An Israeli building damaged by a Hizbullah rocket attack on the city of Kiryat Shmona, close to the Israeli-Lebanese border August 9, 2006 (Reuters photo)

In light of what has been popularly regarded as the sixth Arab-Israeli war, and in the midst of speculations that the war would escalate into a full-scale confrontation involving Syria and Iran, the recently announced UN Resolution 1701 puts a lid on the month-long conflict and creates the conditions for at least a temporary respite from military activities.

The resolution calls for a cessation of military activities and the withdrawal of Israeli troops, in parallel with the deployment of the Lebanese Army and an expanded UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon. The UN resolution also calls for the disarmament of Hizbullah and the unconditional return of Israeli captives, but leaves those issues without a clear mechanism for implementation. Other issues such as the fate of Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails and the disputed Sheba Farms have also been left unresolved, despite recent revelations that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert indicated his willingness to negotiate a prisoner swap with Hizbullah after he had vehemently rejected the mere suggestion of an exchange earlier in the conflict.

Setting aside President Bush’s fanciful self-delusions about an Israeli victory, and despite the immense human and material losses that Lebanon had to endure due to Israel’s bombing campaign against Lebanese civilians and infrastructure, one could safely conclude that, from a strategic perspective, both Israel and the United States are the main losers of this conflict. Israel’s inability to achieve its declared objectives exposed the structural weaknesses and inadequacies of the Jewish State’s reliance on force, illustrated the erosion of its deterrent capability, and highlighted fissures in its political and military leaderships. What the United States thought could be a swift Israeli victory over Hizbullah and a successful prelude to a wider war against the Syrian-Iranian “axis of evil,” turned out to be a military and political blunder of immense implications for America’s doctrine of unilateralism and its self-declared “New Middle East.”

Deciphering Hizbullah’s Victory: Strategic Realities & US-Israeli Fallacies

When Hizbullah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers on June 12, 2006, the Israeli leadership gave its military the green light to achieve several objectives: crushing Hizbullah as an operative military entity and pushing their forces behind the Litani River; inflicting as much damage to civilian infrastructure inside Lebanon in order to foment anti-Hizbullah sentiment; and finally securing the unconditional release of the two Israeli soldiers.

In turn, the United States endorsed Israel’s objectives and sought to rally official Arab support against what some leaders in the region lamented as Hizbullah’s “adventurism.” The United States tried to provide Israel with a diplomatic cover, giving Israel a free hand to defeat Hizbullah militarily and thus humble its stronger allies ― Iran and Syria ― as a prelude for a possible US/Israeli military showdown with both countries in the not-so-distant future.

Hizbullah has emerged from the conflict intact after inflicting heavy losses on the invading Israeli forces. This did not only alter the strategic equation the United States and Israeli wanted to set, but demonstrated the limits of Israeli military and technological preponderance and aborted plans for a “New Middle East.”

Since its inception, Israel boasted the invincibility of its army, and its ability to swiftly defeat any combination of Arab armies and to strike deep inside “enemy territory” without having to incur losses among its own civilian population. Hizbullah’s killing of at least 118 Israeli soldiers and launching of more than 4,000 rockets inside Israel ― killing 40 Israeli citizens and forcing another 1 million to either move south or live in bomb shelters for an entire month ― illustrated the frailty of Israeli deterrence, the limits of Israel’s military, and the vulnerability of Israeli soil to attack.

This had is own ramifications inside Israel, which has become a country on the verge of a major political crisis. A Ha’aretz poll on the eve of the UN resolution’s announcement showed Olmert’s approval rating drop from 75% at the start of the Israeli campaign to 48%. Poll ratings for Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz went even lower from 65% to 37%. Tim Mcgirk from Time.com reports that during a recent session in the Knesset, Olmert was jeered by legislators as he admitted “deficiencies” in the way the war was handled. Benjamin Netanyahu of the right-wing Likud party, and the likeliest challenger to Olmert’s coalition cabinet, took the opportunity to vehemently criticize the Israeli Prime Minister for his “multiple failures” in war-readiness and in protecting Israelis from Hizbullah’s bombardments. A high-level inquiry, into all that went wrong in the war against Hizballah, was called for by Likud right-wingers and Labor legislators; and a recent headline in the pro-war Jerusalem Post read, “The Olmert Government Must Go.”

