Leveraging

In a hypothetical column written in 1999, Thomas Friedman described how PM Binyamin Netanyahu would be re-elected.

Now that Israeli troops are out of Lebanon, noted Mr. Netanyahu, everything is reversed: Politically, if the Iranian-directed Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas try to come across the border, they will be invading Israel, and Israel will be justified in massively retaliating against Lebanese, Syrian and Iranian troops that abet such an invasion. And if Israel does retaliate, it won’t be with guerrilla warfare, but with the Israeli Air Force massively striking Lebanese, Iranian and Syrian military targets in Lebanon, and maybe inside Syria.The Israeli move has totally unnerved the Syrians, the Hezbollah guerrillas and Iran. ”They are all now in a quandary,” said the Middle East expert Stephen P. Cohen. ”The Hezbollah guerrillas are saying to themselves: ‘Now that we have liberated Lebanon, do we want to use that as leverage to rule Lebanon? Or do we want to use that as a springboard to move on to Jerusalem?’ If they want to do the latter, now they’re really going to have to pay for it.”

After Hezbollah used six years of preparing for and launching a war against Israel he wrote:

On the morning after the morning after, Lebanese war refugees, who had real jobs and homes, will start streaming back by the hundreds of thousands, many of them Shiites. Tragically, they will find their homes or businesses badly damaged or obliterated. Yes, they will curse Israel. But they and other Arabs will also start asking Nasrallah publicly what many are already asking privately:“What was this war all about? What did we get from this and at what price? Israel has some roofs to repair and some dead to bury. But its economy and state are fully intact, and it will recover quickly. We Lebanese have been set back by a decade. Our economy and our democracy lie in ruins, like our homes. For what? For a one-week boost in ‘Arab honor?’ So that Iran could distract the world’s attention from its nuclear program? You did all this to us for another country?”

. . .

Moreover, if and when a French-led international force is placed along the Israel-Lebanon border, it will be a big loss for Hezbollah. The Shiite militia will no longer be able to directly touch Israel and start a war for Iran or Syria whenever it chooses. And, if Hezbollah tried to lob missiles over the peacekeeping zone, or penetrate it, it would clash with forces from France, Italy and Turkey, the likely peacekeepers. That means Hezbollah, Iran and Syria would not be able to hurt Israel without also hurting their own relations with the European Union.

Now the consequences of following Friedman’s advice – his reassurance in shreds too – are clear. As JoshuaPundit put it

Hezbollah and Iran realize that it’s no longer necessary to overthrow the Siniora government. They can just control, and take over in their own good time.What we’re seeing now is simply negotiations over the terms of surrender.

To be sure there are plenty of reasons for the state of affairs in Lebanon, but surely Israel’s withdrawal and failure to battle the Hezbollah buildup in southern Lebanon played a major role in the fall of Lebanon’s March 14 coalition.

Now Friedman tells us that when you negotiate with your enemies you need leverage.

There has been some promising moderate push back against extremists in Iraq, Lebanon and the West Bank lately. It’s definitely worth watching, but is still very frail. America’s leverage will be limited as long our key allies do not have a strategy, with weight, to counter the hard-liners. Here’s hoping that once the primary silly season is over, the McCain and Obama camps will stop jousting over whether to talk with our enemies — which we must — and will start focusing instead about how we and our friends get more chips to bargain with — which we lack.

In Lebanon, Israel’s withdrawal precipitated the events that led to the loss of any leverage. In fact I would argue that Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon was one of the main factors in encouraging Iran’s adventurism.

The turnaround in Iraq that he so vaguely acknowledges had been due to the effective use of military force combined with a skillful co-opting of local forces.

I’m not sure what push back has been going on in the West Bank. (I notice he doesn’t mention Gaza where Israel’s withdrawal has similarly emboldened Iran’s allies.)

For the most part, though, leverage is achieved through the use of force of some sort. It’s a lesson that Friedman still hasn’t absorbed.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.