Donald, good post. That is exactly what I am thinking.

This situation reminds me a lot of the Operation Millennium Challenge wargame back before the Iraq invasion. It was basically supposed to be a showcase of how US airpower and information dominance would roll over an unnamed Middle Eastern nation (Iraq) in record time. But the red force commander Paul Van Riper wasnt told he was a patsy. He assumed his modern communications would be cut off or monitored (duh!), so he used antiquated communications and recon techniques as his command and control and launched a strike that sank 16 ships in the Persian Gulf including an aircraft carrier and 4 troop transports. Needless to say the Pentagon reset the game, told him he wasnt allowed to do any of the things that worked against us, and won blue side a stunning victory. Lesson not learned.

Fortunately for the US that didnt happen in the Iraq War, but that is basically exactly the kind of thing Hezbollah is doing. Why does Israel think Hezbollah leaders would be sitting around their well known offices where they could be targetted? Why would they believe the Hezbollah camps and supply dumps wouldnt be either emptied or redundant? Hezbollah knows exactly what Israels airpower can and would do, so of course they have adapted to it. Israel is not reacting fast enough.

Which is odd, given that on the ground, IDF is stacking them. (Did a basic analysis of Bint Jbail -- it's pretty straightforward)

Typical case of better soldiers than staff generals? There's a lot of fluid stuff there, and the Israelis' failure to benefit from our "lessons learned" over the past twenty years is as disheartening as betting on a Mahdi Militiaman's mortar fire.

On the other hand, is a spasm worse than status quo ante? If Iran ships in suicide bombers to take on the Israelis, not really -- that dilutes them back home ("home" in this case being the source of most of the trouble)... but if this is the excuse the Iranians need to send those guys to randomly blow up non-Hizb Lebanese...::shudder::

On the other hand, does Israel need to win, in the conventional sense? Or merely to thrash Hizballah so badly that Syria has the excuse it needs to sell Hizb down the river?

Think of it this way: if the Israelis suddenly become "reasonable," they break Hizb, get the Lebanese in... and the sword of Democles hangs there, in the form of "but our patience is at an end. One more step, and the gloves come off."

Since Hizb's major strengths are guerilla fighting (which largely relies on external support) and propaganda (designed to make that support), what happens to Hizb when they're no longer vaunted champions of blah blah blah?

The real danger is that if the fighting ends, or even continues on indefinately without resolution, Hezbollah is left standing and becomes the ultimate hero in the Middle East. Southern Lebanon becomes the jumping off point for every anti-Israel sentiment in the region, and arms and recruits flow in. Hezbollah will very likely take over the entire Lebanese government, at least de facto, either in the next election or just by fiat. A big liberal-democratic victory in the cedar revolution is on the brink of turning into a big defeat. The tide in the GWOT suddenly changes.

I don't think Israel can win, even with full invasion, as long as Hezbollah holds even a sliver of Lebanese territory to control. Reason? They are receiving outside (Iranian & other) recruits, and supplies of ever longer rockets. Therefore, even almost total annihilation, given their ideology, will be followed by a return slap, beyond the Litani, or whatever territory they have left, just to prove they can't be beaten. I see at least the possibility that with enough pressure, they could fade into Syria, the same as the NVA faded into Laos, until it is safe for them to come out, and then strike all over again. If I were Hezbollah, I'd be following the strategy of Giap; wear the enemy down, until his public opinion is exhausted, because "we" have the ideology that spares no expense, and they don't. How can Israel escape this trap? Would even 3 full divisions do it?

Israel is going after the symptom and not the disease. Until Iran and Syria are defeated, Israel loses.

"How can Israel escape this trap? Would even 3 full divisions do it?"

Not now, probably. War, particularly this war, is about will. Since the fighting began Israels will to win has shriveled while Hezbollahs has been bolstered. That means Hezbollah is winning- the body count is about as relavant as how many armored elephants each side employs.

There were 2 ways Israel could have approached this. The first would be a measured air assault against fixed Hezbollah targets near the border- with the threat that if the world didnt broker a solution that got the soldiers back and started some international program of declawing Hezbollah full scale destruction would be unleashed. At that point both perception of strength and an airtight claim of being the victim were on Israels side.

