Decision Time About Lebanon

John “McQ” McQuain has been updating his post about this confusing day in the hot war between the country Israel and religious army Hezbollah. The morning starts with a decision to go fight person to person and ends with waffling indecision about whether to entrust the security of the state to the United Nations, in order to avoid that bloody hell of ground to ground combat. The anguished thought process of the Israeli leadership is captured in emails McQ is posting from Israel.

The situation in Israel tonight has become extremely confused, verging on the chaotic. Government ministers, like the foreign minister and prime minister, are publicly feuding. The government is saying that the assault into Lebanon will definitely be rolling tonight while it has simultaneously implied that it intends to accept the cease-fire resolution. Leaders of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are demanding to be unleashed while leaks from some government members hint that they have no confidence in the military. The media has now surged into the battle with highly contentious columns and editorials.

There appear to be two basic and competing schools of thought. One argues that Israel cannot defeat Hezbollah without incurring unacceptable losses and re-occupying parts of Lebanon, thereby winding up in a counterinsurgency situation. The other school of thought argues that the price of accepting a cease-fire that leaves Hezbollah intact is much higher than the cost of war.

It is the same quandary the entire Western World is trying to resolve because the West no longer has accepted guidelines for suppressing a religion. The war on terrorism is, and has always been, conflict with a religious doctrine that is well financed, well armed, effectively stateless and aggressively hostile. The very concept of forceful persecution of religious belief runs counter to the value we assign freedom of thought, but persecution and suppression is going to be necessary for any lasting peace and safety.

I have no faith in the United Nations and their past performance merits none. For the moment, however, Western aversion to prolonged violence seems willing, yet one more time, to let third party individuals have a go at creating peace. Of course, there will be no lasting solution as long as Jihadist Muslims have military weapons in addition to their intolerance and false understanding.