a conversation from last night

saad is a close friend of mine. we are studying the same things, except that he is at georgetown. he spent this past year at the american university of cairo and we traveled together in israel, egypt, and lebanon during april.

a: what do you think of what's going on?

s: what do i think?

a: yeah, you know. opinions changing, justifiability, proportionality, fault...whatever

s: *shrug* i don't have much new to say on the matter. i'm a little surprised they're still not sending in ground troops. you'd think they'd step up a few miles in the south, if only to put haifa out of reach again and make sure tel aviv stays out of reach of rockets

a: 2 questions: 1. has the lebanese army gotten involved at all? i sent you that article from ha'aretz [http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/738407.html], but i couldn't find the same thing anywhere else. [i read it today on the first page of the wall street journal, "israel's goal: stopping hezbollah's rockets."] 2. should israel have attacked lebanon or gone for iran and maybe syria?

s: whoa. well, as for #2. i mean, i can't say definitively. it would take a lot of thought, and neither you nor i really have all the information, but that's a vastly different undertaking with far greater consequences

a: yes, agreed

s: so my immediate reaction is to say no, but really, i don't know. you're talking aobut something involving uncertainties upon uncertainties. i think it would likely go badly. i can't be sure, though. i don't know if it would be effective, though, because while the IDF would be bogged down over there, hizbullah would be attacking them all out in the north

a: i was talking to max today and he was complimenting israel on how it's conducting its invasion -- punching holes in things rather than destroying them completely, getting rid of the top of the lighthouse [in beirut] and not all of it...basically allowing for things to be rebuilt easily.

s: it's been done much more precisely than grapes of wrath was. [grapes of wrath was an israeli military operation in 1996 intended to stop hezbullah's shelling of northern israel.] of that i'm very glad

a: so i was thinking about it and i asked him whether attacking lebanon was like getting rid of the top of the lighthouse, but leaving the base and therefore allowing it to be rebuilt relatively quickly.

s: that is one of my main fears about this. in the 80's they destroyed the PLO in lebanon, only to have it replaced by something worse and indigenously lebanese (to an extent). with iran and syria still funding resistance activities there, i'm not sure decimating hizbullah will really help them in the long term

a: i feel that way, too. i also wonder at what point hezbullah will be considered "decimated"?

s: with nasrallah and the top leadership dead or in custody. with the rockets destroyed or confiscated. with the membership utterly devastated. and with formal lebanese sovereignty over the south to prevent future militias. and hopefully this time, that promise won't be toothless

a: i don't think #3 (membership) is verifiable

s: right

a: and lebanese history has shown clearly that control over something isn't often in the hands of one person or group, so just because the lebanese army is deployed in the south, that doesn't mean that hezbullah can't retain their influence.

s: true

a: so at what concrete point does israel withdraw?

s: no one knows. i'm sure they have criteria of their own

a: so then what to do about iran and syria? and why aren't they, for example, rallying intl support for sanctions or something?

s: maybe they're focused on the task at hand, or maybe they don't think there would be enough support, or maybe they have other plans, or maybe they don't think it's necessary as they'll be able to keep militias out in a postwar scenario. who knows?

a: i think that there is a chance that hezbullah will combine forces with the refugee camps. [there are 12 palestinian refugee camps in lebanon, housing over 395 thousand refugees, or 10% of the lebanese population, according to the unrwa: http://www.un.org/unrwa/refugees/lebanon.html. the lebanese government does not have access to or control over the camps.] they probably have a pretty decent support base in many of them and several of the camps are just overflowing with weapons, namely ain el-helweh. [just outside of sidon, ain el-helweh, the eye of the beautiful, is the largest refugee camp in lebanon with over 45 thousand residents. it is also reportedly the most badass with a huge number of palestinian resistance organizations operating inside of it and a massive weapons stockpile. lebanese army soldiers attempted to enter ain el-helweh in may, i think, and 3 soldiers were killed: http://shoofimafi.com/article_display.cfm?ArticleID=60] do you think that's possible?

s: very likely. the thing is, they're only launching rockets now. they don't need manpower so much, but if they do end up fighting a real guerrilla war, i'm certain that will play a role. depends whether israel will find it necessary to invade or not. don't worry too much. it won't help.