Israel was not able to disarm Hizbollah in the anticipated time frame of around three weeks and Hizbollah is still able to fire missiles into northern Israel in substantial numbers more than four weeks into the war. As a result Israel's belief in security stemming from the deterrent effect of its powerful military forces is already severely damaged (see "Why Israel is losing" 9 August 2006). A relatively small force of Hizbollah paramilitaries has been able to limit Israeli military advances in spite of Israel's overwhelming advantage in air power. Because of this, in one sense Hizbollah has gained a political advantage (see Zaid Al-Ali, "'Whatever happens, Hizbollah has already won'", 10 August 2006).
This is not going to stop a major Israeli advance into southern Lebanon, but there are some questions emerging that might just suggest that a ceasefire is possible. According to Israeli sources, the security cabinet agreed on 10 August to order a military advance up to the Litani river but, that was put on hold because of pressure from Washington to give a United Nations-mediated ceasefire another chance. The prime minister, Ehud Olmert, was willing to allow this, even if the Israel Defence forces (IDF) leadership was far more determined to take the military option.
This pressure for a ceasefire from the United States was surprising, given the view within the Bush administration that the Lebanon war is an essential part of the US war on terror, with Israel performing an heroic task on the US's behalf. Even Olmert's willingness to entertain the possibility is a surprise, in light of the popular support within Israel for action against Hizbollah, coupled with the widespread sense of vulnerability to missile attacks and the consequent and essential need to disarm Hizbollah.
What is becoming apparent is that a major difference is emerging within the Israeli government between those who want seriously to consider a ceasefire and those especially senior military officers who are opposed to any such move. Furthermore, the senior politicians prepared to turn to diplomacy are willing to make compromises that would not remotely have been considered four weeks ago when it was all about the comprehensive defeat and disbanding of Hizbollah, a view then held in Washington as much as Tel Aviv.
Paul Rogers is professor of peace studies at Bradford University, northern England. He has been writing a weekly column on global security on openDemocracy since October 2001
Paul Rogers tracks the July 2006 war in a series of daily columns:
"Israel, Lebanon, and beyond: the danger of escalation"
(17 July 2006)
"War defeats diplomacy" (18 July 2006)
"A proxy war"
(19 July 2006)
"Israel: losing control" (20 July 2006)
"Hit Beirut, target Tehran" (21 July 2006)
"Lebanon in the wider war" (25 July 2006)
"Lebanon: no quick fix" (26 July 2006)
"A triple front: Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon"
(27 July 2006)
"Lebanon: the world's choice" (28 July 2006)
"After Qana: a false dawn?" (31 July 2006)
"Israel's strategic impasses"
(1 August 2006)
"Lebanon: war takes root" (3 August 2006)
"The US and Israel: a marriage under pressure" (7 August 2006)
"Why Israel is losing" (9 August 2006)
The Lebanon quagmire
The behaviour of the Bush administration and the Olmert government does make some sense, though, if we appreciate the extent of the difficulties faced by the IDF in southern Lebanon in the past four weeks. The blunt truth is that thousands of Israeli air raids, concentrated in southern Lebanon but stretching right across the country, have singularly failed to disarm Hizbollah even as they have crippled the Lebanese economy and killed more than a thousand civilians.
Moreover, the Hizbollah guerrillas have exacted casualties among the IDF soldiers that have greatly exceeded expectations, given the small amount of territory currently controlled by Israeli forces in southern Lebanon. This was brought home particularly on 9 August, when fifteen soldiers were killed and many more wounded.
Hizbollah's effectiveness stems from five factors, which have been largely underestimated by Israeli military planners.
The first is the quantity and degree of dispersal of Katyusha and other missiles, especially the ability of paramilitary units to fire them from under cover of banana and other plantations where they are very difficult to observe by the reconnaissance drones deployed so widely by the IDF.
The second factor is the frequent use of anti-tank missiles, both wire-guided and laser-guided variants and originating in Russia, France and even the United States. While relatively few of the many hundreds fired so far have disabled or destroyed the heavily-armoured Israeli Merkava tanks, the effect against trucks and even armoured personnel carriers has been substantially greater.
Hizbollah groups have also been able to use these anti-tank missiles against IDF units when they have set up posts in houses. With intimate knowledge of local terrain, Hizbollah units have repeatedly been able to use two-three kilometre-range missiles against such houses, firing them from hidden launch-points that may be on hills some distance from the targets but in direct line of sight.
