Peace by other means

Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbollah leader, has done what Osama bin Laden could never do: he has united Shias and Sunnis throughout the region in the belief that a Muslim renaissance could come via the gun

Washington has dumped Tony Blair and its disdain of the UN. America is now working with France, the old colonial power, to shape Lebanese events via the international organisation. Friction between Washington and Paris as well as strong objections from the Arab League are delaying a ‘first stage’ UN resolution on a ceasefire. Immediate Israeli withdrawal is not in the current text.

The Lebanese government has offered 15,000 troops to replace the Israeli defence force and to monitor the Hizbollah while a robust French-led UN force moves in. The key is to get UN forces in and Israelis out without letting the Hizbollah regroup and rearm. A quick fix solution could allow a rapid reaction French component to link up with the existing UN forces as lead components of a Lebanese military intervention. A UN resolution could save face all round but it is more likely that the fighting will go on.

The IDF is moving into Phase III of its operations: a slower, meat-grinder advance that could, depending on diplomacy, accelerate to a big ground push to the Litani river and probably beyond. Despite memories of the previous quagmire, the IDF may stay until all UN troops are in place. Israelis have little faith in the Lebanese army doing what it has been unable to do since 2000.

So generals in NATO should take note. The conflict in Lebanon is inspiring a potent kind of warfare which could have a profound impact throughout West Asia. Previously Israel could capture Beirut in seven days; now it has struggled for four weeks to control small villages right on its own border.

The Hizbollah is a novel hybrid, combining the sophistication and weaponry of a formal army blended with the near invisibility of a hit-and-run insurgency. It has dramatically modernised guerrilla tactics but it also holds territory and seats in the Lebanese parliament and government. The Hizbollah is responsive to the ayatollahs in Iran but – like Sinn Féin/IRA in Ireland – it has an authentic constituency base, one which was partly created by Israel’s 1982 invasion.

Western experts are struggling, not least with naming this new phenomenon. Some call it network warfare. Traditional armies are large, often cumbersome and organised in a strict disciplined hierarchy; networks such as the Hizbollah have numerous widely dispersed fighters who can improvise quickly, not least in their use of hi-tech communications and propaganda. Israeli special forces are surprised to come up against Hizbollah fighters with almost the same quality of equipment – and training – as themselves.

The Hizbollah has waged a sustained war of attrition against a nation across a state border. To relieve the pressure on the Hamas – the fighting continues in Gaza as well – it opened up a second front in the north and maintained a high tempo war against the regional superpower.

The Hizbollah has learned from the Chechens’ fight against a much stronger power, Russia. It has challenged state monopolies of force: air and naval power. It withstood the shock and awe tactics of bombing from the air by escalating its counter-attacks with rockets.

Thinking in the old paradigm, Israel struck at the infrastructure of the Lebanese state with air attacks, only belatedly engaging the Hizbollah on the ground. This is a massive own goal, not least because it undermines the Arab world’s most moderate (and also weakest) government.

The Hizbollah has done a lot better than the conventional forces of all the Arab states that have fought against Israel since 1948. It has won a stunning propaganda victory and shattered Israel’s deterrence posture.

Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbollah leader, has done what Osama bin Laden could never do: he has united Shias and Sunnis throughout the region, especially the young, in the belief that a Muslim renaissance could come via the gun. Just as Iraq demonstrated the limits of US power, the war on Lebanon displayed Israel’s weakness. Radical Islam has been the victor in both conflicts.

Israel will now be far more reluctant to fight the Hamas despite the differences in terrain and organisation. Likewise, the Israeli experience must give the US pause before attacking Iranian forces who will fight just as effectively as their students in the Hizbollah.

The Hizbollah’s success will galvanise jihadists from Boston to Bolton to Bombay. The supine political response of the Sunni Arab leaders (who privately loathe Shia success) has played badly in the Arab street. Militant Islam could soon displace the secular despotisms – ironically even the one in Syria that supports the Hizbollah.

The Lebanese war is a race against time: will the Hizbollah run out of fighting spirit and rockets before the world – and even the US – runs out of patience with Israeli tactics and forces a ceasefire?

So far, no Islamic fanatic has put unconventional warheads on their Iranian missiles. Whether that remains the case may depend on how long the bloodletting goes on. If diplomats conjure up an intervention army far more successful than the existing ill-fated UN force, a regional war that could include Syria may be avoided.

America’s embrace of UN diplomacy is a welcome return to pre-paranoia, pre-9/11 politics. West Asia may now be treated in a more holistic way. If Lebanon works, the French might be persuaded to repeat the miracle by supervising a UN buffer between Israel and Palestine as the old road map to the two-state solution is finally realised.

But if the UN fails, the Hizbollah’s deadly hybrid could be replicated across Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine. Iran acquires nuclear weapons. America withdraws from Iraq as civil war compels a messy partition. NATO forces succumb to domestic pressure and the Taliban retake Kabul. A female Democrat president in Washington reverts to isolation. Such pessimistic probabilities dictate a rapid and orderly western military withdrawal from Arab lands. Whoever rules would sell their oil.

The aspiring French-led diplomacy in Lebanon trumpets the failure of the Anglo-US policy of constructive destabilisation. Only a genuine negotiated ceasefire, allied to a powerful UN intervention force, could – just – lead to a regional settlement. n