MIDDLE EAST: Ehud Olmert's plan appears to be predicated on the notion that a weak Lebanese government can impose its will on Hizbullah, writes Peter Hirschberg in Jerusalem
As in the case of Israel's military incursion into Gaza, when Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert ordered the army earlier this week to carry out reprisal raids deep inside Lebanon, the spark was the abduction of Israeli soldiers. But as with Gaza, where the government also sent in troops to stop Palestinian militants from firing rockets into Israel, the military operation in Lebanon has quickly acquired far broader goals than the release of two captured Israeli soldiers.
Mr Olmert's defence minister, Amir Peretz, first began intimating late on Thursday that a key aim of Israel's aerial bombardment of Lebanon was to bring about a situation in which Hizbullah militants were no longer positioned along the Israel-Lebanon border. He said Israel was "changing the rules of the game entirely".
Mr Olmert spelled out those rules yesterday, when he told UN secretary general Kofi Annan that Israel's military operation in Lebanon would not end until the full implementation of Security Council resolution 1559, which calls for Hizbullah to be disarmed and the Lebanese army to deploy in the south, which is controlled by the Shia organisation.
An ambitious goal for a rookie prime minister - Mr Olmert took office in early May - having to contend with a highly intricate diplomatic-military imbroglio that would have even the wiliest, most veteran statesmen wringing their hands in dismay. He faces warfare on two fronts, in Gaza and Lebanon, ministers pushing him to open up a third in Syria, growing international pressure to end the strikes on Beirut, public criticism over his inability to stem rocket fire from Gaza into Israel, and sniping from members of his own party about the wisdom of his main policy initiative - a deep, unilateral withdrawal in the West Bank.
For now, he has strong public backing for a fierce military response in Lebanon to the attack on Wednesday by Hizbullah militants who crossed the border into Israel, killed three soldiers, snatched two and disappeared back into Lebanon. With Israel having withdrawn its forces from Lebanon in May 2000 and having pulled back to the UN-sanctioned border, many Israelis are furious over the attack, which they view as a brazen violation of their sovereignty.
But residents in northern Israel have been in bomb shelters - or in close vicinity to one - since Hizbullah began firing dozens of rocket salvos into Israel early on Thursday morning, and there is a limit to how long Mr Olmert can keep them there. Tourism in the area has been snuffed out and the longer the military operation continues, so the economic cost for the residents will mount.
If Mr Olmert is to achieve his goal of a Hizbullah-free southern Lebanon in exchange for a ceasefire, he will also need to weather mounting international criticism. French president Jacques Chirac condemned Israel yesterday for using "disproportionate" force and wondered "whether there isn't a sort of desire to destroy Lebanon".
But vital for Mr Olmert is the support he is receiving from President Bush, whose spokesman quoted him yesterday as saying that while Israel should make every effort to limit civilian casualties, he would not press it to halt its military operation. The Americans, though, have asked Israel to ensure that the military strikes do not lead to the downfall of the new government in Lebanon.
Mr Olmert's plan appears to be predicated on the notion that a weak Lebanese government can impose its will on Hizbullah. What's more, Israeli strikes - and the dozens of Lebanese civilians who have been killed in the last 48 hours - have only increased public support for Hizbullah, making the unlikely scenario that the Lebanese government will confront the Shia organisation even more improbable.
Not wanting to open up a third front, Mr Olmert has so far parried calls for Israel to strike at Syria, which along with Iran has long been a patron of Hizbullah.
Cognisant also of how Israel in the past has gotten mired in the "Lebanese mud", as Israelis call it, he also seems happy to confine the military operation to aerial bombardments.
Some observers have suggested that Mr Olmert's decision to launch a fiery response to the Hizbullah attack is in part connected to his plan for a West Bank pull-out.
The continuing rocket fire from Gaza into Israel and the fact that Israeli forces are back in the coastal strip less than 10 months after pulling out, has undermined public support for the prime minister's West Bank plans.
Israelis are hardly enthusiastic about the prospect of Hamas militants, possibly armed with the makeshift rockets being fired from Gaza, perched on the doorstep of the country's major population centres.
A harsh response in Lebanon, Mr Olmert might be thinking, will send out a clear message that, unlike in Gaza, Israel will not tolerate attacks once it pulls out of much of the West Bank.