Israel’s Missed Boat in Lebanon

Debka File ^ | May 18, 2008 | section9

[section9]

Sunday night, May 11, the Israeli army was poised to strike Hizballah. The Shiite militia was winding up its takeover of West Beirut and battling pro-government forces in the North. When he opened the regular cabinet meeting Sunday, May 11, prime minister Ehud Olmert had already received the go-ahead from Washington for a military strike to halt the Hizballah advance. The message said that President George W. Bush would not call off his visit to Israel to attend its 60th anniversary celebrations and would arrive as planned Wednesday, May 14 - even if the Israeli army was still fighting in Lebanon and Hizballah struck back against Tel Aviv and Ben-Gurion airport.

(...snip...)

Olmert, defense minister Ehud Barak and foreign minister Tzipi Lvini, the only ministers in the picture, decided not to intervene in Lebanon’s civil conflict. Iran’s surrogate army consequently waltzed unchecked to its second victory in two years over the United States and Israel.

(....snip....)

While the president was busy with ceremonies and speeches, secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and national security adviser Stephen Hadley took Israeli officials to task. Hadley in particular bluntly blamed Israel for the downfall of the pro-Western government bloc in Beirut and its surrender to the pro-Iranian, Pro-Syrian Hizballah. If Israeli forces had struck Hizballah gunmen wile on the move, he said, Hassan Nasrallah would not have seized Beirut and brought the pro-government militias to their knees.

(...snip...)

IDF generals who were present at these conversations reported they have never seen American officials so angry or outspoken. Israel’s original blunder, they said, was its intelligence misreading of Hizballah’s first belligerent moves on May 4. At that point, Israel’s government military heads decided not to interfere, after judging those moves to be unthreatening.

[section9]

For two years, since Israel's catastrophic misadventure in Lebanon and the inability of the Israeli body politic to rid itself of the weak and indecisive Olmert Government, I have had to listen to critiques of Condi Rice here on this forum as apologists for Israeli weakness criticized her instead of aiming their fire where it belonged, at the Israeli Government.

Do not believe, even for a moment, that the present Israeli Government can survive the collapse in Lebanon and its indecision in Gaza. It can't, and it shouldn't.

The problem was never with the Americans, as the conduct of our forces in Iraq proved. It lay always with a weak and indecisive Israel. Time to clean house in Jerusalem.

I await the responses from the Usual Suspects who claim that Israel is without fault here.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[JerseyHighlander]

You post with anime using Debka as a source.

As the saying goes, you fail the internet.

[Perdogg]

Debka is not the most reliable source.

[alice_in_bubbaland]

While I agree with you that the Olmert Government is weak and needs to be replaced, I always take DEBKA with a grain of salt.

[Williams]

Whether the story is correct or not:

Maybe President Bush was rebuking the liberal Israeli government, not Barack Obama.

The problem definitely is the Israeli government. They are doing nothing on the military front, nothing effective anyway.

[Cicero]

I couldn’t agree with you more about Olmert & his leftist pals, and I have said so on virtually every thread on this subject. Plenty of other Freepers agree, too.

I don’t think that lets Condi off the hook, however. She has turned into a wholly-owned subsidiary of the State Department Arabists, if you ask me.

[Nextrush]

Olmert’s government hangs by a thread. President Bush tried to buck it up with his speech. This scandal situation will lead to who knows where.

Debka is probably a political front site for Likud or some other anti-Olmert faction.

Olmert is a wimp who’s putting out feelers right now (new leaks) for some sort of action in Gaza that is probably designed to make people forget about the scandal and will do nothing to stop the missile barrage in the south.

[section9]

Here's the key to the story; it matches what I heard in 2006 after the war. This government couldn't make up its mind to take decisive action; it fits. When the Lebanon War began, Olmert, Peretz, and Dan Halutz, the IDF Chief of Staff, promised results to the White House using the old saw of Victory through Airpower. Everyone, from Cheney to Rice on down questioned the Israeli methods.

