Heretics' almanac: How this war will progress

Every military organization operates on a military doctrine. Israel's doctrine has for many years been based on the scenario of a war:

On several fronts
Against one or more Arab regimes with conventional forces
Against extreme time pressure, since the UN has a tendency to stop all wars when Israel gains the upper hand
With no buffer against the enemy

The wars against Hizballah and Hamas deviate from this scenario. They are low-intensity conflicts where the enemy uses unconventional tactics and is not accountable in the international community. Israel can only gain a decisive upper hand by inflicting unacceptable civilian casualties.

It seems to me that Israel didn't know exactly how to defeat Hizballah when this war started. They were aware of 12,000-15,000 rockets with Northern Israel within their range, knew that Hizballah fighters hid among the civilian population, and knew that the Lebanese government was helpless to do anything one way or another.

But they had to learn by doing, by trying, failing, and trying again. They cut off supply lines, bombed the big targets, inconvenienced and hassled Hizballah. They took out launch sites when they found them, but the rockets kept coming in over Israel. Then they started the ground offensive, experimented with specops raids, and now they're learning to scout, identify, and eliminate enemy targets; systematically, lethally, effectively. With every day, there is a growing number of Israeli soldiers who know exactly how to defeat Hizballah in their own terrain.

After D-Day, allied soldiers had to break through German defensive lines in the hedgerows of Normandy. It proved to be nasty infantry work that consisted of fighting through one row of hedges after another; it involved a lot of killing, a lot of risk, and there was no easy way to do it. Similarly, the Marines on Iwo Jima had to root out Japanese defenses one cave and bunker at a time, often with gruesome methods.

This is one of those wars. Israeli infantry has to find ways to engage Hizballah positions, defeat them by destroying their ability to fight again - which probably means killing the fighters, and then move on to the next one. Israeli specops troops have to go after one strategic target after another, infiltrating while maintaining surprise, and making a spectacle of the destruction. The more of these the IDF does, the better they will get at it. Israel will win because it has more resources, because it is persistent, and because its soldiers are willing to learn rather than be right. There is nothing glamorous about it, and many - on all sides - will be traumatized for life. Anger will give way to determination, and the symbols on the map will move 500 meters, 1 kilometer, maybe 2 kilometers a day. Lebanese civilians will learn how to stay out of the way, Israeli soldiers will become familiar with landmarks.

It will be one of those wars that goes on and on, until one day it's over - there will be no more enemy left to fight. The soldiers will stand up, brush the Lebanese dirt off their pants, and hitch a ride home.

And Lebanon will be better off for it. The Blue Line will become an indisputed border that will open for trade, tourism, and other pleasant events.

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