Hezbollah's rockets

The Washington Post reports that Hezbollah launched another 230 rockets at Israel yesterday, killing one person and injuring 33 others.

So far, Hezbollah has fired 1800 rockets at Israel.

Only twenty-four Israeli civilians have been killed since July 12.

The standard hawkish line is that Hezbollah's rocket stash is a grave threat to the state of Israel. Clearly, the arsenal poses a threat, but so far it's not an existential threat to Israel. Hezbollah has launched thousands of rockets in the last three weeks, but killed only 24 Israelis.

Faced with this sad calculus, hawks start arguing preemption. No, neither the kidnapping of 2 Israeli soldiers, nor the rocket attacks that followed merited retaliation on the scale Israel is dishing out. However, the hawks insist, Hezbollah is a chronic threat that must be destroyed now, rather than later.

Obviously, Hezbollah would be more dangerous if it had a larger arsenal and better weapons. Where is Hezbollah getting this hardware? From its backers in Iran and Syria. The only way to control the missile threat is to cut off the weapons supply at the source--by pressuring Iran and Syria. Ironically, by invading Lebanon, Israel is foreclosing on realistic option to check Hezbollah.

The Israeli invasion is creating a huge anti-Israeli backlash and a surge in popular support for Hezbollah. Iran certainly has no incentive to curb its support for Hezbollah under these circumstances. On the contrary, Hezbollah wants to make Lebanon an Islamic state on the model of Iran. Hezbollah is the most powerful military force in Lebanon right now.* So, if the Lebanese government falls, as many fear it will, Hezbollah is likely to come out on top.

As I've argued before, offline and in comments: Hezbollah is using Israel to create an Islamic Lebanon.

*Clarification, Hezbollah is the most powerful Lebanese military force in the country right now.

Comments

[Jeffrey O]

And they are succeeding. The Israelis think they can destroy and intimidate with their own shock and awe. All they do is inspire those who survive to seek revenge and this includes their fellow arabs throughout the ME. Issy is uniting and strengthening her enemies. The USA and Israel are becoming the most hated nations in the world because of their aggression and wanton disreguard for human life.

We lose.

[Steve LaBonne]

The Israelis had the example of our Iraq fiasco right in front of their noses and learned nothing. Incredible. Is Rummy doing their defence planning these days?

[hack]

The Israeli leaders have spent too much time over the last five years in Washington DC. Stupidity is contageous.

[Andy]

The great irony of this whole affair is that Israel, by blaming the government of Lebanon for not eradicating Hezbollah, is demanding that it do, after one year of independence, what Israel couldn't do in 18.

I don't know if you've seen this already, but it's a good read.

http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2006/08/02/lebano13902.htm

[Jose]

...Israel is foreclosing on realistic option to check Hezbollah

Good point. The war is not about disarming Hezbollah and it is certainly not about two kidnapped IDF soldiers. I am starting to believe that the war is really at least partly about Iran. The US/Israel clearly wants to get rid of the leadership in Iran, but right now, overt war is not an option, since Iran is hardly defenseless, and to attack a country that is not defenseless is just un-American. Therefore, my theory is that they want economic sanctions that will, over several years, cripple the Iranian economy until Iran is defenseless enough for "regeim change."

The US didn't have enough support in the UN to impose very harsh sanctions on Iran based only on the nuclear program. Because Israel has created such a terrible humanitarian crisis in Lebanon, the UN has to address the issue, and therefore, the issue of Iranian support for Hezbollah, an issue that was largely ignored before the war, suddenly becomes much more important, and may be enough to persuade Russia and China not to veto sanctions.

[DAS]

am starting to believe that the war is really at least partly about Iran. The US/Israel clearly wants to get rid of the leadership in Iran, but right now, overt war is not an option - Jose

Considering the number of people in high places in the US government who loved them some Iran (and some Contras) back in the 1980s, I wonder if there is more involved than this ...

