Israel's Iraq

Israel's recent invasion of Lebanon was its Iraq, as the earlier Lebanese invasion was in some respects its Vietnam. Here, of course, anyone who posted anything about Israel's blunders was subject to fierce attack as an anti-Semite. Israel, prompted by close exposure to the war and perhaps motivated by its draftee Army, figured this out a lot quicker than the US has.

The Winograd commission has investigated and quite rightly laid the blame at the feet of Prime Minister Olmert, who in addition to his military incompetence, has also demonstrated a whiff of Bushian corruption. A few excerpts, via the Jerusalem Post:

a) The decision to respond with an immediate, intensive military strike was not based on a detailed, comprehensive and authorized military plan, based on careful study of the complex characteristics of the Lebanon arena. A meticulous examination of these characteristics would have revealed the following: the ability to achieve military gains having significant political-international weight was limited; an Israeli military strike would inevitably lead to missiles fired at the Israeli civilian north; there was not other effective military response to such missile attacks than an extensive and prolonged ground operation to capture the areas from which the missiles were fired - which would have a high "cost" and which did not enjoy broad support. These difficulties were not explicitly raised with the political leaders before the decision to strike was taken.
b) Consequently, in making the decision to go to war, the government did not consider the whole range of options, including that of continuing the policy of 'containment', or combining political and diplomatic moves with military strikes below the 'escalation level', or military preparations without immediate military action -- so as to maintain for Israel the full range of responses to the abduction. This failure reflects weakness in strategic thinking[My emphasis - CIP], which derives the response to the event from a more comprehensive and encompassing picture.
c) The support in the cabinet for this move was gained in part through ambiguity in the presentation of goals and modes of operation, so that ministers with different or even contradictory attitudes could support it. The ministers voted for a vague decision, without understanding and knowing its nature and implications. They authorized to commence a military campaign without considering how to exit it.
d) Some of the declared goals of the war were not clear and could not be achieved, and in part were not achievable by the authorized modes of military action.
e) The IDF did not exhibit creativity in proposing alternative action possibilities, did not alert the political decision-makers to the discrepancy between its own scenarios and the authorized modes of action, and did not demand - as was necessary under its own plans - early mobilization of the reserves so they could be equipped and trained in case a ground operation would be required.
f) Even after these facts became known to the political leaders, they failed to adapt the military way of operation and its goals to the reality on the ground. On the contrary, declared goals were too ambitious, and it was publicly states that fighting will continue till they are achieved. But the authorized military operations did not enable their achievement.

...

Shit! We don't even have to write a new report for Bush. A bit of copy and paste should do it.

The whole thing is a good read. Even if you aren't interested in Israel, the parallels to our own situation are spooky.