The Grand Strategy?

Fascinating, highly speculative post by Varifrank, who envisions:

In 1982, Israel went into Lebanon but in the way they went about it, they ended up just pushing the enemy north. They paid for that strategy with a long occupation of Southern Lebanon and out of that, the creation of Hezbollah. The enemy was bruised, but it was not destroyed. Once again, the enemy had been allowed to retreat from the battlefield. In the Arab world, this is considered a victory. In the Arab world, what we would consider an outright defeat is considered an honor.

I’m not saying I understand it myself, I’m just saying that our values and theirs don’t line up, so try to look at events of the day through their lens when you interpret what they are doing and why they are doing it. To them, survival alone means they won. Real defeats rarely happen, because when the going gets tough, they just pretend to be civilians and melt into the background and pretend that they were all “saved by Allah”. It would be like fighting the Nazis at the Battle of the Bulge, only to have them strip off their uniforms and pretend to be Belgian farmers if they were captured.

I said to myself at the beginning of this action that I would give anything to see a real battlefield defeat, but that it was much more likely that someone would step in at the 11th hour and get a ‘ceasefire” that would once again hand the terrorists a victory and leave the Israelis hollow for their efforts.

But that was 12 days ago, and frankly things certainly appear to have changed. For the first time in my life, Arabs that kill Israelis are not being given the cover of “peace missions” and “cease fire” calls for “dialog” for their actions. Arab terrorists have started a war, and they have for once – gotten exactly that in return. And I have to say as revolting as war is, I find this fact to be downright refreshing. Finally, starting a war has consequences beyond who sits on what side of the negotiation table. Finally starting a war might mean that you will lose! What a concept! (It certainly takes all the fun out of it, doesn’t it? – which is precisely why I think the President is following that idea. Terrorism isn’t any fun if it doesn’t get you what you want, but instead costs you everything you have. The first step towards ending terrorism is to stop making it pay as a strategy for engaging the enemy. )

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The trick for the Israelis it seems, is keeping Hezbollah in the right frame of mind. Keep them thinking that they might just beat the Israelis this time. Keep them right up next to the border.

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The Israelis have been preparing the battlefield since the very beginning of this action. Don’t for a second start kidding yourself into thinking that they are following some slapdash half assed “ war by a little bit” strategy because they haven’t. Their actions have been taken with the greatest deliberation.

They know exactly what they are doing.

In my opinion, they are going for ‘all the marbles’ this time. Israel cannot and will not accept an enemy on its border that can and will fire missiles into its population. This time they are explosives, what happens when they are chemical and biological weapons?

An enemy that has pledged to commit genocide against them is not someone who any Israeli, or any Jew of any sort is going to negotiate anything with.

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In my opinion what Israel wants at this point in the war is an overconfident enemy committed to a course of action. They want as many of Hezbollah south of Sidon as is possible, and they want them to bring as much of their resources as they can lay their hands on with them.

Just picture General Custer riding down on the camp at the Little Big Horn saying;

“Come on boys we’ve caught them napping”.

Only this time, The Israelis are the Sioux, and Sheik Hassan Nasrallah is General Custer.

My belief is that the Israelis will strike heavy from the Golan going north at breakneck speed with the largest movement of armor since the 6 Day War. Just prior to that, the Bekaa will be hammered into utter oblivion by the air. I think what we’ve seen so far is small “test” shots to determine targeting information for the area.

Just short of the Bekaa valley, the Israelis will pivot and rapidly move west towards Sidon. They will cut every bridge, every road, every goat path between the south and Sidon. They will let Sidon sit north of their lines. Once the perimeter is complete, once the reach the Mediterranean, where they will be re-supplied by their Navy who will already have established a beachhead for re-supply, they will release troops from the south who will move quickly up the coastline to cut off any remaining retreat into Tyre.

Tyre will be a disaster, but it will also be Hezbollahs grave, just as Beirut was the grave of the PLO.

At this point – I estimate roughly 4 days after the start of the Armored column from the Golan, the end is inevitable. Hezbollah and the world Arab press will scream like banshees at the humanitarian disaster that will be Southern Lebanon, but what they really mean is once again an Arab army is being defeated wholesale by the hated Zionists.

Once the Israeli tanks move north in large numbers, we will know that the end for Hezbollah is only 7 to 14 days away. I think Israel will be near Bekaa before most people figure out what’s going on and by then it will be too late to do anything about it.

There will be no “cease fire” this time. There will be no retreat to save the honor of the Arabs this time. Those that think that Israel is going to lose, or that Israel looks weak or any of you other “armchair generals” who think that Israel is a spent force and isn’t quite as good as the Armies of the 1960’s and the 1970’s, I must now remind you of something that many people seem to have forgotten about the Israelis.

You see, the other side in this war has promised genocide for Israel. Israelis have historically had but one thing to say to anyone who ever says such a thing;

“Never again”...

In war, things are never quite as they appear to be. Pay close attention, but remember that everything you see happening is not necessarily what is going on.