Haaretz ran some insightful interviews a couple of days ago that sheds some light on what Hizbollah and their backers may have been thinking when embarking on their apparent suicide mission, what position Israel finds itself in right now and what the future may hold.

One of the men interviewed is Professor Martin Kramer. “A world-renowned expert on Lebanon, Kramer is a research fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and a former director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University.”

Professor Kramer believes Hizballah’s actions where “a stratetic miscalculation”, and not at all in the best interest of Iran:

“Hezbollah’s hubris has created an opportunity for Israel.

“Since Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon, Hezbollah has basked in the illusion that it defeated Israel – that it somehow discovered a path to victory that had eluded Arab governments and the Palestinian movement. It began to puff itself up, as the only force willing and able to stand up to Israel. Hezbollah lost its respect for Israeli power, and began to portray Israel as unable to sustain a protracted conflict.

“Nasrallah allowed a personality cult to develop around himself, and Hezbollah marketed him as the only strategic genius in the Arab world. Increasingly, it would seem that the higher echelons in Hezbollah began to believe their own propaganda.

“I doubt Hezbollah expected the Israeli reaction to be as swift, extensive and destructive as it has been. Hezbollah probably believed it would score a few points in Arab public opinion by a cross-border operation, and that it would make one more incremental change in the rules of the game.

“It was a strategic miscalculation. Hezbollah didn’t internalize changes in the broader strategic climate. The top regional issue today is Iran’s nuclear drive, not the fate of Hamas or the Palestinian issue. If Hezbollah had understood this fully, it would have laid very low until needed by Iran in a mega-crisis with the United States. At that point, its threats against Israel would have been added to the overall deterrent capabilities of Iran, and might have caused the United States to think twice.

“Hezbollah apparently didn’t understand this. If Iran was directly involved in the decision, it also shows an erosion of discipline in Iran’s own decision-making process. Iran had nothing to gain from this little adventure, and a lot to lose. It may well be that President Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric is beginning to cloud judgment in Tehran.

“In any case, it is in the interests of Israel and the United States to deal with the Hezbollah threat now, and not later in the midst of a far more dangerous crisis over Iran’s nuclear plans. So a war now to degrade Hezbollah is a shared Israel-U.S. interest, which means that Israel can wage it without many constraints.

“Hezbollah now finds itself spending all sorts of military assets that were supposed to serve a much more important purpose than freeing a few Lebanese prisoners or winning a few propaganda points. These are assets it probably won’t be able to replenish, and their very use exposes them and makes them vulnerable.

“In sum, Hezbollah overplayed its hand, and Israel is taking full advantage of its mistake.”

I find it very hard to believe that the Iranians did not seek to precipitate exactly the situation currently developing, even if they are mistaken about the benefit it has for their twin causes of going nuclear and gaining regional hegemony. It also seems unlikely that Hizbollah were expecting anything but severe military repercussions from their actions. What other response could there have been after their Iranian made missiles hit Haifa? Iranian Revolutionary Guard have been in Southern Lebanon for months, if not years, training the Shiite militia and helping to fortify their defences. There is every sign Hizballah have been preparing, with the IRG’s help, for a full scale Israeli ground invasion for years, seeking to draw the IDF into a protracted ground war, modelled on the Jihadist war in Iraq and the Taliban’s guerrilla war in Afghanistan. It seems like the IDF has been far more surprised by Hizballah’s capabilities, than Hizballah was by the severity of the Israeli response. Did the IDF expect mines capable of destoroying a Merkava 4 tank? Missiles that can reach Haifa and beyond? Fortified Hizballah positions, with bunkers 3 stories deep and the Hizballah fighters seemingly prepared to fight tooth and nail for every inch of Lebanese soil? There is no question that Hizballah cannot withstand a full scale Israeli ground assault. But at what cost to the Israelis? And at what gain to the Iranians? And what will be the end fallout for Lebanon, with Syria itching to regain control over it?

Professor Kramer on where the conflict could be heading:

“Ending the crisis is obviously not an end in itself. The objective has to be to reduce Hezbollah to a negligible factor in larger calculations, to degrade and deplete its capabilities, to the point where it’s about as significant a constraint as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt or Jordan. It will take some time to reverse the years of neglect, and Hezbollah will not allow the halo around it to be smashed without fighting back. But Israel has a U.S. license to take its time now and get it right, and it would be foolish not to use it.

