Tag: Hizbollah
The wider war has arrived, when will peace?
Iran yesterday retaliated against Israel for its bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, which killed high ranking officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The barrage of hundreds of drones and missiles was ineffective, due to Israeli, American, British, and Jordanian air defenses. The Iranians made no secret of what they intended to do and presumably are hoping it will not trigger another round.
Multiple vectors
But it is still reasonable to conclude that the wider Middle East war many have feared has already begun. Israel continues its attack on Gaza. Lebanese Hizbollah and Israel are exchanging shots across the border. Israel is frequently targeting Iranian assets in Syria. Yemen’s Houthis are targeting shipping and warships in the Red Sea. Iraq’s Iranian-sponsored “Popular Mobilization Forces” have been targeting American military bases. Israeli settlers have been chasing Palestinians from their homes on the West Bank.
Of course the pace and lethality of this wider war could heighten. So far, its most deadly axis by far has been Israel/Hamas. Hamas has killed about 1500 Israelis and the Israelis have killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, in retaliation for the mass murder, kidnapping, and mayhem of October 7. Elsewhere the wider war is more than symbolic, but still far less fatal.
Worsening prospects
Once such things start, the natural tendency is towards escalation. Certainly things have gotten worse in the past six months. They are likely to get worse still. The murder of an Israeli teenager on the West Bank last week sparked heightened settler violence against Palestinians there. Hizbollah could do a lot more damage if it unleashes its missiles. So could the Israelis if they decide to push into southern Lebanon. Iran still has lots of drones and missiles it could use in a second attack.
The next round will be Israel’s choice. It could choose to write off yesterday’s attack as ineffective and unworthy of response. Or it could decide to reassert deterrence with a direct attack on Iran or on Iranian assets in the region. I suspect the decision will be based primarily on Prime Minister Netanyahu’s domestic political calculations. He faces growing demands for his resignation. Any pause in the fighting could provide the time to bring him down. He is still hoping for enough of a victory in Gaza, Lebanon, or Iran to enable him to remain in power.
That seems unlikely in Gaza. Israel has done significant harm to Hamas there but is still far from the total defeat Netanyahu has set as its war goal. Israel has been hitting Hizbollah in Lebanon without much reaction. That could be a likelier prospect. He may think a devastating blow against Iran would enable him to avoid the inevitable for a while longer. Why anyone in his war cabinet would go along with that is unclear to me, but so far they have generally supported his wartime decisions.
Can diplomacy work?
The still wider and more deadly war in prospect is not in the US interest. Nor do the Europeans want it. Karim Sadjadpour on MSNBC last night pointed out that the Chinese would likewise prefer stability in the Middle East to lower and steady oil prices. The Russians by contrast benefit from de-stabilization and the consequent distraction from the Ukraine war as well as the bump up in oil prices. But even acting together it is unclear that the Americans, Europeans, and Chinese could exert sufficient influence on Israel or Iran to de-escalate.
Both countries have leaders whose political mandates won’t last much longer. Iran’s Supreme Leader is almost 85 years old and ill. Netanyahu is suffering a catastrophic decline in popularity as well as serious corruption charges. Both are claiming not to want to escalate. But neither sees an enticing option other than escalation. Both want victory over the other as a political legacy. The wider war has arrived, but until there is decisively new leadership in both Tehran and Jerusalem peace is unlikely.
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Equality is for everyone
This week I joined dozens of colleagues in signing this letter to President Biden about Gaza. I suppose some would say it reflects the herd mentality of the Washington foreign policy establishment. I prefer to think it reflects a judicious appraisal of a bad situation likely to worsen if Israel continues its large-scale assault at Rafah.
That said, let me offer a speculation or two.
Elite Arab attitudes have changed
Arab sympathies are predominantly with the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. That has not and will not change. But it is all the more striking that consultations between the US and key Arab states have continued despite Israeli abuses in Gaza and the West Bank. It seems to me clear that Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Jordan, and others want to be seen as supporting the Palestinians but welcome the damage the Israelis are doing to Hamas. They may doubt the feasibility of completely destroying Hamas’ military capabilities. But there is no talk of an oil boycott or other escalation.
