By Liu Qiang
Ceasefire, at last. Israel and Hezbollah stopped hostilities
Monday, after a UN Secretary-General statement was released in
Beirut on Sunday, starting a precarious period in the 33-day
strife. In the short term, it is hard to predict whether the
ceasefire accord can be carried out to the letter. In the long run,
the conflict is not the first in the region and surely not the
last. In the absence of a final settlement, fighting could break
out any time. But ceasefire is welcome, anyway. People's strained
nerves can now be put at ease, at least for the time being.
During the 33-day conflict, Israel's powerful war machine tried
to hunt down the elusive Hezbollah forces, killing more than 1,000
Lebanese civilians. One hundred or so Israelis died in rocket
bombardment launched by Hezbollah. In addition, four United Nations
military observers were killed and a number more wounded.
Furthermore, nearly?one million people became displaced or
homeless. Israel sustained colossal losses worth US$5 billion and
its GDP this year is set to drop by 1.5 percentage points. The
astronomical losses on the Lebanese side are yet to be
calculated.
The conflict is bound to profoundly impact the regional
strategic patterns.
First, Israel failed to achieve its ultimate goal and its
military operations only served to fuel hatred, which could blossom
into war or conflicts in the future.
Using two abducted Israeli soldiers as an excuse, Israel aimed
to wipe Hezbollah out in southern Lebanon and establish a buffer
zone along the Israeli-Lebanese border.
Both Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defence Minister Amir Peretz
emphasized that Israel's maneuvers in Lebanon were "limited" and
"pin-pointed," zeroing in on Hezbollah's warehouses, barracks, and
rocket-launching sites, as well as its leaders' hideouts.
But the bombardment carried out by nearly 7,000 sorties of
Israeli warplanes was not that "precise," killing and wounding
large numbers of civilians and even UN observers while destroying
Hezbollah targets. Conversely, Hezbollah's rockets also caused
casualties among Israeli civilians.
All this rubs salt into the wounds of a 60-year-old hatred in
the region. The hatred could be the detonator that could ignite
another war at any time in the future.
In view of this, Israel has failed to fulfil its goal to make
its borders safer.
Second, the Lebanese government troops that, together with UN
peace-keeping forces, are mandated by the UN Security Council's
resolution to set up a buffer zone in southern Lebanon and disarm
Hezbollah, are not likely to bring the tense situation along the
Israel-Lebanon border easily under control.
Taking into account that the Lebanese Government has long been
unable to rein in Hezbollah's operations in the country over the
years, tough measures abruptly taken by the Lebanese Government
towards Hezbollah are bound to trigger Hezbollah's antagonism, or
even touch off domestic strife in the country. As a result, the
Middle East situation would become all the more chaotic.
In this scenario, Hezbollah, caring little if Lebanese
government troops take care of the borders or not, will likely
stick to its traditional hostile stance against Israel, which in
turn renders it extremely difficult for the Lebanese troops to rein
in tensions along the Israel-Lebanon frontier. To make matters
worse, stationing Lebanese government forces in the area could lead
to friction between the troops and Hezbollah and make the bad
security situation worse.
Third, Hezbollah will not sheepishly turn over its arms to
others. More than two decades of operating and growing in Lebanon
have made Hezbollah a well-organized political-military group with
a predominant role in Lebanese politics.
Its combat power and ability to survive, demonstrated during the
latest conflict with Israel, caught the world by surprise. It is
estimated that Hezbollah lost merely 50 men against heavy odds in
the conflict with Israel. This means it retains much of its
strength. Its striking power, for instance, asserted itself in the
barrage of rockets fired at Israeli targets on the eve of the
ceasefire.
It is hard to predict that the Lebanese government forces and UN
peace keepers, in their attempt to disarm Hezbollah as is decreed
by the UN Security Council's resolution, will not meet armed
resistance from Hezbollah.
We may as well stretch the scenario a bit, with fairly good
reason, to suppose Muslim volunteers from across the world would
rally around Hezbollah, fighting Israel in a jihad. This could
bring chaos to Lebanon and, in turn, the Middle East at large,
facilitating the breeding of extremism and terrorism.
Fourth, conflicts over interests between Western countries, the
United States in particular, and regional players will become more
intense, rendering the complex Middle East issue all the more
complex and altering the delicate strategic balance in the
region.
The Middle East issue stems from the long-standing conflicts of
interest between Israel and Arab nations. It also reflects the
clashing interests of Western countries on the one hand and the
regional players on the other. Some countries in the region blame
the failure to settle the Middle East issue on Western countries,
especially the United States, because they are partial to Israel in
the six-decade standoff.
The United States, for example, did very little in the latest
Israel-Hezbollah conflict, hoping that heavy strikes against
Hezbollah would alter the political balance in the Middle East.
Some US officials call the conflict a "surrogate war," meaning
Israelis fought for the Americans and Hezbollah for the
Iranians.
US President George W. Bush made it clear in his July 28 speech:
"This is a moment of intense conflict in the Middle East. Yet our
aim is to turn it into a moment of opportunity and a chance for a
broader change in the region.... The United States is committed to
using all of its influence to seize this moment to build a stable
and democratic Middle East."
Now that the ceasefire is being put in place, however, the
United States' goal of weakening Hezbollah and, in turn, Iran has
not been achieved completely. In addition, anti-Israel and anti-US
feelings are running high in the Middle East, which cannot be
cushioned by any buffer zone.
The ceasefire may stabilize the regional situation a bit for
some time to come but cannot settle the Middle East issue once and
for all. New problems may crop up from this and changes will take
place on the strategic landscape in the region.
In view of all this, war can never bring stability to the Middle
East. Only negotiations and dialogue offer a way out.
The author is director of the Institute of International
Relations under the Jiangsu Provincial Academy of Social
Sciences.
(China Daily August 15, 2006)
