CENTCOM thinks outside the box on Hamas and Hezbollah

[William F. Owen]

By recognizing and incorporating them into our state engagement we deny them that sanctuary, and the entire entices and populaces of Palestine and Lebanon come to be held to account for their actions. This is the best thing we could do to help Israel as well.

Yes. Once these organizations are recognized as true parts of the states they come from, the simple rule of "strong state trumps weak state" applies.

Sorry Bob, none of that computes. Anyone thought about the Lebanese and Palestinians who are violently opposed to Hamas and Hezbollah?
Unless you get both organisations to dismantle their armed wing, and thus cease to exist, this is pure naiveté.

Dismantling the armed capability of two terrorist organisations is what helps - including equipment. Making them more dangerous by giving them access to national instruments of power does not. It does not make them more accountable either. How would it?

[Bob's World]

Sorry Bob, none of that computes. Anyone thought about the Lebanese and Palestinians who are violently opposed to Hamas and Hezbollah?
Unless you get both organisations to dismantle their armed wing, and thus cease to exist, this is pure naiveté.

Dismantling the armed capability of two terrorist organisations is what helps - including equipment. Making them more dangerous by giving them access to national instruments of power does not. It does not make them more accountable either. How would it?

Don't feel sorry that you disagree, disagreement is ok. We are all entitled to our perspectives.

The very fact that much of the populace of these two states does not condone the actions of the two "terrorist" organizations functioning within them, that are allowed the freedom of manuever that this sanctuary of status allows them, is the very point.

Once this artificial sanctuary is reduced the right minded people of these comunities will have to take responsibility for the actions of these groups and will work internally to hold them to account. Currently they have no consequences, so take little action. Once their entire state is threatened by the acts of a few, the many will hold those few to task. No longer will the fiction of Hezbollah waging war with a neighboring state be possible; the reality of the entire state being held to task is fundamental to the working of the state system.

The terrorist list actually weakens the state system and empowers these organizations in many ways. After all once outside the law, the law has no deterrent effect. Similarly a populace able to shirk responsibility for the state-like acts of war of organizations made up of their citizens has little to fear from the law either, so is less apt to restrain them.

The world is changing, and our approaches to the world must evolve as well. Dusty texts written in eras long past provide keen insights, but they are not prescriptive manuals for how to operationalize those concepts in the environment that exists today.

[William F. Owen]

Don't feel sorry that you disagree, disagreement is ok. We are all entitled to our perspectives.

Concur. Who would think otherwise?

The very fact that much of the populace of these two states does not condone the actions of the two "terrorist" organizations withing them, that are allowed the freedom of manuever that this sanctuary of status allows them, is the very point.

...but that is not true. Very large and significant portions of the populations do condone their actions.
Hezbollah is extremely popular in Southern Lebanon, far more so than many in the West want to believe, because the central government is so inconsequential to the population in the South.
Hamas is the same. Hamas is seen as the de-facto Palestinian Army and Nation, by a great many Palestinians in Gaza. West Bank is essentially another country.

Once this artificial sanctuary is reduced the right minded people of these comunities will have to take responsibility for the actions of these groups and will work internally to hold them to account.

By "right minded" you mean pro-western moderates? Sorry, but there folk have no standing or respect in the vast majority of the communities you are talking about. Fact is, in the Southern Lebanon and Gaza, peace with Israel is largely unacceptable to the vast majority of the population. Hezbollah and Hamas are defined by the cause of destroying Israel.
Saying "make them part of a bigger cause" is utterly foolish. Then you just have two more nation states who want to destroy Israel.

The world is changing, and our approaches to the world must evolve as well.

Sorry, but the world is people and people don't change that much - especially in the Middle-East. Opinions and ideas basically remain constant. Form alters, function very, very rarely.

[Bob's World]

Working through your circular arguments, first you proclaim:

"Anyone thought about the Lebanese and Palestinians who are violently opposed to Hamas and Hezbollah?"