To the contrary, the Saudis have made it clear they want to pursue normalization with Israel once conditions permit. Discussion of that option is continuing even during the Gaza war. It is now half a dozen years since I met Israelis carrying lots of electronics in the Riyadh business class lounge. They were likely helping with internal security in the Kingdom. The Saudis also want a defense agreement and civilian nuclear cooperation with the US. That’s what “normalization” is really about.
Nor are the Arab states expressing any sympathy for wiping Israel off the map. That may still be a day dream in the Arab street, but only Iran, Hizbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis–the axis of resistance–are really backing “from the river to the sea.” I have no doubt but that some of them are serious. But it isn’t happening. Iran is in economic crisis and political ennui, Hizbollah is trying not to get into all-out war with Israel, and Hamas is hiding underground. Only the Houthis are flexing their capabilities, which are however limited for now in their reach and impact to shipping in the Red Sea.
The Israelis are doing from the river to the sea
The Israeli settlers on the West Bank, who object to Arabs saying “from the river to the sea,” are doing it. They are on a killing and displacement spree, taking advantage of the Netanyahu government’s tolerance for violence against Palestinians. The displacement so far is not massive. Things could get a lot worse. Certainly that is the settlers’ intention. They get ample support from more Orthodox Jewish communities in the US, but their really important political backing extends as well to some American Christian evangelicals.
The Biden Administration has begun to react. It has started to sanction Israeli settlers who perpetrate violence on the West Bank against Palestinians. But the Administration needs to do much more, focusing on the political leadership that condones such abuse as well as the American Jewish and Christian networks that support and finance it. Terrorism is terrorism. Blocking American financing for violent settlers should be a priority.
American Jewish attitudes are changing too
The settlers claim religious justification for their claims to what they call “Judea and Samaria.” But liberal American Jews couldn’t care less about that. And most American Jews are more liberal, if I can use that term to encompass nonpracticing as well as Reform, Reconstructionist, and Conservative Jews. They have generally supported the idea of a Jewish homeland. But one that is more secular than religious and treats its Arab citizens as equals and Arab neighbors with respect. You’ll find some of the people who signed the above letter in this category.
Let me speak though only for myself. I want to see an end to warfare between Jews and Arabs. That will only be possible with mutual respect for Palestinian and Jewish rights, whether in one state or two. I still think two is more feasible than one. But admittedly two become more difficult with the extension of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. That is one of many reasons they should be stopped and rolled back.
Also critical is treatment of Palestinian citizens of Israel, as many of what we used to call Israeli Arabs today prefer to be called. They constitute more than 20% of the country’s population. Equality for them is vital to Israel’s claim to be a democratic state and a free society. But you don’t have to look far to find ample evidence that the reality is far from the ideal. Separate but equal never worked in the US. It won’t work in Israel either. It is high time for Israeli practice to rise to the level of Jewish ideals. Human dignityt and therefore equality is for everyone.
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Avoiding the slippery slope to the wider war
Hizbollah and Israel are trading tit for tat attacks across the Lebanon-Israel border. The Houthis in Yemen are attacking shipping in the Red Sea. The US and UK have raided Houthi military assets. Shia “popular mobilization forces” (PMFs) are attacking US facilities in Iraq and US forces are occasionally responding. Iran has launched missiles into Iraqi Kurdistan’s capital, Erbil, targeting the house of the US Consul General. Even added altogether it won’t amount to the 1000 deaths required to designate something a “war,” but we are clearly on the slippery slope to the long-feared wider war in the Middle East.
Iran is benefiting
This should not be welcome in the US. Ukraine is already absorbing vast quanitities of US military supplies. Deterring China from attacking Taiwan is stretching not only logistics but also US naval operations. Israel’s war on Gaza is requiring enormous amounts of US and European materiel, without any prospect of improving US security.
But the enemy gets a vote. Iran may not be directing all of what Hizbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and the Iraqi PMFs are doing. But Tehran has supplied the means and resistance ideology that motivates them all. Iran is hoping to force the US out of the region. So far, that isn’t working. The US has deployed additional naval and other assets to the Middle East.