Still, more than a few people have made good arguments that the current Israel/Hezbollah war is a proxy war between the U.S. and Iran. I find it amazing how so many militantly pro-Israeli types think, in a bizarre internalization of anti-Semitic paranoia, that the U.S. is doing things purely because "they are good for Israel" and that Israel should be oh so greatful for what the US does (and we Jews should all vote for Bush) -- when if the proxy war is what's going on, then it's the other way around, i.e. Israel is actually being used by the US. Interestingly, this sort of debate has Biblical precidents. With the rise of the Assyrian threat (and later the Babylonian threat), leaders in Judah thought they were getting a good deal by aligning themselves with Egypt, who was so nice to be acting in Judah's best interests by helping it to defend itself against Assyria and Babylonia. Of course, it was plainly the other way around -- Egypt was using Judah as a tool to promote its interests. But only the (now big name) Prophets saw this was the case and nobody else did.

You'd think that a nation full of Jews would pay attention to, um, the wisdom of the Prophets?

[Jacob]

Fuck the UN!

[Andy]

DAS,

I was with you until "...this sort of debate has Biblical precidents" and that's when you lost me buddy.

[DAS]

To clear things up a bit (maybe) -- the US is treating Israel nowadays just like Egypt was some 2500 years ago. Some in Judah then thought they were getting a good deal -- having powerful Egypt behind them as an ally and refused to look that gift horse in the mouth. Similarly today, some are so excited about the "support" Israel gets from the U.S. and from fundie Christians they refuse to look that gift horse in the mouth. Or when they do they think "well, what does it matter that the US has its own agenda or that fundie Christians want us to die at Armeggeden, we'll keep our own interests in mind, and we don't believe in the fundie stuff anyway" -- but they forget that influence can be pernicious, you grow to think that what is really the interests of your "benefactors" are really your interests that you are lucky to have your benefactors supporting.

This is exactly the situation documented in the Bible as faced by Judah -- and exactly what concerned "Isaiah" and later "Jeremiah". At least we Jews got some fun Passover rituals out of the drive by the Prophets and their allies to disuade Judah from too close of an alliance with Egypt. What are we gonna get out of this proxy war?

[Andy]

I see it the other way around. The United States has very little to gain from an allience with Israel. In fact, it has absolutely nothing to gain. Probably, all our problems in the region stem from our unwavering support of Israel.

You should check out this essay by Tony Judt in Haaretz.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=711997

[DAS]

The United States itself has less to gain from it's alliance with Israel than some in the US think (and Israel has less to gain from this alliance than many in Israel think -- see below).

I would hardly say that the US's sole problem in that region is our support of Israel. The neo-cons are somewhat right: our problem in the ME, like in everywhere else, stems from our support of oppressive regimes and international conglomerates. Essentially, it isn't that "they hate our freedoms" but it is that they hate that our foreign policy actively works to deny them the freedoms we have.

Of course, forced "democratization" is really cover for more of the same. A foreign policy which would truly increase our security by alleviating anti-American hatred would involve us pushing the World Bank, WTO, IMF et al away from rather than toward their constant prescriptions of predictably and provably disastrous "neo-liberal" policies on poor countries, being supportive rather than dismissive and undermining of the results of democratic processes, no matter how odious we find those results, etc. But the neo-cons, even if they identify the problem, always propose things to make the problems worse rather than better ... hmmm ...

To some degree, Israel is hated as a proxy for the US (as well as the US being hated indeed 'cause of our support for Israel) -- it would serve both parties well if we were to, at times, go our separate ways so that way anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiment would not feed into each other and re-enforce each other ...

[Andy]

Israel has everything to gain from alliance with the US. Where else is going to get the $3 billion in aid a year we give it. And the bombing of the Cole or 9/11 didn't happen because we supported Hussein or Sadat. It's a response to Israeli occupation. The Middle East is a one-dimensional issue and it all goes back to this. Muslims are disenfranchised so they rally around this cause.

[Gaijin Biker]

I don't think it is incumbent upon Israel to wait until Hezbollah attacks become more accurate before it strikes back.

[Trystero]

Holy shit. ABC News just did a bit on how the evangelical fundies see this conflict as "End of Days" stuff. The ISREALI AMBASSADOR said the following:

"When the Messiah comes, we will ask him if he's been here before. And that will decide whether we will all be Cristians, or Jews."

