Israel-Lebanon War: Five Questions

Juliette Kayyem poses five sets of questions about the Israel-Lebanon War in Silence on the Homefront TPMCafe 07/20/06.  These are my ideas on the answers:

1) a progressive foreign policy put some merit on following international obligations and processes. Why, as a matter of politics, and in light of egregious Hezbollah activity, didn't Israel seek UN acknowledgement or asking before proceeding to direct action? And if Israel ought to be immune from those international constructs, we should say so directly.

Israel didn't need any special international authorization to respond militarily to a cross-border military attack, which is what Hizbollah's July 12 raid was.

If Israel had really been trying to follow international law and international public opinion (outside the United States), they would have gone to the UN and asked for authorization to go after Hizbollah in pursuit of UN Resolution 1559 requiring Hizbollah disarmament.

But Israel wasn't interested in that.  And both Hizbollah and Israel have been targeting civilian areas.  Israel is causing  far more death and damage than Hizbollah because of its superior weaponry.

2) Why can't progressives argue against the Gingrich this is WWIII or WWIV (I forget which number) attitde? I heard Newt on the TOday show, claiming that we can't be Neville Chamberlain like? Wasn't that his answer for going into Iraq?

Well, we are arguing against it.  Newt is a warmongering freak.

3) Where was JOrdan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states before? They did nothing to proactively bolster Lebanon's attempts to stop Hezbollah and control its borders? Isn't this just about controlling Iran?

The first is a good question.  Lebanon was required under Resolution 1559 to establish central control over southern Lebanon and Hizbollah was required to disarm.  But the Lebanese government and army were never close to strong enough to do that.  It's hard to imagine what those three countries could have done without a stronger government and a much more reliable army in Lebanon.

I suspect their position right now in declining to be Hizbollah partisans is largely related to the Shi'a-Sunni rivalry.

4) if yes, then fine, but shouldn't we then be saying that the NEED to control Iran is because of policy decisions made by this Administration since 2001, most of all Iraq. Why can't we connect the dots here; Iran feels empowered, and we've got to realize the policy decisions that led us to that point.

Good point.  Right on the mark.

5) Do we (the US) have a plan? If progressives recognize the limitations of war to counter asymmetrical threats, and if our silence this week means that we will give Isreal another 7 days to route hezbollah, what then? Do we (the Administration) have a plan for how to lower the temperature even if we give Isreal the time it needs?

Apparently, no, the Cheney-Bush administration doesn't have much of a plan other than to let Israel do whatever they want.

One big problem with wars is that they can spin out of control, though.  Israel has already backed itself into a difficult corner on this one, despite their overwhelming conventional military superiority.

The administration's seeming obliviousness to the risks for American troops in Iraq growing out of Shi'a anger over Israel's war on Hizbollah and Lebanon is terrible, but not terribly surprising.