The second option would have been to assemble an overwhelming force, invade Lebanon, cut supply lines physically with boots on the ground, and erradicate Hezbollah foot by foot with overwhelming firepower and numbers. This would almost certainly escalate into war with Syria and Iran, but Israel could have got her licks in quick and smart. Some strategic surprise was achieved by Israel even the limited way they went about this war, an even more overwhelming instant reaction would have been an even bigger force multiplier.

The worst option was a combination of the two, which is what happened. Perhaps the biggest, most repeated, most easy to fall into mistake in war is escalation. Israel has slowly ratcheted up the pressure, which has given Hezbollah time to react. You dont bomb the leaderships homes and offices 3 days into your bombing campaign, its pointless. You dont send in a brigade of troops when a division is available. Its like being in an arm wrestling match and taking it easy until your arm is almost touching the table, and then slowly increasing effort. Either go full force from the get go or refuse to test your strength. The absolute worst thing to do is to showcase your strength at a great disadvantage and prove to your enemy you arent as strong as they thought.

Mark,

I like your thoughts. Problem is, it's now too late for options 1 & 2 as you point out. If you were in Israel's shoes, what would you do now? Another option I have wondered about is the historical strategy of Orde Wingate and Israel's special night squads. Back in the 30's, he taught them to realize that borders and barricades would never keep the bad guys from attacking. (see the recent Jpost column by Sarah Honig). His strategy was to train Israelis to engage in terror raids of their own to decapitate their enemies whenever they were struck. It seems to me that true deterrence is based on fear of consequences. How could Israel reestablish that now? Send the Mossad to decapitate Iran? Anything less might be uncivilized.

Bill, thats a tough question. If you put me in charge of Israel right now I would probably fake going back to option 1, stabalize the current front, talk peace, but quietly keep calling up reserves and wait. A cease fire would be proposed, I would accept it, and Hezbollah would not be able to resist a parting barrage of rockets as their celebratory exclamation point of victory. I would then drop the house on them, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. I would launch a full scale air strike on Iran, send an armored column to burn Damascus, turn them around and bring them back to meet up around Beirut with my forces pushing northward, spend the next few weeks wacking every mole that stuck its head up in Lebanon, and then declare victory and withdraw my forces back into Israel ignoring everything behind me. Then I would focus on the continue degrading Iran, figuring the US would probably sucked in at some point and make it their problem. When some knucklehead remaineder of Hezbollah decided to launch another rocket and prove they still exist, i'd drop the house again.

Yes, those acts would alienate every nation on Earth short of the US, but it would reinstate fear of the IDF, which is Israels most valuable commodity and critical to her long term viability. The quick tear of the bandaid is still better than the long term cross border raiding and bombing that is going to be how this story ends at this rate.

The article says "Far from bringing about the intended softening of the opposition, bombing tends to rally people behind their own leaders and cause them to dig in against outsiders who, whatever the justification, are destroying their homeland."

Israel is not bombing for the purpose of making the Lebanese people unhappy. That is the characterization of Journalists and others outside the government. Israel could be much more effective at that if they wanted to. Israeli bombing is targted at Hezbulla and other Lebanese facilities to disrupt Hezbulla command, control, and communication, to kill enemy forces, to destroy military assets, to prevent resupply from Iran and Syria. The ground campaign is intended to remove Hezbulla from the border to prevent future incursions like the one that ignited the current hostilities.

Israel has no other option besides military action. Land for peace was a failure and only made things worse by encouraging its enemies (who are comitted to the destruction of Isreal not peace) to further violence.

Israel needs to completely destroy Hezbullah military forces and then allow the Lebanese government to regain control over Lebanon. However the news reports do make one wonder if the Israeli Government undertands this.

Comparing the Israeli bombing to WWII bombing of cities is completly inappropriate. Israel is using precision attacks against military or strategic targets. This idea that Israel is targeting civilians is wrong and reflects either ignorance, bias, or disinformation. It is Hezbullah that is sending unguided rockets at civilians. By the author's own logic this will give Israel greater moral courage so the title of the article should be "Why Israel Is Winning".

Here is a map showing just how small an area Israel has bombed in Beirut:

http://vitalperspective.typepad.com/vital_perspective_clarity/2006/07/new_map_of_beir.html

The article also says, "The problem is, as Stratfor points out, Israel literally cannot afford wars of attrition."

