Terrorists Win — What Next?

The Second Battle of the Litani (following our Civil War practice of naming engagements after the strategically significant waterways along which they are fought) is over. With a ceasefire called for by the unanimously-passed United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) ended offensive operations in Lebanon at 8:00 a.m. local time on Monday.

This battle was sparked — lest it be forgotten — by an act of war when Iranian- and Syrian-supported Hezbollah terrorists, unimpeded if not rooted on by the troops of Lebanon's government, penetrated Israel's internationally-recognized northern border and kidnapped two IDF soldiers, killing eight others in the process.

All the political spin notwithstanding, it is clear that Israel has not fared well in the conflict. In a little more than a month, the brave Israeli population has been on the receiving end of over 3,700 rockets, including nearly 900 that hit heavily populated urban centers, killing 52 civilians and injuring more than 2,300. That there were not more casualties was providential as well as a tribute to the extraordinary preparedness of Israeli civil defense. Although, to be sure, the IDF was slowly degrading Hezbollah, as its guided ordnance struck the terrorist positions with increasing deadly accuracy. In the end, a combination of less-than-stellar civilian leadership on the part of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz and hostile world public opinion (the latter a product, in part, of Hezbollah effective propaganda machine) forced Israel to accept a cessation of hostilities having accomplished virtually none of its declared objectives. Even the captured soldiers remain unaccounted for.

In contrast, by setting his strategic objective so ridiculously low — at one point he declared that his group “needs only to survive to win” — Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah has emerged from the ordeal that he imposed on Lebanon with bragging rights for having withstood the IDF in a way no other Arab leader has done since the Arabs tried to strangle the nascent Jewish state in its cradle in 1948.

For those concerned with the consequences of a terrorist victory, there is a ray of light in this dark tunnel: the current ceasefire is really the intermission after the first act of an ongoing drama. Those suffering from the strategic version of attention deficit disorder should keep this in mind. The UN resolution ends nothing. If anything, it contains within itself the seeds of its own irrelevance, just as did its seven predecessor resolutions that the diplomats shamelessly invoked in the first paragraph of the document.

First, while as of the time of this writing, Hezbollah has not fired additional rockets into Israel, its forces have continued hostilities with the IDF in Lebanon. Hence, the question remains how long the ceasefire will actually be respected on the Lebanese side. If serious moves are made to actually implement the plans for a reinforced United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and to deploy the Lebanese army into southern Lebanon, this would preclude Hezbollah's state-within-a-state and prove intolerable to its Iranian and Syrian masters. And while the UN resolution imposes an arms embargo on non-governmental forces in Lebanon, assurances that Hezbollah will not have its arsenal replenished are worthless without the agreement of Iran and Syria. Nevertheless, the resolution studiously avoided any linkage that would suggest what everyone knows: that Hezbollah is an Iranian surrogate.

Second, it remains to be seen whether the international community will actually manage to assemble and deploy the vigorous and substantial force of which it writes and, if so, when.

In short, there are a number of ways that the ceasefire may well amount to much less than it has been billed. Certainly the parallels are striking with the ceasefire, likewise hailing from the likewise unanimously passed Resolution 425, following an earlier Battle of the Litani in 1978 against the terrorists of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). UNIFIL was created then with the triple mandate of “confirming the withdrawal of Israeli forces, restoring international peace and security and assisting the Government of Lebanon in ensuring the return of its effective authority in the area.” After a short respite, the PLO, far from being disarmed, launched some 270 terrorist attacks in the year preceding the IDF's June 6, 1982, “Operation Peace of Galilee” invasion, which eventually drove the PLO from Lebanon altogether.

When the hostilities resume this time 'round, assuming that the Israelis have in the interim assessed their conduct during Litani II and adapted accordingly, there will be some notable differences to the status ante bellum of July 12, 2006.

First, Hezbollah will no longer have the strategic advantage of surprise. The terrorist group's choice of weaponry in the current conflict has betrayed its Iranian and Syrian quartermasters and exposed its infrastructure within Lebanon. Absent some deadly escalation, which, of course, cannot be ruled out, the professional officer corps of the IDF will be better prepared to quickly deal with the Lebanese militants and their backers on the battlefield.

Second, while Nasrallah has succeeded in asserting his domination of the weak Lebanese government, he has also shown it for what it is. Next time 'round, neither Lebanon's Syrian lackey of a president, Émile Lahoud, nor its terrified prime minister, Fouad Siniora, will be able to hide behind the pretence of a distinction between themselves and the terrorist group they have coddled. Everyone now knows that both men answer to the Hezbollah leader and that the “Cedar Revolution” met its match in the conjuncture of the political cynicism of Lebanon's ruling elites and the power of the Shi'a militants.

Third, while no one seriously expects the “new and improved” UNIFIL to actually disarm Hezbollah — a step that was already mandated by Resolution 1559 two years ago — the presence of the international peacekeepers will nonetheless complicate the terrorist group's efforts to rebuild forces that have been seriously degraded by the IDF in recent days. The Hezbollah that next faces off with Israel will do so absent senior commanders whose deaths the group has thus far concealed as well as those who, no doubt, the long arm of Israeli justice will reach over the coming weeks and months.

Litani II is over, but the war goes on — and its issue is not in doubt.

Michael I. Krauss is professor of law at George Mason University School of Law. J. Peter Pham is director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University. Both are adjunct fellows of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.