Audio: Manning n Pound - Israel/Hezbollah Conflict

Thursday, 3 August 2006, 2:33 pm
Article: Scoop Audio

Scoop Audio: Manning and Pound Debate Israel/Hezbollah Conflict

Scoop Audio: Selwyn Manning and 95bFM's Simon Pound debate geo-strategies being demonstrated in the Israel/Hezbollah conflict. What is each side attempting to achieve from all this bloodshed? And, is there a right and wrong side in this slaughter?

Scoop Audio: Selwyn Manning and 95bFM's Simon Pound debate the Israel/Hezbollah conflict.

Main Points Raised (info assistance from Stratfor intel):

The three-week air offensive, a pseudo cease-fire and disagreements in the Israeli Cabinet on strategy, have caused Israel to hit its ground offensive running. Hezbollah is now fighting the war it is prepared for.

Hezbollah forces are well-dispersed and dug into bunkers. It already has its supplies and weapons in place and command has clearly devolved to the lowest possible unit, so contact with central headquarters is not necessary for fighting.

They are forcing the Israelis into close combat. If Hezbollah's strongholds hold out, with its tactic of firing missiles at Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, then the Israelis will have no option but to dig in and engage in intense fire-fights that will take time and cost lives.

Israel's strategy seems to be twofold:

First, it must end the war with the destruction of Hezbollah's military capability - its political force could be left intact but its military strength, from Israel's point of view, must be ended.

Second, Israel is demonstrating its belief that it must carry out this operation before U.S. political interests such as Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the European Union states force the U.S. to compel Israel to agree to a genuine cease-fire.

Hezbollah wants Israel to be engaged in street by street fighting and insurgent guerrilla-styled combat. If it succeeds in drawing Israel into such a conflict, then Hezbollah has won a battle of sorts.

Israel will seek to relax its opposition to a multinational peacekeeping force in north Lebanon only at the point in which it believes it has exhausted Hezbollah's ability to fire its rockets, and at the decisive moment in which it is drawn into insurgent defence of Lebanon in a line just north of Beirut.

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