Wars of Great Miscalculation

by HDS Greenway for the Boston Globe

August 22, 2006

THE YEAR 2006 will long be remembered for its summer of great miscalculation. Hamas began by thinking that taking an Israeli soldier hostage could lead to the release of Palestinian prisoners. Instead, it brought an Israeli invasion of Gaza. Hezbollah followed suit by capturing two Israeli soldiers, which brought down the wrath of Israel's armed might on Lebanon in a manner that Hezbollah could not have expected. As for Israel, having suffered the pin pricks of rocket attacks from Gaza and from Lebanon, the kidnappings presented an opportunity to rid itself of the Islamist, albeit democratically elected, government in Gaza; and then destroy Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Lebanon war enjoyed almost unprecedented popularity, but what might have been contained as border incidents were turned into major military campaigns.

Olmert, his military and his government, badly underestimated the strength of Hezbollah. Its rocket attacks on Israel became a meteor shower that reached farther south than ever. Israel also miscalculated the ability of airpower alone to defeat Hamas. By the time its ground war got underway, the destruction of civilian life and infrastructure from the air was so devastating that even the Bush administration had to blink. Another fateful Israeli decision was to take the war to Lebanon -- even attacking Lebanese military facilities - rather than restricting its efforts to degrading Hezbollah. Destroying the lighthouses of Beirut symbolized this campaign of counterproductive destruction to get the Lebanese to act against Hezbollah or suffer intolerable pain. Although there were many in Lebanon, and indeed the Arab world beyond, who blamed Hezbollah for all that it had unleashed, the inability of the Israelis to crush Hezbollah, plus the mounting death toll on hapless Lebanese civilians, drowned the anti-Hezbollah voices from Baghdad to Beirut, and created a legend of heroic Hezbollah resistance.

The Bush administration badly miscalculated by thinking that if it gave Israel a green light to continue the war, in the face of almost universal calls for an immediate cease-fire, Israel could get the job done and rid Lebanon of an armed state within a state. But Israel did not get the job done. President Bush tried to make it appear that Hezbollah ``suffered a defeat in this crisis," but Israelis and Lebanese know better. Now that the shooting has stopped, Olmert's government is having to answer for its miscalculations, and for now plans for future withdrawals from Palestinian lands are off.

The international force that will police southern Lebanon will not disarm Hezbollah, nor will Lebanese soldiers, whose enlisted ranks are mostly fellow Shiites. Hezbollah's claim to having won by not having been defeated is the more credible. And, given that Hezbollah has masses of Iranian money, Hezbollah will take the credit for Lebanon's reconstruction. The image of the United States using the full force of its diplomacy to prevent a cease-fire in the face of such destruction and loss of life, along with the supply of ever-more-powerful bombs to kill Arabs, has done incalculable damage. Former UN advisor Lakhdar Brahimi, who did so much to give Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon, too, structures on which to build their shattered states, spoke for many when he wrote: ``It was argued that the war had to continue so that the root causes of the conflict could be addressed, but no one explained how destroying Lebanon could achieve that.

``Rather than helping the so-called global war on terror, recent events have benefited the enemies of peace, freedom, and democracy. The region is boiling with resentment, anger, and despair, feelings that are not leading young Arabs and Palestinians towards the so-called New Middle East," Brahimi wrote. After some initial trepidation about what their protégés had wrought, Iran has emerged more powerful than before. Syria's version of the New Middle East is now one of reduced American influence. Our friends in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan are in retreat.

In Iraq -- the mother of all American miscalculations -- Shiites took to the streets by the thousands to support their Shiite brothers in Lebanon, and President Bush expressed bewilderment and wondered aloud why Iraqis aren't more grateful. As Fawaziah al-Bakr, a Saudi promoter of educational change and women's rights, said, ``There is no question that the US has lost morally because of the war. Even if you like the people and the culture of the United States, you can't defend it." This summer's wars of miscalculation will cast a long shadow down the decades to come to the detriment of this county's national interests.