Results in Lebanon
Damage U.S.,
Israel's Olmert
War's Inconclusive Outcome
Makes Goals in Middle East
Harder to Achieve, Many Say
By MARC CHAMPION and GUY CHAZAN
August 14, 2006; Page A6
Israel's failure to quickly defeat Hezbollah forced the U.S. to make significant compromises at the United Nations and looks likely to leave U.S. policies in the region as well as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert damaged, according to diplomats and analysts.
Even as Israel threw thousands of extra ground troops into a major assault to clear Hezbollah from Lebanese territory ahead of a cease-fire that took effect at 8 a.m. Israel time today, analysts and diplomats said the effort may be a sign of Mr. Olmert's political desperation rather than of strength. The career politician has come under criticism that he has mishandled the month-long war by limiting the military to an air offensive, with relatively few troops on the ground.
At the same time, Israel's inconclusive struggle with Hezbollah has forced the U.S. to accept a compromise resolution at the U.N. Security Council that may not secure its long-term goal of neutralizing Hezbollah as a military force and doesn't give the U.S. much of the credit for negotiating a cease-fire. While welcoming Friday's resolution, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, European Union foreign-policy representative Javier Solana and leaders in the region expressed anger that it had taken so long to secure a cease-fire deal -- a veiled reference to U.S. opposition to an "immediate" cease-fire that helped delay a resolution.
In the end, the U.S. did agree to an immediate cease-fire, although that was termed in the resolution a "cessation of hostilities." The U.S. had insisted that any cease-fire should come simultaneously with the introduction of a robust international force. Now it is likely to come several weeks before such a force hits the ground. Israeli troops are to withdraw after the cease-fire, in parallel with the introduction of Lebanese government troops, backed by the small and weak existing force of U.N. monitors.
"The way the U.S. has handled this so far, in failing to seize a moment a few weeks ago when a cease-fire might have been managed, has actually united Shia and Sunni sentiment in the streets against the U.S.," said Steven Simon, a former U.S. National Security Council official and now senior analyst at the Rand Corp. in Washington. By uniting Muslim opinion against it as never before, the U.S. has become less effective in the region, he said.
U.S. and Israeli officials alike stressed that any compromises were minor and that in the long term, if the resolution is implemented, it will secure the goals of both: an end to Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israel; the return of the two Israeli soldiers whose capture triggered the conflict; Hezbollah eliminated as a military force from the region; and Lebanon's government in sovereign control of its entire territory and borders.
Indeed, many analysts say the dust will have to settle before it is clear how well Hezbollah survives Israel's attack and continuing international focus on its disarmament. Speaking at a cabinet meeting yesterday at which Friday's Security Council resolution was approved, Mr. Olmert said the agreement would ensure that "Hezbollah won't continue to exist as a state within a state."
Yossi Kuperwasser, a brigadier general in the Israeli army, wrote in an article for the Jerusalem Post, "We created the necessary conditions to compel the international community to... ultimately turn Lebanon into an accountable, sovereign nation. If this happens, Syria and Iran would be the main losers of this war."
For now, the conflict has hardened the U.S. image in the region as Israel's protector and weakened its ability to act as a broker in disputes, analysts say. It also has dented the reputation of the Israeli military for invincibility, undercut the policy of the Israeli and U.S. governments for resolving the Palestinian conflict and cast further doubt over the ability of Western powers to change the Middle East in their favor through war.
The biggest casualty of the conflict may be Mr. Olmert's so-called convergence plan to withdraw from large parts of the West Bank. Mr. Olmert took office in May with a pledge to fix Israel's permanent borders, building on last year's withdrawal from the Gaza strip with a similar, but much larger, pullout from the West Bank, the uprooting of 70,000 settlers and their removal behind the separation fence.
The war in Lebanon has bolstered those who argue that unilateral withdrawals -- from Lebanon and Gaza -- have undermined Israel's security by creating a vacuum that was quickly filled by militant groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas. The idea of handing over control of the West Bank to a Hamas-led government whose armed wing already is firing homemade Qassam rockets at southern Israel from Gaza is now all but dead.
Abandoning the convergence plan would have severe implications for Israel's relations with the Palestinians and would badly set back the U.S. policy of fostering a two-state solution for Israel. It also could throw into question the future of Mr. Olmert's government and his Kadima party, which came to power on the promise of getting Israel out of the West Bank.
"If Olmert can't deliver on that, then what's the point of this government, or his party?" said Dan Schueftan, deputy director of the National Security Studies Center at the University of Haifa.
A key beneficiary will be the opposition Likud party. Binyamin Netanyahu, the Likud leader is expected to savage the U.N. deal in a speech to the Knesset today after a month of holding back on any criticism of the government and its handling of the war.
Mr. Olmert now is fighting for his political survival, fending off accusations that even after four weeks of fighting, Israel failed to secure the release of the captured soldiers or to stop Hezbollah's shelling of Northern Israel, which left scores of Israeli civilians dead and forced hundreds of thousands to seek shelter in bunkers or flee their homes.
Writing in the newspaper Haaretz, former defense minister Moshe Arens said the war had shown that Israel "has none of the stamina needed for a long-term struggle against terror. The war that according to its leaders was supposed to restore Israel's deterrent force succeeded in destroying it in a month," he wrote. |
