Hmm. Bluster? Or is Olmert ready to go to the mattresses this time?:
Israel has the stamina for a long fight and is determined to defeat Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told a group of new immigrants from France on Tuesday.
In a speech at Ben Gurion International Airport, Olmert told the new arrivals that “we are a strong people, and we have the stamina for a long struggle.”
“We will continue with this campaign to reach all our objectives and to defeat the enemies of the land of Israel and the people of Israel,” he said.
Could it be—and I’m just speculating here based on the gut feeling I have from the relative toothlessness of the condemnations against Israel to this point—that the 10-day window and all the talk about international peace keeping forces is but a carefully orchestrated gambit meant to give the US and others diplomatic cover and convince Hezbollah that they need only hold out another week or so in order to survive—even as behind the scenes, western powers and many of the Arab states fearful of Iranian influence are tacitly encouraging Israel to finish the job?
I don’t really know, to be honest with you. Israeli intelligence notes that the Syrian army is on high alert—and Iran is promising to respond with force if Syria is engaged—so the question becomes, how strong is Israeli and international will?
Iran’s threats are suggestive: what kind of weaponry do they have, and how much of Hezbollah’s provocation was meant to draw Israel into Lebanon and Syria? Or are Iranian threats at base feckless posturing—with Iran’s only hope, cut of as it is from any likely battlefield (at least in large numbers), that the international community (or the Israelis) will back down for fear that Ahmadinejad and the mullahs will try to play out end-days fantasies.
For more, see Hot Air, “When good news is bad news: IDF captures Hezbollah’s ‘capital’”. Also, from the Washington Times, “Rice offers aid, little else to Lebanon”:
[…] At the start of a meeting with Lebanese parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, Miss Rice said, “I am deeply concerned about the Lebanese people and what they are enduring. I am obviously concerned about the humanitarian situation.”
Miss Rice said before the trip that the United States would not intervene in the fighting to force a premature cease-fire that risks giving way to a new round of fighting. Washington has been criticized for not reining in Israeli attacks on Lebanon, which have resulted in close to 400 deaths, displaced more than a half-million civilians and caused billions in damage.
In Beirut, Lebanese Finance Minister Jihad Azour said his government would continue to try to negotiate a cease-fire with Israel through intermediaries—primarily the United States.
“We are encouraged that she started her Middle East trip in Lebanon,” Mr. Azour told a small group of reporters. He said that he sensed, based on talks with Mr. Siniora’s staff, that the meeting with Miss Rice went well, but others in the Lebanese political scene were less enthusiastic.
“She listened, but she said what she came to say and did not agree that a cease-fire was the most important thing,” said one Lebanese official, who was not in the meeting either. “It was not a long meeting, and they did not go into detail.”
In Washington, Mr. Snow said there was no reason to think that an immediate cease-fire would stop violence in the Mideast and that the world should confront the destabilizing force of Hezbollah and its practice of using the Lebanese people as “human shields.”
In Beirut, the U.N. humanitarian chief accused Hezbollah yesterday of “cowardly blending” in among Lebanese civilians and causing the deaths of hundreds during two weeks of cross-border violence with Israel.
When the U.N. humanitarian chief is placing blame where it actually belongs, it’s quite possible that we are witnessing a sea change in the Middle East.
Though I certainly wouldn’t bet the kibbutz on it.
Just please don’t force Israel in to a cease fire. In terms of the progress made in exposing the nasty underbelly of the deep seeded connections between each Arab fundamentalist terrorist group and their state sponsors, the latest efforts by Israel have done tremendous work. Syria, Iran, and their terrorist counterparts are getting marginalized by other Arab nations who woulk like nothing more than to see them cut down to size.
In spite of the violence and civilian casualties, Israel has finally turned over all of the rocks and the sunlight is shining in, no matter how hard the terrorist appeasing Left and their MSM enablers try and block it out.
Whether you “be the kibbutz” or bet it, I wouldn’t either.
Jeff–Ace is paging you over at his site. Doesn’t have your phone number and can’t reach you by email.