Contrary to the condition of despair in Israel, the Lebanese domestic front stood ever more supportive of Hizbullah, which highlighted the failure of Israel’s bombing campaign in generating an anti-Hizbullah backlash among pro-Western segments within the Lebanese population. Ironically, Israel’s indiscriminant bombing campaign and America’s diplomatic and military support for Israel had the opposite effect: they generated widespread hatred for the United States and Israel even among sections of the population that were known for their pro-Western attitudes.

In fact, Lebanese support for Hizbullah transcended sectarian lines and encompassed all confessional denominations. According to a poll released by the Beirut Center for Research and Information, 87% of the Lebanese support Hizbullah’s fight with Israel ― a rise of 29% on a similar poll conducted in February. Eighty percent of Christians polled supported Hizbullah along with 80% of the country’s Druze and 89% of Sunnis. There is, thus, a diplomatic and political setback not only for the United States and Israel, but for all those had hoped for the “cantonization” of the Middle East or the transformation of Lebanon into the spearhead of America’s “New Middle East.”

Future Prospects: Hizbullah, Lebanon, and the World

The war against Lebanon was a fruitless endeavor that achieved none of its declared objectives and proved once again that Hizbullah is a potent military, political, and social force that cannot be defeated or marginalized by military means. It is enough to note that Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni declared in the aftermath of the war that “no army in the world would have succeeded in disarming Hizbullah with military means alone.”

Although Hizbullah’s visible presence in southern Lebanon will have to be reduced under the post-war arrangements emanating from UN Resolution 1701, the movement will be given the necessary leeway to maintain its weaponry, dictate the terms of the truce, and fight another day. Although some members of the pro-US “March 14 forces” inside Lebanon might criticize what they consider as Hizbullah’s unilateralism, none of the Lebanese parties appears to be willing to forcibly challenge Hizbullah on the disarmament issue, and the Lebanese Army has declared that it will not ― and cannot ― disarm Hizbullah by force.

At the same time, there are no signs that the intended UN peacekeeping force has any intention of forcibly disarming Hizbullah since this would put it in a precarious position and make it seem as an occupying force that will inevitably be resisted. Hizbullah has emerged politically stronger than ever, particularly among its majority Shiite base, who have grown more wary of the United States and Israel and more inclined to resist any attempts aimed at marginalizing their movement. Moreover, as a movement with a traditionally strong network of welfare activities, Hizbullah’s role in post-war relief and reconstruction efforts is expected to win the movement even more adherents from all sects inside Lebanon. After all, Hizbullah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah has recently promised to aid anyone whose livelihood was destroyed by providing rebuilding and living costs.

Conclusion

Despite the massive combination of military, political, and diplomatic forces amassed against Hizbullah, the Shiite movement has emerged victorious from the confrontation and was able to abort sinister designs that were being planned by the neoconservative coalition ruling Washington ― grand designs that entailed the liquidation of all forms of resistance to American-Israeli hegemony and implied the disintegration of the region into multiple ethnic and sectarian cantons that could easily be manipulated from outside.

On another front, Hizbullah’s victory will spill over into the region and embolden Iran, Syria, and resistance movements in Palestine and Iraq. Due to the interconnectedness of events in the region and multiple spiritual and social connections between Iraqi and Lebanese Shiites, the war on Lebanon seemed to have unintentionally helped Hassan Nasrallah acquire a heroic status among Iraqi Shiites, galvanizing an increasing number of them against the United States, which is largely being seen as an accomplice in the war against their brethren in Lebanon.

Despite Hizbullah’s definitive victory in this round of conflict, there are many signs that events in the region are heading towards escalation. Neither Israel nor the United States seem to be contented with appearing as the weaker side; both countries will try to manipulate domestic differences inside Lebanon and work for a Lebanese “implosion” from within. Israel will put military and political pressure on the Lebanese government to try to drive a wedge between the latter and Hizbullah. Israel’s constant suggestions that it is preparing for the next round of conflict and its commando raid in the Bekaa Valley ― which came only a week after UN Resolution 1701 ― indicate that a definitive conclusion to the war is not in sight. America’s ceaseless threats against Iran and the latter’s recent launching of large-scale military maneuvers (in light of its new defensive doctrine), underline the regional and international implications of the recent war on Lebanon. Indeed, perilous prospects remain ahead as the combatants prepare for another round of engagement in this wider regional war.