What Should Lebanon Do?

What to do about Lebanon, however, becomes unbreakably entangled with what Lebanon does for itself. To date, one of the most piteous aspects of Israel's criminal aggression has been the government of Lebanon's response: Basically, "Please, sir, stop killing us and blowing up our country. Please stop." Frankly, this is inadequate and does nothing to bolster Lebanon's long term security. To the contrary, the message it sends Israel is that no matter what the outcome of the present war, at any future point after reconstruction if Israel again feels the urge to destroy Lebanon it may do so with impunity. The flip side of this, to be sure, is that the Lebanese are desperate to avoid repeating their earlier civil war, they greatly fear further antagonizing Israel, and they devoutly wish to avoid another Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, this time possibly to include permanent seizure of strategic assets such as the Litani River. Fair enough. But the Lebanese must carefully weigh the pros and cons of passivity versus resistance, because they will pay for the consequences for a very, very long time.

At a minimum, the Lebanese government, if it were to act prudently on its own behalf, should demand of the United Nations that an International Criminal Tribunal for Israel, along the lines of the ICTY, be established. The US of course will say no, but the object here is not the immediate establishment of such a body—though it may well ultimately be formed—but rather to force the US to say "no" as many times as possible, and similarly to force other major powers to declare their interest one way or the other. Getting the creaky international legal machinery in motion puts heft behind other Lebanese demands. It is the exact same tactic that the US routinely uses to wear down its opponents and, in these circumstances, should prove nearly as effective. Without it, however, Lebanese claims on the international system, such as it is, lose much of their spark.

Secondly, since this is an undeclared war there is no need for Lebanon to declare war against Israel in order to defend itself. Lebanon should seriously consider putting its military into play and making formal requests to other Muslim states for military assistance. It's noteworthy that the Saudi Royal Court, in an unusually bold recent statement, has warned Israel about escalation. This is something the Lebanese can capitalize on. Likewise they could call in markers from across the region, including Syria and Iran. Escalation, yes, but this puts the onus on Israel to avoid provoking a regional war and puts the UN system on notice that the one-sided destruction of a small country—an essentially innocent country—by great powers will not be tolerated. Note that Lebanon need not begin attacking targets within Israel itself: For the purpose of rousing a regional response it should suffice to beat back the Israeli incursion into Lebanese territory. The risk is that this would result in greater punishment than the Lebanese are willing to take, nevertheless, it is certainly well within their rights for them to decide it for themselves.

Third, the Lebanese government needs to seriously think about how to wage its own PR war, particularly in the US, to counter Israeli propaganda. Such an effort should be nearly on par with war crimes charges. It is an absolutely fundamental aspect of the conflict that, so far at least, the Lebanese government has not successfully addressed. Granted, they are still in shock over the scale of what's happened, but they must get their act together in a hurry.

The wild card is how to deal with Hezbollah, both from political and public affairs perspectives. I don't understand the situation well enough to offer any advice on that, except to note that in most Arab countries Hezbollah is considered a legitimate resistance movement and that the EU does not consider Hezbollah a terrorist organization, though, of course, the US and Israel do. In any event, I would not consider the status of Hezbollah an insurmountable obstacle to any of the available options.