Israel’s response is kind of schizophrenic and puzzling. I’m sure they mean it when they say they’re going to hound Hez to the ends of the earth, but their actions seem to belie their words. Perhaps they didn’t realize they’d have the support they currently enjoy. I suggest this demonstrates the dampening effect the defeatism and howling of the left can have on a nation’s ability to defend itself. The golden gift of self-doubt.
Israel is acting tentative. Olmert sends out only 2,000 troops initially, when he could easily have sent out ten times that for a more decisive effect. Looks like by the time he figures his mistake, it’ll be too late.
Meanwhile, Rice is working the room trying to find a way to buy time for Olmert while actually keeping the US out of a direct confrontation with Iran. Because that’s where this all leads, ultimately.
And I doubt anyone in the Middle east is seeing things differently. Attitudes don’t change overnight. Buying time is more like it. ‘He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day.’
I agree with Tman: don’t push Israel into a cease fire. If there’s one thing I am confident about, this administration is willing to go further against Hezbollah and Hamas than previous administrations, and I think the terrorist groups know this. Hence, they’ll come to the table with concessions sooner rather than later. Too much is at stake for all the parties (including Iran and Syria), and opinion is more on Israel’s side across the board. A true cease fire would not allow Hezbollah to regroup and claim victory despite getting their ass kicked. That’s the way it may go down, and should go down.
The rest of the rhetoric is expected. These people are gasbags, always ready with some empty doomsday threat or faux confidence that the enemy is nearly beaten. Remember Baghdad Bob? He’s the poster boy for the “leaders” in this region, and Ahmadinejad is just another one of these gasbags. But behind the scenes, he understands the score. He isn’t gonna do shit.
Syria is a pimp and could have never outfought Isreal, We now know it has been Iran all along.
We need a Protein Wisdom drinking game.
“…are Iranian threats at base feckless posturing…”
AHHH, ‘Feckless’! Drink!
No you are wrong and I am right ~ Actus
Actus! Woo Hoo! Drink!
This has potential…
Please, I do not want to die of alcohol poioning.
How to stay on topic but work in a reference to the day’s meta-topic: sock puppetry. Hmmmm. Hmmmmmm. Oh, yeah:
The bunch who fretted and whined that the world would perceive the freely elected Iraqi government as an American sock puppet now wants the Prime Minister of the freely elected Iraqi government to be….bingo! An American sock puppet. (via Pajamas Media)
N. O’B–
You gonna drink that?
All I can think about are those poor innocent peace-loving Hizbollah rockets, sitting placidly in schools and mosques for so long, now forced (by Israeli aggression) to shoot themselves into the sky, only to fall tragically to the ground minutes later, being smashed to bits by the oppressors’ territory that so viciously interposes itself in the path of the unfortunate rockets. They are the real victims here.
Won’t someone please think of the rockets?
Just a thought—
I think Israel sounds tentative because of the differing messages we’re hearing, even from within the Israeli government. Israel is a free country. Differences are to be expected and communicated. I’m sure the current government is somewhat divided about the Hezbollah operation and it shows.
Want a consistent dialogue? Check out Iran and Syria. Yep. Saber rattling, all from one song sheet.
Look at Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Muted mumbling about Hezbollah being responsible, etc. But does anyone here think everyone in those two countries agree with that line? Yet we don’t hear from the dissenters.
Oppressive governments can act in consistent ways. In these times, it’s difficult for more open societies to look as cohesive as the mad mullahs, for instance.
jim
Sock puppetry!! woo hoo!! Drink!
The new position of the U.N. humanitarian chief and others on Hesbollah adverturisms may have more to do with U.S. leadership than anger with Iran, Syria, and Hesbollah. When we step up and tell the UN that we’re not going to tolerate their crap, the UN takes note. Should have done it long ago. And just in the nick of time, Slow Joe Biden starts talking about possibly boycotting Bolton (and Regis). Grasping for defeat when victory is so close at hand.
Every day allows US air and naval assets to get ready.
Every day allows US ground forces to make preparations.
