What Price Glory Now?

By Roger Rosenblatt

Perhaps all victories feel Pyrrhic, the winner's sense of triumph sucked empty by the sight of bodies heaped like trash, herds of prisoners with hollow faces, children coughing in the rubble. Since every war winds up like this, nothing better could be expected of the latest two, the fighting coming to conclusions, or near conclusions, in the past week. Still, for several sides, things turned out pretty well. Britain closed in on Port Stanley, and won back the Falkland Islands. Israel closed in on Beirut, and may yet win safety for its northern borders. Lebanon, after its period of torment, may--with much luck and work--see its sovereignty restored. For its part, the U.S. has watched two allies come out on top in two displays of elegantly executed strategies. Better yet: the Soviets have been stung in Lebanon, the surface-to-air missiles they sold to the Syrians lying like scrap sculptures in the Bekaa Valley. If there is little dancing in the streets, you would think there might at least be deep contentment in the mind. There is not.

That both these wars seem related at all is curious, given the blatant differences between them. The fight in the Falklands came as a shock, both for its ferocity and its stakes. The invasion of Lebanon surprised no one, except insofar as one is always surprised to see somebody do what he threatens to do. The Falklands are of purely symbolic importance to the contenders. Control of southern Lebanon is of vital practical advantage to each side. Between the British and the Argentines there was a history of compatibility; between the Israelis and the P.L.O., a history of hatred. Argentina is conservative and antiCommunist; the P.L.O. radical and Communist supported. In the Falklands, the U.S. was watching friend fight friend; in Lebanon, an ally was going up against an enemy that has little affection for the U.S. And there were the physical differences of climate; of sea battles vs. land operations; of the attitudes of the various troops that seemed, like their theaters, worlds apart.

In spite of all this, these two eruptions have a good deal in common. Their timing alone connects them. In a letter to President Reagan the day Israel invaded Lebanon, Prime Minister Begin cited the example of Britain's act of self-defense, thus justifying his own nation's move. Other analogies are more certain. Both the British and the Israelis applied short-term solutions to long-range problems. Both could have avoided armed conflict through negotiations (though this would have been harder for the Israelis), but either because of carelessness, stubbornness, arrogance or suspicion, each chose not to. Both told their allies that what they were doing was good not only for themselves but for the world as well. Both saw themselves functioning as liberators. Both were responding to hostilities; in the case of Britain, to a single overt act; in the case of Israel, to a protracted state of danger. Both were thus in the right, from a particular point of view; and in both instances that right prevailed.

Oddly, too, there is an analogy in the way that both Britain and Israel (no close friends) go about winning their wars. So much attention is given to Israel's military efficiency that one tends to forget how practiced and able in this business is the nation that fought some 60 wars in Queen Victoria's reign alone. As for internal similarities, both Begin and Prime Minister Thatcher recovered some of their political strength at the outset of the fighting. The difference at the moment is that Britain has retained its sense of unity, and Begin is now accused by some of misleading his countrymen on the war's necessity.

There are analogies between Argentina and the P.L.O. as well. Neither side was supported by its allies and neighbors to the degree it would have hoped to be. The Organization of American States condemned the British loudly but gave barely a smile to Argentina's call for concrete help. The Syrians fired on the Israelis, not to back up the Palestinians but to defend their own interests in Lebanon. Other Arab states were not about to come to the aid of Syrians in Lebanon, and have always had mixed feelings about the P.L.O. While pleased to exploit the Palestinian cause, partly in order to make life difficult for Israel, they also abjure some of the P.L.O. tactics.

By far the saddest analogy between the Argentines and the P.L.O. is the lack of realism both showed in challenging their adversaries. With the combined assistance of a controlled press and popular folklore, the now deposed President Galtieri and his partners were able to persuade their citizens that if they all dressed up like the Inspector General, Britain was going to lie down and let the Falklands be the Malvinas. Whether or not the junta actually believed this fantasy, they nonetheless successfully foisted it on the people, who now tremble with as much fury as they did a month ago with pride. Similarly, the P.L.O. has been playing a dangerous game all along, taking pot shots at an enemy ten times its strength and simultaneously assuring its public that the original territory of Palestine was eventually reclaimable. The Syrians were no less fanciful and misleading in their initial claims of Israeli planes shot down; reality also intruded there. It is hard to tell which is more pathetic: the milling of the displaced and wounded, or the zealous mobs goaded by the illusion-mongers.

