It is worth reading the whole article that I have linked, but I have copied the latter half that details the serious murmurings amongst the neo-cons about Israel’s failure to defeat Hezbollah.
The US and Israel: a marriage under pressure
Israel unnerved
Meanwhile, the IDF has escalated its attacks across Lebanon, including Beirut and the Beka’a valley, with 150 targets hit on the night of 6-7 August alone. These raids, including the bombing of highways north of Beirut, are reinforcing the overall blockade of transport routes and accentuating a major humanitarian crisis. International sources such as the United Nations high commission for refugees (UNHCR) estimate that 800,000 people in Lebanon are displaced, 130,000 of whom are living in schools and other public places. As the war heads towards its fifth week it is becoming clear that the human costs of the Israeli attempts to destroy Hizbollah as a paramilitary force are having an impact throughout Lebanon and beyond; the civilian death toll may now be as high as 1,000. In any case, the attempts themselves are simply not working. Hizbollah even retains an ability to launch missiles from close to the Israeli border – this after 8,700 IAF sorties. Within Israel, the public unease increases, not least because of the unpredictable nature of the rocket attacks, and a fear that Hizbollah may yet be able to strike as far south as Tel Aviv. There is consternation and a real feeling of vulnerability that leads simultaneously to calls for more robust military action and a contradictory questioning of the very strategy. What has become abundantly clear is that the IDF has seriously underestimated Hizbollah’s paramilitary capabilities and does not have a clear answer to its current predicament beyond increasing the intensity of air attacks. For the Israeli government and the Israeli people this is an unnerving situation, but it also has wider implications, particularly in the United States. A potent development here is the start of the “blame game” in Washington: the need to find scapegoats for Israel’s failure to win the war in Lebanon quickly and easily.
Washington dismayed
Condoleezza Rice is an immediate casualty, with critics making unfavourable comparisons between her and former secretary of state Henry Kissinger. Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, meanwhile, remain uncharacteristically quiet, while the Pentagon rushes to re-supply Israel with weapons. Even this is becoming problematic as anti-war groups act against the refuelling stops in Britain; the original stop-over at Prestwick in Scotland has become increasingly insecure in the facing of mounting protests, so United States transport planes are having to use military bases at Mildenhall (Suffolk) and Brize Norton in (Oxfordshire), both in southern England. US neo-conservatives are still somewhat reluctant to criticise the Bush administration, but much of the ire that is circulating is being directed at Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert. In this mindset, there is abundant recognition of the explicit relationship of the Lebanon war to the global war on terror, and a particular concern that anything less than a victory will embolden that very centre of the axis of evil: Iran. The Tehran government’s pointed response to the UN Security Council’s 31 August deadline – that it would, instead, expand enrichment activities – is seen as one indicator of this.
One of the most influential neocon commentators, Charles Krauthammer, has made the point that “Israel’s leaders do not seem to understand how ruinous a military failure in Lebanon would be to its relationship with America, Israel’s most vital lifeline”. In his view: “America’s green light for Israel to defend itself is seen as a favour to Israel. But that is a tendentious, misleading partial analysis. The green light – indeed the encouragement – is also an act of clear self-interest. America wants, America needs, a decisive Hezbollah defeat”. Krauthammer points out that an Israeli defeat of Hezbollah “would be a huge loss for Iran, both psychologically and strategically. Iran would lose its foothold in Lebanon. It would lose its major means to destabilize and inject itself into the heart of the Middle East. It would be shown to have vastly overreached in trying to establish itself as the regional superpower.” In using such language Krauthammer is echoing a much more general view within the Bush administration, discussed earlier in this series: namely, that “Iran is the real problem, and that it is appropriate for Israel to cripple or even destroy its surrogate, Hezbollah, across the border in Lebanon”.
From such a perspective there are now ominous signs of Hizbollah resilience, coupled with recognition that anything short of a comprehensive defeat by Israel would be seen as a victory that would further embolden Tehran. In these circumstances, Olmert and possibly Rice will take the blame. Charles Krauthammer’s criticism of Olmert may be a journalistic foretaste of political judgments to come; ** Olmert’s “…search for victory on the cheap has jeopardized not just the Lebanon operation but America’s confidence in Israel as well. That confidence – and the relationship it reinforces – is as important to Israel’s survival as its own army. The tremulous Olmert seems not to have a clue.”** The remarkably close relationship between Israel and the United States has evolved over forty years and has probably never been closer than under George W Bush; an especially important factor here is the religious connection involving the evangelical Christian churches and especially Christian Zionism (see “Christian Zionists and neocons: a heavenly marriage” 3 February 2005). That this relationship is now under strain gives some indication of the unexpected impact of the Lebanon war of 2006, an impact that may now have considerable and long-term implications for Bush’s overall war on terror.