Olmert, we learn, made a “reasonable” choice in sending 30 Israeli soldiers to die in the last day of the war. His management of the war, also, was “reasonable.”
Judge Eliyahu Winograd, issuing the panel’s final report on the Second Lebanon War, told a packed auditorium in Jerusalem that the war ended without victory and the army did not provide an effective response to Hizbullah’s rocket fire on Israel.
He also said that while the cabinet decision to embark on a ground operation was correct, the last-minute ground offensive did not improve Israel’s position and there were “serious failings” in army command.
He said that both the military and the political echelons were responsible for the tardiness of the ground offensive.
Winograd went on to say that “Israel’s decision to go to war without necessary preparations was a severe failure.”
He went on to say that although the report does not hold specific individuals responsible for the war’s failings, this does not mean there is no personal responsibility.
Earlier, defense officials said that the final report concluded that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert did not fail in his handling of a key battle and that his decisions were reasonable.
Basically, he’s saying Olmert is at fault, without saying so where it matters. Pathetic.
I am about to say something I knew I would never say: The CIA was right. Israel is too myopic to be a credible ally. I am already grappling with schizophrenia as I type: one side of my brain is still telling me that the CIA can never be right about anything. Somehow, contrary to everything I have ever known, the CIA has called the ball perfectly on this.
Anyway, as I posted yesterday, if the Israeli public were serious about allocating responsibility and preventing future failures, it would have already brought down the Olmert government. There was no reason to expect a sheaf of paper to do the Israeli public’s work for it. Israel’s future is much bigger than one much-delayed report, and a nation serious about its future would not have waited eight months before acting on what everyone already knows.
The CIA is on the money, sometimes, but if you’re blindfolded and keep throwing darts at a board, you’ll hit the taget, sometimes.
The Middle East political climate in mid-2006 was unusual. The thinking seemed to be that with Iran as a common enemy, the Arab states were coming closer in alignment with Israel’s interests.
Israel wanted to show they meant business, but held back from going full throttle. A Lebanon centred war was not what anyone wanted, at the time.
Israel has found itself increasingly stymied by external and internal pressure to do the right thing. But nothing they do seems to get them closer to reaching some kind of comfortable equilibrium in the region.
Agreed, instilling fear of reprisal is the only way.
Winning a war is about having the courage to make choices nobody wants, in order to stave off worse choices down the road that you even more vehemently don’t want.
Everybody in the region was expecting Israel to go all out, and the Sunnis were quietly cheering them on. There was no reason other than sheer incompetence and lack of resolve for Israel to lose that war.
After Israel lost credibility, the neoconservative strategy lost viability, and the Sunnis began making their own overtures. The NIE probably wouldn’t have happened if Israel had maintained its conventional credibility.
You may be right, but I somehow don’t think it’s quite that simple. The NIE report came out not long after Israel did what they had to do, whatever it was, in Syria.
Israel is perpetually put into a no-win situation. Any retaliation becomes a reason to isolate and punish them further. The Sunni Arab world may quietly be thankful for their presence, but there’s no demonstration of this.
Israel may have lost it’s nerve, it’s starting to look like that.
The US doesn’t give them encouraging signals that they’re ready to back them. The Saudis make it fairly clear that whatever the Israelis do, they’re still on the chopping block.
This should liberate them in a way. Nobody will thank them for whatever they do - so might as well do what’s best, in the long run.
The Muslim world has decided they’ll just break their nerve, psychologically. It seems to have taken effect.
Mike
Terrific thoughts.
Israelis are not monolithic. However most Jews are liberals. Part of the religion, to make peace, to take care of one’s enemies in defeat. In this case this outlook works against their interest, as it always has.
The Israelis are confident in their military and intel superiority, which they should be; and the U.S.’ need to avail of themselves Israeli technology and weapons (as Israelis are in need of ours), and the fact that many systems and software to run thes systems are manufactured in Israel as part of our own defense initiatives. In other words, we may make the rocket, but they may make the brains that get it on target. Or the launcher.
Ohmert will eventually be defeated by the only politician who can, Bibi Netenyahu, and things will get back on track. Unfortunately, by that time he may not have Israel’s best friend sitting in the White House. So it’s not all Israel’s fault how history deals its hand.
Obama is the prohibitive favorite to win the Democratic nomination at this point. Today, he will maul Hillary in DC and Maryland, which I don’t think she’s even contesting, as well as Virginia, which she certainly was contesting. Some more dominoes will fall before we get to Ohio and Texas on March 4, and almost all of them will go Obama’s way even before accounting for prior momentum.
Obama is _not_ Israel’s friend. I’m not sure McCain is either–although the neocons seem to think he is at the moment.
McCain is much more closely aligned with the military bureaucracies, which generally do not exude any fondness for Israel, due to a litany of under the surface abuses (selling F-16 technology to the Chinese, garbage WMD intelligence, ongoing political interference here, and so on.
Geopolitics is about surviving the present while hedging for the likeliest distribution of geopolitical scenarios years into the future. Israel’s institutional failures during and after the 2006 Lebanon war set up the bad chessboard they are playing now. Olmert’s continued survival erodes their credibility still further, and will be felt for years.
At the end of the day, the Israelis are far too comfortable with their present situation. More forward-looking institutions have already moved. The Israelis are asleep.