like the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, Hizbullah is not open to persuasion and so must be destroyed utterly. This can only be accomplished with ground forces.