VL Day?
Patrick McGreevy writes from Beirut:
' VL Day?
It’s 11 pm in Beirut, and honking cars and motorbikes are cruising the Corniche while their occupants discharge Kalashnikovs into the black air shouting “Allahu Akbar.” If only we had electricity and lights, the triumph might be more believable.
This seems like a time warp: we heard similar but more full-throated demonstrations in support of Germany and Brazil during the weeks of World Cup matches that preceding the rude interruption of the war. Surely people here feel released, as from a bad dream, but “victory” is too good a word. It is as if our war, like this summer’s World Cup, ended with penalty kicks—each side pounding away at the other side’s innocent goal tender. Hezbollah’s noisy supporters say they won, but what a tainted triumph!
In American baseball, such an anticlimactic conclusion is impossible. The teams simply slog on indefinitely until one vanquishes the other. The reason the World Cup final cannot do the same, we are told, is that it is a global TV event that must conclude within the purchased time slot. Having the eyes of the world focused on an event changes it. The Battle of Lebanon was a rude little war that played like a blockbuster summer film. This, perhaps, was the fundamental mistake that Israel and its US backers made: they underestimated the articulateness of Lebanon—a multilingual country, connected to a global diaspora, with a history so compelling that novice and seasoned journalists are drawn to its stories by instinct.
Hezbollah’s tactics countered Israel’s brilliantly before the world’s gaze. As the vastly more powerful force, the IDF could have crushed Hezbollah, but only by conducting a genocide on the Shiite people of southern Lebanon who support its resistance. And genocide, on global TV, is the one sin Israel cannot survive. Hezbollah is a designer resistance force, shaped by repeated Israeli blows against Arabs—designed not simply to counter its powerful adversary’s field techniques, but to infiltrate its soul and seek its deepest pain. It finds this pain like a heat-seeking missile finds its warm target because Hezbollah’s resistance, too, is born of pain. This is the madness we confront.
Patrick McGreevy '
posted by Juan Cole @ 8/15/2006 12:03:00 AM
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4 Comments:
The victory of the David-sized Hezbollah against the Goliath-sized IDF is the stuff that dreams are made of. This victory, which I believe caused Israel to seek the cease-fire rather than to further dig a deeper hole, will give pride and purpose to the Arab World and perhaps unite them against their common enemy: America and those who would reshape the Middle East to increase their control of oil.
Hopefully, as well, Israel will finally realise that war only brings hatred and the desire for retribution. They may climb down from their lofty perch and accept that if they want to live in peace, they have to make major concessions.
Despite all this madness there has been a cease fire and this cease fire will likely hold. Because it is the interests of both parties: the Israelis and the Hezbollah. The only people who lose out are the people who were hoping for an escalation as an excuse for an attack on Iran.
The Peace Will Hold
It is difficult not to consider this time after the ceasefire as being an interlude before more war. One suspects, well fears actually, the intervening time will be used by both sides to vigorously prepare for further combat. But in the interim there are those who will take some solace in the turn of events. The Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld axis of venality has to be somewhat circumspect despite any public pronouncements (though that rests on the poorly understood state of their mental faculties). The success of the Hezbollah Army should have slowed or deterred any further adventurism on the part of the US against Iran or Syria. In the short term, and hopefully in the long run, that success is something most people of the world will be grateful for.
One can put too much credence into theories about 3rd generation war versus 4th generation war. Many would assert that this is merely the pendulum swinging back in favour of the infantryman in his now generations old struggle with heavy armour. The Hezbollah Army had anti-tank missile systems that could defeat advanced armour systems, such as that on the Merkava heavy tank (and, as significantly, they had the tactical adroitness to use those missiles with effect). One assumes that the IDF is champing at the bit to have another go with new tactics, training and, perhaps, widespread deployment of the Trophy anti-missile system for its armour. With unquestioned air superiority and invincible armour it is inevitable that Western armies defeat their foes. But removing the advantage of invincible armour apparently means a determined opposition can beat a Western army.
Regardless, this is a pivotal moment in history for the relationship between the West and the Arab world. For the first time in centuries, an Arab army has stood up to a Western army. Toynbee would have us believe movements of people and not the actions of singular individuals drive history. There are those who would espouse that Sheikh Nasrallah is the essential hero not only of Hezbollah, but also of a larger movement to contend with the West throughout the Middle East. Already one hears death threats being uttered against him by Israelis. Nasrallah would agree the movement would continue with or without him. I would contend that the essential component of Hezbollah is its combat leadership cadre. It is their ability and sacrifice that has lead to this victory. Through their efforts they have validated their thesis on the battlefield (the Iranians saying the students have surpassed the teachers was very faint praise). One suspects the next Israeli-Lebanon war will be all about destroying that cadre. And as soon as possible, before the thesis of that rather small cadre gains validity throughout the Middle East. Alacrity is the watchword for this interlude.
The following item was news to me, at least:
In an interview with McClatchy Newspapers, a Mahdi army leader who wanted to be identified only as "Rowad" boasted of killing Sunnis, whom he called infidels.
He said that Sunnis who are suspected of killing Shiites in the post-Saddam Hussein period are captured and brought before an Islamic court. If convicted, they receive the death penalty.
"There is nothing sectarian about it," Rowad said, offering to show a McClatchy reporter photos that he stores on his cell phone of Sunnis he has killed.
U.S. officials have said that the Mahdi army and al-Sadr are trying to model themselves after Hezbollah and its leader Hassan Nasrallah, and become a state within a state. Besides having its own militia, Sadr holds 32 seats in the Lebanese parliament, more than any other party, and walks a fine line between embracing and rejecting the political system.
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(Have there been any reports that Hizballah runs a kangaroo court system in Lebanon?)
Happy days.
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