Military analysts question Israeli bombing

[bemildred]

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This is a classic strategic bombing campaign," said Stephen Biddle, a former head of military studies at the U.S. Army War College now at the Council on Foreign Relations. "What the Israelis are trying to do is pressure others into solving their problem for them, hence the targeting of civilian infrastructure."

But the growing list of civilian casualties - despite Israel's use of U.S.-designed precision-guided bombs - could turn Arabs and others against the Jewish state and its key ally, the U.S., and still not fatally wound Hezbollah, said military analysts.

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James Dobbins, a former Bush administration envoy to Afghanistan who now heads military analysis for the Rand Corp., said choice of targets by Israel was the key and may be misdirected.

"The military rationale seems rather thin, since many of the targets have no conceivable relationship to Hezbollah," he said.

SeattlePI

[Fredda Weinberg]

1. could turn Arabs against the Jewish state? Don't make me laugh n/t

[endarkenment]

2. The whole thing is screwed indeed but ..

at this point I can't imagine the governments of Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia doing anything other than continuing to go along with whatever we do. It will only be when those regimes collapse that things change.

[leftchick]

3. I was reading this earlier....

<snip>

“There’s no way you can achieve those war aims with the present pattern of use of force by Israel,” said Lt. Gen. William Odom, who directed the National Security Agency during the Reagan administration. “If they’re bombing infrastructure and doing these punishing raids into Beirut, they’re essentially going to turn Lebanon into a failed state. And if they do that, the state is certainly not going to put an army down on the border.”

Aaron David Miller, who served as a senior State Department Middle East negotiator from the administration of George H.W. Bush through that of his son, recalled earlier, similar military campaigns in South Lebanon that failed to achieve their objectives.

“Israel is now faced with a strategic reality that will be very hard to address with military means alone,” said Miller, now a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. “Unless Israel is prepared to occupy the entire country, there is no way it can destroy Hezbollah’s capability. They know it. And the longer the crisis continues, the more apparent this will be.”

William Lind, a leading theorist on non-conventional warfare and a consultant on the Marines’ bible on the topic, the Small Wars Manual, said, “The way Israel has described its war aims—destroying Hezbollah and Hamas—has guaranteed it won’t attain its objectives. They’re almost certain to come out the loser, with Hezbollah showing it can stand up to a state across a border.”

http://thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=12747

[bemildred]

4. "The way of war is a way of deception" -- Sun Tzu

I take it as given that all public statements by spokepersons are intended to "shape the information environment", that is to deceive. So it follows they are useful primarily as indicators of what various parties want you to think, and indirectly indicate what they have concerns about. They fear what they attack, for example. It is often the case that what is publicly stated is the opposite of what is privately feared.

If you want to know what governments are really up to, you have to look at what they do, and work from that, ignoring what they say. Often, things are just muddled, and often, that's because governments are muddled. "Leaders" that actually understand and control the situation are exceptional, not the rule.

This war appears to have several purposes, but none of them are the publicly stated ones, although some are related, e.g. weakening or disembowelling Hizbullah does seem to be on the agenda, although it appears to me that the methods being used will have the opposite effect, as they have in the past.

One is tempted to think that Nasrallah deliberately provoked this mess, knowing the the IDF would react in some way similar to what has occurred.

[necso]

7. An important paragraph in your link

(if true):

"Meanwhile, Israel may be quietly ratcheting down its most ambitious goals. In his speech to the Knesset Monday, Olmert did not reiterate his demand that Hezbollah militias be disarmed and dismantled as a condition for stopping the fighting. He instead stressed that its bases must be moved back from the border with Israel."

There are three issues in "disarming" Hezbollah: diminishing ("destroying") Hezbollah's military power and weapons stockpiles; keeping them from being further supplied; and keeping them from being able to (easily) attack Israel, particularly civilians.

That "destroying" is a tough thing to do, and something approaching impossible without the extensive use of ground-forces. Even then, weapons can be hidden, buried, etc, making them very difficult to find without good intelligence (which is typically hard to get).

Stopping supply is similarly difficult to do, and it's essentially an open-ended commitment, unless some settlement can be made.

A buffer zone (which is what the quoted paragraph has Olmert seeking) would go a long way towards meeting the last, particularly if the troops effecting it weren't Israeli. (It's hoping for a lot that these could be Lebanese -- but it's also hoping for a lot that Lebanon would agree to the presence of foreign troops on its soil.)

However, if a buffer zone can be established, and if the further arming of Hezbollah could be stopped, then this might be sufficient "disarming" to maintain the peace, even if this falls short of the UN resolution (which, as I remember, calls for disarming all militias -- an even more unlikely event if it's considered as meaning disarming completely).

Moreover, a political (diplomatic) solution will likely be necessary for much of this.

And the question remains whether Israel will attempt to seize a buffer zone if other arrangements cannot be made.

It would be good if such arrangements could be made, since every day that this fighting goes on, the risk remains of it spreading -- and the risk probably increases of Lebanon destabilizing. (To say nothing of other consequences, such as increasing militancy, generating support for Hezbollah, etc.)

I'm not sure Israel has an endgame for this, and I sure hope they aren't looking to this administration to figure one out.

[cali]

5. Thanks for posting this, bemildred

It's helpful to read the analysis from these experts.

[bemildred]

6. As long as you remember they sometimes disagree with each other.

"Opinions are like a*******, everyone has one".

I have been somewhat stunned by the sheer volume spewed out about this, most of which is utter drivel, and lots of which consists of a few nuggets of fact or coherent opinion buried in a ton of waste. And I do mean everybody. It's a very emotional issue, I suppose.

I think the outcome of the current mess is much in doubt, but it helps to have some idea as to what the various parties think they are trying to do, however badly they are doing it.