Buying time may be the maneuver now, before the storm breaks. I don’t know, I’m just guessing.
Well all of this leaves me with a really really really bad feeling. I think Iran is going to test a nuclear weapon on August 22nd. Whether they’re going to test it on Tel Aviv or not, I don’t know.
Normally I’m pretty resistant to doomsday conjecture, but Ahmadinejad gives me the creeps. I think he’s capable of anything. And it would be just like him to be so arrogant as to telegraph something lke this.
yours/
peter.
T/W: arms. See? So very very not funny.
<blockquote>Normally I’m pretty resistant to doomsday conjecture, but Ahmadinejad gives me the creeps. I think he’s capable of anything. And it would be just like him to be so arrogant as to telegraph something lke this. <blockquote>
Does anyone seriously believe that Iran has any restraint to using a nuke, other than that they don’t possess one? A more interesting question would be: What are we, the US, prepared to do if those wacky Muslim fanatics nuke Tel Aviv?
For the sake of the poll, put me down with the “Nuke ‘em till they glow and shoot ‘em in the dark” catagory.
Hmmm.
We’re Israel’s ally. I think it’s an absolute travesty that we haven’t joined Israel in this fight.
Hezbollah has murdered hundreds of Americans and deserves the United States Marine Corps ass-whipping that so many Marines would love to give.
Amen.
I think we’re waitin’ on the main bout, Ed. The hizzies are pretty lightweight, all things considered, and the Kid is pounding ‘em pretty good. For a jew-boy, that is.
But will the ref call the fight before they hit the mat? That’s the question.
But if anybody (yeah, I’m lookin’ at YOU, Assad) decides to jump in the ring and start swingin’ chairs, we’ll probably be there to cover the Kid’s back.
I think a good part of this timetable business (offered with little conviction by the U.S. and now some others even in the Arabic community) is to buy time to prepare for the very real possibility of Iran getting dialed in as a target.
There’s a fair chance that Iran will do something even more stupid than usual and by doing so relieve certain powers of a lengthy explanation of why something had to be done.
TallDave – I still weep for the dozens of 107mm rockets that lost their lives, tragical cut short by the ground of the base I happened to be in at the time…
Does all this new conflict mean I shouldn’t have kept my Dari CDs, but rather have gotten some Arabic ones instead?
Oh, and I would suspect the Syrians are on “high, oh my gawd I just pissed m’self” alert becuase it wouldn’t take much for the Mirkivas to take a right turn and make for Damascus. Assad already knows the IDF can fly to his place…
I guess the rationale is that Mean Mr. A will play out his doomsday fantasies one way or the other–might as well force him to do it before he gets Bombed.
Meanwhile, Mr. Olmert is becoming the latest object of my obscure BushKultish desire.
Except for Regis, of course.
Am I the only one who thinks it would be a fine show if the Iranian army, such as it is, should embark on an advance across Iraq to rescue Syria? Or do you think the Turks will like the idea of US warplanes bombing the shit out of said army should it elect a Northern route? Heh……heh, heh.
I vote for “carefully orchestrated gambit”.
Right, Regis?
TW: In a month, we’ll know all.
(Darn, that Turing thingy is scary.)
Well, crap. Here I was thinking Dari was some hot doe-eyed ME babe singer, and it’s just persian with a funny accent.
I’m a little amazed that Verc and Maj. John haven’t weighed in on this, but don’t read too much into the “slow, tentative” bit.
The chance that Israeli Intelligence did not know about the bunkers and tunnels is essentially zero. They almost certainly didn’t have good plans of them, though.
It’s been a long, long time since military theorists thought that the proper tactic against a deeply-dug-in opponent was a mass assault. Israel has a pretty large army for such a small country, but that’s an important qualifier—and they’re at least as chary of losing any of them as we are.
What we’re seeing is a methodical reconnaissance in force. Jam up infrastructure to create choke points, then send small and medium-sized units on the ground to take individual strongpoints and pick up whatever intelligence may be available. In the process, learn the patterns and habits of the enemy, their “style”, so to speak. Do they like vertical gunslits or horizontal ones? Beveled on the inside or outside? And it’s been a while since the IDF moved in large numbers; use the relatively small actions to build a cadre of experienced troops who can be mixed with the other units to stiffen them, later. As you go, make as sure as you can to leave nothing of use behind.
