Middle East

Sometimes one entity has to die for another to be born.

Rejection of hubris has become the defining characteristic of the post-Lebanon war mood and debate in Israel. That is understandable. Israel's civilians in the north faced a daily dosage of 200 missiles, while the military met a surprisingly well-equipped and trained guerrilla force. The mood has been best captured by the Israeli military's outgoing commander for infantry and paratroops, Brigadier General Yossi Hyman, who publicly bemoaned that "we were guilty of the sin of arrogance."

Please join us as Steve Clemons, Director of the New America Foundation’s American Strategy Program, moderates an examination of the important challenges we face in the Middle East with James Dobbins and Daniel Levy.

Last month, as images of war and carnage in Lebanon filled Arab airwaves, more than 10 million Saudis joined together for a common goal. A massive political protest? No. A petition calling for an end to the fighting? Not that either. A boycott of American goods? No. So, what did 10 million Saudis -- more than half the adult population -- do? They bought stock.

During the Vietnam War, a Communist leader famously told his US counterpart that the US could kill ten Vietcong for every American who died, and yet would still lose in the end. The same is true of Israel and Hizbollah. Israel is losing for the same reasons that it lost its previous struggle with that organization: bombardment from the air is ineffective; occupation on the ground has to be permanent, and involves an unacceptable stream of Israeli casualties; and outright massacre of the civilian population is (presumably) out of the question.

As Israel and Hezbollah continue to trade deadly blows, the Bush administration may have to brace itself for the possibility that the shock waves from the war in Lebanon could wreck its partnership with Iraq’s Shiites and make Iraq’s fragmentation well-nigh unavoidable.

On May 23, the House of Representatives passed Resolution 4681, the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act, by a vote of 361 to 37. Nothing remarkable about that. But the passage of H.R. 4681 had all the ingredients of the worrying way in which the Israel-Palestine conflict has played out in American politics and policy for the past decade or more.

Witnessing the near-perfect symmetry of Israeli and American policy has been one of the more noteworthy aspects of the latest Lebanon war. A true friend in the White House. No deescalate and stabilize, honest-broker, diplomatic jaw-jaw from this president. Great. Except that Israel was actually in need of an early exit strategy, had its diplomatic options narrowed by American weakness and marginalization in the region, and found itself ratcheting up aerial and ground operations in ways that largely worked to Hezbollah’s advantage, the Qana tragedy included.

"Whither Deterrence?" That’s an interesting question to ask at a time when undeterrable missiles, thousands of them, have been raining down on Israel from Lebanon. Of course, the question of deterrence -- or not -- has, shall we say, implications for Americans, too. Surely it would be better for any country if incoming missiles could be intercepted. And if I can be allowed a personal point, I will note that more than five years ago I wrote -- here in TCS no less -- that the civilized nations of the world needed to get together, as an international alliance, to thwart this threat.

Israel has yet to figure out that wars aren’t just fought on the battlefield. They are also fought on the mediafield.

And the mediafield ultimately is larger than the battlefield. Why? Because world opinion is what ultimately settles issues of world politics. As Shakespeare put it, "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." It is thinking, for example, that tells us the difference between self-defense -- and murder.