What we’re seeing here, in a sense, is the growing — the birth pangs of a new Middle East and whatever we do we have to be certain that we’re pushing forward to the new Middle East not going back to the old one.
I’ve been talking to people in Lebanon and it appears that Israel has established a killing box in south Lebanon, what the U.S. called a “free fire zone” in Vietnam. You establish a zone, which you dominate from the air, and force out civilians—there are already hundreds of thousands of Lebanese who have been displaced. Then you presume anything still moving in that zone is the enemy. This is a recipe for lots of hapless civilians dying, as happened a few days ago when 16 southern Lebanese villagers were killed in automobiles while adhering to Israel’s order to flee their homes.
Totally disarming Hezbollah is a fool’s errand. It’s too easy to hide weapons and there’s too great an incentive to keep them. Hezbollah is facing an interesting dilemma. The more it uses the rockets the more it creates a rationale to keep the time period open. Inside Lebanon there is going to be a readjustment of politics. Hezbollah will be diminished in stature, it won’t be able to maintain its privileged position after what has happened.
Israel has made a profound mistake.
I’ve been studying American foreign policy in the Middle East for 34 years and I can’t recall any U.S. president who has subordinated American interests to Israeli interests like this one. The administration is being naïve about how this is going to reverberate elsewhere, in places like Iraq.
There going to be hell to pay for this in the long run. I can already imagine Al Qaeda recruiters are working non-stop.
What’s missing from the interview, though, is discussion of Syria. I’ve commented on other blogs about this, so here are my two cents: Syria’s weak domestic position (created by Israeli/French/US pressure and its own idiocy and assassinations) makes it actually more difficult to really push for regime change there, as some are advocating. The weaker the Bashar Al Assad regime is, the more careful Israel and the US will be. The majority opinion in the leadership of both countries now is that the regime’s fall would either lead to Iraq-like chaos (which would compound Iraq’s own problems and naturally affect Lebanon) to relative stability under a new Islamist regime. I think enough Islamists have come to power recently for the taste of everybody in the region right now. So the Syrian regime is reinforced and can be more intransigeant in the current situation, since it is not paying much of a price and most probably won’t be challenged.
The caveat is, of course, that the advocates of Syrian regime change will win the argument over Syria and change everybody’s mind (or something will happen to make people change their mind.) In that case, don’t plan a trip to the Levant for the next 10-20 years.
NYT: U.S. Speeds Up Bomb Delivery for the Israelis
By DAVID S. CLOUD and HELENE COOPER
WASHINGTON, July 21 — The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday.
Continue reading U.S. speeds up bomb delivery for the Israelis
It’s kinda interesting when you suddently get senior military or government officials talking frankly about how bleak the situation under their control is. Make no mistake the general’s assessment is largely correct and the situation in Afghanistan in so many ways is going down the drains, but i was just curious why General Richards is so public about it. But may be one reason is general’s complaint about “western forces there were short of equipmentâ€�… Going to the press always helps when officials are about to ask for increase in budget?
Continue reading Afghanistan “close to chaos,” warns NATO general
On the US media:
The American broadcast media nevertheless labor to fashion symmetry where there is none. There is balanced treatment of the casualties on both sides. The Israelis forced into bomb shelters are juxtaposed with the Lebanese politely warned to flee their homes. For competing renditions of the day’s bloodletting, CNN’s avuncular Larry King turns first to nonchalantly windblown Israeli spokeswoman Miri Eisen and then to a program director from Hizballah’s al-Manar satellite channel, Ibrahim al-Musawi, who always seems to have one eye on the sky. The rock-star reporters who parachuted in to cover the story dispense dollops of confusion. CNN’s Anderson Cooper in Cyprus explained that, since Hamas members are Sunni and Hizballah members Shi‘i, they are “historic rivals.” MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson, sans bowtie to convey the seriousness of the occasion, wondered if Hizballah had rocketed Nazareth because its residents are all Christian, ignoring the images on the screen behind him from the attack victims’ funeral at a mosque.
On Hizbullah’s motivations:
No evidence, beyond leaked Israeli intelligence of secret meetings between Nasrallah and his alleged Syrian and Iranian puppeteers, has been presented for the thesis of broader conspiracy, let alone for the core proposition that Hizballah snatched the Israeli soldiers on orders from Bashar al-Asad and/or Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. (Who else sees the hand of Iran, by the way? Saddam Hussein, admonishing Syria from his Baghdad jail cell not to “deepen its coalition with Iran, because Iranians have bad intentions toward all Arabs and they hope to do away with them.”) The fact that Hizballah’s arsenal includes missiles of Iranian and Syrian provenance is also adduced as proof. By this same logic, of course, Washington must be ordering every sortie of Israeli F-16s over Beirut and every demolition of Palestinian homes by Caterpillar bulldozers.
