As Conflict Continues, Israel Weighs Military and Diplomatic Options

RAY SUAREZ: For more on Secretary of State Rice's trip to Israel, we get two views. Ori Nir is Washington bureau chief for the Forward, a weekly newspaper that covers the Jewish world. He's also a former West Bank and Gaza correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz.

And Jon Alterman is director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Previously, he served at the State Department on the policy planning staff and as a special assistant to assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs.

Let's start with both of your overall assessments. Ori Nir, what were Secretary Rice's objectives? And can she leave Israeli thinking she accomplished them?

ORI NIR, Washington Bureau Chief, The Forward: I think that her objectives in Israel, Lebanon, Palestinian Authority was to set the stage. I think that what's much more important than her visit to the region will be her follow-up tomorrow in Rome with the core group meeting, trying to set some kind of a scenario that will bring about the deployment of a multinational force in Lebanon.

RAY SUAREZ: Jon Alterman, same question?

JON ALTERMAN, Center for Strategic and International Studies: My understanding is that she went to deliver partly a message of support to the Israelis, but also a message of urgency that this can't go on forever, that when the international community meets, and then she goes away and comes back to the region, it's going to be time to really stop the fighting and get some peacemaking.

They have a fixed period of time to do what urgently needs to be done, and then it's going to be time, in a week or so, when the peacemaking really kicks in.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, how do you do that? How do you send a message of urgency that has to be fulfilled a week or so from now? Aren't those two things kind of in conflict with each other?

JON ALTERMAN: Well, it's my sense that there's a lot of intelligence-sharing that's going on. There's already a lot of intelligence-sharing between the U.S. and Israel, and there would be some sense of, "Let's talk about targets and objectives and strategically where we're trying to go, and then let's talk about how much can be done."

I can't imagine she would have delivered that message if there was a sense that the Israelis really couldn't get done what needed to be done in the near term.

I think there's a growing sense that there are a few things that need to be done still, but that it's not an open book, and this can't go on for months and months, even if the Israelis may talk about an 80-day time frame. That's really not realistic.

RAY SUAREZ: Ori Nir, just before we came on the air Eastern time, word came from the region that U.N. observers had been killed in the latest Israeli strikes. Does that change the situation on the ground? Does that make it harder to give Israel cover for doing what it needs to do -- the United States' administration believes it needs to do in southern Lebanon?

ORI NIR: I think that such incidents can influence this time frame that Jon was talking about. Yes, it can shorten the time frame. If there are more such incidents that occur, with either harming, hurting civilian population on a broader scale, or international targets, as happened today, yes, it can.

RAY SUAREZ: Does the U.N. killing change the situation?

JON ALTERMAN: It changes it a little bit; I'm not sure it really changes the broader complexion of it. The world is impatient. The U.S. is understanding. I think we're going to be able to manage that through the next week or so, but ultimately this can't go on indefinitely.

RAY SUAREZ: Jon Alterman, what did Israel want from this visit from Rice?

JON ALTERMAN: Well, I think they wanted this sense of understanding. They wanted the partnership. They have an internal political problem, a domestic political problem, which having the U.S. show the flag and show solidarity with Israel helps with.

I think, in a broader sense, Israel has a strategic conundrum, because the Kadima Party came in on the idea that unilateral withdrawal brings peace, and the two examples were Lebanon and Gaza. And now, the government is fighting a two-front war in Lebanon and Gaza, so they don't have a new strategic framework, a new strategic paradigm.

Having the U.S. say, "We understand," means the current Israeli government is not flailing, and that's very, very important on the domestic political scene.

RAY SUAREZ: Ori Nir, what do you think the latest situation does to the Kadima promise to move ahead with land for peace?

ORI NIR: Well, I think it's shelved for now or, if you want, deep frozen for a long time. A disengagement in the West Bank is not on the agenda, at the moment at least, and everyone knows that in Israel.

What everyone in Israel is now focused on is the war in Lebanon. There is a very strong urge, supported by an overwhelming majority of somewhere around 90 percent of the population, including the Arab minority of 20 percent in Israel, that this is a just war that should go on, in order to crush Hezbollah as much as possible.

As brutal as it may sound, that is the overwhelming consensus now. And this is what Israel, I think, sought from Secretary Rice: a commitment to allow Israel to do as much as possible within the broad time frame that Jon was talking about earlier.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, today, during the conversations, Prime Minister Olmert discussed a security strip on Lebanese territory, just north of Israel. Secretary Rice agreed. Is this a workable, near term?

ORI NIR: I think it probably is workable, near term. The big conundrum now in Israel tactically is how to maintain such a security zone without constant Israeli presence, military presence on the ground throughout that zone. If you do that, it comes with a great deal of death toll, in terms of Israeli troops.

So that's at the moment the conundrum. The purpose, however, what Israel is trying to say is, "We will hold this, and we will hold this security zone, and we will establish this security zone by trying to root out as many Hezbollah elements as possible," so that an international force can, at some point, come in and deploy.

RAY SUAREZ: Jon Alterman, does that security zone move the pressure, once Israel's established in southern Lebanon, onto the international community to form this force and get it transferred to the region?

JON ALTERMAN: You know, it does two really interesting things. One is that it buys Israel time to get out, because they can say, "We're just waiting for the Europeans to come in. So the only reason we're still here is because the Europeans aren't fast enough." So it takes the pressure off them.

The other interesting thing it does is it means that the Europeans have an interest in Israel weakening Hezbollah militarily as much as possible before they come in. So it reorients the European interest from, "We have to stop the fighting right away," to, "We have to let the Israelis clean up the military capacity of Hezbollah, because if they don't fire at Israelis, then they'll fire at Europeans later."

But there's a broader question as to whether you can actually have an effective peacemaking force in southern Lebanon. I've seen peacekeeping forces work; I've never seen a peacemaking force work.

And if you're sending European troops in to a place where there's still a war, where there are still people fighting, I'm not sure how well that's going to work, even in the immediate term, let alone a year or two down the line.

RAY SUAREZ: Can a peacemaking force work, Ori?

ORI NIR: Well, but that's exactly the issue. What Israel is saying -- there's kind of a dance going on here, kind of a behind-the-scenes, I think, negotiation.

What Israel is saying to the Europeans, to the international community, is, "If you give us the time, and if you give us a little more breathing room, we can go in and do the job for you. We can make -- not the peace -- make the war against Hezbollah, in order to try to weaken it as much as possible, so that you, whatever international force, European force, NATO force, whatever comes in won't have to do that very, very difficult, bloody job."