Retreat, Regret, Relief

The calculus of Israel's troubled history in Lebanon seems, at first glance, simple enough. Add up the invasions, "operations," commando raids, kidnappings and massacres by proxy armies. Then count the dead: thousands of Lebanese and Palestinian civilians, more than 900 Israeli soldiers, "martyrs" of Islamic and secular guerrilla groups, fighters of the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army and Israeli civilians killed in rocket attacks or terrorist incursions. Assess the damage to Lebanon's economy and infrastructure. Analyze the brutalized Lebanese psyche. Make the calculations any way you like, and the end result is the same: Israeli soldiers retreating across the international border last week, looking over their shoulders at Islamic guerrillas cheerfully looting abandoned posts. "I closed the gate for the last time and it feels bad," said a 21-year-old sergeant from Jerusalem. "Such a waste of lives."

Some call Lebanon "Israel's Vietnam." And in several respects, the analogy is apt. A small, ideologically driven guerrilla army wore down the Middle East's pre-eminent military and sent it packing. In the end, the Hizbullah guerrillas were willing to die for their cause, and the Israelis were not. Israel took in many of its Lebanese allies last week, but hundreds of others remained behind to face prison terms for collaborating with the enemy. Ariel Sharon, leader of Israel's opposition Likud bloc, who led the disastrous 1982 invasion of Lebanon, called the chaotic pullback "a disgraceful retreat." Hizbullah officials were giddy. "In village after village, we'd hear the Israelis had left," gushed spokesman Hussein Naboulsi. "It was surprise after surprise. We didn't know what to do!"

But the Vietnam analogy has limits. "The distance between Hanoi and Los Angeles is about 10,000 miles," Ephraim Sneh, Israel's deputy Defense minister, points out. "The distance between the Lebanese village Adessa and Kibbutz Misgav Am is about a half mile." Israeli soldiers celebrated their return home last week with songs and cheering, but Israel's security is still inextricably linked to what happens across the border. In some eyes, Israel seems more vulnerable. Even one of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's top military advisers calls southern Lebanon, regarded until now as Israel's security buffer, "Hizbullah Land."

The Party of God will try to capitalize on last week's gains. Its regional prestige has already gotten a big boost. Across the Middle East, fundamentalists were saying, in effect, "Negotiations never got us this." But in Lebanon, Hizbullah's glory today is likely to provoke jealousy tomorrow. The rival Shiite political force Amal will try to assert its position, the Lebanese Army will assume local responsibilities and Syria will reimpose its authority behind the scenes. "The movement whose symbol is a Kalashnikov in a clenched fist will have less raison d'etre," says Swedish academic Magnus Ranstorp, who has served as an informal go-between for the fundamentalist guerrillas and Israeli authorities.

Conversely, Prime Minister Barak could reasonably claim success in defeat. The long-promised Israeli withdrawal was messy and haphazard, but no Israeli soldier was killed on the way out. More significantly, perhaps, the Israelis withdrew to a morally defensible position, from which they'd be better able to fight if the need arose.

Israel's real battle in Lebanon, in any case, was never really with the Lebanese. It was primarily with the Palestinians, Syria and Iran. Lebanon was just a convenient place for everyone to carry on a proxy war. Now the red lines that have long crisscrossed Lebanon are actual international borders. There are no buffers, no real proxies. Barak has made it plain that the old rules no longer apply; an attack on Israel will now be considered "an act of war." It's unlikely that Syria's Hafez Assad, with 30,000 troops in Lebanon, will want to provoke a direct conflict. Assad might instead look for other proxies, including Islamic groups in Israeli-occupied territories anxious to mimic Hizbullah's success. But then, other players will exploit Assad's weaknesses. For starters, now that Israel has withdrawn from Lebanon, many Lebanese might be emboldened to ask: why don't the Syrians leave, too?