Hizballah is not shy about acknowledging its external patrons, who presumably assented to its operation. But the timing of the militia’s cross-border raid, as Israel was punishing all of Gaza for the capture of one soldier, suggests another motivation rooted in regional politics — namely, that Hizballah aimed to impress the Arab public as capable champions of the Palestinians, in contrast to the impotent grumbling of the US-allied Arab regimes. Surely, as well, Saudi and Egyptian criticisms of Hizballah stem more from the popularity of Nasrallah among their own (all or mostly Sunni) populations than from a genuine fear of a “Shiite crescent.”
This Shia crescent nonsense has been way overblow, in my opinion. The Saudis have been warming to the Iranians for years, and the Egyptians have tried but have been probably blocked by the Americans. What does Hosni Mubarak have to fear from Shias? He barely has any in Egypt. The only thing he fears is being upstaged as a regional VIP.
Here’s the conclusion, but read the whole thing:
On July 19, a reporter asked White House Press Secretary Tony Snow if Bush’s insistence that Rice not undertake shuttle diplomacy until Israel “defangs” Hizballah made the conflagration in Lebanon a US war as well as an Israeli one. Snow dissembled: “Why would it be our war? I mean, it’s not on our territory. This is a war in which the United States — it’s not even a war. What you have are hostilities, at this point, between Israel and Hizballah. I would not characterize it as a war.”
It is a war, an unjustified war. Israel’s legal justifications — protecting the sanctity of its borders and enforcing UN resolutions — are disingenuous to the point of being dishonest, after Israel’s own years of ignoring the will of the international community and crossing and erasing boundaries with impunity. The US is the only international actor with the power to stop this war, and instead has chosen to encourage the fighting. So the US, too, will be held accountable by history.
Helen.
Q The United States is not that helpless. It could have stopped the bombardment of Lebanon. We have that much control with the Israelis.
MR. SNOW: I don’t think so, Helen.
Q We have gone for collective punishment against all of Lebanon and Palestine.
MR. SNOW: What’s interesting, Helen —
Q And this is what’s happening, and that’s the perception of the United States.
MR. SNOW: Well, thank you for the Hezbollah view, but I would encourage you —
So not only does White House spokesman Tony Snow (a former fake journalist for Fox News) describe one of the greatest journalists in America (she’s met every president since Truman, has tons of awards, etc.) as a Hezbullah supporter, but he also thinks the US is powerless to stop Israel. Interesting.
Via ThinkProgress.
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.
Blah.
I’m too distracted these days between Lebanon and work in Morocco to write about it much, but there are some important things taking place with the upgrade of the bilateral US-Egypt relationship. Condi Rice insisted that the US-Egyptian Strategic Dialogue (for that is it’s name) includes discussion of Egypt’s domestic situation, but the Egyptian press for the last few days has been quoting Mubarak saying that the US now understands that Egypt will not tolerate intrusion into its internal affairs etc… He literally goes on at lengths about this, and the message to the domestic audience is clear: fuggetaboutit — it being American pressure on the regime, or even deciding not to support the regime as long as it continues the current repressive trend.
What the temporary pressure from the Bush administration did “inspire” democracy activists to do (although I think the 2005 election period was more important as far as Egypt was concerned) was go to international public opinion for their cause. The result of the reversal of policy is that those who dared stick their necks out will now be served a cold dish of revenge by the regime. What started with Ayman Nour, continued with Kifaya and Muslim Brotherhood activists, the judges and most recently the press is likely to continue until the regime feels it has hammered in the message enough: you are alone. For activists, especially during the coming phase of succession-transition, this will leave two possibilities: getting off the streets and stopping (or greatly reducing) their efforts, or escalating either through campaigns by foreign-based groups (such as those started by by Egyptian-Americans recently), or through political violence.
In the meantime, at least 55 Lebanese died today, the highest daily toll so far.
The US’ stance on this will be remembered for a long time in the region — there will be a price to pay for backing Israel’s use of collective punishment.
Update: Congress (the most corrupt parliament among Western democracies) runs after the money, as it always does, and backs Israel.