Does the Israeli action in Gaza portend attacks on Lebanon and then Iran?

Posted By ABBAS MOMANI/AFP/Getty Images Monday, November 19, 2012 - 6:27 AM Share

A friend writes:

"If Israel is on the cusp of preempting Iran, it would be a very smart thing to crush Iran's surrogates on the border and neutralize prepositioned weapons that might be brought to bear when the gloves come off with the Farsi folks.  At least, this is what I would do in advance of an attack on Iran. Tick-tock, tick-tock.

Another friend suggested that if this analysis is correct, then southern Lebanon will be next.

EXPLORE:NORTH AMERICA
 

NACL

7:15 PM ET

November 19, 2012

What Gaza Portends

That Gaza is merely the first of three shoes to drop, would be a smart surmise if the current fighting had not been provoked by a thousand Hamas rockets, 120 falling just in the week before Jabari was struck.

Moreover, Syria's precarious state at present also affects Hezbullah, to a point where it is loath to give Israel any provocation.

Finally, Israel has no way of conducting a sustained air campaign against distant Iran over contested air space, with just her 40 F-15s and a handful of tankers. And even with 400 F-15s, and our best deep penetration bombs, she still could not destroy installations buried under a mountain.

If Israel attacks Iran it will be with Jericho ballistic missiles using nuclear warheads to jackhammer down into those buried nuclear workshops. That will leave the conventional IDF available for any trouble from the North or South. No need to pull those teeth in advance.

 

ERIC HAMMEL

9:48 PM ET

November 19, 2012

Not the Same IDF

Unless the IDF has massively upgraded its ground battle doctrine (back up to 1967 levels!) since its last Confederacy of Dunces invasion of Lebanon, a ground invasion of just about anywhere except Gaza is out of the question. Just like the Beirut Bombing of 1983 emboldened the Moslem world to take on the U.S. wherever it showed up for a fight, that rout in Lebanon took off the last luster of the IDF's 1967 and 1973 victories.

The IDF frittered away two decades of doctrinal advancement and training of two generations of troops and troop leaders on its ill-advised transformation into a door-kicking constabulary armed =as if= it was a competent land army.

(FWIW, which ain't much, I spent most of 1975 at a kibbutz sharing a property line with rocket-weary Sderot, within easy sight of the treeline that marked the Gaza border. It never dawned on us that the houses we lived in could ever be struck by rockets--or even mortars--fired from behind that treeline.)

 

TYRTAIOS

11:51 AM ET

November 20, 2012

Those previously battles

Those previously battles fought up to 1973 by IDF were ones of combined arms, maneuver and logistics.

Israel now faces an enemy that presents them with an unbalanced battle space, and further understands that World opinion will not allow Israel to flatten Gaza, ala the Red Army's artillery prep of Berlin.

 

CLIFFBCALIF

10:00 PM ET

November 20, 2012

I doubt Israel has any

I doubt Israel has any interest in occupying parts of Gaza for what should be all the obvious reasons. However, as concerns IDF capabilities, Ehud Barak is most certainly not the incompetent and inexperienced Amir Peretz of 2006 fame ;and regardless of what anyone thinks about the political style of Netanyahu, his military experience in the Sarayet Mitkal and during the 1973 war is certainly more substantial (to say the least) than that of Olmert. Under Barak the IDF has been returned to its conventional war proficiencies. Barak, however, is also to intelligent to want a re-occupation of any part of Gaza as the cost of that effort will not provide any meaningful benefit to Israel. His is a pragmatic approach to war which this country should adopt.

New generations bring new enemies or reformed enemies and require new military strategies, weapons systems, and tactics on the part of the IDF. Under Barak they have returned to their previous competency, albeit using different tactics as they showed during Operation Cast Lead. Iron Dome's performance targeting and determining the course and track of short range rockets and locking on only to truly threatening rockets is an electronic leap forward that only a few who understand the technical difficulties of that technical problem understand. It is a major leap forward in electronic warfare -- due both to its capabilities and the speed at which the computations are made and decisions are made.

 

CLIFFBCALIF

9:20 PM ET

November 20, 2012

Tyrtaios: Do you mean to

Tyrtaios: Do you mean to reference the Russian 1945 artillery bombardment of Berlin or their artillery bombardment of the Insurgent held cities in Chechnya -- which one could have watched on TV as many across the globe did without comment -- not that the Israeli's have any such intention.

 

TYRTAIOS

12:42 AM ET

November 21, 2012

I see your point . . . As I think you saw mine.

I see your point . . . As I think you saw mine.

 

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military for the Washington Post from 2000 through 2008.

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