This said, the victories in the Falklands and Lebanon might still offer plenty of cause for celebration. Yet there is almost none. After an initial guttural war whoop, Britain now seems to have sobered considerably. And Israel was never euphoric over its first war in which the country's life was not threatened. Why is this so?

The most obvious reason is that neither of these victories means anything in itself. Not only are the labyrinthine problems in each area as difficult as they ever were, but a few more troubles have developed as a result of the wars. If Britain were to behave prudently and magnanimously in the coming weeks, it might be able to use its victory both as a show to the world that a principle is intact and as a clean start to the negotiations that it haughtily avoided in the first place. Unfortunately, Thatcher's current stance is the old one. If she maintains it and decides to patrol the Falklands forever, as much as two-thirds of the British navy will be bobbing in the South Atlantic, and NATO will be looking to the U.S. for yet more money and more ships. Unless Britain uses the moment wisely, Argentina may also be radicalized out of reach, rejecting its bumbling junta but also rejecting some of its bumbling Western friends. The U.S. must repair its relationship with the region as well, in which, unlike Britain, it has permanent interests.

In Lebanon, the Israelis bought nothing but breathing space by their assault. They sought to destroy the military core of the P.L.O., and they may succeed. But the Israeli invasion is also likely to embolden the most militant factions of the P.L.O. Instead of feeling quashed, they may now have been provided with a new rationale for terrorism. Nor will an Israeli victory in Lebanon settle the issue of a place for the Palestinians to live. The U.S. position is not greatly enhanced by all this either. It has the perennial task of proving to the Arab states that it is not exclusively eager for Israel's pre-eminence in the area, and it may also assume a new political and financial burden of policing a reviving Lebanon.

These are some of the political issues that make both military successes difficult to savor. There are other troubling elements--more abstract, but just as real. One is simply the exasperation always felt at watching diplomacy devolve to bloodshed. Another is the childish reactions that events like these inevitably bring out, especially in observers. Both wars have been remarkable for their displays of weapons and tactics. The effects of Argentina's Exocet missiles are still benumbing to consider. The story, when finally told, of how the Israelis adapted their E-2C Hawkeye surveillance planes to take out the Syrian MiGs is bound to enter national legend. Descriptions of what the new equipment can do are spellbinding: ECMs, HUDs, jamming and antijamming devices; "smart" bombs and "tracer lines." So graceful are the arcs on the maps, so precise the computers, it is mortifying to note how easily one gets caught up in such things, thereby forgetting (perhaps conveniently) that their consequences are thousands dead, tens of thousands homeless.

But the deep source of discouragement in contemplating these victories may lie in comparing the power of words with actions. The wars in the Falklands and Lebanon were not the only major events of recent weeks. During the time that both wars were going full tilt, the NATO alliance was meeting in Bonn to discuss disarmament. The Pope was urging peace, first in London, then in Buenos Aires. In New York City, some 700,000 people massed to offer a cry against nuclear war--the protesters a target of easy mockery for the coolly sophisticated, but 700,000 strong nonetheless. At the U.N., more than 120 heads of state and national representatives met to talk about making the world safe for itself.

While all these words were being lofted, the existing "little wars" of the world--the ones in Afghanistan, Iran-Iraq, Northern Ireland, Cambodia, Namibia, Chad, Ethiopia-Somalia, Guatemala and El Salvador--were joined by two more. The coincidence is noteworthy. After the invasion of Lebanon, an editorial in the New York Times declared: "There is no point wailing about what might have been." Possibly. But that palliative countermands all the earlier sage advice proffered by that selfsame publication, and by this one and by every other voice that lobs words against tanks. The P.L.O. could have forsworn terrorism with words. Britain, Argentina and Israel could have negotiated with words. All took other ways. That may be the abiding basis for dissatisfaction with these two victories; that and the reappearance of the monster nationalism, which, at the slightest chance, turns civilizations back to tribes.

After the events of the past weeks, one thing at least is clear: the prospect of banning weapons has no casual connection with the prospect of banning wars. If anyone comes away from the two recent conflicts infused with optimism, it will be the arms salesmen, who do not deal in words. Several of their markets are now dangerously depleted. To the victors, meanwhile, belong the spoils: body counts, colossal costs and some temporary improvement in their fortunes. To the rest, a feeling of helpless stupidity tied earnestly, as ever, to figments of hope. --By Roger Rosenblatt

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