Meanwhile, Tehran is enriching more uranium and moving closer to nuclear weapons capability. No more than a few weeks would be required for Iran to construct an atomic weapon, assuming its scientists have already done the necessary designs, experimented with the required conventional explosives, and acquired the needed non-fissile material.
My former dean, Eliot Cohen, argues that the way to prevent the wider war is to levy a devastating attack on the Houthis, rather than the well-calculated proportional one the Biden Administration has so far administered. I’m not sure he is wrong, but it will take a more reckless president than Biden to pursue that course. That is something neither Eliot nor I would welcome.
Regaining advantage
The US needs somehow to regain a more advantageous position in order to shape the course of events. The place to start is Gaza. Biden should end the war there by reading the riot act to Prime Minister Netanyahu: no more weapons if the killing of civilians continues at anything like previous pace.
A pause in the large-scale attacks on Gaza would give the Israelis an opportunity to unseat the unpopular Netanyahu and put in his place a government that prioritizes the fate of the hostages, humanitarian conditions inside Gaza, and negotiations with the Palestinians. Such a government would also continue targeted raids on Hamas leadership and militants who participated in the October 7 attack on Israel. But it would end the disproportionate bombing of civilian areas and open Gaza up to both commercial and humanitarian shipment of goods and services.
Such a pause would give diplomats an opportunity to pursue the possibility of an agreement between Lebanon and Israel on outstanding, but relatively minor, border issues, thus depriving Hizbollah of a major rallying cry. It would also relieve pressure on Iraq to evict American bases. As for the Houthis, they have proven resilient. No quick blow is going to make them go away. We are in for a long effort to deprive them of the military capabilitiues they have amassed in recent years.
Good fortune
We should count our blessings. China is in economic trouble and in no position to attack Taiwan anytime soon. The Taiwanese election yesterday of a pro-independence leader will provoke lots of Beijing rhetoric, and many planes crossing the Taiwan Strait median line, but no actual military attack.
Moscow has celebrated the European and American blockage of assistance to Ukraine, but we can hope that is temporary. It is vital that Kyiv get whatever it needs to chase Russian forces from all of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea. That alone would greatly enhance American leverage worldwide.
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Stevenson’s army, November 3
– Matt Yglesias says Israel is fighting a just war in Gaza and an unjust war in the West Bank.
– T.X. Hammes revisits his analysis of Israeli tactics in Gaza.
– WSJ says Wagner group is sending air defenses to Hezbollah
– NPR has photos and analysis of Israeli actions in Gaza.
– US & China have arms control talks
– CSIS has new report on export controls
– RAND has new report on eroding US power
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here, with occasional videos of my choice. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Engagement with armed groups is necessary, “good” or “bad”
The Crisis Response Council and the Brookings Institution’s Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors June 3 convened a discussion on challenges posed by armed groups to security sector reform (SSR) in the Middle East and beyond. Panelists agreed that SSR too frequently views armed groups from a unidimensional perspective. Militias are not inherent spoilers whose power is limited to the security sector. They are more often politically or socially embedded potential power brokers. State monopolies on violence are an anomaly in post-conflict states. Armed groups can contribute positively to SSR and governance.
The speakers were:
Vanda Felbab-Brown
Director – Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors; Co-Director – Africa Security Initiative; Senior Fellow – Foreign Policy, Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology
Brookings Institution
Frederic Wehrey
Senior fellow, Middle East Program
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Bernadetta Berti
Head of Policy Planning in the Office of the Secretary General
NATO
Yaniv Voller
Senior Lecturer in the Politics of the Middle East
University of Kent; Stanford University
Ranj Alaaldin (moderator)
Visiting Fellow – Brookings Doha Center; Nonresident Fellow – Foreign Policy, Center for Middle East Policy
Brookings Institution
The present: thriving and misunderstood
Vanda Felbab-Brown highlighted the Corona pandemic’s effect on armed groups around the world. The associated economic downturn has pushed some states to their limits. 200 million people have been pushed into poverty, and many of those will be forced to engage in criminal activities to scrape together a living. Under these conditions, armed groups thrive. Hundreds of millions of people already live under total, partial, or shared control by armed groups. As state spending on social welfare, but also security provision, shrunk, armed groups moved in to fill the gaps.
