Mark Dubowitz calls for Israel to pursue political strategy after military successes
The Foundation for Defense of Democracies CEO: ‘There’s a certain point where you hit the law of diminishing returns’
AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
Mark Dubowitz, the CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, is now calling for Israel to wrap up its major ground operations in Lebanon, with a longer-term goal of converting what he praised as significant battlefield successes into political achievements that will help consolidate recent gains.
“There’s a certain point where you hit the law of diminishing returns,” Dubowitz told Jewish Insider on Monday, noting that he had recently arrived at his conclusion while observing a growing number of Israeli soldiers who have been killed in Lebanon.
From a military standpoint, Israel “has maximized its gains,” he argued, warning that “further fighting without any sort of political strategy is likely to lead to more Israeli troop losses — and not necessarily to greater military advantage.”
“Now is the opportunity to undermine Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the ayatollahs in Iran, and through covert action and support for the people with continued military pressure, come up with more sustainable political achievements that are going to accomplish Israel’s overall strategic goals.”
His assessment marks something of a turning point in how pro-Israel foreign policy hawks have publicly reckoned with the ongoing turmoil in the region — as Israel has engaged in a widening, multifront war that has decimated Hamas, wiped out Hezbollah’s top leadership structure and exposed Iran’s military vulnerabilities.
But Dubowitz said his recent conversations with a range of Israeli government and security officials indicate that they agree with his push for a broader strategic pivot in the coming weeks or months.
“From the more cautious to the more aggressive, I think there was a sense of, ‘Yes, we need to start thinking about how to convert our impressive military achievements of the recent months into sort of sustainable political victories,” he told JI.
In Lebanon, Dubowitz suggested there is now a chance for Israel and its allies to take steps to foment internal political dissent by supporting an anti-Hezbollah opposition movement through diplomatic channels as well as money and arms.
But even as he urged Israel to pull troops from Lebanon, Dubowitz argued in favor of continued air strikes to degrade Hezbollah’s political and military control.
“I think you can trap them into this death spiral, where on one hand, they’re getting pounded by the Israelis militarily, and on the other hand, it opens up space — both political space and just space on the ground — for anti-Hezbollah Lebanese to really step into what is an emerging political vacuum,” he said.
Dubowitz favors a similar two-pronged strategy in approaching Iran — where the Israeli military has “destroyed Iranian air defenses and basically left the regime naked,” he said. “Now is an opportunity to provide serious support to the Iranian people,” he added, advocating “a policy of maximum support” to aid anti-regime activists with communications platforms, labor strike funds and weapons, among other resources.
He believes such support should precede what he called a series of “decapitation strikes” on Iranian leadership to help embolden anti-regime protesters. “Before you do that,” he told JI, “prepare the battle space so that once that political vacuum has been created, the Iranians can take to the streets to fill that vacuum in the way you would have wanted to do in Lebanon before the fact, but now you have to scramble to do it after the fact.”
“They’ve been on the streets repeatedly since 2009, but certainly with no U.S. support and a little Israeli support,” Dubowitz said. “I think the Israelis have turned the corner now — and for the first time ever, in the past few months, they’ve established toppling the regime in Iran as a central pillar of their Iran strategy.”
He had no specific timeline in mind for escalated military action in Iran, but suggested that “clocks are ticking” amid mounting concerns “about an Iranian nuclear breakout in the coming weeks and months.”
As for Gaza, where hostages are still being held by Hamas, Dubowitz said that Israel has already ended its major ground operations in the wartorn enclave.
With Hamas “no longer a formidable player in Gaza,” he explained, now is also an opportune moment “to move forward with a day-after plan that’s been discussed for so many months,” even as he expects Israel “will continue to fight a low-level counterinsurgency.”
“I think the Israeli government is thinking through a plan,” Dubowitz said, “and talking to the relevant stakeholders in the U.S. and the Gulf and Europe about how to implement this.”