“In any event, Israel has no choice. Islamism has come to fill the space that used to be occupied by Arab nationalism in Nasser’s time: an ideology of rejection, resistance and false promise of a Middle East without Israel. Israel’s withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza, whatever their merits, have only fed this Islamism with lore of sacrifice and victory. The Islamists have a narrative, and they think the world conforms to it. The narrative is based on a very partial reading of reality. It has to be defeated, just as Nasser’s narrative had to be defeated. It took the 1967 war to demolish the Arab nationalist/Nasserist narrative. Israel has no choice but to deliver a blow sufficient to destroy the Islamist narrative, in which Hezbollah looms large.

“Incredibly, Nasrallah is making the same mistakes as Nasser. By puffing himself up, he isn’t deterring Israel; at this point, he’s only making himself and his movement a bigger and more legitimate target. Hezbollah has become a prisoner of its own myth, which is that at any moment it can go one-on-one against Israel – and win. It can’t, and now is the best opportunity to prove it – to Lebanese Shiites, to all Lebanese and to the rest of the Arab-Muslim world.

“At any moment in time, it is Israel that can turn Nasrallah either into a cinder or a shadow figure like Osama bin Laden, reduced to sending defiant missives from some basement or cave. And Israel can scatter the big chiefs of Hezbollah like the United States scattered the Taliban. This has to be the objective – bin Ladenization of Nasrallah, Talibanization of Hezbollah – and it is not beyond reach. Of course, bin Laden and the Taliban still exist, but they aren’t a regional or global factor. That is the objective here as well.

“Any number of developments could threaten this scenario. It’s not so much what Hezbollah might do, as what mistakes Israel might make. The most obvious pitfalls are too much ‘collateral damage’ or a reoccupation of part of Lebanon. Either could drain Israel legitimacy, sap American support and leave Israel isolated. Since this is a new government headed by a new prime minister, it’s impossible to predict whether they will know how to handle the unexpected twists that are inevitable in war.”

On Hizballah’s standing in Lebanon:

“Lebanon is a divided society. Hezbollah’s power base is limited to the Shiite community, and even there, allegiance is not total.

“Hezbollah basked in the admiration of many Lebanese after Israel’s withdrawal, but that aura has been eroded steadily over the past few years. This is because, following Israel’s withdrawal, Hezbollah’s continued ‘resistance’ along the border fell outside the national consensus.

“As a result, we have seen more and more political figures in Lebanon criticize Hezbollah. The Nasrallah personality cult has been a way to keep the faithful in line. Not so long ago, Hezbollah thugs took to the streets after a Lebanese television station broadcast a satire of Nasrallah. The mob burned tires and cars. The episode showed that Nasrallah’s moral standing had slipped, and that the movement had been reduced to intimidation to keep up the facade.

“The point here is that Hezbollah is no longer the darling of Lebanese nationalism, and its recent conduct has made it increasingly look like something foreign. This is certainly the message that is being sent by leaders of most other factions in the country: that Hezbollah has usurped the power of decision-making on war and peace from the legitimately constituted government, and that it is acting outside the Lebanese national interest. The more Israel intensifies its attacks, the more that criticism is likely to spread – even among Shiites. I do not see the country rallying around Hezbollah.”

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Of course, no one faction in Lebanon is in a position to disarm Hezbollah, and neither is the government. Only Shiite opinion can achieve this. So it is up to Israel to demolish Hezbollah’s argument that its arms deter Israel. Israel must demonstrate the opposite: that Hezbollah’s arms invite Israeli attack, especially against Shiites. Only if the Shiites themselves realize this, and only if they become the main source of criticism of Hezbollah’s strategy, will Hezbollah feel compelled to modify it. This will not happen overnight; it could take months or years.

“What is certain is that Lebanon is better prepared to confront its devils now than it was 10 or 15 years ago. There is a new generation that does not want to go back to the old days. It is they who will have to come out in the streets to make yet another Cedar Revolution – this time, one in which the Shiites have a predominant role.

It certainly seems that the current mood in the Lebanese non-Shiite population calls to stand with Hizballah against the Israelis, but as soon as that conflict is over Hizballah, or whatever is left of it, is going to have to be dealt with. The only question is the severity of the repercussions. Perhaps this is where Hizballah miscalculated – the post-war climate is hardly going to be favourable for them politically.

As for the Shiites rallying against Hizballah, that seems like an extremely unlikely scenario.

In the same article is an interview with Colonel Charbel Barakat, a Christian from the village of Ein Ibel, in southern Lebanon, who was the deputy commander of the South Lebanon Army (SLA) in the 1980. He fled to Israel after the IDF’s withdrawn in 2000 and now lives in Toronto:

CB: “Hezbollah is an organization that lives on blood. If you do not satisfy its appetite, it will turn to prey. Regrettably, you allowed the Hezbollah monster to grow under your nose. That happened in 2000, when Israel fled from Lebanon. Israel betrayed us, its friends for 40 years. It was more important for prime minister Ehud Barak to fulfill his election promise that by July 2000 the IDF would be out of Lebanon, than to take care of restraining the monster.”

