Israel and the Iranian Bomb

The September 2010 edition of The Atlantic features a story on what it represents as Israel’s plan to attack and try to destroy the Iranian nuclear facilities before Iran can get to the point of producing a nuclear weapon–a prospect the Israelis argue is quite imminent, meaning the attack could come quite soon.

The article, by Jeffrey Goldberg, is titled “The Point of No Return,” and it is decidedly more sanguine about these prospects than one would assume from the normally fairly restrained Goldberg. Indeed, Goldberg seems at least receptive to, if not enthusiastic about, the purported Israeli plan, whereas his colleague Robert D. Kaplan, usually more hawkish on such matters, counsels Kissingerian restraint (deterrence) in his companion article, “Living with Nuclear Iran.”

The possibility that Israel would entertain and possibly even commit to an attack aimed at destroying the Iranian nuclear program is certainly nothing new, although it has been a prospect that most of us have set aside as sufficiently lunatic or far enough in the future to be intellectually avoidable. The Atlantic article strips away both of these veils, showing that the intent to attack permeates a great deal of the Israeli decision process (notably the top) and that the prospects are upon us. Goldberg indeed hints that he believes such an action is probably inevitable.

At the risk of distorting Goldberg’s argument, it strikes me that it has three basic parts. The first, and most familiar, is that the Iranian nuclear program represents an intolerable existential threat to Israel. In one sense, this is entirely true: Iran in control of a few deliverable nuclear weapons that the Israelis could not intercept (which may be the real meaning of the Iranian drone aircraft announced this week) could indeed destroy so much of Israel as to threaten its existence. The nature of that threat, however, needs qualification the Israelis rarely add.

First, Israel has arguably become ”the state that cries existential threat” in much the same way as the little boy cried wolf. It seems that every threat the Israelis face is labeled existential, and that Israel responds militarily with actions/provocations that either make the threat worse or produce new threats. Israeli policy in Gaza is a poster child for this problem. Second, the Israelis act as if they were alone in all this. Not so. The United States and the Soviet Union/Russia have posed physical existential threats to one another since the perfection of the ICBM, and we have learned to adapt to and deflect the problem. Our mechanism (which is the Kissimgerian solution) is deterrence, an approach the Israelis reject because they Iranians are allegedly crazy, meaning they cannot be deterred. Third, the Israelis have posed an existential threat to Iran (and the rest of the Muslim Middle East) for over 40 years. The Israelis say that situation is different, because they would not attack anyone. If you were the head of an Islamic government in the area, would you accept that argument?

Second, the Israelis apparently think there is agood chance they can get away with an attack, because they have done so in the past with attacks against Iraq and Syria. Maybe so, but maybe not. Syria and Iraq were much more defenseless than Iran and were considered far less important than the Iranians. Iran is, after all, a very large, populous country with a wealth of natural resources that much of the world covets. Syria, in particular, is none of those things. Will the world sit so idly by in Iran is attacked? I, for one, do not want to find out.

Third, the Israelis are counting on American support for this endeavor–or at least that the U.S. will dampen opposition to the action. One Israeli air force officer even suggests it would be better if the U.S. did the bombing for the Israelis, since we have superior assets for such an attack. President Obama has, quite predictably, declared that no options are off the table in this situation, but a U.S. surrogate attack on the Israelis’ behalf is presumably right at the edge of the table, ready to be pushed off.

If any other country in the world proposed anything like what is discussed in this article, the international condemnation would be thunderous; even in the deeply divided partisanship of current American politics, if it was not Israel making the threat, both sides might suspend their guerrilla political war long enough to issue a condemnation. If the Israelis go ahead and make the attack (which, by the way, will almost certainly fail to destroy the Iranian program) the only places there will be rejoice will be in Jerusalem and the Republican National Committee.

This whole idea is ludicrous beyond description, and needs to be treated as such. If the United States government has not already done so, it should issue a private warning to the Israelis that they are strictly on their own and that their action will be condemned by Washington as quickly and as resolutely as was the joint British-French-Israeli invasion of Suez in 1956. If Israel unleashes these dogs of war, let it deal with the consequences alone. We have and should continue to support and protect Israel; we should not suborn Israeli aggression.

Gaza and Asymmetrical Warfare

A ceasefire has been announced in Gaza. For the moment, it seems to be holding. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) is leaving, and the Gazans are sifting through the ruins, predictably finding more bodies. Has anybody really won anything in all this. Probably not, if one projects the outcome very far into the future.

