Features of the Coming War

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

On August 15, 2005, I wrote an article titled “Israel’s Victories Have Passed,” in which I explained the reasons for Israel’s decline on the battlefield, and the reasons for the rise of Arab-Islamic resistance. I said that the year 2000 — the year the Israeli army was routed by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon — was the beginning of the downward curve of the Israeli position on the battlefield. Many did not like these words, and considered them part of the Arab wishful thinking that had mired us in the mud of defeats.

Israel failed in its 2006 war, and failed in the Cast Lead war (December-January) of 2008/2009. I wrote at the start of the July war that Hezbollah would hold firm, and that Israel would fail; and I wrote at the start of the Cast Lead war that Palestinian resistance would hold firm, and that Israel would fail. What about the coming war, and what are its features? I see the following:

First: Israel has learned harsh lessons from July 2006 until now, and I do not see it easily embarking on a new military adventure. Israel will think again and again before waging a war on Arab-Islamic resistance, and it will work to mobilize Arab regimes and Western states to its side before undertaking a new war. Arab-Islamic resistance has adopted new tactics, and has obtained defensive weapons that prevent Israeli military technology from proving its effectiveness; this is not to mention that the Israeli soldier and his leadership are no longer what they were in the stages of the state’s founding and its early victories.

Second: in the coming stage, Israel will rely almost entirely on preemptive air strikes, because it recognizes that mobile ground war is an adventure that runs into many surprises. In this, it will calculate the other side’s reactions, and will remain hesitant.

Third: because of the bankruptcy of the idea of war, Israel, together with several Arab regimes, will resort to manufacturing internal problems for both the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance in order to inflict defeat on them from within. Israel and its Arab allies will try to shake people’s confidence in the resistance, hoping the masses will bring about the resistance’s destruction themselves. This will not succeed, because the Arab regimes lack credibility.

Fourth: part of the resistance will move to mobile warfare, Hezbollah in particular. The resistance has held firm until now in a static war, and could do no more than that. But inflicting a routing defeat on Israel requires mobile war — that is, the fighter emerging from the trench and advancing forward. This requires large numbers of fighters, and offensive weapons capable of downing aircraft and destroying tanks. My conviction is that Hezbollah now possesses sufficient numbers, and is obtaining advanced and effective Iranian military equipment, whose destructive effect will only appear on the battlefield.

In Gaza, [the resistance] cannot wage mobile war for geographic and logistical reasons, specifically because of the Egyptian siege imposed on the Strip. Any offensive by the resistance would require mobilizing the armed forces of both Iran and Syria, and it is possible the region would erupt in flames.

Fifth: Israel will take revenge on civilians in any coming military clash more harshly and severely than before, in order to achieve two goals: turning people against the resistance, and affecting the morale of both the political and military leaderships. It is quite possible that Israel will use tactical nuclear weapons in the coming war against targets where civilian and military are intermingled. If it does not use these weapons in its coming war, it will use them in the war after that. Arab losses among civilians will be enormous. And in turn, the land will grow too narrow for the Jews, and they will not know into which hole to flee.

Sixth: Israel will lose the coming war, not in the sense of failure but in the sense of a rout — that is, the Israeli army will be routed and will suffer large numbers of dead and captured. It is possible that negotiations will be about the exchange of land, not about letting a sack of flour into Gaza.

Seventh: the Arab regimes allied with Israel and America will meet with a great and fatal disappointment.

I have my reasons for saying this, and I have my calculations based on the equation of the rise and fall of powers. Israel and America will race against time searching for solutions to the tactics used by the resistance, and the resistance will race against time searching for solutions to the power and precision of American and Israeli missiles. Each side will make progress in its own area of concern, but America and Israel will not reach a level of reassurance, whereas the resistance will.

Let no one underestimate the horror of any coming battle, and let no one imagine that their losses will be small. We are approaching a raging worldly inferno, and all negotiations seeking solutions will be of no avail. Anyone tracking the Israeli-Arab wars, or the Arab-Israeli clash, finds that the intensity of Israel’s killing and destruction increases as the intensity of Arab-Islamic resistance rises. Israel will pat no one on the back, and will work to the extent of its ability to break backs. But in doing so, it gambles with its own existence.

The circle is closing in on Israel, and the noose is tightening around it, and all that remains before it is to acknowledge the full range of Palestinian rights, foremost among them the right of the refugees to return. As for the Arab regimes allied with Israel, before them lies the opportunity to reassess matters.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “معالم الحرب القادمة” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.