Saturday, August 05, 2006
Unorthodox diplomacy can turn the war in Lebanon
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Ah, for the easy dog days of June when the only new threat that the world had to worry about were the few much publicized rockets of North Korea (which sizzled out on July 5th). Then, on June 25, came the Hamas incursion from Gaza into Israel, seizing a Israeli Defense Force soldier and killing two, and, on July 12, another by Hezbollah from Lebanon. Now we have a serious war that Israel is leading against its Hezbollah provocateurs, and the bloodshed, mostly of innocents, has the world in a state of shock. Where is it leading to, and how can the world stop the spreading conflagration?
Well, the pundits agree that the Gaza attack on an Israeli border station by Palestinians, reached by an underground tunnel and ordained by the top Hamas leaders hiding in Syria, was to stir up the world’s opinion when Israel would take the expected disproportionate bloody countermeasures.
The Hezbollah attack on an Israeli border post on the Lebanese frontier, killing eight and capturing two IDF soldiers, is known to have been hatched in Iran, to take the world’s mind off the Ayatollahs’ insistence on developing nuclear facilities leading to weaponization. Unlike the Palestinian Hamas, Hezbollah is a Lebanese/Syrian organization, founded with Iranian funds and leadership in 1982, to counter the IDF entry in Lebanon when a similar series of attacks by the PLO then residing in South Lebanon provoked the Israeli occupation (the original 100,000 refugees were bumped to a force of 300,000 when Jordanians threw out their PLO colony after an attack on King Hussein’s life in 1970.)
Lebanon, a 60/40 Muslim/Christian country, had gradually been occupied by Syrians since early 1970s (in 1978 Syria bombed East Damascus, sending 300,000 Maronite Christians in flight). Lebanon had been in an internal war since 1981, until about 1996. The Israelis voluntarily withdrew in 2000, and the Syrians were forced out in 2005. It had to do with the murder of PM Rafiq Hariri of Lebanon in February 2005, and the world’s reaction to Syrian dominance and outright occupation of the country. The UN Security Council had taken umbrage earlier, in February 2004 producing Resolution 1559, demanding the withdrawal of militia, meaning Syria and its Hzbollah allies.
The new, democratically elected Lebanese government of 2005, with elected Hezbollah representatives, was unable to control the terrorist organization, whose attack induced the Israelis to retaliate, attempting to retrieve the two captured IDF members and to scotch the terrorist nests and their rocket attacks on Israeli border villages and Haifa. The Israeli air attacks, although pinpointed to seeking the terrorist Katusha nests hidden within the population centers, have caused massive civilian deaths, and huge flows of refugees are causing a world reaction, with Russia, an Iranian ally, leading the world opinion against the unnecessary bloodshed. Ironic, coming from the brutalizers of Chechnya?
Will Israel desist? Not likely, the government of non-military politicians is proving its mettle, in a part of the world where compromise is considered a
proof of weakness. Well, Ehud Olmert may agree to a force of EU peacekeepers (not under UN command), guaranteeing a cessation of rockets’ fire, the optimal temporizing solution. This may be a regrouping solution for the Hezbollah, the alternatives are just too dreadful even for the Arabs and Iranians – for instance, any military move that Syria should make towards Beirut and against Israel will provoke a massive air strike against the exposed, technologically weak Syrian army, destroying it. Further, if Iran makes an overt move, there should be concern of a possibly nuclear thrust against Teheran’s research facilities from Israel, with the US potentially driven into support of its MidEastern ally. A true specter of the world at war, enough of a real threat to keep Syria and Iran safely behind their borders, talking loud while letting their proxies slug it out. They understand that Israel is fighting for its life, and will have to respect the potential consequences.
.
Syria has a more immediate threat also in the fact that the Assad family rule is a tribal dictatorship, based on the minority Alawites, initially a secular rule (daddy Hafez Assad blew up 10,000 Muslim Brotherhood revolutionaries at Hama in 1970 and scotched the fundamentalist opposition), and a military collapse may bring on popular revolt of its suppressed majority (75%) Sunnis.