So I suggest that by recoginizing these groups as part of the state they would more likely be held to task by such others. But then, you come back with:

"but that is not true. Very large and significant portions of the populations do condone their actions"

To which I would add "of course, all the more reason to recognize that these organizations speak for the state and that the state should be held accountable as well as the organizations for their actions."

We grant these groups sanctuary. Not just these two groups, in these two states; but ALL such groups in whatever states they emerge from. The information age (that yes, I realize you are equally dismissive of), or more importantly the knowledge age, that is fueled by the greater speed and availability of information is empowering populaces and non-state organizations in new ways. States are the last to recognize and adjust to this; as usual it is the previously disempowered (people as individuals and as organizations) that embrace the new tools first; and the ones who have power who resist it most as applied against them.

Either way you slice it, be it that these groups don't or do speak and act for the people of the state; the fact remains that they are more easily deterred from acting badly when allowed to operate within the system, and also held to task by the system. Outside the system they enjoy a tremendous sanctuary that I suspect we don't appreciate because so many still believe the simplistic cliche' that "sanctuary comes from ungoverned spaces."

Yet one more example of Fairy Tale-based COIN doctrine (the first being the Pied Piper theory of ideology, that well governed populaces will become radicalized by some seductive ideology and follow the espouser of the same to their doom.)

This one is "The Sherwood Forest theory of Sanctuary." Everyone knows how Robin Hood and his Merry Band took sanctuary in Sherwood Forest; but if the forest was destroyed or somehow denied to them, would they have no more sanctuary?? Of course not, there are other forests for what a forest provides; but more importantly the true sanctuary came from the support of a poorly governed populace (the illegitimacy and injustice of Prince John is legend as well), and their outlaw status itself. Sanctuary comes from such popular support and legal status (a sovereign border, a lack of state affiliation, an outlaw status). As an aside, we approach the AF-Pak problem like a mob of woodcutters going after Sherwood Forest. Even if you cut it down, you have only forced a change of address if you have not addressed the primary sources of sanctuary.

We need to move past fairy tale COIN and get real. We need to get real with groups like Hamas and Hezbollah and the states they live in as well.

[Tukhachevskii]

...are the bane of analysis everywhere. I know its a RED TEAM product and therefore is meant to be challenging and not taken too seriously (nothing wrong with thinking outside the box) but some propositions (and their implicit unexamined premises) caught my eye:

#1 Hamas and Fatah to work together? So what's been stopping them (AFIAK they hate each others guts). Fatah is a broadly speaking secularist organisation (this doesn't mean they are anti-Islamic or belive in separation of church and state but equates rather more to a pragmatic approach) whereas Hamas wants to destroy Israel in toto (if they don't, and the policy statement in their charter is just bunkum then ...why don't they delete it?). Fateh equates to a nationalist movement whilst Hamas equates to the political expression of the Ikwan's goals (and thus only the first step in a larger regional project). The one wants territorial co-existence (after a fashion) the other annihilation of Israel as the first step to the recreation of a regional Islamic re-awkening (Utopian, yes, but that doesn't mean they won't try; i.e., Bolshevism, Nazism, the French Revolution); hardly compatible policy positions. Getting the rival leaderships (and their international partners who manipulate things behind the scenes and risk losing influence/face) is another rquestion entirely.

#2 Integrating Hizb-allah's military wing into the Lebanese armed forces would simply turn that institution into a front organisation for Hizballah. Not forgetting that hizballah's political reach would be further extended and deepened into Lebanese society essentially, to my ears anyway, this sounds a lot like assisted state capture. Why not resussetate (sp?) Amal instead as a rival to Hizballah? G-d only knows what would happen to the internal sectarian and ethnic correllation of forces in what is, lets be honest, an extremely fragile state. Indeed, its only because Lebanon has been able to segregate Hizballah in the south by assigining what ammounts to a sphere of political influence that it has managed to attain some kind of functional administration elsewhere.

[William F. Owen]

Working through your circular arguments, first you proclaim:

"Anyone thought about the Lebanese and Palestinians who are violently opposed to Hamas and Hezbollah?"

So I suggest that by recoginizing these groups as part of the state they would more likely be held to task by such others.

