A pessimistic David Ignatius op-ed in the Washington Post:

Hezbollah’s action in seizing the Israeli soldiers was utterly reckless. That’s the new part of this crisis—that Iranian-backed radicals deliberately opened another front in a war that, in their minds, stretches from Gaza to Iraq. Watching Nasrallah’s cocky performance at a news conference Wednesday, I thought that he seemed almost to be inviting an Israeli counterattack—knowing that it would destabilize the Lebanese government of Fuad Siniora, which is one of the few solid achievements of U.S. policy in the region.

Israeli and American doctrine is premised on the idea that military force will deter adversaries. But as more force has been used in recent years, the deterrent value has inevitably gone down. That’s the inner spring of this crisis: The Iranians (and their clients in Hezbollah and Hamas) watch the American military mired in Iraq and see weakness. They are emboldened rather than intimidated. The same is true for the Israelis in Gaza. Rather than reinforcing the image of strength, the use of force (short of outright, pulverizing invasion and occupation) has encouraged contempt. [emphasis added]

The clear inference to be drawn from the words I’ve highlighted is that Ignatius believes that an “outright, pulverizing invasion and occupation” would discourage contempt. Indeed, it would.

Instead of following through on his own logic, Ignatius segues into a set of “reliable” strategic options: in countering aggression, international solidarity and legitimacy matter; the power of non-state actors is magnified when there is no strong central government; in an open, interconnected world, public opinion matters.

All true, but so what? Israel can’t exactly depend on the “international community” to secure its borders, prevent terrorism, create a strong central government in Lebanon, or to favorably alter public opinion.

Ignatius is representative of a widely-held viewpoint that could prove fatal to the West: there are no circumstances that can justify a level of violence capable of eliminating security threats. This view either forgets or purposely ignores the lesson of World War II: that the policy of unconditional surrender resulted in a peaceful Germany and a peaceful Japan. Instead, this view takes it cues from the successful outcome of the Cold War. The problem is that the war in the Middle East is hot, not cold.

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Two days ago, I took exception to a New York Times editorial asserting that “Israel best serves its long-term security interests by acting wisely and proportionately.” My view was and is that acting “wisely and proportionately” has at best produced a lull followed by renewed violence on the part of Israel’s enemies.

Today’s Wall Street Journal editorial proffers essentially the same argument.

Israel’s military invasion and naval blockade of Lebanon is being denounced in European capitals and at the United Nations as a “disproportionate” response to the kidnapping this week of two of its soldiers by Hezbollah. Israel’s decision late last month to invade Gaza in retaliation for the kidnapping of another soldier by Hamas was also condemned as lacking in proportion. So here’s a question for our global solons: Since hostage-taking is universally regarded as an act of war, what “proportionate” action do they propose for Israel?

Echoing my words (“Peace may not be possible but, if it is, it will come about when the Arabs are convinced that the costs of violence exceed any conceivable benefits.”), the Journal says “ultimately there will be no resolution in Lebanon and Gaza until the regimes in Syria and Iran believe they will pay a price for the wars they are waging through their proxies.”

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A Washington Post editorial notes that “When Israel withdrew its troops from southern Lebanon in 2000 after more than two decades of occupation, it also issued a warning: Any cross-border provocations by Hezbollah, the militant Shiite group, would elicit a severe military response.

The Post is also correct in pointing out the following:

Europeans and others in the international community are already criticizing as excessive Israel’s swift military response. Conspicuously they have said comparatively little about the volleys of dozens of rockets Hezbollah rained down on northern Israel yesterday. In fact, given the all-too-familiar patterns of violence and retribution in the Middle East, the Israeli attacks are entirely predictable, and precisely what Hezbollah and its patrons must have expected and even wanted.

Because Hezbollah offers few conventional military targets, the Post avers that the Israelis have opted to inflict general pain on their northern neighbor, the idea being to intensify popular Lebanese opposition to Hezbollah.

The editorial concludes with these well-founded recommendations:

. . . even if Hezbollah is punished politically at home for its wild irresponsibility, the underlying problem—its benefactors in Iran and Syria—remains. That’s where American and allied diplomacy and influence should be focused. Tehran should be called to account in the U.N. Security Council not only for its program to enrich uranium but also for its support of Hezbollah. Damascus, which hosts Hezbollah and Hamas, should also come under renewed international pressure, including sanctions. In all the diplomacy, the false lure of “evenhandedness” must not be allowed to obscure the fact that Hezbollah and its backers have instigated the current fighting and should be held responsible for the consequences [emphasis added].