Israel has never been the military superpower its propaganda claimed it to be, but neither was it a paper tiger. At the very least, the Israelis did an excellent job triggering conflicts when it best suited them, they excelled at camouflaging what where surprise attacks into a “defensive operation”, and they always managed to conceal their real losses. But none of this would have been possible if Israel did not have at the very least maybe not an “invincible Tsahal”, but a credible and basically competent military.
Even the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 could (very generously) be interpreted as a choice rather than a collapse. But all the conflicts Israel has been involved in since that date have ended in what can only be called abject failures.
In 2006, the Israeli attack and invasion of Lebanon ended in one of the most humiliating defeats in the history of warfare: Hezbollah succeeded in defeating Israel’s four brigades, three reserve divisions and entire Air Force and Navy with roughly one thousand second rate Hezbollah soldiers (the best Hezbollah fighters were all kept north of the Litani river). Truly, this victory of the Resistance against the Zionist occupier was a “divine victory” and it changed the whole equation in the Middle East.
In 2008, the Israelis attacked Gaza with very mixed results at best. Operation “Cast Lead” lasted three weeks and it saw a limited land invasion of Gaza. Besides the usual orgy of wanton violence against the Palestinian population, including the systematic use of phosphorus bombs against civilians, this assault yielded very little in terms of tangible results. Gaza had withstood the attack, Gilad Shalit was not liberated and, worst of all, Hamas not only survived but its “street cred” was vastly improved. As for Israel, its public image suffered yet another PR disaster. But still, the Israelis did penetrate inside Gaza from several directions, and they could claim that they could seriously threaten Hamas.
In the latest Israeli attack on Gaza, they IDF failed even to do that and this is really devastating for the IDF’s deterrent capability. This time the operation lasted only one week, and it ended with Palestinians filling the streets of Gaza in a mass demonstration of joy and gratitude for having so rapidly forced Israel to seek a ceasefire.
There used to be a time when the IDF would go all the way to Beirut to hunt down Arafat and when Mossad would go all the way to Tunis to kill Abu Jihad. Now the IDF can’t even occupy Bint Jbeil right across its border, and it is afraid to even enter the Gaza Strip. How the mighty fall indeed…
The consequences of this Israeli weakness are truly very serious: the Gaza Strip is turning into a safe heaven for the Palestinians while the siege of Gaza has pretty much lifted since Mursi took power. Hezbollah in the north, Gaza in the southwest, Mursi and the Islamic Brotherhood in the south and a Syria turning into a mix of 1970s Lebanon and 1980s Somalia to the northeast. To the east, of course, there is Jordan, as loyal to the USA and Israel as ever, but that also might change in the not too distant future.
Do you remember Condi Rice predicting the birth of a new Middle-East and Bernard Henri-Levi explaining that the “Arab Spring” is a good thing for Israel? In a way, they were probably both right: a new Middle-East is definitely taking shape, and the Arab Spring is probably to the advantage of Israel, but only in the short term. The one thing which neither Rice nor Levi did ever imagine, not in their worst nightmares, is that nobody in that new Middle-East would fear Israel anymore whereas Israel would be terrified of everybody.
I am still convinced, more than ever before, that the days of the Zionist entity are numbered.
The Saker
Yes if you are hated it is not a good idea to give your enemy the impression that you are also cowardly.
I don’t see Zionist Israel collapsing so long as the Empire is able and willing to prop it up but yes it’s possible they are on the way down. History may record the glorious victory of Hizbollah in 2006 as the equivalent of the defeat of apartheid South Africa’s army at Cuito Cuanavale in Angola by the MPLA and their Cuban allies sent by Fidel Castro. It didn’t directly bring down the apartheid regime in Pretoria but it certainly punctured the racist delusion of white supremacy.
I believe three things are necessary
a) the end of the dollar as the world reserve currency at which point the Empire will no longer be able to afford its bloated military and will have to pay a much higher price for the oil imports it depends on
b) the emergence of Russia and China as a bloc with a combined economic and military power greater than the US
c) the victory of the Arab Spring and the encirclement of Israel by democracies at which point the Zionist propagand about being the only truly civlised democracy in the Middle East will become so laughable that nobody will take it seriously and possibly will lead to a change of hearts and minds in Israel itself.