Gaza is a clear example of modern warfare in action: a powerful, frustrated, conventional power facing an unconventional, rules-defying, but much weaker opponent. It is the classic scenario of what is called, since Donald Rumsfeld popularized the term, asymmetrical warfare. The essence of this approach to the ancient problem that an inferior force faces when confronting an overwhelmingly more powerful opponent is how to avoid defeat. For the superior force, it is how to achieve victory. For the inferior force, the first rule is to avoid fighting the way the more powerful opponent wants you to, because the more powerful force is assured success if you do. On the other hand, if you can change the rules, you may prevail by simply outlasting the opponent. The United States first learned this in Vietnam, and arguably should have learned it in Iraq and may eventually learn it in Afghanistan. The Israelis seem intent on not learning this lesson at all.

Although the dynamics of asymmetrical warfare (which I discuss in some length in When America Fights and National Security for a New Era) are complex, two lessons stand out that bear directly on the fighting over Gaza. One is a variation of Mohammed Ali’s “rope a dope” strategy; the other is the dilemma of success.

Ali’s rope a dope strategy involved allowing the opponent to pummel his arms and torso until his foe either thought he had weakened Ali or had worn himself out, at which point Ali would attack and put him away. The “rope” part of the analogy derived from the fact that Ali bounced off the ropes while the pummeling occurred; the “dope” of course was the opponent’s belief he was accomplishing something.

The analogy with Hamas in Gaza is not perfect, of course. Hamas and the Gazans absiorbed a pounding not because they wanted to, but because they had no choice. The Israeli military machine was much too powerful for Hamas to confront, and doing so would have been suicidal. Instead, they melted into the general population (another characteristic of modern asymmetrical war) and let the Israelis pound away, as the world looked on with increasing horror at the toll in civilian dead. When the Israelis finally stopped punching, Hamas was still standing. Outside the United States, the Israelis end up looking like blood-thirsty, baby-killing barbarians and Hamas manages almost looks better. Who is the “dope” here?

Being lured into this kind of situation illustrates the frustration of being the strong power. Israel has been the victim of deadly harassment by Hamas for some time and had become very frustrated by it. According to a New York Times analysis today (1/19/09), Israelis had adopted the Hebrew phrase “baal habayit hishtageya,” whic translates as “the boss has lost it” to describe their frustration. As one official explained, “The phrase means that our civilians are attacked by you, we are not going to respond in proportion but will use all means we have to cause you such damage that you will think twice in the future.”

The problem is that this punishment may cause the attacked state to think twice in different ways than the attacker intends. As one Palestinian Gazan, described as a member of Fatah, put it, “But a guy whose child has just been killed doesn’t want peace. He wants war.” In this case, he wants Hamas.

This leads to the second problem, which is measuring success. For the opponents in asymmetrical warfare, one of the asymmetries is that success–or victory–has different meanings for the two sides. For Israel, the only real sense of victory meant  destroying Hamas and thus its continued attacks on Israel. Nothing short of ending those attacks constitutes victory–the Israelis could only win by winning. Hamas, on the other hand, could not possibly defeat the Israelis, but it could survive their onslaught and return to fight another day–Hamas won by not losing.

So who won? In the very short run, Israel can probably argue success, because Hamas attacks will probably not resume in earnest for awhile. The Israelis expect a few token rocket attacks so Hamas can demonstrate its resilience, but not much more. At the same time, Hamas has survived, and the victims of the attacks will undoubtedly provide it with new recruits who hate Israel at least as much as their fallen comrades did. In the end, nothing will have changed much.

All this suggests the enormous frustrations of modern asymmetrical warfare. The Israelis reaction to Hamas was understandable, but in terms of accomplishing any meaningful long-term goals, it was arguably stupid as well. While I do not pretend to know the secret to creating a lasting peace between Hamas and the Israelis, I am pretty sure that beating Hamas to death will not work for the Israelis. Maybe they should try something else, like honest negotiations and reversing the Israeli populating ot the West Bank. Just a thought.

The Crisis beyond Gaza

The Israeli assault against Gaza grinds on. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) has put dusty boots on the ground (it doesn’t rain enough for them to be muddy), and the bombing and shelling by both sides continue. Civilians, as is usually the case in this part of the world, bear the brunt of the suffering. In the end, it will end, and nothing appreciable will have been accomplished. Hamas will not be destroyed, and the Palestinians will still not have their demands met. Some things seem never to change.

The crisis in Gaza is, however, linked to the broader crisis in the Middle East by its link to upcoming elections in Israel in February. The election, in essence, matches the Kadima party and its major candidate, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, against the Likud psrty led by superhawk Benjamin Netanyahou. The outcome could determine if there is any remaining likelihood of peace in the region for the foreseeable future.