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

Well, as I've said elsewhere, I find this escalation with Hezbollah excessive, and wish that it would stop, on moral grounds (although I find it loathsome when people speak of the double-digit Israeli deaths as being too low to feel concern over). There are innocent people dying and being made homeless, and their concerns should be paramount.

However, the operative word is not _yet_ an existential threat. As I mentioned on the Robert Fisk thread, Iran has been arming Hezbollah with steadily more lethal rockets. _At the moment,_ yes, they are only several dozen of the longest-range rockets, with their 600-kilogram payloads. 10 years ago, there were none. Now there are dozens. Iran continues to improve on range and payload, and Hezbollah's stockpile is only growing as they do.

Syria's influence on Hezbollah has lessened since the Rafik Hariri assassination, and Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon. Iran's has not. Iran's rockets cannot reach Israel from Iran, only from Lebanon. Hezbollah is an organic movement, but sometimes functions as a proxy army for Iran, and I believe is influenced by them, considering the $50 million annually in aid that Iran give them.

China and Russia are both patrons of Iran on the UN Security Council. They sometimes chide Iran, but they are largely supportive of Iran (witness also the fact that http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/congress/1999_h/990713-timmerman_071399.htm>Iranian scientists have been learning their art in Russia). Due to the US's incredibly stupid invasion of Iraq (a bad use of the preemption doctrine if ever there was one), Iran is now able to help destabilize Iraq. Iran has tested missiles over the last year, in plain attempts to saber-rattle against the US. We've been well aware of Iran's missile development for years, as Israel has been aware that they keep ramping up Hezbollah's weaponry. Granted that Israel and the US's diplomacy is non-existent these days, and the Iraq War ruined any ability we had to bring diplomatic consensus to the Middle East, but we've done what we've done. Iran is going to continue to build newer, better weapons, and they will continue to pass them to Hezbollah, until the several dozen longer-range missiles with 600-kg payloads become hundreds of IRBMs with... how big will they get?

I don't want the US going into Iran, as Condolleezza Rice was discussing as early as a few years ago (I think it would be as much a disaster for us as a humanitarian disaster that would make Lebanon pale in comparison). I also don't want Israel, wittingly or not, to serve as a proxy army for us, or us for them, against Iran, whether in Iran itself or against Hezbollah.

But where does this Martin Wisse you linked to come off talking about "only" finding reports of 19 rocket attacks from Hezbollah to Israel, in the past 6 years? How many Al Qaeda attacks have there been against the US during that time, or even before? Yet on the left and the right, we all agreed that Afghanistan should be invaded, and Al Qaeda's training camps destroyed, after 9/11. He excuses it by saying that they were "mostly military targets," but so was the USS Cole, and we were pretty keen to avenge that, even if 9/11 and WTC1 of 1993 hadn't happened. And Al Qaeda has never come _close_ to being an existential threat to the US. Hezbollah, if Iran continues its arming of them and its weapons improvement, may be, and very soon, within the next several years. What then?

I'm all for diplomacy and restraint as well, but what are the mechanisms of this diplomacy, or other pressure mechanisms, that will make Iran stop making better missiles and shipping them west?

I hate what's happening right now. It's shocking. Israel did escalate it, too, and yes, their military is much more efficient than Hezbollah's is, and they've inflicted far more casualties, and rendered much more of Lebanon's cities uninhabitable. But meeting that by excusing the thousands of Hezbollah rockets that have rained down on Israel, or more importantly, the lives they've taken, though they're but in the dozens? I hope that anyone who does so, as anyone else who waves away the deaths of some innocent people as insignificant, doesn't accidentally open up their big mouth and bellow that in front of someone who lost their loved one. Have your best justification ready when it happens.

Those Hezbollah rockets, I say again, are offensive, not defensive. Those "few" 19 attacks that Martin Wisse dismisses, were they defensively taken? Positive suggestions. Given where we are, both with the US's and Israel's mistakes so far, and the truth that Iran _is_ slowly but surely taking Hezbollah to levels of lethality that will finally impress everyone within a very short span of years, what should be done?