However the USrealian Empire can be depended upon to employ all manner of dirty tricks on the way down and a declining Empire is potentially extremely dangerous so there could be a major tragedy in Palestine before Apartheid Zion is consigned to the history books.
https://mideastwire.wordpress.com/2012/11/22/hizbullah-victory-in-gaza-hamas-achievement-is-akin-to-1996-april-understanding/
https://mideastwire.wordpress.com/2012/11/22/hizbullah-victory-in-gaza-hamas-achievement-is-akin-to-1996-april-understanding/
Foreign Policy magazine does a hit piece on Ahmad Shah Massoud, indicates that he might have been a KGB agent.
The Cult of Massoud
“Afghans up on their history know, too, that Massoud began his fighting career as a failed agent provocateur — he was drafted by the ISI and its despised Afghan satrap, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, to start an uprising against the Afghan government in the Panjshir. It didn’t work. According to some KGB memoirists, Massoud may have gone on to receive training from that agency in Lebanon. If that’s true, it comes as little surprise that from the moment he became a mujahid and began to do battle with Soviets, after they invaded Afghanistan in 1979, making his legend, Massoud was also bargaining with the Soviets. He made a series of truces with them in the early 1980s. This duplicity is now explained away as a typically shrewd move by Massoud — whose courage and battlefield brilliance cannot be questioned — to win respite for his weary troops and recruit more support. No doubt it was. Nonetheless, the deals also helped bring the Soviet hammer down on less equipped mujahideen, and provided Massoud the opportunity to pursue a private war with Hekmatyar in the 1990s. (By that point, Hekmatyar was using many of his American-taxpayer-bought weapons to try to kill his old protégé).”
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/11/23/the_cult_of_massoud?page=0,0
@Jack: He made a series of truces with them in the early 1980s
The fact that Massoud made a series of truces with the Soviets is undeniable. As far as I know, Massoud never was a KGB agent, however he did have sustained contacts with the GRU and, according to some, he was in fact a GRU agent. This is hard to prove, but the fact is that Massoud and the Russian military understood very early on that they had common enemies and common interests. I can also attest that the KGB Spetsnaz commanders had a great deal of respect and even sympathy for Massoud and his Tadjik fighters (whereas they despised the Pashtuns).
Sometimes such things are impossible to prove. Take the example of the French resistance hero Jean Moulin who for years was the symbol of national resistance. There is some pretty good reasons to suspect that he was a GRU agent too.
To complicate it all, there are cases when agencies such as the GRU reach a kind of “understanding” with a person without ever going through a formal recruitment process – think of it as an alliance of sorts. This kind of understanding will be typically made with those who are un-recruitable but who don’t mind working together either against a common enemy or for a common cause.
Again, it is absolutely undeniable that the Soviets and Massoud did work together and there is also evidence that he had secret meeting with GRU officers. The interesting thing is that rumor has it that these GRU officers did not report these contacts to Moscow and that this was sort of a “GRU in Afghanistan” initiative.
My own take on that is that Massoud and the local GRU understood each other much better than the Kremlin and the ISI-run Pashtun Mujahideen and that they were naturally drawn to each other. My bet is that they formed a very low key alliance with each other. I am not at all sure that this makes Massoud an “agent”. I would simply call that a “smart man” :-)
@VINEYARDSAKER:
I would be more interested to know how with Russia as the main backer the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance was formed that was obviously the model they used in Chechnya with Kadyrov.
@Jack: that was obviously the model they used in Chechnya with Kadyrov.
