Israel’s Strategic Standpoint: Mid-2011 and Mid-“Arab Spring”

This article was published in the Jerusalem Post. I own the rights so all links should be to this site.

By Barry Rubin

There are two main strategic perspectives in Israel today. They aren’t contradictory but they have different priorities. These can be called the “northern” and the “southern” views.

The “northern” approach is the more traditional one, focusing on the situation in that direction. The key longer-term concern is over Iran and its drive for nuclear weapons. More closely, there are both concerns and hopes regarding Lebanon and Syria.

Regarding Iran, the new feature is the assumption that Israel will not attack Iran to prevent it from getting nuclear weapons. This means that Israel will be constructing a multi-level defensive system that includes long-range attack planes, a capability of subverting Iran’s nuclear force through covert operations, possibly submarine platforms, and several types of anti-missile missiles and defenses.

The goal here is four-fold:

--To delay as long as possible Iran getting nuclear weapons and to minimize the size and effectiveness of its arsenal through sanctions, international pressure, sabotage, and other means.

--To have the maximum ability to deter Iran from launching a nuclear attack on Israel and showing the ability to stop Iranian missiles. The aim is to discourage Iran from launching such an attack given a near-certainty that it can be stopped and Iran will suffer very heavy damage as a result.
--Of course, ordinary deterrence is not a sufficient safeguard against Iran given the Islamic regime’s ideological extremism and passionate hatred of Israel, the recklessness of some key elements there, and the rulers’ shortcomings in accurately assessing reality. Consequently, Israel must put a high priority on stopping any Iranian attack from happening at all or succeeding if it does happen.

--To be able, if Israel ever determines there is a real danger of an Iranian attack, to launch a first strike to inflict maximum damage on Iran’s nuclear strike force. In other words, an Israeli attack would be premised not on Iran getting nuclear weapons but on Iran being likely to use nuclear weapons.

U.S. deterrence, early-warning, and anti-missile efforts would supplement this system but this strategy is not premised on any dependence on the U.S. government.

But Israel also knows that an equal or even greater danger is the spread of Iranian influence, taking over Arab countries or turning them into clients that can be used against Israel. Here, the northern focus is on Syria and Lebanon.

On the surface, the news from these two countries is potentially bad. Lebanon is now ruled by a government controlled by Hizballah and other Syrian or Syrian-Iranian clients. Hizballah thus can use Lebanon as a virtual fiefdom for building its military power and attacking Israel. This is much worse than the 2006 Hizballah-Israel war when Lebanon as a government and army had a separate identity.

Syria itself is faced with a serious internal upheaval that seems increasingly likely to bring down the dictatorship of President Hafiz al-Asad. Here the “glass half-empty” analysis is that Asad might be replaced by an Islamist or radical regime even more hostile to Israel.

There is also, though, a “glass half full” analysis. As long as Syria is in such turmoil, it cannot so effectively threaten Israel. And if Asad is overthrown a government might take power that is more preoccupied by internal affairs, perhaps less eager to be in conflict with Israel.

Iraq offers a good model here. Between the interests of the Kurds, the internal conflict, a greater focus on domestic development, and other factors, Iraq has dropped out of the conflict with Israel.

Hizballah also suffers from this turmoil. Since it has sided with the Asad regime, Hizballah has gone from wildly popular to widely hated by the Syrian people. Hamas, which has sided against the Syrian regime and in favor of its Muslim Brotherhood comrades, has lost Syrian patronage. Finally, Syria’s aggressive behavior has opened up a rift between that country and Turkey’s government, which has been increasingly acting like an ally of the Iranian and Syrian regimes.

Consequently, while this is no ideal or wonderful situation, Israel can be considered to have benefitted from this aspect of the “Arab Spring.”

From Israel’s standpoint, the relative stability in Jordan and Saudi Arabia is a plus since these countries are unlikely to be transformed into radical Islamist states under a government linked to al-Qaida, Iran, or the Muslim Brotherhood. The turmoil in Bahrain, Yemen, and Tunisia is of relatively little strategic significance to Israel.

Generally, there can be a hope that democracy and domestic development will become a higher priority than fighting Israel, thus easing the pressure on Israel, or at least preoccupying Arabs and Muslims for a while. Clearly, merely calling dissidents Zionist agents and trying to unite the people around an anti-Israel political platform no longer works for incumbent nationalist governments.

In time, this strategy might work for replacement, Islamist governments but that hasn’t happened yet. Moreover, American weakness and the Obama Administration’s cooler view toward Israel is worrisome. So is the possibility that things might be moving in a way to strengthen Iran.

If one looks at the southern front, though, it is harder to find some possible silver lining. Egypt is likely to elect a radical government more hostile than anything Israel has faced there since about 1974. The future of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty is gloomy. Peace between Israel and the Arab world’s most populous country cannot be taken for granted.

There is also the problem of the Egypt-Hamas relationship. Egypt is likely to see itself as Hamas’s ally and patron. In a future Israel-Hamas conflict begun by an attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip any time Hamas so wishes, Egypt could actively take the side of the Palestinian Islamists and will certainly help them. The long-quiet southern front now has to be treated as a very possible zone of armed conflict.