Encouraging was the anti-Hezbollah position of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, Sunni ruled dictatorships, who see a clear threat of the Ayatollahs’ Shia-driven revolutionaries gaining the Arab world’s leadership role. The Saudi oil fields are in a minority Shia territory. The North African members of the Arab League may also have been silently hoping that the threatening radicals will be given their comeuppance by the relentless Israeli forces fighting for the survival of the Jewish state. Two weeks later, seeing the Arab world erupting with pro-Hezbollah rhetoric, the Saudis and Jordanians have joined the condemnations of Israel and are rushing relief supplies to Lebanon. Even al-Qaida is grabbing a propaganda role, calling for supportive attacks on Jews, without naming their enemies the Shias, whom they are killing daily in Iraq. The US, asking for sustainable peace against terrorist provocateurs, while pleading for minimizing civilian casualties and a cease-fire with EU peacekeepers, is not succeeding, hardly anybody is signing up. The fate of the 241 US Marine and 58 French peacekeepers blown up in 1983 raises the strongest warning. Hopeless?
Actually, there is some hope, if the US gets off its stiff “don’t talk to Syria” position, and engages in some real, sorely needed secret behind-the –scenes diplomacy with Assad, not just publicly hectoring him. Let’s hope that our Arab allies are doing just that. Syria wants recognition and economic aid, and may play to its Sunni constituents who are harassed by the Hezbollah “wipe out the infidels” ideologues, at the cost of Syrian and Lebanese civilians (this “political party” attacked, without alerting their own Lebanese government to enable early evacuation, fully cognizant that the well-announced Israeli 100-for-1 retaliation will sacrifice masses of their fellow citizens.) President Bush’s edict of not talking directly to Iran, North Korea, Syria and Hamas has not worked in our favor; the rise in oil prices and markets realignment has cost us leverage with Russia and China as well as Iran; a preemptive air strike against Iran has a palpable risk of causing revolts and the collapse of friendly teetering Mideast governments (think nuclear Pakistan), and freeze us out of their oil markets. The al-Qaidas of the world stand ready to step in and reduce this consumer nation to a second-class power.
Ah, for the easy dog days of June when the only new threat that the world had to worry about were the few much publicized rockets of North Korea (which sizzled out on July 5th). Then, on June 25, came the Hamas incursion from Gaza into Israel, seizing a Israeli Defense Force soldier and killing two, and, on July 12, another by Hezbollah from Lebanon. Now we have a serious war that Israel is leading against its Hezbollah provocateurs, and the bloodshed, mostly of innocents, has the world in a state of shock. Where is it leading to, and how can the world stop the spreading conflagration?
Well, the pundits agree that the Gaza attack on an Israeli border station by Palestinians, reached by an underground tunnel and ordained by the top Hamas leaders hiding in Syria, was to stir up the world’s opinion when Israel would take the expected disproportionate bloody countermeasures.
The Hezbollah attack on an Israeli border post on the Lebanese frontier, killing eight and capturing two IDF soldiers, is known to have been hatched in Iran, to take the world’s mind off the Ayatollahs’ insistence on developing nuclear facilities leading to weaponization. Unlike the Palestinian Hamas, Hezbollah is a Lebanese/Syrian organization, founded with Iranian funds and leadership in 1982, to counter the IDF entry in Lebanon when a similar series of attacks by the PLO then residing in South Lebanon provoked the Israeli occupation (the original 100,000 refugees were bumped to a force of 300,000 when Jordanians threw out their PLO colony after an attack on King Hussein’s life in 1970.)
Lebanon, a 60/40 Muslim/Christian country, had gradually been occupied by Syrians since early 1970s (in 1978 Syria bombed East Damascus, sending 300,000 Maronite Christians in flight). Lebanon had been in an internal war since 1981, until about 1996. The Israelis voluntarily withdrew in 2000, and the Syrians were forced out in 2005. It had to do with the murder of PM Rafiq Hariri of Lebanon in February 2005, and the world’s reaction to Syrian dominance and outright occupation of the country. The UN Security Council had taken umbrage earlier, in February 2004 producing Resolution 1559, demanding the withdrawal of militia, meaning Syria and its Hzbollah allies.