The third factor has been the commitment and persistence of the Hizbollah paramilitaries themselves. Hizbollah has long been embedded in southern Lebanese and Beka'a valley society, with its units drawn largely from local populations and made up of people who recognise the risk of becoming refugees for generations if they abandon their neighbourhoods (see Greg Myre, "Wounded Israelis tell of a tough, elusive enemy", International Herald Tribune, 11 August 2006).
The fourth factor has been the manner in which Hizbollah has used the last six years to establish a large network of underground bunkers containing food, water and munitions. Some of these bunkers have been forty metres underground and equipped with air conditioning (see Conal Urquhart, "Computerised weaponry and high morale", Guardian, 11 August 2006). There have already been occasions where IDF units have apparently cleared neighbourhoods of Hizbollah units and have settled down to garrison them, only for groups that have been hiding underground to then emerge and attack the IDF units when they have least expected it.
What has been really surprising about this has been the fact that these bunkers and stores have been established in precisely the border areas occupied by the IDF until May 2000. Almost under the noses of the Israelis, with all their reconnaissance drones and other means of observation, Hizbollah has spent years preparing for this last month of warfare.
The fifth and perhaps most significant factor is the mode of organisation of the Hizbollah militia. Timur Goksel, a former member of the United Nations monitoring force in southern Lebanon who now teaches at the American University of Beirut, comments that two key elements here are the previous experience of Hizbollah guerrillas and the remarkably dispersed nature of the organisation (see "Hizbollah's lack of structure its strength", Asia Times, 10 August 2006).
Goksel points out: "These people have been fighting the Israelis for eighteen years in south Lebanon. People forget that. They already know the Israelis. And they fought them when they occupied Lebanon and since then they have been preparing for a guerrilla war again." In addition, Goksel highlights the remarkably dispersed nature of the Hizbollah guerrilla forces, which operate in small units with very little communication through to any overall chain of command. Much of what is done is according to previously agreed tactics; this makes it very difficult for the Israelis to disrupt communications because it is simply not very important for units to coordinate with each other or with a notional "centre".
A question of morale
This lack of a middle-level command structure means that the core leadership does, however, play an important political role. The death or detention of Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, for example, could have a major effect on the movement. At the same time, the Israeli military authorities are worried about two more issues.
The first is the question of what Hizbollah has planned should the IDF advance further into Lebanon. If all those bunkers, pre-positioned supplies and other capabilities that have so surprised the IDF close to the border have been constructed in just six years, what does Hizbollah have prepared deeper in their southern Lebanese heartlands? Just as Hizbollah has been planning for a particular type of campaign close to the border, there must be an operating assumption that it would also expect the IDF to push into the country beyond the border area.
Indeed, Hizbollah may actually want this to happen, knowing that disrupting the IDF just inside the border will make the Israeli military more determined to push on further. The worry among some of the more thoughtful Israelis may be that it is Hizbollah not the IDF that is setting the agenda and is prepared for the next Israeli move.
In addition to his weekly openDemocracy column, Paul Rogers writes an international security monthly briefing for the Oxford Research Group; for details, click here
A collection of Paul Rogers's Oxford Research Group briefings, Iraq and the War on Terror: Twelve Months of Insurgency, 2004-05 is published by IB Tauris (October 2005)
The second Israeli worry is over morale. Despite the possibility that hundreds of its paramilitaries may have been killed (allowing for politically-loaded disputes over numbers), Hizbollah has held back a very powerful army for a month. As the combat has progressed, the rate of Israeli military casualties has increased, and Hizbollah has retained the ability to fire missiles into Israel. Under such circumstances, morale is probably higher among Hizbollah than among the soldiers of the IDF, even if the latter too see themselves defending a country under threat.
These two Israeli concerns, plus the five underestimated Hizbollah assets, have had an effect on some Israeli politicians and, one suspects, on US military analysts advising the Bush administration. There is now a real doubt over the ability of the IDF to maintain control of southern Lebanon up to the Litani river, even if they can occupy it in the first instance.
For the Israeli military, a diplomatic settlement at this stage would be a disaster, yet circumstances on the ground have changed so much in the past ten days that it is no longer impossible. What is reasonably clear is that the next week is likely to be pivotal. This war might just come to an end within a few days or else it might harden and intensify, dragging on for weeks and months and carrying in its train the risk of escalation to Syria and Iran.
