A few things I’ve been picking up from talking to people following the situation closely, for what it’s worth:
–It might make sense for Israel to go in on the ground, per Krauthammer and Jonah, but most people seem to think it’s not going to happen, absent some radical changes in conditions. A related point: Israel isn’t going to be able to “destroy” Hezbollah.
–A good model of what to avoid here is the 1996 Grapes of Wrath scenario, in which there was a ceasefire returning to the status quo ante.
–The G-8 statement is a pretty good outline of a possible cease-fire deal, which isn’t surprising since the administration wrote it and it was edited from there.
–It would be very bad if Israel fundamentally destabilized the Lebanese government or created conditions that made the Lebanese think, “Gee, maybe it wasn’t so bad having the Syrians around after all.”
–I’m still a little mystified about Iran’s purpose in instigating or approving–as they almost surely did–the Hezbollah action. But I’m not sure the distracting from the G-8 summit theory makes much sense. My understanding is that we had already agreed to take Iran off the agenda because there was a consensus around going to the Security Council.
–Speaking of the Security Council: obviously the administration is going to need to expend a lot of energy trying to prevent anything from happening there, since it’s such a lousy forum for dealing with anything having to do with Israel
–Hezbollah’s current arsenal and capabilities have taken a long time to build up; it presumably will take a long time for them to be reconstituted, creating a window of opportunity for a new dispensation in the south once the shooting stops.
–The foremost leverage point over Syria just might be the other Arab states, which can work to isolate Damascus in a way that really bites. Perhaps they can force the regime there to cut-off Hezbollah. At least that’s one theory making the rounds.
–My bottom line as of this moment: the problem is that Israel is apparently not going to be able to eliminate Hezbollah, so its still going to be around. The Lebanese army won’t be strong enough to confront it and no international force is going to do it. It’s hard to see how it doesn’t live to fight another day, unless it is totally out-maneuvered politically both in the international and domestic arenas. That’s possible, given that Hezbollah has dug itself in a ditch, but is it more likely than not? I wonder…
UPDATE:
E-mail:
Mr. Lowry,
If the Israelis let this opportunity pass without dealing a fatal blow to Hezbollah (or come so close as to make them weak enough to be dealt with by the Lebanese army…though even that is problematic since some estimates/analysis has that army heavily – maybe up to 35% of it – infiltrated by Hezbollah and/or its sympathizers), they may never get another…at least not prior to the Iranians having their nukes online.
And, quite frankly, if all the Israelis are going to do is blow up some missiles (and, I bet not nearly the percentage of those on-hand as their air force guys are bragging that they’ve gotten so far…Israeli AF guys are, unfortunately, just as prone to overestimate what air power alone can do on a battlefield as ours are), and destroy a LOT of Lebanese infrastructure with the attendant civilian casualties, then Israel is going to come in for a huge amount of criticism about this damage being all for nothing (or near enough), and – you know what? – if that’s all they do, with no ground invasion to actually destroy/push back Hezbollah a safe distance while degrading them, then they’ll richly deserve the criticism.
And, after all that, they’ll still be getting rocketed every single time that Hezbollah (or Syria or Iran) feels like doing it.