H: Could it have been done differently?

CB: “Of course. Barak should have posed conditions to the United Nations and to the Lebanese government which would not have allowed Hezbollah to situate itself in the south, certainly not with arms. By his action he gave Hezbollah what even they never dreamed of – all of southern Lebanon. But Barak is not the only one to blame. [Ariel] Sharon also contributed to the situation when he agreed to capitulate to Hezbollah and exchange prisoners – not only Lebanese, but from all the Arab states – in return for one Israeli who had set out to deal in drugs. Israel helped make Nasrallah the true leader of Lebanon.”

H: What about the government of Lebanon?

CB: “The prime minister, Fouad Siniora, should have gone to the UN months ago and asked them to come in and expel Hezbollah from the south of the country. But instead of that, he tried, because of his weakness, to talk to them. I hope it is not to late to do this [expel them - Y.M.]

H:Is there a way out of the crisis?

CB:”The problem is bigger than Hezbollah. The problem is Iran and in fact, the whole Middle East. The Arab leaders are stupid if they do not see that if Hezbollah wins, after Lebanon will come the turn of Jordan and Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which also have their Nasrallahs and bin Ladens who are just waiting for a show of weakness.”

The following is from “G., who retired from the Mossad a few years ago”, also in the same Haaretz story:

“The campaign against Hezbollah is over the reshaping of the strategic milieu in which we exist. This is not just a retaliatory raid aimed mainly at restoring the status quo ante and restoring our trampled honor, with minor improvements on this or that hill. We are talking about the substantive reshaping of the overall security doctrine in such a dramatic way that it might generate a tsunami and will have the effect of changing the whole Middle East as far as Iran and even beyond.

“This campaign is almost the last chance for the sated and concerned West to deliver a truly powerful blow to the conception of terrorism as a strategic instrument and to one of the most murderous and most dangerous terrorist organizations we have known in the past 30 years. Effectively, the whole Islamic world on one side and the West on the other are sitting in the stands, watching the events and hoping it does not end with penalty shots or with a headbutt, but with a crushing victory, or at least with a small 1-0. That depends on us, on condition that we are able to restrain all thirst for revenge per se.”

“Management of the campaign demands a fundamental understanding of the adversary. One of the important tools in vanquishing the adversary is one which, it seems to me, has not been accorded the place it deserves. I refer to psychological warfare, the third oldest profession and one that is closely connected to the oldest. Hassan Nasrallah has raised it to the level of an art and forged in Israeli and world public opinion several cast-iron, unchallengeable insights.”

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Nasrallah, a highly gifted propagandist, did not encounter a worthy adversary who employed methods of psychological warfare to fight him and situate himself in the collective consciousness. Unfortunately, we behaved like the class wimp, based on the principle that those who are honest first suffer and then find pleasure at some point in the future, whereas the villain gets pleasure now but will certainly suffer in the future.”

“There is no doubt that a series of tactical operational failures, underlying which is an intelligence failure of one kind or another, led Israel willy-nilly into a campaign for which it did not choose the timing, the arena or the mode of its management…

“That said, Israeli intelligence and the Mossad especially had very impressive successes, the fruit of many years of work, which might be able to be made public only years down the road. Those successes led, among other results, to the ability to strike surgically and specifically at various targets.”

“Our effective capability to force the adversary to lay down his sword, or at least to weaken him to the point where he becomes an insignificant factor in the Lebanese picture, depends on a number of elements. The most important of them is our determination to pulverize the Hezbollah infrastructure in Lebanon and force the supportive Shiite community to pay a steep price for its provocations against us, until they understand that Nasrallah has brought disaster upon them and constitutes a concrete threat to the community and its well-being.”

It depends on whether we will be able to implement effective psychological warfare that will generate ’spontaneous’ internal opposition to the ruling leadership in Hezbollah and lead to their physical liquidation or their exile to Iran.”

“We must conduct a crafty, sophisticated campaign. With foxes we shall play the fox. Our ability to decide this campaign, and perhaps future campaigns, too, depends in part on guile, which is the art of hiding our flaws and of revealing and cultivating the weakness of our enemy. The creation of disinformation. The creation of a real or imaginary feeling in an organization that took pride in compartmentalization and in cohesion, that in fact, it is as full of holes as a sieve. To make even Nasrallah watch his guards suspiciously. To create a feeling of physical insecurity and loneliness for the hierarchy of the organization and their families, because loneliness is the mother of all fears. To foment internal disputes and an atmosphere of betrayal, because there is no knife as sharp and poisoned as betrayal.”