Guest Essay: Unilateralism, Deterrence and the War in Lebanon

(This Guest Essay is written by Guy Grossman, a Ph.D student at Columbia University in Political Science, and one of the founders of the refuser's movement in Israel)

It is difficult to analyze the logic of the sloppy operation that morphed into a war in Israel and Lebanon from the standpoint of Israel, since so far, the incursion into Lebanon (and Gaza) has managed - not surprisingly - to achieve the exact opposite of its professed strategic, political and military goals.

The operation’s stated initial goal was to make the Lebanese government and people turn their rage against the Hezbollah by hitting Lebanon’s infrastructure. In reality, the aerial assaults only strengthened and widened Hezbollah’s support, not only in Lebanon but throughout the Arab world. Militarily, the goal of “wiping out” Hezbollah’s military capabilities is not even close to be realized, and the more limited goal of clearing a border area of Hezbollah activity is slow at best. The second professed goal was to reconstruct Israel’s “deterrence power”. Instead, as the war stranded, the vulnerability of the IDF and its incompetence became ever more apparent. Recognizing its inability to militarily enforce a change in the status-quo, Israel – in what seems the most dramatic result of the latest round of violence - is turning to the international community for help in securing its northern border.

Strategically, as the operation deepened, Israel - encouraged by the US - has broadened its initial military goal, to now include a change in the regional balance of power in favor of pro-western governments. In reality, the net result of this crisis, however it comes out, will be a further weakening of these regimes vis-à-vis local and global Islamist forces. More so, against its interests and intentions, Israel has strengthened Iran in its struggle with the USA over regional hegemony in a post-Saddam Hussein era. Finally, in terms of Israeli domestic politics, as this war continuous to be fought out, the government’s ultimate goal – its own survival – is also being undermined. Left with little maneuvering space, it seems that the days of Olmert’s government are numbered.

The fact that Israel’s military operation aimed at achieving unattainable and intangible goals, means that an ordinary means-ends analysis can give us very little leverage when trying to understand the reasons behind the escalation of the current crisis. Though the IDF might have had “drawer plans” for invading south Lebanon, the war looks more like an unplanned outcome of a sloppy operation that (literally) expanded out of Israel’s control. But the fact that the war was unplanned or that it is achieving its exact opposite goals (from Israel’s stand-point), should not be interpreted as if there is no underlying “logic” to the operation’s deterioration.

Instead I argue that the war was a logical outcome of the confluence of three political developments: (a) Israel’s unilateralism; (b) the strengthening of the Islamist forces in the Arab world; and (c) America’s commitments to “war on terror”. Though each political development has independent roots and reasons, they nevertheless reinforce each other. For example, Israel’s refusal to negotiate its withdrawal from Gaza with the PA, contributed to the Hamas victory, which itself contributes to the perception that there is “no partner” for negotiations in the Palestinian side. While Israel’s commitment to unilateralism can go a long way in explaining the eruption of the war, America’s war on terror contributed significantly to its exacerbation. Committed to the fight of “good against evil”, the Bush administration wasn’t able to play its traditional role as interlocutor or mediator to the current conflict because it is unable to communicate with Hezbollah or Hamas, Iran or Syria.

Commitment to unilateralism:
I focuse here on the relation between Israel’s unilateralism and the eruption of the war because, though by a short term perspective Hezbollah ‘fired first’, the war was still a matter of Israel’s choice.

During the 1990s, the Rabin, Peres and Barak governments held that a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict depends on finding legitimate leadership in Palestine and Syria who can agree to a deal that satisfies Israel’s security concerns. After the disastrous failure of the peace talks with Syria (1999) and Palestine (2000), a new paradigm emerged based on the assumption that no such leadership currently exists. According to this paradigm, Israel can improve its security and international position by engaging in a series of unilateral careful steps that distances it from its neighbors. It is important to note that any such step, big and small, was to receive the endorsement of the American administration, and if possible – as in the case of the withdrawal from south Lebanon – that of the international community.

As part of its new commitment to unilateralism, Israel severed all ties with Syria and Lebanon which posed no strategic threat, and correspondingly reduced to minimum its relations with the PA. The basic idea was to create conditions that allow Israel to concentrate on a civil-economic agenda while weathering international (and domestic) pressure. Unilateralism meant that Israel abandoned the (rhetorical) search for peace, which was no longer viewed as a superior strategic option. This meant that Israel was to rely more heavily on its military’s deterrent power.

In the last few years, Israel became committed to the vision of recreating itself as a western enclave that concentrates on domestic problems and issues of well-being. Interestingly, even the unilateral withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza, the erection of the Wall alongside the green-line, and the planned withdrawal from (limited) parts of the West Bank, were debated as Israeli domestic issues. So strong was the image that even the Kassam missiles, fired almost daily from Gaza, were unable to undermine the idea of unilateralism. Thus in the last elections (March 2006), Kadima, a centrist party that virtually embodies the idea of unilateralism, was able to form a government based on its promise to concentrate on further unilateral steps to support Israel’s economic growth. Relying on sheer military capability to always see it through, Israel forced itself to believe that it can simply ignore its neighbors. More than anything, the two guerrilla assaults planned and executed from areas Israel unilaterally withdrew, symbolizes Israelis painful return to the Middle East.

