If there is one question one could ask
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah today, it would
be this: When did you begin planning for the
reconstruction of south Lebanon? Before you
kidnapped two Israeli soldiers on July 12, or only
after it became clear how much of south Lebanon
Israel was willing to destroy to "win" its war
against you?
Either way, it was the latest
master stroke in a string of decisions that have
confounded Israel, the United States and the world
at large. Indeed, while critics of the Israeli
invasion claim - with increasing evidence - that
Israel planned the attack well in advance (even
with the support from the administration of US
President George W Bush), it now appears that it
was Hezbollah
that
suckered Israel into a war for which it had
perfectly planned each component: the bait - the
kidnapping of two soldiers; the military tactics -
tunnels, missile barrages and advanced anti-tank
weapons; and the post-fighting reconstruction - a
large-scale effort that only Hezbollah, and not
the feckless Lebanese government, is capable of
undertaking.
Call it the new creative
destruction; and the "new" Middle East it is
creating will be very different than the one
dreamed of by Bush administration planners and
their allies in Israel.
The idea of
"creative destruction" first was popularized by
Austrian economist Rudolph Schumpeter more than
half a century ago to describe how capitalism
simultaneously destroys existing social systems
and profits from the economic and social systems
that take their place.
In the 1980s, US
business "gurus" such as Tom Peters saw, with the
revolutions in technology and production, and
simultaneously the disintegration of the Soviet
bloc and the bipolar world it helped keep in
order, not only the need to manage the chaos that
was on the horizon, but the possibility to "thrive
on" and profit from it immensely.
Neo-liberal globalizers and
neo-conservatives, and ultimately the Bush
administration, would latch on to creative
destruction as a way of describing the process by
which they hoped to create their new world orders.
For all who celebrated creative
destruction, the United States was, in the words
of neo-conservative philosopher and Bush adviser
Michael Ledeen, "an awesome revolutionary force"
for whom creative destruction was (and, we can
assume, remains) "our middle name".
A
similar faith in Israel's role in the Middle East
was behind Shimon Peres' idea of a "New Middle
East" in which Israel would be its cultural and
economic engine. This is the vision on which the
Oslo peace process was founded, and ultimately
foundered.
But in keeping with
this philosophy, the Israeli military thought that
by destroying thousands of Lebanese lives and
buildings it could take out Hezbollah, and in so
doing create a new and more favorable regional
balance of power. What it didn't count on was that
Hezbollah was using the same principle of violence
as the instigator of social and political change,
only in reverse: each bombed-out building and
lifeless baby created another opportunity for
Hezbollah to show its patriotism, charity and
efficiency.
Now, as Israeli soldiers begin
withdrawing from Lebanon in what almost every
Lebanese believes is defeat, Hezbollah fighters
exchange their Kalashnikovs for hard hats and
bulldozers, clearing away the rubble, handing out
money, food and furniture to the homeless, and
rebuilding the roads and buildings that the war
they precipitated destroyed - all with an
unlimited supply of funds from Israel's and
America's main enemy and ultimate target of the
war, Iran.
In short, Hezbollah has been
able to eat its cake and have it too: it has stood
up to the mighty Israel Defense Forces and either
co-opted or cowed its domestic opposition (which
collectively had more support than Hezbollah did
before the war). Then, before anyone could
criticize it for the magnitude of destruction its
actions unleashed, it has begun a massive,
well-funded rebuilding effort. If only the Bush
administration had acted as astutely in Iraq.
What can the US and Israel learn from
the past five weeks? Well, they've been
pretty creative about destroying things, as a tour of
Iraq, Lebanon or Gaza makes clear, and in the process
unleashing waves of chaos that they assumed could
be managed to their advantage.
But
Nasrallah's strategy has shown him to be a true
master of both sides of the creative-destruction
equation. That is, he understands that creative
destruction must create a viable system that gives
people a stake in their future if the process is
to be completed.
Because of this, if
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice really saw
the birth pangs of a new Middle East, the baby
they heralded is not America's or Israel's; it's
Hezbollah's. Will the US still love it? Or will
the US abandon it as if it's not its
responsibility? These are hard lessons to swallow,
but the US would do well to learn them, and
quickly. America's adversaries already are.
Mark LeVine, PhD, is a professor
in the department of history, University of
California-Irvine.
(Copyright 2006
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