thoughtmechanics

A couple of weeks into the war in Lebanon, and the world began to realize that the myth of Israeli invincibility was crumbling. It only took those first two weeks of fighting for the world to see that the very skilled, disciplined and tightly organized soldiers of the Hizbullah were winning. Each added day they succeeded in remaining field capable was merely more cherry on their cake…

By the end of the war, and as evidenced by the conditions which have prevailed there since, the world could not but be impressed by Hizbullah’s strength and relevance to the local web of social, political, economic and military threads. Even Mr. Nasrallah’s comment, that had he known of Israel’s response he would not have kidnapped the IDF soldiers was another cherry. In one masterful stroke he minimized both the value of the captured soldiers and Israel. Neither were the soldiers that valuable that Lebanon should bear the brunt of the war, nor was Israel that ‘reasonable’ to have launched it. Nasrallah’s saying that was the final insult to the injury, as far as Israel goes.

There can be no doubt that Israel is the injured party. While Lebanon may have suffered a disproportionate amount of damage, all parties in Lebanon came out strengthened from the war. Both PM Saniora and Mr. Nasrallah’s Party of God can claim victory. The people of Lebanon, especially the Shia majority, may have suffered in the short term, but Lebanon’s long term interests have been served. War is now no longer a deterrent in Israel’s hands. Lebanon knows that it can withstand, while Israel now knows that it can no longer get its way through war, or the threat of war.

Some have argued that this was a proxy war between Iran and the United States. If this is true, then Iran too, has clearly won. But what exactly has been won?

Along with Israel’s myth of invincibility, America’s myth of superior technology has crumbled as well. In south Lebanon, Iran proved that Islamic groups can make a stand against western interests stick. If an Islamic organization is locally focused, disciplined and an integral part of the community, then it can not only withstand the onslaught of the best military in the world, but it can also inflict pain upon it, and a good number of casualties.

The war in Lebanon has been but a small foretaste of what awaits any power that may think of attacking Iran. Both likely candidates for such a misadventure, the US and Israel, can look forward to a bleak future of Islamic Resistance in the style of the Hizbullah on Israel’s borders, in Iran, Iraq and even in the US if need be.

Though the US would like the world o believe that Iran is a terror sponsoring state, the truth of the matter is quite different. On the one hand, Al Qaeda is an ideological terror organization. As such, it must expend most of its energy and resources on mounting symbolic strikes against the US and Israel. These take up a lot of time, energy and money. The payoff may be spectacular at times, but the military advantage to Al Qaeda is nil. Terrorism is not really war, nor an act of war. It is merely a strange and painful means of dialogue.

Iran, on the other hand, is not interested in terrorism. It is interested in military advantage, and like any good player of chess, it is going about laying the groundwork for one. Hezbollah is not a terrorist group, but rather a political, military and social organization.

What Iran wanted, and now seems to have gotten, is a sign of recognition from the West. While the leaders of Arab states have been engorging themselves on the spoils of corruption, Iranian leaders have been constructing a working state mechanism that has managed to promote Iran to the level of a strong and key regional player in the Middle East. It now rivals, if not surpasses, the US in terms of influence and power in that region. This is indeed an accomplishment.

Iran has also managed to put together a workable scientific-military industrial complex that is now capable of developing sophisticated weapons that are suited to the local conditions that interest it. Strategically, Iran can effectively control access to the whole Persian Gulf and threaten targets in Israel. Most dangerous of all, it has managed to find the magic formula that brings it continued foreign policy successes.

While the US continues to bumble on about the ‘axis of evil’ and the ‘war on terror’, Iran has managed to build alliances with those that can seriously harm American foreign policy and plans in the UN (Russia, China) and in various regions of American interest (Venezuela in Latin America, and even some countries in Europe).

As the war in Lebanon recedes into the past, and as the contours and features that were not obvious or evident up close start to show, we may be surprised to find that this has been the war where western hegemony crashed upon the shores of history.

Perhaps it was the whole West that was lost in the Lebanon. No more will the West pretend too much that it ‘leads’ the world. There are powers in the East that also exercise leadership. Iran may be one of those powers. It is certainly proving that Islam is bigger than Shia and Sunni differences. Iran is big enough to embody them and bring them together on a new level…