Saving face in Lebanon

By Efraim Inbar, Jerusalem Post, 13.6.00

(June 13) - With the withdrawal of the IDF from Southern Lebanon close behind us, it is too early to form a definitive opinion on this move. However, some of its implications are already apparent.

The withdrawal shows the dynamic nature of the Israeli political system. The government was able to reach a bold decision to change course in an important area of national security and to implement its new policy. Nevertheless, the reasoning of the decision-makers is less commendable, as Barak's actions were partly the result of a populist need to show a success in foreign policy, when his attempts to reach agreements with the Syrians and the Palestinians failed. The attraction of unilateral withdrawal lay in the ability to carry it out without an Arab partner, solely on Barak's order.

The withdrawal was also an additional testimony to the healthy character of civil-military relations in Israel. It is well known that the IDF brass did not favor a unilateral withdrawal. Yet, the politicians rejected its expert opinion that such a withdrawal would hinder the IDF efforts to preserve a normal routine for the Israeli citizens living in the north. While it remains to be seen whose evaluations were more accurate, in the meantime the IDF followed orders.

The post-Zionists and historian revisionists that have bitterly complained about the great and undue influence of the military on Israeli politics and policy proved wrong again. In Israeli democracy the generals bow to the wishes of the democratically elected officials even when they go against their professional advice.

Whatever advantages are to be accrued by withdrawal, the clearly projected weakness of Israel, as generally construed in the streets of Beirut, Damascus, Cairo, Ramallah and Teheran, is an obvious disadvantage. An army withdrawing under fire is never victorious. The pictures of looted Israeli equipment left behind and of the Lebanese insulting IDF soldiers on the Israeli side of the border also do not constitute a sign of military triumph.

The general perception of Israel's record on Lebanon is failure. This does not bode well for deterrence, particularly at a time when it is needed to neutralize the looming threats to Israel's north.

Israel has attempted to boost its deterrence by issuing severe threats and by stating that testing its sensitivity would precipitate considerable suffering on the other side. Attacks on the Beirut-Damascus highway and targets deep within Syrian-controlled Baka valley are hints of what may follow.

In the past decade all Israeli governments were reluctant to take up the Syrians, which are the true strategic address for Israel's troubles from Lebanon, because they were hoping to lure Assad into a peace treaty. The common wisdom was that the use of force against Syrian targets in Lebanon would hinder peace talks and could lead to an escalation.

This misguided concept of Assad in quest for peace (in many ways reminiscent of the prevailing strategic concept before the 1973 Yom Kippur War) paralyzed Israel, but seems to have become less fashionable nowadays. It remains to be seen, however, if this government will implement its threats. The domestic and international constraints on attacks on significant strategic targets in Lebanon are not going to disappear.

The Left in Israel, over-represented in Barak's government, is increasingly critical of the use of force in general. Moreover, the Pavlovian response of the international community to the possibility of retaliation is to call for restraint, despite the fact that such a behavior constitutes a reward for the aggressor and an invitation for further aggression.

Interestingly, the Barak government moved away from deterrence, which is unilateral by nature. It asked the UN to step in and welcomes the beefing up of the UNIFIL force in Southern Lebanon. Yet, UN contingents were never very efficient in interdicting infiltration into Israel or in preventing the firing of Katyushas.

An upgraded role for the UN and greater French influence in Lebanon makes sense only if it is part of a strategy of dislocating the Syrian forces from this country and restoring its independence. Such a strategy can turn Israeli defeat in Lebanon into a serious threat to Syria and if successful, into a victory for Israel and the West. The Israeli withdrawal can paradoxically become the turning point for the release of Lebanon from the control of the rogue states - Syria and Iran.@BTX9pt 1st para:

The US can be mobilized to call for an end to the Syrian military presence in Lebanon. While Clinton and most of his Middle East advisors are fixated on the Palestinian issue and lack any strategic vision regarding the region, election years have been known to be conducive to responsiveness to Israeli views on Mideastern affairs. Similarly, Europe and France in particular, which have yearned for years for a Middle East role, can be harnessed to do something useful. The interests of powerful Turkey also converge on pressuring Syria to get out of Lebanon.

Actually, a post-Assad Syria is quite susceptible to international pressures. Yet, all this is predicated on an Israeli initiative to request that the Syrians adopt a Lebanon hands-off policy.

(The writer is the director of the Begin-Sadat [BESA] Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University.)