Meanwhile keep a close eye on movement from the air. If attractive mass targets appear go for it, but keep it to a dull roar. Eventually most of the reporters will get bored, move to Beirut or Damascus, and start a bar tab.
If I’m correct, there won’t be any major setpiece battles; gradually more forces will be included, but there won’t be any line-em-up-for-slapping-contests events. If the whole world was doing the “kill more Jews” dance like normal, they wouldn’t have the leisure to do it that way. As it stands, they can take their time and do it right. Slow and steady wins the race.
Regards,
Ric
Ric, I think you’re on the button. People forget that the blitzkrieg advance was invented for a modern armored division advancing against horse cavalry.
Just a pure guess on the Israeli tactical side, with them having bought all those wonderful JDAMs and Blockbusters in ‘04 and of the GBU-28 penetrators in ‘05… they should have a good idea of where the major entry points are and could do a nice ‘instacrypt’ job if they find them to be too well occupied. So not too worried about those, I would say.
What they *are* doing is forcing Hezbollah to decide on the retreat route: Beirut or Damascus. Choose the first and Lebanon gets sealed off. Choose the second and the Israeli’s get ‘hot pursuit’ right into Syria. Choose both and it is closing off Lebanon while hitting Syria and Hezbollah gets sliced and diced.
Rockets and missiles are nice, but you need a bit more to deal with JDAMs knocking at your door.
And if they don’t choose… well then they get to sit and get blocked off and stuck out in the field while Israel starts to do some ‘instacrypts’.
Bad move, Hezbollah.
Maybe a frontal attack with jihadis just to get them mown down… now *that* would be original! Useless, but original. Tactically Hezbollah is in CF-land. They can make their takedown costly… but they still get taken down in the end.
Grand Strategically, the US should be arm twisting Egypt or Jordan to help take out Syria via an ‘Afghanistan’ style offensive… some special forces and spotters with native troops to dismember Syria. Leave THEM to figure out what to do with the damn place, we certainly don’t want it… save giving the Kurds their freedom and giving Turkey the willies. They deserve *that* after what they did…
But then, I have strange thoughts.
“Miss Rice”? Oh, no, you did NOT say that!
I’ll have you know I worked my fine black ass off to get a PhD, and you will refer to me as “Doctor Rice”, thank <snap> you <snap> very <snap> much!
TW: Have you taken leave of your MIND?
Well, the thing is, they really don’t have all that many of them, and (especially in the case of the Blockbuster penetrators) they really aren’t all that necessary. Hizb’Allah have put together some pretty nice tunnel/bunker systems, with lots of ratholes and all the mod cons, but they really aren’t all that deep or all that big.
Find an adit. Bring ‘round an old jet engine, not reliable enough for aircraft use but still operating, and a section of high-temp flex hose. Connect exhaust of jet to hole in ground. Add JP4 and a trifle of electrical power. Serve warm.
Bunker-busters are for Boy Assad’s cronies (who probably don’t let him in to play with the big kids.) GBUs are nice when you want to scrag a particular truck, but mainly they’re useful if you don’t want to have to zap that bridge twice. And no matter how you do it from the air, it’s gonna be on the front page of the New York Apologia as killing babies. Better to wait ‘til you can send grunts, where possible.
No magic, no movie star stuff. Slow and steady, clear the holes, blow the bunkers, destroy the rockets, keep the useful ammunition and cook off the rest, steal the fuel. With regular mealtimes and tea breaks. Stay rested, and save the running around in circles for the other guys.
Regards,
Ric
Ric,
I have to work like &#$% just to keep up with what we are doing (one reason some of the stiffs in the Pentagon resisted transformation -it is difficult!).
I just reckon the IDF knows what they are doing, and I leave it at that, heh heh. They have had time to prepare, and they know that if they flop, their nation stands a good chance of perishing – that is a strong motivating factor to do well.
