No. of Recommendations: 5
We did it in Vietnam, and again in Afghanistan. Also, Russia (USSR) learned it in Afghanistan. Lots of examples, but apparently Israel thinks "this time will be different". No, it won't.
It can be. You know what Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iran all have in common, for both the U.S. and Russia?
They're far away.
A domestic guerrilla movement can outlast the conventional military of a remote power. Because the interests of that remote power, however important they seem to that remote power, are always going to be smaller than those of the people fighting on their home turf. The remote power can always leave; the domestic guerillas never can. If the remote power gives up, they can just go home; if the guerrillas give up, they're all going to jail or die. Etc.
That doesn't work when the combatant nations aren't remote from each other. Now, the nation with the conventional army has huge interests in winning the conflict. If they withdraw, they're not retreating safely across an ocean or thousands of miles of forbidding terrain. If they withdraw, the guerrillas are still right next door.
Domestic guerrilla rebellions get crushed all the time. Sometimes they win, and sometimes they're defeated.
Ironically, all those examples you mention are illustrations of why Hamas can't win in the same way. Because unlike the U.S. or Russia (or Britain in India), Israel can't leave the region.
