Asymmetric war: the power of the 'weak'

Thus, the Israel assault has been contained and their objective of "liquidating Hammas rule, has evaporated in thin air." Hamas has emerged stronger and the range of their rockets (Qassams) has also become longer, with demoralising effect on the Israeli population. Their business has shut down and factories are locked-up, forcing the government to seek ceasefire, voted 14-0, by the UN Secretary Council, with USA abstaining. But the ceasefire has yet not been implemented by the opposing forces, while time is running-out for Israel to seek a face-saving mechanism before January 20, 2009. No wonder, the Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai told public radio: "Thus it would seem that we are close to ending the ground operation and ending the operation altogether."
Israel desired "to change the equation in Gaza because terror cannot win and this was no longer to be the equation" - Tripi Livini. Yet the equation could not be changed, because Hamas having contained Israeli attack, has reaffirmed their right of democratic victory of elections 2006, denied to them through Israel-PLO manipulations, leading to deadly confrontation between Fatah and Hamas, something Condoleezza Rice appreciated: "How much I like this violence, because it means that Palestinians are resisting Hamas," and she hoped that both would destroy each other.
Hamas resistance and their victory will mark a major shift in PLO-Hamas relationship towards Palestinians unity, "together resisting Israel colonialism and the legitimacy of a racial European Colonial settlement in the region." This change will also legitimise a significant Iranians role. Obama also has to learn the "bitter lesson" of this war that "extreme military asymmetry is more suggestive of massacre" which can be carried out systematically but "it is the ability of the weak to give a check to such brutality and turn the table on the aggressor." Khalid Mishal, the head of the Hamas political bureau, declares: "Our modest home made rockets are our cry of protests to the world. Israel and its American and European sponsors want us to be killed in silence. But die in silence we will not. We will not be broken by siege and bombardment and will never surrender to occupation."
The combination of "men and missiles" won the war for Hezbollah in 2006 and now is winning the war for Hamas, yet, elsewhere, in Iraq and Afghanistan, only "Men-the committed believers," won the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan; against the Americans in Iraq and have check mated the combined military might of the European Union and the Americans in Afghanistan. It is time, now, to ponder, whether, these are really terrorists, who remain undefeated or they are freedom fighters, who since 1980, beginning with the Soviet aggression, have defeated the mightiest of the mighty, establishing a new global power equation. It is a unique phenomenon, which needs to be understood. It is not the war between radical Islam and the rest of the so-called civilised world, rather, a phenomenon of social change, the movement of history, where the fettered and the oppressed are claiming their right to be free. They are more 'civilised' than those who sheepishly surrender, which is 'cowardice' and a disgraceful disposition. Terrorists are pathological and fall into a different category. They must not be equated with the 'freedom lovers'.
A Chinese philosopher suggests: "Never take-on the revolutionaries unless you have an ideology, stronger than the ideology of the revolutionaries." With this truism in mind the world has to find peace with the believers/revolutionaries/extremists or whatever one may like to call them. Obama may have found the truth, now preparing to talk to Hamas. He is moving in the right direction, unless the war-mongers force him to change the course. He has a tryst with history that, a "black president has a bright heart and has delivered peace to the much fractured world," which George Bush with his brutish temperament has caused during his era of crime and violence, multiplying extremism as a radical philosophy of the revenge of the oppressed and humiliated.
If peace comes to Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Kashmir, and Muslims are not degraded and condemned for their faith and ideology, USA's image as a global leader shall reemerge and cultural harmony shall become the hallmark of civilised existence, and Bush would become a symbol of dark force to be despised and condemned. Samuel Johson had rightly said: "It matters not how a man dies but how he lives." George Bush lived an awfully bad presidency.
The writer is a former chief of army staff
E-mail: fr786pak@isb.comsats.net.pk