Victory And Defeat

After the war on Lebanon there’s been much debate about Hizbollah’s ’Victory’ and the Israeli ’Defeat’. Arabs and Muslims, at least the majority of them, sincerely believe that Hizbollah emerged victorious from the 34 day war ; a casual glance over Arab media is enough evidence of that, let alone Nasrallah’s speeches. But how is Victory defined nowadays ? If you look at the raw statistics, Lebanon suffered massive casualties, its infrastructure was pulverized, and its population in shambles, so what exactly is victory.

In the past, before our ability as humans in general to inflict total devastation and destruction upon ourselves, victory was simple ! The victorious side is the one which, in battle, is able to defeat the enemy destroying their military forces, taking their women and children into slavery along with any material possessions the defeated enemy has (be it land, wealth, etc) as spoils of war. End of story.

In the modern age military victory became much more expensive. In WWII Japan was certainly defeated (as an example) but the price was horrific : it is estimated that at least 200,000 Japanese died with at least 135,000 in the blast alone (add to that the estimated 2 million soldiers) ; this of course lead directly to the surrender of Japan (hence defeat). In total the number of casualties in WWII was a staggering 62.5 Million. That was the price of clear cut victory.

Back to Lebanon. Israel went into this war with one objective that kept on getting diluted day after day. This objective was to incapacitate Hizbollah and cripple their ability to launch missiles into the heart of Israel. This objective was not met. Hizbollah is not destroyed. They are not disarmed (and will not be), and they are for all intents and purposes alive and kicking and capable of lobbing missiles into Israel.

So, if a state that has one of the most well armed, well trained, and well equipped armies in the world was incapable of achieving the gaol of their military campaign in the face of a ’Non-State Player’ (which is something I’ll get into later in this post) ; what should we call that ? Failure ? What is Failure from a military perspective ?

I’m still not convinced that Hizbollah is ’Victorious’ but I completely believe that based on its inability to achieve its military objective, Israel, with its military might, failed ! Call it defeat, call it failure ; six of one / half a dozen of the other.

Lets examine closer the results of Israel’s foolish war away from the futile context victory & defeat :

1. The Arab world in general and Muslims in specific (Arabs or not) now view this war as further evidence of Israel’s malicious intentions towards them (I’m not debating whether this perception is true or not). This directly stokes the flames of Anti-Israeli and by association Anti-Jewish sentiments in the Muslim world. While these sentiments were always there, they are now beyond any local government’s ability to control. I don’t think that any politician in Egypt, for example, can now openly mention the word ’Normalization with Israel.’

2. Before the war Hizbollah was a Lebanese household name that other Muslims/Arabs hear about every now and then yet for the most part don’t really care about. Now that they (Hizbollah) were able to stand their ground against the might of Israel they are suddenly everyone’s heros ; be it Sunni or Shiite, which is a staggering development. The fact that for the most part, Sunni Muslims are backing a Shiite organization and are willing to set aside their differences in order to confront their perceived greater danger should be a very troubling development to Israel and the US.

3. Hizbollah’s ability to advertise and capitalize on their ’victory’ is certainly an egg in the face of all the Arab regimes in the region which are now increasingly viewed as hopelessly ’neutered’ and incapable of impregnating any incarnation of an Arab/Muslim dream of honorable existence (for whatever that’s worth !)

4. The direct consequences of the previous point will be a dramatic surge of Militant Islam as a ’proven’ mean to achieve ’victory’. This surge will increasingly cease to differentiate between organizations such as Hizbollah (which should never have been classified as a terrorist organization) and Al Qaeda which is truly a terrorist organization. This will enormously complicate the situation and further push everyone to the brink of conflict of unimaginable magnitude.

5. Iran as a rising power will continue to flex its muscle to the derangement of the West, Israel and local Arab/Muslim regimes with the increasing sympathy of what used to be an, mostly, Anti-Iranian or at least neutral Muslim/Arab populations. Add to that Syria’s propensity to align itself with Iran ; and Israel is faced with what maybe the beginning of the all-out regional war against it. Could Israel survive such war ? Maybe, but the cost on both sides will be unimaginably high. I personally believe that on the long run this will be the end of Israel.

All of the above were (or will be) direct consequences of the foolish war Israel got itself into without really calculating much. Had Israel achieved its military objectives, this would’ve been a dramatically different story, but now that the war is over, its too late to avoid the scenario above.

The insane simplification of the entire region’s situation and the foolish invocation of the ’War on Terror’ is actually directly contributing to increasing terror and creating the perfect atmosphere for such terror organizations to recruit and flourish. This will also progressively lead to more conflicts that involve State vs. Non-State elements (ala Hizbollah) which by now we all understand cannot be won using traditional methods of war. The dysfunctional Arab/Muslim regimes in the region will loose the battle against the momentum Non-State prospects now have in light of recent conflict. This will be nothing short of living hell for anyone remotely related to the region (that makes it all of us in the globalized world).

The Dynamics of State vs. Non-State conflicts are fundamentally different than anything we faced before and we seem not to get it. We are all loosing here and we will continue to loose unless root cause issues are addressed which I believe will never happen since there’s too much at stake in a world of blind capitalistic ’interests’ in the region.

The war may have been short (34 days) but its ramifications will stretch out well into the future setting the stage for a much brutal conflict. The cost in human life will continue to escalate and the stakes will continue to go higher.