The White House was right. Leaking from the Israeli Government tried to put the onus on Rice and the Administration for Israel's failure, when in fact, she held Olmert's hand for three weeks in July. Useful Idiots like John Bolton merely amplified the Israeli Government line. Now, the accumulation of disastrous decisions by the Olmert regime are forcing the truth to come out.

The critical flaw in our strategic planning since 2006 has been a weak Israeli Government, as outlined in the Winograd Report. It has gotten so bad that the IDF's deterrent value will not be restored without anything other than radical action, up to and including a campaign in Syria to remove the Iranians. Sadly, Hezboallah's rocket forces are so massive that a rocket barrage will almost certainly provoke an assault on Iran.

As to the fact that it's from DEBKA? Look, I've read more critics of Rice and Hadley take Debka and World Tribune reports as Gospel when it puts the USG in a more "appeasement-oriented" light on this forum. Now that it goes the other way, they question the source. Can't have it both ways, folks.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[Thomas W.]

An Israeli strike on Hezbollah would’ve saved the day? All it did last time was unite the idiot Lebanese behind Hezbollah.

The real story here is that the Saudis—apparently with our blessings—shipped arms and unspecified “equipment” to the Druze, who successfully fought off Hezbollah, even though Nasrallah’s boys used heavy artillery. Nobody seems to care about that very significant victory.

Just like in 2006, the media reports of Hezbollah’s total victory are widely exaggerated. For some reason the narrative is that everything Iranian is coming up roses.

Well, the disorganized, hysterical Iraqi army shambled into Basra and cleaned house in a month, and it’s well on its way to defeating al Sadr in Sadr City.

The spin is that the Iranians now want their proxies in Iraq destroyed, because the Persians are such geniuses that we mere mortals can’t figure out their long-range plans. Maliki must be an agent of Iran, and the proof is that he’s defeating Iran’s proxies.

Huh?

Occam’s Razor says the more likely story is that the Iranians overextended and got cocky, and we all know that pride goeth before a fall.

Two things I know for sure: There’s a lot more going on behind the scenes, and the U.S. and Israel are in nowhere near as much trouble as the media would have you believe.

[monkeyshine]

The Israeli government must fall. I’m shocked its still intact. The signals couldn’t be more clear - President Bush just named Hezbullah and Hamas our enemies and the Israeli government is too busy trying to sweep up corruption scandals to get the message.

Why the right parties remain in the Israeli government at this point boggles my mind. They should bolt.

[monkeyshine]

What you say seems true but Israel should have known that victory through air power is not attainable. You use air supremacy to soften the ground and then send in the troops.

Trouble is they had only half heartedly committed to the war and sort of got dragged into it without preparation. Soldiers were ambushed and kidnapped and others followed in hot pursuit. Thus, they were already committed to a ground war before they could even develoop a strategy.

Worse still, they did not have the supply lines in place so they suffered horrible losses on the ground in the early days, and had to limit and even pull back and regroup - that is when the IAF stepped up.

But we all know the rest - Hezbullah trotted out pictures of dead children, and the political pressure built and built against Israel. Secretary Rice did try to convince Israel to step it up but this Olmert is truly an incompetent and his government is simply in place for the largess. Eventually she had to pull the plug on him... 3 weeks after it started. Presumably she gave Olmert an ultimatum for one last push to succeed, which it did not.

That heads did not roll inside Israel is absolutely amazing to me. Winograd had to be whitewashed, imho.

I wonder why the US does not try to topple the Israeli government given these blunders. Maybe we do - I mean, Bush’s speech clearly was an indictment against Olmert’s failings and this new corruption scandal did originate in the USA - but it is too little too late. If elections were held today Israel would probably elect the most rightist, nationalist government in its history. A bunch of fiscal conservatives, war hawks, territorial expansionists, religious zionists and Russians!

