Israeli Gov’t Review: 2006 Lebanon War ‘A Serious Missed Opportunity’

Overall, we regard the 2nd Lebanon war as a serious missed opportunity. Israel initiated a long war, which ended without its clear military victory. A semi-military organization of a few thousand men resisted, for a few weeks, the strongest army in the Middle East, which enjoyed full air superiority and size and technology advantages.  … After a long period of using only standoff fire power and limited ground activities, Israel initiated a large scale ground offensive, very close to the Security Council resolution imposing a cease fire. This offensive did not result in military gains and was not completed.

This was a war of retribution. Israel was trying to punish Hezbollah for kidnapping and killing its soldiers in a cross border raid. As such, the war was a serious missed opportunity to obliterate Hezbollah. By military gains, the report is referring to how devastating the war was on Hezbollah and its stronghold in Southern Lebanon. The Israeli’s had two strategies for doing this:

The first was a short, painful, strong and unexpected blow on Hezbollah, primarily through standoff fire-power. The second option was to bring about a significant change of the reality in the South of Lebanon with a large ground operation, including a temporary occupation of the South of Lebanon and ‘cleaning’ it of Hezbollah military infrastructure.

In the end, Israel ended up doing both, but the first strategy lost them the war. The problem was that Israel came down hard on the country, not the organization by using overwhelming force. By the time the IDF realized they weren’t hurting Hezbollah as much as they intended, they organized a ground invasion. It ended up being cut short by the UN cease-fire. In short, Hezbollah survived triumphantly, but Lebanon had to rebuild. That’s why this war was a loss for Israel.

Footnote: Check out the Israeli bombings of Lebanon during the war. Despite what this report projects, Israel totally destroyed Southern Lebanon. I’m sure the damage done to this region of Lebanon was intended to create a buffer zone between Israel and the Hezbollah stronghold. Hence the use of cluster bombs there.

The Israeli’s will never learn. Middle Eastern tribes don’t get wiped out, they get made to look ridiculous and fade into the arid winds.
Furthermore, couldn’t the argument be made that since they were US bombs that it is America who missed the opportunity of pushing on?
And stop with these damn buffer zones. The modern battlefield is slowly losing its boundaries. Friend and foe alike live amongst us. As are their friends and foes in the tribes and governments of the world. If we need see the repercussions of the European concept of buffer zones we are need only observe Poland.
Not to say, however, that this region of Lebanon hasn’t been a buffer zone to the Israeli’s before in their history measured by millennia.

“The modern battlefield is slowly losing its boundaries. Friend and foe alike live amongst us. As are their friends and foes in the tribes and governments of the world.”

Well put. There are no boundaries in Iraq, and the US military struggled to adapt to that reality until recently.

I think Israel, unlike the US, didn’t want to involve itself in a protracted, indefinite commitment and tried to take the easy way out by destroying the homes and businesses of Southern Lebanon. All in hopes that those who lived there wouldn’t come back.

To the Bush Administration’s credit, they didn’t choose this scorched earth policy after it became clear that they were facing an insurgency. They took the hard, long way.