Behind Israel's Delayed Invasion
Throughout the Lebanon crisis, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has insisted that a return to the status quo ante is unacceptable — a radical Iran-backed militia could not be allowed to operate along Israel's northern border, as Hizballah was doing on July 12 when it captured two Israeli soldiers. But Israeli leaders are also mindful of the danger of restoring the status quo of six years ago, when Israel occupied southern Lebanon at the cost of a slow, but steady flow of casualties inflicted by Hizballah guerrillas that eventually forced its withdrawal.
A wariness over plunging back into what Israelis remember as their own Vietnam may help explain Israel's caution over expanding the ground war. And so even though the Israeli cabinet on Wednesday gave Prime Minister Ehud Olmert the authority to order a wider invasion, Israeli officials made clear that ordering such an move further north into Lebanon would wait a few days to see the outcome of the diplomatic wrangling at the U.N.
That same caution, in fact, helps explain one of the oft-obscured realities of Israel's military campaign — for all the talk of its incursion into south Lebanon, Israeli forces do not currently control very much of it, and they have intentionally limited their operations to something less than trying to hold ground. So President Bush referred to a fact not yet established on the ground when he insisted on Tuesday — over objections from Lebanon and other Arab governments — that Israel be allowed to maintain control of southern Lebanon until the arrival of an international force.
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The intensity of the fighting thus far has made clear that Israel would suffer substantial casualties in such an invasion; it would expect to lose as many as 100 more troops in the first week (taken as a proportion of the population, that's the equivalent of the U.S. losing 5,000) and probably more in the cleanup operations in the weeks that followed;
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>>>>The intensity of the fighting thus far has made clear that Israel would suffer substantial casualties in such an invasion; it would expect to lose as many as 100 more troops in the first week (taken as a proportion of the population, that's the equivalent of the U.S. losing 5,000)
Stunning figures.