This is the basic way things look for Israeli strategists. One can stress better- or worse-case scenarios and different parts of the challenge but there is a general consensus on the fundamental challenges—and on the fact that they will be met successfully.

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Barry Rubin, director, Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center; editor, Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal; and featured columnist http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is http://www.gloria-center.org/. His articles published originally in places other than PajamasMedia can be found at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/

Why Borders Matter

This article is published on PajamasMedia.

By Barry Rubin

A reader asks whether there are any defensible borders in the modern world because it is possible to fire missiles or rockets across a border.

Well, yes, but even in ancient times it has always been possible for an army to cross--or try to cross--a border. That isn't what defensible borders means.

Example, rockets can hit Sderot from the Gaza Strip but not hit Tel Aviv because the latter city is too far for Hamas to hit from its side of the border. Can they get bigger ones? Yes but the bigger they are the easier they are to spot and the longer--even seconds count--a defensive missile has for shooting them down.

The further the border, the longer it takes for a terrorist squad to get to where there are a lot of people to kill. It's best to stop them either before they cross the border or while they are on the way.

Geography matters also. It is far easier to attack or shoot downward from the Golan Heights than from the flat plain below. It is far easier to do so also from the Judean Hills. An army holding that terrain has an advantage, even when it comes to firing rockets

It is far easier to cut a narrow corridor like that leading to Jerusalem in the pre-1967 borders and thus surround, beseige, and capture that city than it would be if the border was further away. The same applies to the fact that pre-1967 Israel's narrowest point is half the width of the Washington Beltway, that's twenty minutes' even in driving in traffic. And enemy armies don't stop at red lights.

Depth of defense is a basic strategic consideration. The deeper your territory the more time and space you have to maneuver and to create multiple lines and defenses, each of which the enemy must face and defeat for advancing.

Israel has a small standing army. Its defense depends on mobilizing reserves, civilians, who must get the word, go to their assigned stations, get their equipment, and go into action. That can be done quickly but it still takes time. And it is much harder to do if attacking forces are within range of their homes, assembly points, and armories.

The reader asking about all of this cites the rather bad example of Muammar Qadhafi in Libya who "cannot defend his borders." Leaving aside the fact that there's a civil war going on (his main enemy is inside his borders), of course it is best to have a technological edge and the ability to move quickly. Israel has both of these advantages.

What it lacks, with the 1967 borders, is strategic depth and advantageous terrain.

But isn't peace better than a good defensive situation?

Of course it is. Not being attacked at all is better than being attacked and winning (I'm sure there are exceptions to that but I'll leave that for another time.)

Yet that's precisely the point. It is because Israel CANNOT ASSUME AND HAS GOOD REASON NOT TO ASSUME that an agreement with the Palestinian Authority would lead to lasting peace. This is the factor that is generally left out of Western calculations that simply cannot comprehend Israel's position on the issues.

Western officials and those talking on television and writing in newspapers call on Israel to rush into a deal--no matter what concessions are needed--because things will get worse. That, like many of the mainstream arguments given about the Middle East, can be demolished in sixty seconds. If things are going to get worse--and they will--any peace agreement would be abrogated by the other side and backfire.

It isn't a great idea to be a country the size of Delaware surrounded by enemies who daily boast of how they're going to wipe you off the map, have broken almost all of their previous agreements, and who outnumber you by a ratio of about twenty to one. 

How is that hard to understand?

Now, with Iran moving toward getting nuclear weapons; Turkey about to reelect a government dedicated to Israel's destruction; the Palestinian Authority reincorporating Hamas; Egypt electing a radical and possibly Islamist regime; Hizballah taking over Lebanon; and the weakest, most unreliable, government in Washington within living memory is not the time for Israel to weaken its defenses.

Why don't we hear that simple truth?

To take voluntarily a bad strategic position in a situation where the probability of attack is higher than at any time in more than 30 years is crazy. Yet this is what much of the world, including the U.S. president, wants Israel to do.

Israel is not going to follow a stupid, self-destructive strategy. If only this could be said of others today!

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/ His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is http://www.gloria-center.org. His PajamaMedia columns are mirrored and other articles available at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.

Egypt's Revolution Plus U.S. Government Mistakes Makes Israel-Hamas War Inevitable

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By Barry Rubin

I'm going to make a prediction here that, unfortunately, I'm sure will come true. Any good analyst should be able to see this, yet few will until it happens within the next one or two years:

The Egyptian revolution and U.S. policy mistakes make a new Israel-Hamas war inevitable, and as a result it will be a lot more of an international mess.

Why?

First, Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, is a revolutionary Islamist movement that  views itself as directed by God's will; considers Jews to be subhuman; believes that a willingness to court suicide and welcome death and destruction will bring victory; is certain that it is going to destroy Israel; and is determined to transform Palestinian society into an Islamic utopia, no matter how many people it has to kill. It is indifferent to the well-being, or even physical survival, of the Palestinians it rules.

And not one word of that is an exaggeration.

