The Use of Force

Israel's testosterone-fuelled invasion of Lebanon is doomed to fail. Not just because it is one of the daftest approaches to the situation, but also because it is becoming increasingly clear that Israel has no plan for political engagement.

Some twenty odd years ago, Israel invaded and occupied Lebanon for a brief period of time. The historical note of a previous and unsuccessful occupation in Lebanon is a clue to the likely outcome of this current invasion.

First, the Israeli government clearly has no strategy for engaging Hezbollah or the Lebanese Government on a political level. In my view, this is a close mirror of the situation that the United Kingdom found itself dealing with in Northern Ireland. The fact is that organizations like Hezbollah are both paramilitary and political constructs. If one fails utterly to engage them on the political front, there is little hope that a military engagement will successfully disarm them. These groups are too tightly woven into the society in which they operate - far more so in fact than a "professional army" such as Israel's is capable of.

Second, the notion that bombing the hell out of civilian Lebanon will turn the Lebanese people against Hezbollah is farcicle. The cold, hard reality is that the invaders will always be the group against whom opinion turns. Hezbollah is not seen in Lebanon as a hostile force. You have to be damnably naive to believe that an outside force is going to turn the population against a local political organization - no matter what statements are made on the political stage.

Generally speaking, force doesn't persuade people of anything. Perhaps the best evidence of this exists in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both nations are essentially under "foreign occupation", and there is no sign that the occupation is going to end any time soon. Sure enough, both countries have very active, well resourced resistance movements. They may be highly fragmented, but for now they have a common focus for their hostility.

The escalation of available weapon systems on the world market guarantees that Israel's opposition will always be able to "fire through" whatever Israel's "security zone" happens to be - whether it is 500 meters, or 500 kilometers.

Whether or not anyone wishes to acknowledge it, Israel will be unlikely to find any material security of note until they find a means to engage their opposition on both political and military fronts.

Although Northern Ireland is far from a "resolved matter", it demonstrates my point perfectly. No significant progress was made until the UK found a means to engage the IRA on the political stage.