The US imperative

Aug.15, 2006


The US imperative



A MAJORITY of Israelis admit that they lost the war against Hizbollah. Its political leadership has conceded their failure, and, no doubt, many political and military heads would roll soon because of the failure. As opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu stated, "there were many failures, failures in identifying the threat, failures in preparing to meet the threat, failures in the management of the war, failures in the management of the home front."
An opinion poll shows that 52 per cent of Israelis believe the Israeli army had been unsuccessful in its Lebanon offensive as opposed to 44 per cent who believed it did well.
And Hizbollah leaders claimed a "strategic victory" against Israel, an opinion that is widely prevalent in the Arab World.
It does not need much to identify and pinpoint what was a victory in the Israeli-Hizbollah war. Israel had to silence Hizbollah guns and rockets once and for all and force the group to return two captive Israeli soldiers to show that it won the battle. However, even on the day Israel accepted the ceasefire, Hizbollah rained more than 250 rockets on Israeli towns, and on the day the ceasefire went into effect Hizbollah fighters engaged Israeli soldiers occupying south Lebanon. Such clashes are destined to become a daily routine.
The two captive Israelis remain in Hizbollah custody, and the group retains the potential to pose a serious challenge to the Israeli military.
Israel, which had ruled out negotiating their release, now says it is ready to open talks on securing their freedom in return for freeing Lebanese held in Israeli detention.
So, on all counts, Israel, which boasts of having one of the strongest military forces in the world, failed.
However, not so for US President George W Bush, who insists that Israel defeated Hizbollah's guerrillas in the monthlong conflict.
In reality, no matter how anyone looks at the scenario, it is also clear the US is also a loser in the conflict. Armed with a joint military plan to destroy Hizbollah — and prepared far ahead of the July 12 Hizbollah capture of the two Israeli soldiers — the US threw itself openly in the Israeli camp and supplied the Jewish state material and logistic support in its brutal assault against Lebanon while accusing Syria and Iran of backing Hizbollah with similar support.
Now, as a result of adopting such an open position on the Israeli side of the fence — not that it was surprising or unexpected — the US has amassed more hostility for itself in the Arab and Muslim worlds. The US is seen in the Middle East as an aggressor, and Washington has lost whatever credibility remained with it after decades of a heavily biased policy in favour of Israel.
Far beyond that, the American project for a "new Middle East" has miserably and most decisively failed because Iraq and Lebanon were supposed to be the "success" stories that would have showed, from the US perspective, that Washington was on the right track.
The world needs no detailed remainder of what is going on Iraq. As to Lebanon, the less said the better. American officials are not even welcome to that country, and senior Lebanese politicians and government leaders are now paying tribute to Hizbollah, which has shot in Arab and Muslim popularity instead of being weakened as Israel and the US had hoped.
Well, if that is Bush considers as a victory for Israel — and, by extension, for the US itself — then one hates to think what it would take for him to admit defeat. More importantly, the worry is that such an approach would only herald more bloodshed and violence where the defenceless civilians pay the highest price, as the case was in Lebanon.
Is unlikely that the US president is unaware of the realities on the ground and is simply nose-led by his advisers. Therefore, it is an open guess that how history would judge him. At the same time, it is no justification for the bloodshed and suffering in the Middle East resulting from the US position.