Israel Matzav

Another war with Lebanon is 'inevitable'

Minister without portfolio Yossi Peled (Likud) said on Saturday that another war with Lebanon is 'inevitable.'

"Without a doubt we are heading for another round (of fighting) in the North. No one knows when, but it's clear that it will happen. We did not know that the Second Lebanon War was going to break out," Peled, who is a former OC Northern Command, said at an event in Beersheba.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports that Hezbullah is dispersing its missiles in Northern Lebanon and in the Bekaa Valley, which means that the next conflict is likely to cover a wider area.

Hezbollah has dispersed its long-range-rocket sites deep into northern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, a move that analysts say threatens to broaden any future conflict between the Islamist movement and Israel into a war between the two countries.

More than 10,000 U.N. troops now patrol traditional Hezbollah territory in southern Lebanon along the Israeli border, and several thousand Lebanese armed forces personnel also have moved into the area. A cross-border raid by Hezbollah guerrillas in summer 2006 triggered a month-long war that prompted the United Nations to deploy its force as part of a cease-fire.

The United Nations is confident that the dense presence of its troops in the comparatively small area is helping lower the risk of conflict and minimizing Hezbollah's ability to move weapons across southern Lebanon, but analysts in Lebanon and Israel say the U.N. mission is almost beside the point.

Hezbollah's redeployment and rearmament indicate that its next clash with Israel is unlikely to focus on the border, instead moving farther into Lebanon and challenging both the military and the government. The situation is important for U.S. efforts in the region, whether aimed at curbing the influence of Hezbollah's patrons in Iran or at persuading Syria to moderate its stance toward Israel and its neighbors.

Hezbollah "learned their lesson" in 2006, when vital intelligence enabled the Israel Defense Forces to destroy the group's long-range launch sites in the first days of the conflict, said reserve Gen. Aharon Zeevi Farkash, a former head of IDF intelligence. In effect, he said, "the 'border' is now the Litani River," with Hezbollah's rocket sites possibly extending north of Beirut.

In a December briefing, Brig. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, the IDF head of operations, said some Hezbollah rockets now have a range of more than 150 miles -- making Tel Aviv reachable from as far away as Beirut. The Islamist group has talked openly of its efforts to rebuild, and Israel estimates that Hezbollah has about 40,000 projectiles, most of them shorter-range rockets and mortar shells.

When there is another war, you can bet that it will not just be Hezbullah that suffers on the Lebanese side.

But if a conflict does break out, "Israel will not contain that war against Hezbollah," Eiland said. "We cannot."

Given Hezbollah's capabilities, he said, "the only way to deter the other side and prevent the next round -- or if it happens, to win -- is to have a military confrontation with the state of Lebanon."

By the way, Eiland doesn't regard that war as inevitable, but many other analysts here do.

What could go wrong?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:10 PM