Posted on 07/21/2006 11:05:26 AM PDT by STFrancis
The ground war has begun. Several Israeli brigades now appear to be operating between the Lebanese border and the Litani River. Hezbollah forces are dispersed in multiple bunker complexes and are launching rockets from these and other locations. Hezbollah's strategy appears to be threefold. First, force Israel into costly attacks against prepared fortifications. Second, draw Israeli troops as deeply into Lebanon as possible, forcing them to fight on extended supply lines. Third, move into an Iraqi-style insurgency from which Israel -- out of fear of a resumption of rocket attacks -- cannot withdraw, but which the Israelis also cannot endure because of extended long-term casualties. This appears to have been a carefully planned strategy, built around a threat to Israeli cities that Israel can't afford. The war has begun at Hezbollah's time and choosing. Israel is caught between three strategic imperatives. First, it must end the threat to Israeli cities, which must involve the destruction of Hezbollah's launch capabilities south of the Litani River. Second, it must try to destroy Hezbollah's infrastructure, which means it must move into the Bekaa Valley and as far as the southern suburbs of Beirut. Third, it must do so in such a way that it is not dragged into a long-term, unsustainable occupation against a capable insurgency. Hezbollah has implemented its strategy by turning southern Lebanon into a military stronghold, consisting of well-designed bunkers that serve both as fire bases and launch facilities for rockets. The militants appear to be armed with anti-tank weapons and probably anti-aircraft weapons, some of which appear to be of American origin, raising the question of how they were acquired. Hezbollah wants to draw Israel into protracted fighting in this area in order to inflict maximum casualties and to change the psychological equation for both military and political reasons.
(Excerpt) Read more at stratfor.com ...
Ain't it the delightful truth? (snort!)
I question the efficacy of bunker busters. They apparently were used in Beruit on the complex there and we don't know what they did. We do know no big baddies were done in.
Also in Iraq we watched them fall but never saw really damaged bunkers. To the contrary, we saw bunkers entered and cautiously explored.
(Go Israel, Go! Slap 'Em, Down Hezbullies.)
"Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man." -- George S. Patton
In case you didn't notice Sadam Hussien's bunkers survived our best bunker busters. German engineering is pretty good.
Hell, come out of the Golan, put the Litani on your left flank and drive for Beirut.
Hiz will just jump over into syria.
Not if you cut them off before they can get around the Golan.
Israel should have annexed the southern part of Lebanon, Gaza Strip and West Bank long ago, tossed out the Arabs and set up a secure border.
Bunkers were the Japanese tactic in the Pacific on Iwo and Oki and other places. They were expensive to clean up but they did not survive. We did not have the bunker busting weapons and precision capabilities that we (and Israel) have now.
There is no way that Israel is going to Bekaa. I would be surprised if they went farther north than Sidon.
1967. It would not have been diffiult then, not like that same operation now. They should have pushed the saracens into Jordan and Egypt and flooded the West Bank, Gaza, and Southern Lebanon with settlers. That's "flooded," not merely "allowed to settle." Non Moslem Lebanese could have been allowed to stay; others pushed north.
I don't see how fighting from fortified positions against an enemy with air superiority is a good strategy. No mobility and Israel knows or will discover where they are.
That's one option for sure - instead of entering the bekaa valley, just cut it off and starve it. If the good guys can take the heights, they can pummel the valley forever without much risk. And the IAF can keep the syrians at bay. But the israelis will still have to cut off the rat paths and rather quickly.
All that does is move the missle targets north. Israel needs an occupied, uninhabited buffer zone. And that will have to get wider over time as Muslims get their hands on longer and longer range missles.
What if Iran is crazy enough to use their missiles on Israel with an attack on the Americans in Iraq? Crazy, yes, but then they are crazy to begin with!
What the IDF should do, IMHO, is move rapidly to the Litani river, seal it off, then turn southward and start to clean out the Hexbollah, one village at a time.
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