The Threat of a Third Lebanese War
Tags: Israel/Judaism, Middle East, terrorism.
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Detailed over at Commentary:
Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah recently announced that he could hit any and every place in Israel with long-range missiles. That would mean that, unlike in 2006, Hezbollah could strike not only the northern cities of Kiryat Shmona and Haifa but also Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ben-Gurion International Airport, and the Dimona nuclear-power plant.
I dismissed his claim as a wild boast last week, but Israeli army commander Major General Gabi Ashkenazi confirmed it this week. So while we’ve all been worried about Iran’s nuclear-weapons program, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been quietly arming his chief terrorist proxy with more advanced conventional weapons.
If Israel is completely under the gun of Hezbollah, then the response by Israel to an attack may be what one expects when existence is at stake – overwhelming.
People forget – due to Israel’s power and success – how tiny Israel is. Less than 8,000 square miles (as opposed to the US 3,000,000 square miles), 263 miles from north to south (you can drive the length of it in about 5 hours), and 9 to 71 miles wide (ie, 15 minutes to an hour from east to west). This is not a place where you can hide from an enemy if he has missiles with a range of just a couple hundred miles – and if you want to be safe from such missiles, you have to push them back 200 miles or more from the border. This puts most of Lebanon and Syria in the theater of operations in a Third Lebanese war.
With Obama showing the white flag to Islamism and Iran on the brink of nuclear weapons, the risk of a Lebanese war rises steadily and it can break out at any time – especially as Iran nears completion of its nuclear program and wants to tie down Israeli forces which may be used to strike at Iran’s nuclear program.
Israel and the Middle East could be in for some hard, bloody times – and all of it entirely preventable if we would just show some teeth to the Islamists.
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6 Responses to “The Threat of a Third Lebanese War”
Caucus of Corruption
That’s overstating it a bit. It’s important to remember things like terrain and traffic. It takes (if I remember correctly) about 30 minutes to an hour to get from Haifa to Akka (exactly 11 miles as the crow flies, and roughly 18 miles by the route we took).
In any case, though, the size of Israel is irrelevant, because no nation has ever been destroyed by bombardment alone. I know that if they were to unload their entire arsenal on Mount Carmel, the Bahá’í World Center (which is located there) would still be able to function, because most of it is underground. Likewise, while I personally didn’t see any when I was there in ‘04, there are also a large number of shelters for the general populace throughout northern Israel (and if they aren’t present in the rest of the country, I think its safe to say that they will be soon). Any attempt to destroy Israel purely by means of rockets would fail, and Hezbollah wouldn’t stand a chance of winning a ground campaign into Israeli territory.
The true danger posed by rockets is therefore not the number of people they kill, or even the material damage they inflict, but rather their paralyzing effect on society. To see what I mean, I recommend watching this vlog from the last war. If Hezbollah launches another hailstorm of rockets, Israel would have no choice but to respond, but such a situation should not be mistaken for an actual threat to Israel’s existence.
What makes you think that? Is there any historical precedent?
This puts most of Lebanon and Syria in the theater of operations in a Third Lebanese war.
Oh well, maybe Israel should just annex these two countries. Hell, they’re already accused of “occupation” it their own country, so why not take over a few more?
Sergei,
Yes: liberated Iraq, Libya gave up its nuke program.
Yes: liberated Iraq, Syrian loosened its grip on Lebanon.
Yes: liberated Iraq, Iran suddenly wanted a dialogue with us and slowed down its nuclear program.
Power is the only thing the criminals in Hezbollah and Iran’s government understand – right now, we’re showing we don’t have the moral power to stop them, and they are getting ready to strike as a result.
And Israel will have to strike hard if Hezbollah hits again and I doubt that the IDF will try a repeat of the last slog through the mountains…expect wide turning movements. Perhaps even a drive on Damascus to force Syria to concentrate on home defense.
Mark
I (half) wish Isreal would do a preemptive nuke on Tehran. step back and tell hezbollah you are next, and so is mecca.
And yet:
•Qaddafi is still crazy.
•Syria is still arming Hezbollah.
•Iran’s nuclear program goes on.
And let’s look at some other examples of peace through devastation:
1940-1: Adolph Hitler obliterates London in order to break the will of the British. Three years later, the first British troops land on Axis soil.
2001: Osama bin Laden tries to force the United States to stop supporting the various Arab powers he wants to overthrow. Eight years later, he is still dodging Predator drones.
1979-1989: The Soviet Union utterly destroys Afghanistan, is defeated anyway.
•1948-present: Israel conclusively defeats the Arabs in no less than 147 major wars and several million small ones.
Peace through devastation doesn’t work when the bad guys do it, and it doesn’t work when the good guys do it. The natural response to being attacked is not to surrender, it’s to fight back.
Neocon,
If Israel were to do that, the Muslims would conclude that Armageddon had begun and act accordingly.
Israel never shouldve withdrawn from occupied south lebanon & disbanded the SLA.