According to a Newsweek analysis in this week’s edition, Likud is likely to prevail. The Likud program, with Natanyahou as its spokesperosn, is decidedly hard line. Among its most strident positions is its refusual to shut down, reverse, or even slow the process of Israeli settlements on the West Bank. As reported in the space previously, there are already 240,000 Israeli settlers on the West Bank living on land that would be returned to the Palestinians under a territorial settlement in which Israeli returned to its 1967 borders (the figure does not include Israelis living in suburbs of Jerusalem that are also arguably part of Palestine). Netanyahou not only would not stop or reverse the process of settlement of the “greater Israel.” He would accelerate it. All hope for a peace settlement would disappear in the process. In the long run, Israel will lose if this occurs, because it precludes the possibility–growing dimmer by the day–of a two-state solution (an independent Israel and Palestine). The alternatives are continued Israeli occupation (which breeds insurrection and thus periodic Israeli actions like Gaza) or a single state of Israel/Palestine in which Israel would either have to operate an apartheid system of denying political rights to the Palestinians or be in the minority. This would not happen instantly, but it would occur in the long run. Neither is a happy outcome for the Israelis. If they elect Natanyahou, they will demonstrate that they either do not understand this or prefer their moment in the sun followed by apartheid rule in the longer haul.

These are not happy prospects. The new Obama administration inherits a policy that in essence says, “Whatever Israel wants is what we want.” The problem is that the Israelis may want something that is bad for them in the long run. About half of the Israelis understnad this, but they may not prevail in February. If they do not and Likud wins, the Obama team will face a nasty set of alternatives. Do we accede to an Israeli policy of continued settlements that undercuts the prospects of peace but assuages American and some Israeli public opinion, or do we administer a little “tough love” to the Israelis and tell them they are on their own if they continue down the road to more settlements and less peace? More in the next posting.

More Bloodshed in the Holy Land

Some aspects of contemporary world affairs never seem to change. The pattern of bloodletting between Israel and the various movements that purport to represent the Palestinians is one of those depressingly recurring events. And as the New Year approaches, they are at it again. In the end, nothing will change except that more people will suffer and die.

The latest round is in Gaza. Hamas, the terrorist/governing body of that part of Palestine, began lobbing rockets and mortars over the “Separation Fence” the Israelis had erected to prevent terrorist attacks from Gaza shortly after the latest ceasefire expired on December 18. Until yesterday, these rocket attacks had unnerved many Israelis but had killed no one (one Israeli has since been killed). The Hamas attacks are predictably pointless and ineffectual. So is the Israeli response.

The Israelis, of course, have responded with a massive aerial bombing assault on positions in Gaza they say are the sites of rocket attacks or the arsenals from which the rockets are dispensed. Predictably, the Israelis have killed far more Palestinians than Israeli fatalities: reports suggest over 280 Gazans killed and upwards of 600 wounded. Many of these casualties were Hamas security forces and personnel rresponsible for the rocket attacks. Many were not–no one knows for sure how many were innocent Gazan bystanders, but some surely were.

Meanwhile, the Israelis have announced a mobilization of the reserves, thus putting the country in a war footing and raising the prospect of an invasion of Gaza to put the bombing to an end once and for all. The Israeli government argues strong military action is the only antidote for Hamas attacks. The Bush administration agrees; most of the rest of the world does not. Once again, this is all very familiar.

Two things stand out at this point in this latest episode in the battle for the Holy Land. First, an overt conventional military action is the Israeli response to a problem; it will almost certainly fail to achieve its goal, will further embitter the Gazans, and will equally certainly prove counterproductive. By creating more Palestinian martyrs, opposition will be increased. The Israeli 2006 experience in South Lebanon was supposed to be the lesson Israel needed to figure this dynamic out; clearly the Israelis have shorter memories than even the United States does in trying to reprise Vietnam in Afghanistan. It all raises questions about the hypothesis that man is a learning animal.

The experience also raises a real question about the wall the Israelis have constructed to restrain Gazans from infiltrating Israel and carrying out terrorist attacks. That fence is obviously not high enough to stop mortars and rockets from flying over it. What is may do instead is inflame sentiments so that some kinds of attacks are more likely. This is of some consequence because the “success” of the Gaza barrier is the prime rationale for bullding a similar wall between Israel proper and the West Bank Palestinian territories. The Israelis might want to rethink that rationale; they almost certainly will not.

And so it goes. Hamas conducts terrorist attacks on Israel that serve no purpose other than to inflame Israeli hatred toward them. The Israelis respond with much bloodier counterattacks that end up serving no purpose other than further to inflame hatred against them. When this round is over, neither side will have gained anything, and innocents Israelis and Gazans will have died again. It’s kind of hard to feel much sympathy for anyone except the innocents caught in the crosshairs of the arguably harebrained on both sides.