I am not so sure. For one thing, Massoud and the Northern Alliance also had close ties to Iran and the to Uzbek and Hazara forces in Afghanistan. Yes, the Russians did support these various groups, but they were only one actor amongst many others. What happened in Chechnia is, I think, vastly different. In Chechnia what we have is the political judgment of two people – Putin and Akhmad Kadyrov – that a fundamental and global revolution (in the literal sense of the word) must take place in the situation in Chechnia in order to avoid a complete apocalypse for the Chechen people. Putin and Kadyrov showed the kind of deep wisdom which only really great statesmen can show, and they took a personal commitment to each other to work together (Ramzan Kadyrov really only followed his father’s steps). I think that this is very different from what happened in Afghanistan.
@VINEYARDSAKER
There was an good interview posted on Johnsons Russia List of an interview wIth Ahmad Kadyrov by Peter Lavelle and Robert Bruce Ware in the first Chechen election since the 2nd war where Ahmad briefly covered events leading up to the outbreak of the 2nd Chechen war but I don’t have the link.
I think it is on my other computer.
If I find it I will post it.
@Jack: If I find it I will post it.
I would be very grateful if you did. I listened to quite a few interviews by both Akhmad and Ramzan Kadyrov in Russian, but I never heard of one in English and I think that it could be very interesting for English speakers to listen to these interviews as both of these men come across as rather formidable personalities.
Cheers!
@VINEYARDSAKER:
The original web address does not exist anymore.
http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/7274-15.cfm
Luckily it is available via archive.org.
“There is a rule of Sharia: If the enemy wants to suppress you, you are supposed to show strong resistance. But the enemy did not come on its own: We brought it to us. We went to Dagestan, arranged a massacre there and then returned. This means, as they say, that Russia is our enemy that came to the borders and demanded that the bandits should be delivered – Basayev, Khattab – everyone who had been in Dagestan. But instead of delivering the bandits, Aslan Maskhadov appointed them commanders. He accepted the war, and that was the time that I stood up against them. I appeared on television and called upon people to bring their sons, their brothers back – everyone who was going to Dagestan. I said that it was the war between neighbors, between Muslims. But it did not work. I personally told Maskhadov not to let Basayev go there. Aslan assured me that Basayev was not coming back to Chechnya, because he had a plan: To first conquer Dagestan and then attack Azerbaijan and spread the ideas of Islam.
I objected to that. I said that Russia would not surrender Dagestan, because it is a border territory, an entrance to the sea and abroad. I addressed Ruslan Ali-Hajiyev, chairman of parliament, asking him to dismiss Maskhadov, to take the power: Otherwise, a war would be inevitable. He answered that, if Maskhadov were dismissed, Arsan Alakhov would have become the head of the republic according to the Constitution. That would be even worse. I asked him to tell Arsan’s people that Aslan was leading the republic to war. They did not do it, they decided not to do it, and so we had the second Chechen campaign.”
http://web.archive.org/web/20090906081630/http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/7274-15.cfm
Good comments by Robert Bruce Ware although like every other commenter fails to take into account foreign intelligence services and state sponsorship of terrorism in Russia with Basayev and Khattabs invasion of Dagestan with the exact 3 main players Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar supporting terrorism against Syria along with Pakistan financing and training militants for the 2nd Chechen war between the de-facto independence period of 97-99.
According to the 9/11 lawsuit Qatar financed Basayev and Khattabs invasion of Dagestan through the states Qatar Charitable Society organisation by over a million dollars.
“ In 1999, a group of Wahhabi militiamen invaded and took control of three districts of Dagestan, a country neighboring Chechnya. Dagestani police have identified that, the day before the attack, $200,000 were transferred into QCS account with the Dagestan Commercial Bank. Following the invasion, these funds were distributed to the terrorists. After this event, Dagestani police have been able to identify at least an additional $1,000,000 that QCS transferred to aid the attack against Russia. During this investigation, Dagestani police have determined that there were no records of the funds flowing into and out of the QCS for a number of years.
The Government of Russias International sponsors of Chechen terrorist list, from 1991-2000, is a comprehensive list of organizations that provided aid or support for terrorist organizations in Chechnya. The Qatar Charitable Society was included on this list.”
http://www.network54.com/Forum/84302/thread/1285612924/Qatari+regime+financed+Basayeav+and+Khattabs+invasion+of+Dagestan+in+99-