07:36 am
Gaza II
It looks like the Israelis are going all in. It still isn’t clear to me that they a) know what they’re doing; b) understand that a ground war better do the job (and do it quickly) or we’re looking at Second Lebanon War II; and c) have any exit strategy.
It might be worthwhile to look at the relevant sections of the Winograd Report (pdf link here):
The decision to respond with an immediate, intensive military strike was not based on a detailed, comprehensive and authorized military plan, based on carefull study of the complex characteristics of the Lebanon arena . A meticulous examination of these characteristics would have revealed the following: the ability to achieve military gains having significant political-international weight was limited; an Israeli military strike would inevitably lead to missiles fired at the Israeli civilian north; there was not other effective military response to such missile attacks than an extensive and prolonged ground operation to capture the areas from which the missiles were fired - which would have a high “cost” and which did not enjoy broad support. These difficulties were not explicitly raised with the political leaders before the decision to strike was taken.
Consequently, in making the decision to go to war, the government did not consider the whole range of options, including that of continuing the policy of ‘containment’, or combining political and diplomatic moves with military strikes below the ‘escalation level’, or military preparations without immediage military action. . . . This failure reflects weakness in strategic thinking, which derives the response to the event from a more comprehensive and encompassing picture. . . .
Some of the declared goals of the war were not clear and could not be achieved, and in part were not achieveable by the authorized modes of military action. . . .
On the political-security strategic level, the lack of preparedness was also caused by the failure to update and fully articulate Israel’s security strategy doctrine, in the fullest sense of that term, so that it could not serve as a basis for coping comprehensively will all the challenges facing Israel. . . .
Israel’s government in its plenum failed in its political function of taking full responsibility for its decisions. It did not explore and seek adequate response for various reservations that were raised, and authorized an immediate military strike that was not thought-through and suffered from over-reliance on the judgment of the primary decision-makers.
I recognize that Israel would be foolish to explain its strategy, tactics, motives or planning up front, but given the Olmert government’s track record, there’s no evidence that they’ve learned anything from their own mistakes.
One other note: although we do not yet know whether Israel’s attacks have intentionally targeted civilians, we do know that Hamas’s rocket attacks and suicide bombings have. Any postwar investigation will be credible only if it looks at alleged misdeeds by all parties.
And given the dismal track record of the UN Human Rights Council — which has spent most of its tenure passing toothless resolutions condemning Israel while ignoring not only the actions of Hamas and Hezbollah, but also other egregious human rights violations the world over — I am not confident that it, or any other UN body, is capable conducting an impartial investigation.
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