Given this situation, there are only two ways to stop Hamas from waging war on Israel. A shorter-range solution is deterrence through strength and weakening Hamas with tough sanctions. The defeat Israel inflicted on Hamas in the 2008-2009 war and the tight sanctions in place until 2010 forced the organization to retrench and  be cautious for a while.

The only longer-term solution is the overthrow of the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip and the maximum possible destruction of that group's leadership, structures, and resources.

Events in Egypt and U.S. policy, however, have at least temporarily destroyed this shorter-range solution and made impossible the longer-range one.

If Hamas is confident, it will go to war. With more and better weapons, Hamas will go to war. If it believes that the international environment is permissive--much less supportive!--it will go to war. It's only a matter of timing.

Second, the Egyptian revolution removed a regime that defined its own and Egypt's national interest as having an anti-Hamas policy. The Mubarak government did not maintain sanctions and an (imperfect) blockade of weapons' shipments out of concern for Israel.

No. It did so because the Egyptian government saw revolutionary Islamism as the main threat to the country and to itself. This was not, as current U.S. officials claim, some cynically manipulated mirage to justify dictatorship. Rather, it was a very logical policy.

In addition to the direct threat of Hamas subverting Egypt in cooperation with Islamist groups in the country, the Mubarak government saw Hamas as part of a broader Iran-led strategic threat to Egypt, Sunnis, and Arabs generally.

A new government in Egypt, whether radical nationalist, Islamist, or "liberal democratic" will have the opposite view.

The Muslim Brotherhood views Hamas as its closest ally and wants it to overthrow the Palestinian Authority as well as to destroy Israel.

The nationalists support Hamas as part of the Arab struggle against Israel.

The "liberal democrats" do so because they know this is a very popular position with Egyptians and to oppose it would reduce their already tiny base of support to zero. Remember that April 6 Youth Movement, the young Facebook-using liberals who launched the revolution? Well, it engaged in two activities before that: one was to free imprisoned bloggers; the other was to end sanctions against the Hamas regime in Gaza.

And so, Hamas knows that it now has an ally, rather than an enemy, at its back. Moreover, there is no incentive in Egypt--or among its nationalist and Islamist-sympathetic officers--to block arms smuggling into the Gaza Strip. As a result, Hamas is stronger and more confident, and hence arrogant and reckless. It is better able to launch rockets, mortars, and cross-border attacks, and far more eager to do so. Hamas is also able to get longer-range missiles and other new types of weapons.

As for U.S. policy, while supporting some sanctions on Hamas and refusing to deal directly with the group, the U.S. government has not supported overthrowing the Gaza regime, though any serious assessment of U.S. interests show this should be a priority. A policy to destroy Hamas should be part of the war against Iranian hegemony in the region, revolutionary Islamism, terrorism, and instability. Even more, doing so would aid the moribund Israel-Palestinian peace process and keep the Palestinian Authority in power.

But there is no appreciation for these points in Washington. When it comes to fighting revolutionary Islamism, U.S. policy sees the Middle East as a no-try zone.

What makes matters worse, is the Obama Administration's demand--after being shaken by a small incident in which about a half-dozen Islamist militants were killed on a ship after they attacked Israeli soldiers--to minimize sanctions. And then, out of misplaced humanitarian concern, the U.S. government deliberately, albeit indirectly, pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into the Gaza Strip, thus strengthening Hamas and its popular base of support.

By such behavior, the Obama Administration is not just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic; it's enlarging the hole below the ship's water-line, arguing that by doing so it is moderating the ocean.

This strategy ensures that there would be a genocidal-oriented, revolutionary Islamist, subversion-spreading, anti-American, brutally repressive, anti-Christian, woman-oppressing, Iranian client regime on the Mediterranean. What's really alarming is that the previous sentence is not in the least bit exaggerated. We're talking about a Taliban-equivalent regime here. 
 
Now, U.S. support for a transformation of Egypt with no idea where that would lead, has helped turn that enemy of Hamas into a Hamas ally. The Obama Administration has also supplied one more reason why revolutionary Islamists feel as if the future belongs to them, America is finished in the region, and why they  should be even more bold and aggressive.

Much of the escalation of attacks on Israel now is the result of Hamas getting new weapons and escalating its use of terrorism on all levels. In addition, we are seeing no significant international action or even criticism of this behavior. On the contrary, the more terrorism Hamas commits, the more Israel is criticized in the Western media.

Terrorism works; aggression goes unpunished. Why be surprised that Hamas becomes increasingly confident and aggressive?

It is only a matter of time until Hamas once again does what it did at the end of 2008: launch a larger-scale assault on Israel. At that point, Israel will have to respond by a major attack on the Gaza Strip.

What will happen? Will Egypt remain neutral? Will its government stop the Muslim Brotherhood and other sympathizers rush arms, money, and even armed Egyptian volunteers into the Gaza Strip? Will the West blame Israel, instead of itself, for the violence? Will the United States take any productive action at all?

This crisis is inevitable, though it might take one or at most two years to happen. Yet nobody outside Israel sees--or wants to see--what's coming.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.