Now, Israel’s rampage against a defenseless Lebanon – smashing airport runways, fuel tanks, power plants, gas stations, lighthouses, bridges, roads and the occasional refugee convoy – has exposed Bush’s folly in subcontracting U.S. policy out to Tel Aviv, thus making Israel the custodian of our reputation and interests in the Middle East.
The Lebanon that Israel, with Bush’s blessing, is smashing up has a pro-American government, heretofore considered a shining example of his democracy crusade. Yet, asked in St. Petersburg if he would urge Israel to use restraint in its airstrikes, Bush sounded less like the leader of the Free World than some bellicose city councilman from Brooklyn Heights.
He’s right — Israeli (or more accurately, pro-Israeli American) control of US Middle East policy has to stop.
Do you have a cite for where/when he said this? Surprising.
The American media *have* been treating this pretty much as a “fifty-first state” issue (I was pretty startled to see a former US assistant undersecretary of state – Jed something – on C-Span the other day say “we” repeatedly to refer to Israel), and the main questions asked on the news tend to be “what does this mean for Israel” and “what is Israel’s strategy going to be” and many of those interviewed seem to feel strongly about the issue from the Israeli perspective. An interesting thing, however, is that the language of the Israel Lobby paper is getting picked up and used occasionally by CNN and NBC…though for the most part the so-called liberal press is indistinguishable from Fox & co on this issue.
From Pat Robertson, not actually that surprising. He’s the first one who referred to Congress (back in the 80s, I think) as Israeli-occupied territory. Pat’s a pre-neo conservative, very old school with some incredibly objectionable views on many issues, but he’s nationalist in a way that he doesn’t like Israeli control over US policy.
Since everyone here seems to be of the same mind, I thought I’d stir things up a bit and note my support for Israel’s campaign in Lebanon.
Basically, Hezbollah has grown too big for its britches since the 2000 Israeli withdrawal, and it carried out its most recent operation at a time when the Israeli defense establishment had disproportionate influence over the security agenda (Israel’s top two politicans are civilians). That being said, the assault was still the right thing to do. The fact of the matter is, and I hate to introduce some hyperbole here, but if Hezbollah or Hamas were ruling your government, chances are this blog would not be permitted to function.
I do not condone the attacks on Lebanese civilians, and I regret the extent to which Lebanon is being bombarded, but I see both as the inevitable consequence of a necessary (let’s leave justice aside for the moment) campaign on the part of Israel to make sure that Hezbollah’s military capability is annihilated.
Ooops – I never included the link:
http://www.adc.org/index.php?id=2858
Paul – it’s Pat Buchanan, not Robertson – isn’t Robertson pro-Israel in a kooky evangelic way? But I think you had Buchanan in mind in your comment anyway.
al-Himyari: At this point it’s really not clear that Hizbullah is really going to be annihilated. I don’t know myself, but a lot of analysts seem to think it will come out stronger. It certainly seems doubtful that it will be eradicated, although I suppose the possibility is there if enough senior leadership is killed. In any case I completely disagree that this campaign was either necessary or will have a desirable outcome — the price is just too high.
Pat Robertson = evangelical Right, has the popular 700 Club show and basically runs the Christian Broadcasting Network. Is pro-Israel like others in the Christian Right. Pat Buchanan = populist conservative anti-globalization (more Poujadist than mainstream Right). I guess Buchanan doesn’t like Israel much but I thought he liked Muslims even less.
The price for whom? The price for Israel’s democratically elected government and for its capacity to deter Hezbollah and its Syrian and Iranian backers seems about right. Now if war was being visited on my own town or village, I may have a different perspective on matters, but Hezbollah visited war on Israel’s northern border, and the most recent poll I am aware of showed overwhelming support for Israel’s retaliation among residents of Israel, north or south.
As far as Hezbollah’s fate, it is of course too soon to tell, but you’ve got be worried when even Sunni jihadists are tripping over each other to condemn you. Despite its Iranian origins and affinities, Hezbollah is a popular social movement, and can’t be extinguished at the barrel of a gun. It’s the guns that I believe can be made to disappear, and I see those (and rockets and missiles) as a legitimate focus. I think many Lebanese deep down hope that Hezbollah’s guns will disappear too.
“As far as Hezbollah’s fate, it is of course too soon to tell, but you’ve got be worried when even Sunni jihadists are tripping over each other to condemn you.”
??
I thought that the Sunni Islamists were actually quite impressed with Hezbollah’s latest actions. See:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/f499d97a-1855-11db-99a6-0000779e2340.html
http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/abuaardvark/2006/07/americas_arab_a.html
On the question of whether Israel is acting rationally and doing what it needs to in order to protect itself from Hezbollah – well clearly they think what they’re doing is rational or they wouldn’t be doing it. Whether it is necessary or inevitable, or even effective, is another matter. All armies and political leaderships tend to take a maximalist position on the use of force and argue that civilian casualties are inevitable side-effects (till, of course, those civilians are their own) and that’s why we have this invention called the Geneva conventions. The way Israel is going about things, i.e. not targetting HA military facilities narrowly, but inflicting collective punishment and bombing civilian areas, is ultimately going to strengthen resentment of Israel and may well strengthen HA’s hand within Lebanon, and how do you propose to stop them rearming?
Take a virtual stroll through http://www.tajdeed.net/vb and you’ll see what I mean concerning Sunni jihadists.
As concerns rearmament, that is a very good question. As I see it, the most viable option after the cessation of the current war is for Hezbollah to integrate into the Lebanese army. This way they can have all the arms they want. Any other solution would have them being perpetually pounded into oblivion, which is definitely untenable for everyone. The real problem is that Hezbollah’s identity, like that of Yassir Arafat, is inseparably tied in with resistance to Israel, even when the original purpose or justification for resistance has been eliminated. That does not even speak to the divide between the bilateral view Israel ascribes to and the concerning its conflict with Hezbollah, and the multilateral view of the ‘Ameel al-Am Nasrallah (pardon the cheap pun).
As far as targeting, I am not in that business, but I do know that Hezbollah does not have very many military facilities or bases per se, and I believe that they hide their missiles in towns and villages. Wouldn’t you do the same if you were them? It was silly for Shimon Peres to dismiss the Lebanese casualty figures as unreliable, but that is part of the psychoological war that Hezbollah has instigated and to which Israel is happily acquiescing.
Yes of course, jeez, I meant Buchanan, didn’t mean Robertson, Robertson loves israel in that when-Israel-is-destroyed-christ-will-come kind of way. It’s Buchanan, who’s old school right wing ways make him interesting some times. sorry, I’m a bit of an idiot at the keyboard sometimes.