Israel does not need to win a war of attrition. Israel needs to weaken Hezbullah to the point where the Lebanese army can occupy their entire country. Then with help from the West the Lebanese government will have to face the war of attrition or else become a colony of Iran, which it was well on it's way to becoming before this current war began.

The article also says: "In the 1980s and 1990s, Hezbollah badly dented the IDF’s reputation of invincibility. Now Hezbollah is on the brink of shattering it."

In Bint Jbail, Israel is using tactics far more humanitarian than the US used in Falluja in Iraq. There the US would bomb or otherwise destroy any building from which enemy fired. This is standard operating procedure for urban combat. It is also the tactics used by Russia in Chechnya. Because of their humanitarian tactics there is the wrong impression that Israel is somehow not up to it's old, invincible standard, or that Hezbulla is proving Arabs can stand up to Israelis. It's one thing to attack an army in the field as in pervious wars but it's another to selectively remove gurellas from an urban area without harming civillians. The situation in Bint Jabail shows that Arabs can stand up to Israelis when they have innocent women children to hide behind and when Israel is constrained by international bias that other nations including Arab nations such as Syria do not have to consider.

Mark,
It would be nice if Israel had the spine to follow your plan. Perhaps they do. But the moment a full scale air raid was launched against Iran, the Iranians wouldn't just sit back and take it. Which brings up another question. Let's assume they don't yet have nuclear capability. What would Ahmadinejad be likely to do? I would foresee them rustling up however many divisions their 70 million can support and embarking on an expedition to Israel, telling the US to get out of the way. If you were in the Israelis' shoes, #1) is the US a reliable enough partner that you could depend upon US forces interposing, or if they didn't, #2)in an all-out clash between Israel & Iran, who would win? As much as I respect the IDF, I'm not certain of the correlation of forces, given Iran's relative size.

"I would then drop the house on them, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran"

Israel doesnt have resources to do that ( i am not putting nukes in equation)

Typically Israel should have made a land invasion from Kyriat Shmona to the west to cut Hizballah and another force from the south. A classic pincer.
My problem with that is from what i am listening Israel deinvested heavily from ground forces and training.

Now i agree with assessemnt of Dan Halutz and most of Israel political establishement. Halutz from published quotes seems to be a bragging kid: Lebanon will regress 20 years! for one building in Haifa ten in Beirut! then those meaningless showcases like flying over Assad palace, show absolute incapacity and will.

If you brag and dont deliver you are an idiot.

Then you have politicians like the minister that bragged that "world said ok to offensive" are this guys so idiot?! They force a reaction from EU with constituincies more against everything that Israel does.

Bill: "#1) is the US a reliable enough partner that you could depend upon US forces interposing, or if they didn't, #2)in an all-out clash between Israel & Iran, who would win? As much as I respect the IDF, I'm not certain of the correlation of forces, given Iran's relative size."

Just the physical location of Iraq solves the problem. Iran cant assault Israel in a meaningful way without US approval, and the US is not going to allow Iranian divisions to travel across Iraq. We wouldn't even allow their airforce in all liklihood. The issue will never be which side would win if you lined up Israel on one side of a line and Iran on the other, even if Israel has its hands full of Syria and Lebanon.

Iran's center of gravity is its oilfields, and if Iran escalated the fighting to a point where vital Israeli interests were threatened, Irans oil infastructure could be easily wrecked. For this reason, it would be an air/missile and sea battle and whatever special forces/terrorist tactics each side employed. In such a scenario where Iran didnt provoke the US by impinging on Iraq, Israel should be able to deal out a lot of damage to Iran without suffering meaningfully in return. Iran wants this to be a proxy conflict for a reason, Iran is very vulnerable to anyone with the ruthlessness to go after their lifeblood.

Lucky: "Israel doesnt have resources to do that ( i am not putting nukes in equation)"

Thats not the case because each would be dealt with in a different way. The Israeli airforce and missile command would deal with Iran, their armored forces would drive into Syria, and only what is in place now is necessary to tie up any surprises in Lebanon and push slowly Hezbollah northward. Israeli armor is more than capable of launching an Iraq style blitzkrieg through Syria while retaining a reserve to deal with any surprises out of the neighbors. The IDF can have up to half a million men and women under arms within days, numbers arent the issue.

Mark's faked restraint option (#9) is quite doable with the U.S. exerting diplomatic pressure on Israel to stand down. Israel can bow undefeated if its only friend pulls it aside. This could be staged, but it could also reflect different interests.

