The U.S. has shown itself in Iran poorly equipped to fight guerillas who use civilians as shields. We're too humane to use the old Roman method -- kill 'em all, civilian and militant, and let the gods sort them out -- and too ignorant about Iraq to eliminate the bad guys retail.
We'll know fairly soon whether the Israelis have some better way to handle underground fighters. It would be nice if they did, because asymmetrical warfare is a major nuisance, and weaponry is only going to get smaller and more easily hidden. Right now, the Hezbollah guerrillas' rockets are mostly of the kind that Francis Scott Key would vaguely recognize -- they fired 200 rockets into Israel yesterday, their biggest barrage yet, and killed one Israeli civilian. So far, while trying not to hurt civilians, the Israeli Air Force has killed vastly more civilians than Hezbollah has while trying to kill civilians. But we can't assume that happy state of affairs will last for too many more years or decades. In the future they might someday have enough guidance or nasty enough weapons to cause real trouble.
On the other hand, the good news is that not too many ambitious men want to live like guerilla chieftains for the rest of their lives, sleeping in caves or a different safe house every night. So the problem is somewhat self-limiting.
Say the Hezbollah leader comes out of this fracas much strengthened and eventually he succeeds in modernizing the 1932 Lebanese census gerrymander that restricts the Shi'ites to the lowly Speaker of the House role, and under the new principle of one-man one-vote he gets elected President of Lebanon. His followers then take control of the big government ministries and he moves into a beautiful presidential mansion in Beirut overlooking the sea, preaching blood and thunder from his majestic presidential balcony.
That's the end of the world, right? Well, actually, no. If that happened, the Israeli air force, which has complete air supremacy, can then credibly deter him by threatening to blow up the physical emblems of his triumph, along with him personally in his magnificent presidential bed, just as they've deterred their other neighbors for a generation.
We'll know fairly soon whether the Israelis have some better way to handle underground fighters. It would be nice if they did, because asymmetrical warfare is a major nuisance, and weaponry is only going to get smaller and more easily hidden. Right now, the Hezbollah guerrillas' rockets are mostly of the kind that Francis Scott Key would vaguely recognize -- they fired 200 rockets into Israel yesterday, their biggest barrage yet, and killed one Israeli civilian. So far, while trying not to hurt civilians, the Israeli Air Force has killed vastly more civilians than Hezbollah has while trying to kill civilians. But we can't assume that happy state of affairs will last for too many more years or decades. In the future they might someday have enough guidance or nasty enough weapons to cause real trouble.
On the other hand, the good news is that not too many ambitious men want to live like guerilla chieftains for the rest of their lives, sleeping in caves or a different safe house every night. So the problem is somewhat self-limiting.
Say the Hezbollah leader comes out of this fracas much strengthened and eventually he succeeds in modernizing the 1932 Lebanese census gerrymander that restricts the Shi'ites to the lowly Speaker of the House role, and under the new principle of one-man one-vote he gets elected President of Lebanon. His followers then take control of the big government ministries and he moves into a beautiful presidential mansion in Beirut overlooking the sea, preaching blood and thunder from his majestic presidential balcony.
That's the end of the world, right? Well, actually, no. If that happened, the Israeli air force, which has complete air supremacy, can then credibly deter him by threatening to blow up the physical emblems of his triumph, along with him personally in his magnificent presidential bed, just as they've deterred their other neighbors for a generation.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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