Contributing to deterioration:
Israel has to come to terms with the fact that its refusal to engage in a dialogue with its neighbors strengthened militant forces in the occupied territories, and led Syria to amplify its support to the Hezbollah. Unilateralism simply forced Syria and the PA to choose between two bad options: to acquiesce with Israel’s piecemeal steps or confront them. Selecting the first option leaves Israel with the freedom to determine if, and when, to change the status-quo. Selecting the second, on the other hand, supplies Israel with an excuse to maintain the status quo. Since 1999, the only way open for Syria to raise, for example, the issue of the Golan Heights was through its support of the Hezbollah.

Apart from cornering the Syrians and the Palestinians, unilateralism contributed to the escalation of the conflict in a number of ways. For one, commitment to unilateralism leaves little, if any, space for diplomatic efforts. It is thus not surprising that the decision to engage in a military operation was taken on the same day Hezbollah attacked, in a cabinet meeting that lasted less than two hours. Secondly, the wide consensus (even euphoria) supporting the military operation was a direct result of the fact that Israel was attacked from areas it left unilaterally, and without ‘reward’. This fact facilitated a sense of righteousness that helped mobilize the entire population for the sake of the war efforts, while also unleashing a startling public sentiment of rage. The fact that the government’s resort to violence did not meet significant opposition - supported by the contingent fact that the labor party functions as a senior partner in the coalition - was decisive in the government’s decision to deepen its operation while disregarding all diplomatic efforts.

Unilateralism also contributed to the breakdown of the Lebanese and especially the PA (proto) states. Whereas in the negotiation decade Israel was assisting (albeit hesitantly) the PA in its arduous process of state-building, since 1999 the Israeli governments committed to unilateralism – Barak’s, Sharon’s and Olmert’s – were deliberately undermining the PA’s institutions. Though the breakdown of the state might serve the “no partner” claim that underlies the unilateral project, it does little to serve Israel’s security interests. It is enough that we acknowledge that it is difficult to imagine an effective sovereign Arab state, politically responsible to its people, launching an assault against Israel, as the ones orchestrated by the Hamas and Hezbollah. Of course, it will be a mistake to blame Israel exclusively for the deficit of sovereignty in Palestine, and especially Lebanon. Undermining state sovereignty is one issue where the logics of unilateralism and that of global Islamism are interlaced.

Finally, the military operations (in both Gaza and Lebanon) were initially supposed to strengthen the government’s policy of unilateralism by signaling to the Israeli populace that, if necessary, Israel can always return to areas it decided to withdraw from. Yet as the military operation begun stumbling, and ground forces were called in, it became evident that the unilateral conception has come to an end – no Israeli politician can seriously argue today that unilateralism contributes to the security of Israel. Yet at that same moment an interesting turn took place: unilateralism was now being used in the service a new obsession: restoring Israel’s power of deterrence.

The end of unilateralism and the emergence of “deterrence”:
It is quite amazing how quickly a failed, confused military operation, that had no chance of realizing its unattainable goals, morphed into Israel’s second ‘independence war’. Within days, the fighting in both Gaza and Lebanon stopped being about creating pre-negotiation pressure, but about Israel’s survival. And when the mere existence of Israel as independent Jewish-democratic state is on the line, anything – including the destruction of Lebanon and the paralyzation of large parts of Israel – is justified.

Thus a new narrative was born from the ashes of unilateralism. The withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza were no longer viewed as serving the interests of Israel, but instead a sign of military weakness and social decay that strengthened the ethos of “resistance”. Sharon’s constraint in the face of Hezbollah’s armament was no longer a symbol of might, but a reckless decision that stemmed from his traumatic past in Lebanon. The decision to withdraw unilaterally together with the decision not to confront the Hezbollah, so the story goes, are colossal mistakes that brought Hamas to power and that created an Islamist monster in Israel’s northern border. Those decisions, together with the IDF recent series of failures, encouraged Israel’s enemies to believe that its destruction is a real possibility. The logical conclusion of that story is that the next war is waiting around the corner unless Israel rehabilitates immediately its lost deterrence power. This argument did not meet serious counter-arguments. By the end of the first week of the fighting, it became a solid fact.

“Deterrence” therefore became a metaphysical reality that was able to subordinate and assimilate everything and anything in the name of its immediate restoration. But “deterrence” is a slippery, abstract concept. When exactly the enemy can be considered deterred enough? More so, “deterrence” proved to be a double-edged sword, which ironically is providing the government with less – not more – maneuvering space. The minute the government decided to declare a total war against Hezbollah, the minute it enslaved itself to rebuilding Israel’s deterrence powers, a lethal snowball began rolling. As the sloppy operation advanced, and as it became clear that the IDF can not deliver its promise to wipe out the resistance in a few days, (“maximum two weeks”), the government suddenly discovered it cannot stop the violence, since people took seriously the existential threat. Short of a total destruction of the Hezbollah, how can the price of the war be justified? A major achievement against the Hezbollah became the only chance of the government to survive the aftermath of this war. Thus the war that is fought now is not about the survival of the country, but rather it is about the survival of the government. This of course is not the entire story, but I believe it goes a long way in explaining how a collective punishment expedition, which was launched with little preparation and deliberation, and which was based on distorted and arrogant evaluations and on unattainable promises, morphed into a dreadful all-out war.