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

And Al Qaeda has never come _close_ to being an existential threat to the US. Hezbollah, if Iran continues its arming of them and its weapons improvement, may be, and very soon, within the next several years. What then?

Edit: Hezbollah, if etc., may be an existential threat _to Israel_ within the next several years, of course, not to the US.

[Scott]

I know the standard antisemitic line is that somehow this war would be more palatable if more Israelis were dead. I'm sure that would make everyone happy. The reason there aren't more dead Israelis right now, by the way, is because Haifa is a virtual ghost town, as are all the cities and villages in the north of Israel. So the Israelis can stay and die (and make you happy) or leave and somehow prove to you that the Hezbollah threat is not real.
See Here, here, here, here, and here.

[togolosh]

The blowback from Israel's actions will be very, very severe. The best possible outcome is a return to the status quo ante (less about 1000 dead, mostly civilians). The worst possible outcome is a war involving Iran, Syria, and various factions within Iraq. This latter is, of course, the neocon's best-case scenario. Assholes.

I do not see any positive outcome from the current situation. I understand why Israel feels threatened - after all, the relatively low Israeli casualty rate is due to people dropping everything and scurrying into shelters multiple times a day, not just the crappiness of Hezbollah's missiles. Blasting the hell out of large numbers of civilians does not seem likely to reduce hostility towards Isreal, OTOH.

[Gaijin Biker]

Without pretending to have done any military analysis of the conflict, I would venture a guess that Israel is "winning" — that is, it is succeeding in crushing Hezbollah — simply by virtue of all the calls for it to stop.

Warnings from Israel's enemies that it should stop attacking before it damages itself too badly ring hollow.

[Gaijin Biker]

One point I have made elsewhere is that the responsibility to protect Lebanese civilians lies with Hezbollah and/or the Lebanese government, not with Israel.

If you start a bar fight holding your grandmother's heirloom china dishes in one hand, they're going to get broken. It's not the other guy's responsibility to avoid breaking them.

Israel is fulfilling its responsibility to minimize its own civilian casualties by encouraging the use of bomb shelters, keeping military targets separate from its civilian areas, and so forth. Hezbollah is irresponsibly maximizing Lebanese civilian casualties (probably for a public relations advantage) by operating out of civilian areas.

[Gaijin Biker]

Of course the fact that Israel keeps military targets separate from its civilian areas means nothing to Hezbollah, which deliberately attacks civilian targets anyway.

[Alon Levy]

I am starting to believe that the war is really at least partly about Iran. The US/Israel clearly wants to get rid of the leadership in Iran, but right now, overt war is not an option, since Iran is hardly defenseless, and to attack a country that is not defenseless is just un-American.

I don't think the US and Israel have any initiative here. I see them mostly as reacting to Hezbollah in exceptionally dumb ways.

One point I have made elsewhere is that the responsibility to protect Lebanese civilians lies with Hezbollah and/or the Lebanese government, not with Israel.

Therefore, Al Qaida bears no responsibility for the deaths it caused on 9/11, since it was incumbent on the US to prevent or minimize the scope of the attacks.

[verbatim]

If you start a bar fight holding your grandmother's heirloom china dishes in one hand, they're going to get broken. It's not the other guy's responsibility to avoid breaking them.

Actually, it's your and the other guys' responsibility not to get into a bar fight.

And human lives are not equivalent to grandma's china. Human lives are, however, equivalent to other human lives -- including the lives of Israelis and Lebanese.

It's trite to say, but the whole thing's absurd, really, and unfortunately the people "leading" the parties have the emotional maturity of pre-schoolers. "He started it!" What most of these people need is some parenting.

[togolosh]

I gotta agree - grandma's china is jack shit compared to the lives of uninvolved civilians. Hezbollah's deliberate entanglement with civilians isn't about them taking a chance with something they care about, it's about a coldblooded calculation that Israel will have the decency not to risk killing innocents. Unforunately they were wrong. Unfortunate for them, damning for Israel, unspeakably tragic for the innocents.

[Gaijin Biker]

I gotta agree - grandma's china is jack shit compared to the lives of uninvolved civilians.

It's an analogy.