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Israel's Strategic Win

(Atlantic) Eliot A. Cohen - From a purely technical view, the blasts of thousands of exploding pagers in the hands of Hizbullah represented an extraordinary piece of sabotage. For Israel to have so penetrated the Hizbullah supply chain on such a large scale is simply astonishing. Will this lead to the cataclysmic battle that many have warned against, with Hizbullah raining down tens of thousands of rockets on Israeli cities while Israeli armored divisions plunge into Lebanon? If Hizbullah is battered the way Hamas has been, Iran stands to lose its most effective ally against Israel. And to seek open war, Hizbullah would have to be willing to sacrifice the population of Lebanese Shia from which it has emerged, as well as its own cadres of fighters. This is a strategic win for Israel. Hizbullah members will now be unlikely to trust any form of electronics. An army skittish about any kind of electronics is one that is paralyzed. From a failure so large, witch hunts will follow - no doubt fed by an information-warfare campaign. With Hizbullah looking for spies and saboteurs, a spiral of accusations, torture, and executions will likely ensue. For Israel's silent partners - including Arab states such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, and Jordan - this coup is confirmation that Israel can be a capable partner. The Israelis have learned the hard way to ask for forgiveness rather than permission, to act on their own when necessary. Ironically, a reputation of that kind increases a smaller partner's leverage with its superpower patron. In 1984, Hizbullah kidnapped William Francis Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut. For 15 months, they tortured him, before handing him over to a Palestinian group for execution. A tape of his shattered body and mind found its way to Washington. The CIA has never forgotten that. Some will no doubt think that this is another reckless Israeli act, or deplore violence as being ineffective, but they are wrong. By this act, the balance of fear has shifted in the Middle East. For Israel, a country dwelling in a very hard neighborhood, that is a good thing. The writer, a professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins University, served as the counselor of the Department of State and in other positions in the U.S. Department of Defense and the intelligence community.
2024-09-22 00:00:00
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