Then again, maybe that is exactly why we doesn’t push too hard to topple Olmert’s government. Maybe Olmert acts the way he does because he is protected in that regard. The US wants a malleable Israeli government, and a corrupt Olmert regime is much better than a government more stubborn and hawkish than Shamir’s.

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel. or WOT [War on Terror]

----------------------------

Typicl DEBKA nonsense.

Our government called Israel and suggested they invade Lebanon, not on the scale of the recent skirmish, but a full invasion, driving to and, I presume, beseiging Beirut, as in 1982. Likely opposed by the Lebanese Army, probably Syria, and possibly France and the UN.

And just in case it wasn't over three days later, GWB would visit the war zone anyway.

Truely moronic.

Then again, maybe America was suggesting Israel nuke Beirut, GWB coming a couple days later. If the wind is right.

[SJackson]

Personally I doubt Debka, but if Condi "pressured" Israel to mount what would likely be a full on invasion of Lebanon as in 1982, with the expectation is would be over in 3 days or 3 months, she should be fired immediately, and transported to Walter Reed for a mental health assessment.

[SJackson]

The real story here is that the Saudis—apparently with our blessings—shipped arms and unspecified “equipment” to the Druze, who successfully fought off Hezbollah, even though Nasrallah’s boys used heavy artillery. Nobody seems to care about that very significant victory.

Perhaps we should move the palestinians down a few notches from the cornerstone of our foreign policy to number 3 or 4. The arms and training we're providing them could be shifted to the Druze, or Christian militias should they organize, or the Lebanese Army if it's willing to choose sides. Number 2, maybe we could spend some time encouraging our Arab friends to please recognize the government of Iraq. We've spent money and lives there, they need to stand up.

[section9]

What you can't seem to admit is this:

Israel is an unreliable ally that has a government that will not defend itself because of feckless leadership.

You have been peddling the line for two years that it's our fault, despite the findings of the Winograd Commission.

It is not our responsibility to have the Israelis grow a pair; it's the responsibility of the Israeli electorate and, what's more, it's rather corrupted political class, which can't appear to defend the country.

I find this story eminently believable. It's passing strange that the IDF did nothing while Hezb'Allah was calling up reserves, road-marching them north, and then sending them into an attack. Now, Hezb'Allah's rear is secure, their missiles protected, and Iran's flanking of Israel to the north secure.

The only salutary development was their setback in the Chouf, but that was simply a case of Nasrallah overreaching after a heady victory. Hezb'Allah, and their Iranian patrons, are firmly in control of the situation. The only force that could have done anything to stop them, the IDF, was obviously paralyzed by indecisive political leadership.

Naturally, the usual suspects showed up to defend the indefensible.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[JBGUSA]

section9: Whether the story is correct or not: Maybe President Bush was rebuking the liberal Israeli government, not Barack Obama.

Maybe both?

[RobbyS]

Amen.

[RobbyS]

THE WH says Jimmy Carter

[SJackson]

Your contempt for Israel as a an unreliable ally is noted, as is your dislike of me and other posters on FR, the usual suspects, who I suspect are other pro-Israel posters. Suspects of what, you didn’t make clear.

Your refusal to address either my post or the actual article is typical of disruptive posters with little or nothing to contribute to the topic at hand.

Debka contends that on May 11, days before the 60th anniversary celebration, with dozens of heads of state and high ranking diplomats in country, ten’s of thousands of tourists, the IDF should put on the steel, with no preparation, and mount a ground invasion of Lebanon driving all the way to Beirut.

That is absurd. If Condi advocated that, and I don’t believe she did, she should be fired. Anyone who seriously advocated an invasion of Lebanon last week should be fired. With no immediate provocation, it would be a recipe for disaster.

As to the second point, that the President of the United States would travel to the combat zone as the missiles rained down, to attend a celebration everyone else would be fleeing is absurd. And irresponsible.

I don’t think you believe any of this, it’s just a handy opportunity to paint Israel as unreliable for not acceding to a purported American request.