Finish and win wars, then deal with the civilians.
There was a skit on Saturday Night Live a long time ago when it was still funny. A couple of SPECTRE guys were sitting around and talking about the need to kill James Bond directly and not through some slow method that gave him the time to escape. “Just shoot him,” was the advice given and not try to kill him with poison or a laser—and allow him to live another day.
During World War II, places like Caen, France, the Monte Cassino Monastery in Italy and Hiroshima were turned to rubble in order to bring victory. All have been successfully rebuilt. Since World War II, Western armies have tried to do two things at once, generally not succeeding with either: fighting wars and taking care of the locals. The one time when the US put up a total win, namely Operation Desert Storm, notably did not have a lot of locals to worry about as Saddam’s army was being turned to scrap metal in the desert. If you look at Israel’s wars of late, they are always worrying about those Gazan civilians or Lebanese citizens. As for the latter, Israel received 150 projectiles flung at it last Wednesday. The most basic feature of the West in the past 50 years is incredible self-restraint. Forget about nuclear bombs, the West has massive numbers and types of weapons that it either does not use or uses like a little bit of salt on your mashed potatoes. Did you see the former Iranian foreign minister at the “Quds” gather last week holding two children tight to his body? He know the rule: civilians present, no boom boom. And that has got to stop.
The great success against Germany and Japan during the war and with them after was the result of separating pure military activity and “nation-building”. When done consecutively, they are a winner; when done simultaneously, you get endless wars. Go back and look at the reels showing Japan and Germany after the war. They were Gaza on steroids. Yet, from those two hellholes were born modern countries that today are giants of production and innovation. The Berlin Airlift and MarArthur’s rebuilding of Japan are examples of what America does really well after the other side has cried, “Uncle!” MacArthur faced a completely destroyed country with the prospect of six millions Japanese soldiers coming home to a broken country that did not have the means to feed its citizenry. He asked for the food that he had put on islands in preparation for a November, 1945 amphibious assault of the Japanese home islands that was not needed. Washington did not want to give the food to its former enemy. “Either send me the food or enough bullets to deal with millions of rioting Japanese.” Washington got the message loud and clear and released the food for MacArthur’s use in Japan.
How is Hezbollah, with its thousands of dead and injured personnel, still firing missiles at northern Israel? A friend told me of acquaintances he knows in the north who will not leave their secure room. There are 60 seconds from sirens to impact and they are afraid of being caught in their car when missiles are coming. Israel could have silenced the Hezbollah problem if it had undertaken total warfare on southern Lebanon. Instead of daily videos of people being vaporized on their scooters or in their cars, total destruction of the towns in southern Lebanon would have done the trick far more effectively. Just as in every conflict, Lebanese citizens would have taken their belongings and moved to safer ground. I remember one fellow who went through the Korean War saying that his father sent each of his sons in a different direction, in the hope that at least one would survive to continue the family line. While I am no fan of telling enemy citizens to move prior to attack, in the case of Lebanon, Israel should have told every town south of the Litani River to scram or face total destruction. Lebanese leadership is ambivalent about dealing with Hezbollah. On the one hand, they don’t like having an Iranian-controlled Shiite militia running the south of the country. On the other hand, they are not such great lovers of Jews or Israel to actually lift their finger to do something about it. Sure, the Lebanese Army is weak and could not duel it out with a gang from Los Angeles. But add to that that its members feel a greater kindred with Hezbollah than to Israel and there is no real effort to shut down the Iranian proxy.
The same story is true about Gaza. While liars and fools accused Israel of a genocide, the reality was just the opposite: Israel did more than all previous armies combined to warn noncombatant Jew haters to move from their locations prior to attack. SMS, phone calls, flyers, drone warnings—the IDF did everything to make sure that Hamas terrorists would move in order to fight another day. The war should have been three months long with an intensity not seen since Iwo Jima. Then a rebuilding of Gaza could have started with an Israeli-approved administration and direction. Instead, we had two years of Israel fighting “carefully” while being accused of starving Gazan children and murdering Palestinians wholesale. How did the “let’s warn them before every attack” work out for Israel? She is still in front of the International Court of Justice, and the long length of the war gave Qatar and its shills in the West plenty of time to attack Jews, Israelis, the IDF, Zionism, Zionists, Jewish and Israeli stores and institutions. The northern front should also have received the “LeMay Treatment” without any concern for Lebanese civilians, who would on their own have moved north. Southern Lebanon should remain uninhabited until there is a final political solution between the two countries.
The war in Iran is being prosecuted aggressively. We hear planes endlessly over our heads and now and again see a tanker in action. The US and Israeli pilots are attacking and destroying endless targets developed over five decades of Iran being left alone to make its war industry (Hamas had less than twenty years to do the same). While the attacks seem aggressive, there is still that voice about “the people”. As both American and Israeli leaders want normal Iranians to take over their country, they are shy about destroying Iran’s electricity infrastructure or major source of potential future income, namely its oil industry. My feeling is that you go in to win and if you win, you go in to build the future. Not attacking key targets so that they will be there when and if there is a change in government is the one way to guarantee no change in government. Fight to win and then rush into to fix what’s broken. The Marshall Plan was a brilliant way to rebuild Europe after the war. The Soviets were offered and turned down American largess. The result was the Lada, the only disposable car ever produced.
There seem to be many reports that air efforts will not end the Iranian regime but might weaken it enough to allow the people to overthrow it in the future. Whatever the goals set by Washington and Jerusalem, the focus must be on reaching those goals and not on the plan for the day after. When the Islamic regime is gone and takes with it the destruction it has wrought throughout the world, there will be plenty of time to rebuild infrastructure and help Iranians have a brighter future. Fight to win and then build to win, but don’t do both at once.