Israel defeats Lebanese gas stations

William Arkin has been writing a lot about the Israel-Lebanon War.  The idea that the Cheney-Bush team looks at this as a template to be emulated in attacking Iran and/or Syria is a sobering thought.  Arkin looks in this piece at Israel's Failed Strategy of Spite Early Warning blog, Washington Post 08/15/06:

In the 24 hours before the agreed cease-fire, the Israeli Air Force carried out more than 200 air strikes, including attacks on eight "gas stations serving Hezbollah."

Gas stations.

If Israel and Hezbollah are fighting again in six weeks or six months, it will be because of those gas stations. ...

It is in pursuit of some theory about punishment of Hezbollah and its Lebanese supporters that the Israelis followed the wrong course.  The Israelis -- specifically the Israeli Air Force -- undertook an intentionally punishing, destructive and ultimately counter-productive air campaign, wielding high technology to Neanderthal levels of precision.  Israel bombed too much, bombed the wrong targets and conducted its campaign with inexcusable abandon.  What is more, Israel satisfied itself with conventional measures of "success" in the campaign -- counting rockets hit, dead fighters, destroyed infrastructure -- with utter disregard for the day after.

It all comes down to the gas stations, eight of thousands of civilian objects that were bombed in pursuit of a theory of "degrading" Hezbollah's military capabilities in the future but in the end bombed for no direct and concrete military reason and thereby rightly seen by the other side as sheer spite.

Arkin's professed faith in air power is somewhat surprising to me.  But he winds up saying that though air power technically allows precision warfare that carefully distinguishes between civilian and military targets, in practice that's not how it's actually used.  But one of the things I like and respect about Arkin is that he seems to take the laws of war seriously:

But no object in lawful targeting is sacrosanct.  Take the Beirut civilian airport, for example.  In the opening salvo of the war, Israelprecisely bombed the intersections of the runways and aprons, making it impossible for aircraft to take off and land.  No human rights or international organization particularly condemned the bombing as illegal, but it was: This was not bombing of Hezbollah's air force, it was not directed at Hezbollah fighters, it was not intended to disable the airport's radars and communications.  It was pure punishment. ...

Though popularity is not and should not be the motivating factor in limiting military attacks to strictly military objects - it is required by law - the truth is that "popular" support for war only comes when the populace - on both sides - is convinced that a just battle is being waged "humanely."  (my emphasis)

And his bottom line does not view the Israeli effort in a positive light:

These analyses are slightly wrong, however.  It wasn't airpower itself or an over reliance upon it.  It was its ineffective and gross application.  What is more, the notion that somehow Israel would have forged a better outcome with a more massive ground invasion, had it committed more effort on the ground, and the notion that somehow that effort would have resulted in less destruction and fewer casualties, is dead wrong.

So Israel is stuck, as is the United States, with the conundrum of modern military power.  We accumulate statistical success not only to no political avail but to our future detriment.  Hezbollah's strengthening in the face of the Israeli military - and the celebrations rippling through the Arab world that Israel and the United States have been thwarted (just as in Iraq) - comes from "conventional" defeat.  "We" show no regard for civilians in our conduct, we even destroy their gas stations.  Given that "they" don't have F-16s to attack us with, they are reduced to using rockets or airliners to strike back.  (my emphasis)