Israeli Ground Troops Massing: Real Enemy Still Iran
BY Herschel Smith
18 years, 5 months ago
It looks as if Israel has come to the conclusion that they cannot effect the change in Hezbollah and their presence in southern Lebanon without a ground campaign.
Israel massed tanks and troops on the border Friday and warned civilians to flee Hezbollah-controlled southern Lebanon as it prepared for a likely ground invasion to set up a deep buffer zone.
But as Jeff Jacoby points out, Iran is still the real enemy, and the war will not be won until this enemy is defeated. The prime mover in all of this is still Iran:
We will never win this war, Ledeen and others argue, until the Iranian theocracy is brought down. That does not have to mean military action. Our aim instead should be to empower Iran’s restive population, which is largely pro-Western and moderate. Give them as much support as possible, much as the Reagan administration did for Lech Walesa and Solidarity in Poland – and let them find the means to reclaim their government for themselves.
Israel may be able to inflict a punishing defeat on Hizbullah, but regime change in Tehran will require American resolve. Will we muster that resolve before – or only after – the mullahs get the bomb?
I think Jacoby is correct on Iran being at the center of the storm, but dead wrong on his plan for Iran. I do not see the population as being capable of overthrowing the regime in Iran. Remember? All of this talk about empowering the restive population to overthrow the regime was going on with our plans for Iraq, too (back in the Gulf War). But as I have pointed out in my post “The Iran War Plans,” an all-out ground invasion of Iran would be costly (and is highly ill-advised). I have a different idea — another plan for the battle for Iran. I will post soon on my plans for war with Iran. In the mean time, the war in southern Lebanon with Hezbollah is a war by proxy. Israel is fighting Iranian troops by fighting Hezbollah. War with Iran is inevitable, so we may as well begin forging a viable set of plans for it now rather than later. Time is running out.
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