Seven Years Later, Israel Gets the Bush Doctrine
- 03.18.2008 - 8:54 AMCall me naive, and I’m certainly not trying to be flip, but I’ve never quite understood all the fuss about asymmetric warfare. We have a state of affairs today in which two countries, Iran and Syria, wage war against their western enemies not through the legitimate use of uniformed armies, but through the funding, arming, and organizing of proxy militias and terrorist networks. What obviously engendered this strategy was the knowledge in Tehran and Damascus that conventional armies would be incapable of confronting western powers on the battlefield; and the obvious reason why the asymmetric strategy works so effectively is because it strikes at the heart of western ambivalence about the use of military power, especially against enemies who operate in defiance of the tactics that our foreign policy and military doctrines — and our moral sensibilities — have been adapted over centuries to confront.
This kind of acquiescence to enemy strategy is not what was supposed to define the post-9/11 era. The idea of holding terror-sponsoring states accountable for the depredations of their proxies was deemed such a fundamental and obvious necessity of waging a “war on terrorism” that it was enunciated as the first and central tenet of the Bush Doctrine — a tenet that to my knowledge has been employed all but once, against the Taliban for harboring Al-Qaeda.
Owing to difficult regional and international dilemmas, we — that is, the western powers directly involved in prosecuting the war on terrorism — have repeatedly acquiesced to fighting our enemies on their preferred battlefields: We confront Tehran and Damascus in Iraq, southern Lebanon, and Gaza, everywhere, alas, but in Iran and Syria, and we insist on describing their armies with self-deluding euphemisms: Hezbollah, foreign policy elites tell us, is a “non-state actor.”
All of this is by way of introducing a very welcome news story — namely that last month, Israel finally got around to explaining the Bush Doctrine to Syria:
A European source familiar with the matter said the message conveyed to Damascus said Syria could be targeted by Israel even if Hezbollah’s attack emanated from Lebanese soil.
An Israeli source with knowledge of government affairs said: “The message was passed around late February, before the last round of fighting in Gaza.”
“It has become clear to us Syria has to understand there is a price for its use of proxy terrorism, especially as Damascus is itself a proxy — the long-arm of Iran,” the source said.
Note that Hezbollah indeed refrained from opening a northern front against Israel during the recent warfare in Gaza, an eventuality that many people (myself included) speculated might be triggered should the IDF make too much progress in degrading Hamas. Perhaps the IDF did not sufficiently damage Hamas to trigger a wider conflict with Hamas’s allies; or perhaps the Bush Doctrine might have something to say for itself after all — if it is only invoked.
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March 18th, 2008 at 9:40 AM
Perhaps if the architect of the Bush doctrine were more willing to put it into practice, we might see more countries across the globe taking it to heart.
March 18th, 2008 at 9:42 AM
And when Secretary Rice, as President Bush’s agent. gives Israel a direct order (probably behind the scenes) not to implement the Bush Doctrine, will we be surprised?
March 18th, 2008 at 10:20 AM
Am I the only one who sees a possible connection between the planned Israeli military exercise that begins on April 6th and the recent resignation of Admiral Fallon as head of Centcom which appeared to be related to the subject of what to do about Iran?
March 18th, 2008 at 10:26 AM
the palestinians haven’ achieved their goals thruogh terrorism and neither will we.
March 18th, 2008 at 12:49 PM
Lester,
Counter-terrorism isn’t terrorism. 2 + 4 does not equal 5.
March 18th, 2008 at 1:11 PM
i wouldn’t put too much faith into the warning to syria. israel used to DO things, not warn. when you warn a lot, it signals you prefer not to be forced to act. the warner is the same barak who did the same when he left lebanon, who accepted hezbollah attacks for years and who did not do anything to syria in 2006.
brazell,
bush has put his tails between his legs and reversed all his policies, not just the bush doctrine
miller,
they’ve already done that and they’re doing it daily.
sully,
yes, probably you’re the only one.
mike,
don’t feed the troll.
oao
http://fallofknowledgeandreason.blogspot.com/
March 18th, 2008 at 8:34 PM
Hizbullah didn’t get involved because they know the rest of the Lebanese factions would be infuriated by them dragging the state into another unnecessary war with Israel. They are still recovering from the last conflict and lets be honest - the rest of the Lebanese really don’t care that much for the Palestinians (as evidenced by the distinct lack of popular protest when the Lebanese army was levelling the Nahr el-Bared UNRWA camp).
March 18th, 2008 at 9:56 PM
YbA,
correct in main.
however, a conflagration with syria may change the situation and force iran to respond, in which case internal lebanese issues won’t matter much.
March 18th, 2008 at 11:44 PM
oao
I agree as I posted on another piece here - but I’m not sure that Israel could swing an attack on Syria as a result of any Palestinian terrorism? (I guess they could make a tenuous argument about Meshaal being in Damascus but this wouldn’t be bought by any European state let alone NAM etc).
March 19th, 2008 at 3:18 AM
the context was the piece interpreting the warning to syria as “israel gets the bush doctrine”. my point was that such warnings were given in the past and even when hezbollah gave reason to act on the warning, barak did not. so these warnings have little credibility, they are essentially attempts to obscure lack of willingness to act. israel used to act, not talk. now it’s hamas and hezbollah who do that. olmert and barak make strong but clearly infantile statements and shortly later do the exact opposite and give in, because they have no answer to the missiles and are desperate to appease the world (which is the path to perdition). they did it in 2006 war and they just did it with gaza. they lost their deterrent but try to cover it by talk. it’s pathetic.