Wehrey discussed the case of Libya, where armed groups have thrived in part because they were misunderstood by outsiders. Emerging after the fall of Gadhafi, they were useful security providers, but politicized and prone to state capture and corruption. The Libyan case could have ended more positively if the ‘prizes’ for militias had been placed under better oversight. Oil revenues, ministerial positions, ports, airports were targets for militia competition. Protection of such prizes could have prevented the militia growth that Libya has seen.
Multiple efforts to “train and equip” a Libyan army from scratch have failed. Such an effort takes years and the security vacuum that exists before its completion is sure to be filled up by someone. Furthermore, in Libya new armies have often recruited from specific tribal, communal, or political backgrounds. These are less national armies and more new militias. This is something Wehrey sees happening now with Turkish support for the Tripoli-based armed forces. The current effort to defer security issues while working on political unity is reminiscent of 2012. The outcome might be similar: a relapse into violence.
The panel agreed that armed groups are not anomalies and they will not go away. Ahram suggested states do not necessarily want to be centralized. There are many examples of leaders deliberately fragmenting power. Militia fighters are not unlucky souls whose dream is to join the regular army and leave the militia life behind them. These groups are an embedded part of their communities and not easily fixable aberrations.
What makes an armed group “good” or “bad”?
The exact drivers of armed groups are poorly understood by academia and policy makers. Voller focuses his research on the question of why certain pro-government militias act predatorily, while others do not. Rather than an inherent inclination to violence, he believes that a core determinant is whether an armed group acts in a theater where its constituency is present. The predominantly Shia PMF in Iraq became predatorial when they entered the Sunni northwest in the fight against ISIS, while the Kurdish Peshmerga refrained from doing so as they always operate among their Kurdish communities. Felbab-Brown countered that other factors must also be important, as there are plenty of examples of armed groups acting predatorily among their own communities. She posits that any armed group gets feedback from its community, even if it is only by means of resistance to violence. If a community lacks social cohesion, this feedback can be unclear or weak, allowing greater predatory behavior.
Wehrey warned against an overly economic focus when it comes to controlling militias. Paying off armed groups to steer them, or turning off their incomes to force their hand, only treats part of the reality. These groups are embedded in and motivated by communal identity, religion, and history. Ahram agreed. He added that armed groups are also not merely political, as there are many cases of armed groups engaging in negotiations or elections and still continuing their armed struggles. Normative motivations are also part of the equation, as local norms, national laws, and even international law (and the fear of a Hague tribunal) are all considered by militias. Ahram believes that the onus is on researchers to identify which of these different levers matter under which circumstances, and how they can be used effectively.
Berti joked that she would enjoy this academic exercise, but that the policy maker in her called for a different course of action. She warned that all of these tools are highly context specific. What works best in practice is a willingness to enter a long-term commitment to a peace building effort. An intervening power needs to engage in a dynamic relationship with local power brokers and be willing to deal with new actors and change course when the situation calls for it.
Policy makers’ task: flexibility and pragmatism
The panel agreed that thinking in terms of “good” or “bad” militias is a fruitless exercise. Voller emphasized once more that militias are embedded in their communities. He used the example of Syrian militias that might align with Assad and engage in repression in order to protect their own constituencies. We might not call these actors “good”, but we can understand what motivates them. Felbab-Brown explained that it is better to think in pragmatic terms of available alternatives. An armed group might be odious, yet be the best option in terms of service provision, behavior, and accountability. Local populations as a rule adapt to harsh and illiberal actors if they provide stability and security.
The task that faces policy makers is a daunting one, as current tools and theories are poorly equipped to deal with the realities. The key is to be flexible and to accept militias as an embedded part of society. Berti and Ahram underlined this. We often speak of ‘allowing’ armed groups to exist or participate in a society. In practice, however, we usually have little influence over their existence. Voller emphasized that engaging with a militia directly as the state, rather than condemning and ignoring it, is usually the best way to have a positive influence on its behavior. Using the example of the Lebanese Hezbollah, however, Berti warned us to beware of who’s steering whom in these dynamics.
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