Recently I've read, and in some cases excerpted and linked, some pretty pessimistic assessments of Israel's current Lebanon/Hezbollah situation. After reading some of them, one could easily conclude that Israel is finally losing a war, that there's now way they can come out of the situation looking good. Is that true?

It's easy to play Monday morning armchair general, so I will for a minute. From the point in spacetime I currently occupy, it seems clear that Israel should have committed many more troops than they did from the beginning and gone into Lebanon in force. By trying to get by on limited incursions and an air campaign they've dug themselves into a hole that's going to be difficult, at best, to climb out of. Earlier today they finally decided, apparently, to commit the necessary resources to do the job right. Let's hope they're serious, and that our government will continue to keep the UN off their backs while they finish the job. Dr. Bill's prescription at this time is a full scale frontal assault all across the Israeli/Lebanese border, with airpower used as needed to cut of the jihadis paths of retreat. Anything less is too little and will just guarantee bigger problems in the future.

After Hezbollah in Lebanon is fully defeated, then maybe it will be time to talk about an appropriate multinational peacekeeping force, under the control of some entity other than the disUnited Nations and composed of troops from countries that recognize Israel's right to exist in peace. The Brits have recognized the fact that, for reasons dating back to the Mandate days and before, British troops do not belong in that area. Unfortunately, the only countries I'd trust with the job are the U. S., Australia and New Zealand, and possibly Japan if they can find a way around some problematic constitutional restrictions against armed troops on foreign soil. If a force composed of other than American/ Commonwealth/Japanese troops is proposed, the Israelis should insist on the right to maintain observation posts, protected by those troops, in a buffer strip extending at least 30 miles into Lebanon.

*** Update and bump

Michael Totten has a worthy related thought here.

Contributed by Bill Faith on August 1, 2006 at 01:50 AM in Bill Faith, Islamism Delenda Est | Permalink

Comments

Post a comment

Comments accept simple HTML for formatting and linking.

Comments are moderated and may not appear on the site immediately. Comments in violation of our comment policy will never appear on the site.

TrackBacks

TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451e4ed69e200e550aa5b9c8834

Trackbacks are moderated and do not appear immediately. Trackbacks from posts that do not link to this post will be deleted and will never be visible here.

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Can Israel still win this thing? Where to from here? (Updated, bumped):