I did enjoy reading your comment.
I think Bush isn’t going to go soft on terrorists, his calculations may be that he gets hammered for any reason, might as well side on blowing terrorists up good, REAL good.
“karl, yeah, yeah, more terrorists blown up?…blown up good?…yeah? Ok, send my thanks to Olmert, and send him some beef or something like that, thanks. Blowin up terrorists good is man’s work, no offense Condi, he he he.”
Israel’s intelligence has usually been very good, but is it not possible that they got pantsed this time? They were caught unaware with the types and locations of missile stockpiles, and the IDF response as a result appears haphazard – just bombing anything that could provide a route back into Lebanon, but which also might not be getting the the very network where these missiles were brought through in the first place. And, if Hezbollah can do this to Israel with missiles, imagine what the Iranians can do with a nuke. While I’m on the side of Israel, I am not overconfident in their abilities and intelligence in this battle.
That said, Hamas appears ready to get down to a cease fire, whereby troops can now be redeployed from Gaza to Lebanon, putting more pressure in that zone of conflict. Hezbollah will either fall behind Hamas, or pull out all the stops. I get the impression that a lot of commenters here would prefer the latter, but the former is more likely. As I said yesterday: these people may be crazy, but they’re not stupid. We’re entering the third act of this battle, and it will be a bad ending if Hezbollah is allowed to claim victory in its defeat.
Kinda said my piece on it, Ric. Well, not exactly everything.
I still stand by my claim that Israel must invade to destroy Hezb’allah and that Israel WILL invade. She already has killed the Hezb commander and is now in control of the Hezb ‘capital’.
There is maneuver warfare and there is methodical warfare. Ralph Peters–and I agree–that velocity (speed plus direction) is even more important in methodical warfare than maneuver warfare because of the media cycle; you must beat the collection of news lies by changing the tempo. I agree as the First Battle of Fallujah and “Jeningrad” showed.
So Israel can do two things. It can take too long and then simply blink when its all on the line.
Or it can take its time and methodically reduce Hezb’allah and ignore the media and international community.
I think the second way victory lies, for us all. Fundamentally our battle lies with Islamic radicals and also the resurgent Marxists that ally with them. We must destroy both ideologies, to do with radical Islam what we never did with Communism. SO we must discredit the one-worlders, the international marxists and Islamists.
Israel must wage a methodical campaign in the face of MSM propaganda and so defeat both. And this is difficult territory.
Verc,
You got it. But there is one thing —
Reading between the lines of Olmert’s statements, and some of the other stuff, I think the Israelis just don’t give a s*t any more. The world’s default solution to death, confinement, and everything appears to be to at least blame Jews, if not kill them, and we have already established that, regardless of circumstances, the media and the European intelligentsia can always come up with a justification for killing Jews and a way to blame Israelis for defending themselves.
That being the case, what does it matter what they do? If they sit on their hands and let the bombs and rocket attacks happen, they get called a “shitty little country” and vilified for everything from imperialism to spitting on the sidewalk. If they respond to the attacks in any effective way, they get called a “shitty little country” and vilified for everything from imperialism to spitting on the sidewalk. What they actually do does not in the least affect what appears in The New York Times and le Monde, or what the likes of Kerry, Moulitsas, et al. say.
The only thing they have to be concerned with is the rest of the world paying attention to the “news” and grabbing their hands. Since the only person in the world able to do that is George Bush, who is in much the same case they are, it’s not a real concern. They can do as they please, comforted by the fact that nothing they do (short of dying en masse) will change anything about the headlines but a few details.
Regards,
Ric
“I think the Israelis just don’t give a s*t any more.”
Word. To your mother.
I think they have a plan. They are also blowing up banks today that are doing business with Hezbollah. Of course, the banks deny this, but (Boom!)
Most surprising of all, NBC–yes, our anti-war NBC–is investigating the terrorist banks and NOT Israel, per lgf!
I love it when events move so fast the propagandist news media don’t have time to revise the story to fit their preferred narrative.