The new, democratically elected Lebanese government of 2005, with elected Hezbollah representatives, was unable to control the terrorist organization, whose attack induced the Israelis to retaliate, attempting to retrieve the two captured IDF members and to scotch the terrorist nests and their rocket attacks on Israeli border villages and Haifa. The Israeli air attacks, although pinpointed to seeking the terrorist Katusha nests hidden within the population centers, have caused massive civilian deaths, and huge flows of refugees are causing a world reaction, with Russia, an Iranian ally, leading the world opinion against the unnecessary bloodshed. Ironic, coming from the brutalizers of Chechnya?
Will Israel desist? Not likely, the government of non-military politicians is proving its mettle, in a part of the world where compromise is considered a
proof of weakness. Well, Ehud Olmert may agree to a force of EU peacekeepers (not under UN command), guaranteeing a cessation of rockets’ fire, the optimal temporizing solution. This may be a regrouping solution for the Hezbollah, the alternatives are just too dreadful even for the Arabs and Iranians – for instance, any military move that Syria should make towards Beirut and against Israel will provoke a massive air strike against the exposed, technologically weak Syrian army, destroying it. Further, if Iran makes an overt move, there should be concern of a possibly nuclear thrust against Teheran’s research facilities from Israel, with the US potentially driven into support of its MidEastern ally. A true specter of the world at war, enough of a real threat to keep Syria and Iran safely behind their borders, talking loud while letting their proxies slug it out. They understand that Israel is fighting for its life, and will have to respect the potential consequences.
.
Syria has a more immediate threat also in the fact that the Assad family rule is a tribal dictatorship, based on the minority Alawites, initially a secular rule (daddy Hafez Assad blew up 10,000 Muslim Brotherhood revolutionaries at Hama in 1970 and scotched the fundamentalist opposition), and a military collapse may bring on popular revolt of its suppressed majority (75%) Sunnis.
Encouraging was the anti-Hezbollah position of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, Sunni ruled dictatorships, who see a clear threat of the Ayatollahs’ Shia-driven revolutionaries gaining the Arab world’s leadership role. The Saudi oil fields are in a minority Shia territory. The North African members of the Arab League may also have been silently hoping that the threatening radicals will be given their comeuppance by the relentless Israeli forces fighting for the survival of the Jewish state. Two weeks later, seeing the Arab world erupting with pro-Hezbollah rhetoric, the Saudis and Jordanians have joined the condemnations of Israel and are rushing relief supplies to Lebanon. Even al-Qaida is grabbing a propaganda role, calling for supportive attacks on Jews, without naming their enemies the Shias, whom they are killing daily in Iraq. The US, asking for sustainable peace against terrorist provocateurs, while pleading for minimizing civilian casualties and a cease-fire with EU peacekeepers, is not succeeding, hardly anybody is signing up. The fate of the 241 US Marine and 58 French peacekeepers blown up in 1983 raises the strongest warning. Hopeless?
Actually, there is some hope, if the US gets off its stiff “don’t talk to Syria” position, and engages in some real, sorely needed secret behind-the –scenes diplomacy with Assad, not just publicly hectoring him. Let’s hope that our Arab allies are doing just that. Syria wants recognition and economic aid, and may play to its Sunni constituents who are harassed by the Hezbollah “wipe out the infidels” ideologues, at the cost of Syrian and Lebanese civilians (this “political party” attacked, without alerting their own Lebanese government to enable early evacuation, fully cognizant that the well-announced Israeli 100-for-1 retaliation will sacrifice masses of their fellow citizens.) President Bush’s edict of not talking directly to Iran, North Korea, Syria and Hamas has not worked in our favor; the rise in oil prices and markets realignment has cost us leverage with Russia and China as well as Iran; a preemptive air strike against Iran has a palpable risk of causing revolts and the collapse of friendly teetering Mideast governments (think nuclear Pakistan), and freeze us out of their oil markets. The al-Qaidas of the world stand ready to step in and reduce this consumer nation to a second-class power.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 11:26 AM 