Why would you recognise those who violently oppose you? Why share power with them and why with you

"but that is not true. Very large and significant portions of the populations do condone their actions"

To which I would add "of course, all the more reason to recognize that these organizations speak for the state and that the state should be held accountable as well as the organizations for their actions."

Why would their supporters want them to become irrelevant by ceasing to set forth their policy? Hezbollah is supported BECAUSE it is not the Lebanese Army. The Shia in the South are no particular friends of the Christians up on the Chouf and in Beirut below.

Either way you slice it, be it that these groups don't or do speak and act for the people of the state; the fact remains that they are more easily deterred from acting badly when allowed to operate within the system, and also held to task by the system.

So why would they want to do that - IF that was indeed the case? Do you really think this is something they don't know? They might be unreasonable, but they ain't stupid.

[Bob's World]

Why would you recognise those who violently oppose you? Why share power with them and why with you
Why would their supporters want them to become irrelevant by ceasing to set forth their policy? Hezbollah is supported BECAUSE it is not the Lebanese Army. The Shia in the South are no particular friends of the Christians up on the Chouf and in Beirut below.

So why would they want to do that - IF that was indeed the case? Do you really think this is something they don't know? They might be unreasonable, but they ain't stupid.

The implication, if indeed it is one, is on Western policy makers for not seeing that they need to take a new tact in dealing with this situation. The current tact of simply pouring more and more support into Israel to defend itself against the current structures around it is perhaps something many would call "stupid." The current tact also robs Israel of legitimacy in the eyes of its Arab neighbors, who deep in their hearts believe that it can only exist as a state with the support of Western powers, thereby driving them to destroy it far more than any (ideological) issues of religion do.

We help Israel more by helping them less; and

We disempower the terrorist arms of Hezbollah and Hamas best by recognizing fully their legitimate roles in the states of Lebanon and Palestine, and in turn holding those states responsible for their actions.

It may be counter-intuitive to many, but if the course we've been following for years is the "intuitive" one, I'd say it's long overdue to look seriously at the "counter."

[Tukhachevskii]

We disempower the terrorist arms of Hezbollah and Hamas best by recognizing fully their legitimate roles in the states of Lebanon and Palestine, and in turn holding those states responsible for their actions.

Do Hamas and Hizbullah have legitimate roles in their respective territories (what exactly are they doing that deserves the descriptor "legitimate"? If they did wouldn't the states within which they operate already be responsible for them?

Instead, aren't you actually legitimising the terrorist aims of Hizbullah and Hamas by recognising them in the first place? Do they have "terrorist arms"? Are there "moderate" elements in either organisation?

Can we expect to hold these staes responsible for organisations the we have now decreed belong to them? (anyone remember the "Axis of Evil"?)

[William F. Owen]

The current tact also robs Israel of legitimacy in the eyes of its Arab neighbors, who deep in their hearts believe that it can only exist as a state with the support of Western powers, thereby driving them to destroy it far more than any (ideological) issues of religion do.

Sorry, but nothing ANYONE can do will make Israel legitimate in Arab eyes. Nothing. That IS the source of the conflict? There is no peaceful resolution, other than recognition, or destruction.

We disempower the terrorist arms of Hezbollah and Hamas best by recognizing fully their legitimate roles in the states of Lebanon and Palestine, and in turn holding those states responsible for their actions.

That makes no sense. They are armed organisations. No arms, no existence. Recognising their legitimacy just makes them stronger.
"Give up the armed struggle and we will recognise you?" Is that the offer? If they are not being instrumental in opposing Israel, they will cease to exist.

Neither the populations or government would see themselves as responsible for their actions. Hezbollah doesn't become more vulnerable because its part of the Lebanese Government and Army. It just has access to greater resources/funds/manpower.

Moreover Hamas are the de-facto state in Gaza, and, as you note, Hezbollah is a part of the Lebanese Government. How is the Lebanese Government NOT responsible for Hezbollah action, right now? The exist in the Lebanon under the protection and patronage of the Lebanese.

What about inviting the Taliban to help form a Government in Kabul or Al Quaida in Iraq? Make any sense?