That leaves the problem of Hezbollah "declaring victory," which it would do as long as there is one shi'ite alive willing to waive the flag. Losers often declare victory. The question would be whether Israel could make greater strategic gains following the truce than Hezbollah.

Its a 20-year war. I don't think Hezbollah had to be defeated in year four.

Mark,
When you say, "The Israeli airforce and missile command would deal with Iran", but"the US is not going to allow Iranian divisions to travel across Iraq", are you assuming the US would allow Israeli overflights but not Iranian? Would you be sure enough of this to bank on it if you were Israeli? As an American, I'm tempted to think we would, but as an Israeli, I'd be nervous about a strategy that depended upon a friendly, but sometimes fickle partner.

Lucky, I agree with your point about bragging. That was the other effective part of Wingate's strategy. If nothing was announced and the raid was a success, the enemy learned fear. Too bad the Israelis don't have a Teddy Roosevelt to speak softly while carrying the big stick. Or else, their strategy's got me fooled.

I think you fellers are almost all wrong.

See my comments on this WoC thread.

And my analysis here:

http://powerandcontrol.bl*gspot.com/2006/07/how-israel-could-attack-syria.html

It is lucky all you professionals and amateurs are sure Israel is stuck with a bad plan. If the Syrians believe that too the rippost will be all the more effective.

The Dickson Dorsai series of novels is required reading for all the American ground services. Might I suggest starting with "The Tactics of Mistake".

The #1 mistake you all make is thinking too tactically. Think grand strategic. The possibilities are greater.

I am having so much fun with this. Sadly.

Well death to our enemies. Coming soon to a theater near you.

Bill, Mark,

Not to mention that the Israeli's would have to fly over Jordan and not only would they have to fly over Iraq, but aerial refuel there as well. The Iranian Air Force doesn't have the legs to significantly strike most of Iran, even with US assistance.

Back to the larger issue. The simple fact of the matter is, it's just about impossible to beat a guerrila force supplied by a third party. I can't think one instance, even in the 20th century, where a state-sponsored guerrila force was decisively beaten militarily.

So I don't think the Israeli's will ultimately defeat HB while they have direct support from Syria and Iran. Like the original author said, Israels half-measures are the worst option. Now both sides are in deep and there are few face-saving ways out of this stupid conflict. The success that Lebanon was becoming is now destroyed.

I don't see a solution at this point except seperation by a "neutral" third party force. That won't solve the underlying issues and problems, but it would buy some time to work on the larger issue of Iranian and Syrian support. The tacit Iranian-Syrian alliance is unnatural and we need to work to break that up. If the support to HB can eventually be broken, HB will be much easier to either destroy or morph into a wholly legitimate organization.

At this point, though, Israel cannot defeat HB, so they need to push them back and then allow the French, Turks and others to come in.

It's not a pretty solution, but I don't see many other options.

#17 Andy,

Let us hope the Syrians et. al. can't think of too many options either. It will make the Israeli plans all the more effective.

Syria and Iran are going down. George Bush says so.

Bush said Thursday that Iran is connected to Hizbullah, and now was the "time for the world to confront this danger."

I believe him.

You should read what I have posted on my site:

http://powerandcontrol.bl*gspot.com/2006/07/how-israel-could-attack-syria.html

and the Yehudit thread:

http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/008863.php

Every one here is so stuck in their analysis. It is not going to be anything like the way you guys see it.

The really interesting thing is that the hizzies, Syria, and Iran are so enmeshed in the Israeli plan that no matter what move they make now it will only give them bad and worse options.

At this point you could lay the plan out in front of them and it wouldn't make any difference. They are defeated.

BTW the Americans will do Iran.

They are closer.

The oddest thing is that America is seen as the strong horse...

Think that through...

The Israeli's are now seen as not as aggressive, not as competent, not as decisive as we Americans are...

Who would have thought such thoughts in 1999?

It’s too bad Israel voted for John Kerry’s Clintonesqe/Carteresque party. But at least they have a Parliamentary system and can take care of this mistake when Hezbollah sends in their victory missiles. If they had the American political system they would have had to deal with weakness for another 2 ½ years. Imagine John Kerry till January 2009 right now.

For those who think there never was a war, the war is won, or the war is lost our buddies in the Islamofascist movement will remind us of reality.