Is anyone really surprised that Israel violated
the cease-fire? Here, after all, is a nation that has defied
the United Nations on 321
different occasions, refused
to sign the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty, and proudly proclaims its own lawlessness. Only
a fool, or a masochist, would count on Tel Aviv to keep its agreements. Apart
from that, however, this latest raid underscores the real objective of what
the American media insists on calling the Israeli "incursion"
(never "invasion") into Lebanon: it's
all about Syria and Iran.
The Israelis justified
the raid on the grounds that:
"The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and the Lebanese
army were not showing any intention to end the rearmament of Hezbollah, since
the former was unwilling to confront the 'terrorist organization.' Thus, Israel
had no choice but to act itself to stop the flow of weapons and missiles to
the Shiite group, the official added."
This means the Israelis will continue striking at any targets, especially along
the border with Syria, that they deem necessary to stop the "rearmament"
of Hezbollah. But of course, Hezbollah is already very
well armed, as the Israelis discovered to their sorrow
and surprise,
and their arms are hardly
exhausted. This is yet another pretext, just like the
kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers, for continued aggression against
Lebanon – and a means for the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to avoid
or at least ameliorate the political
consequences of its abortive
military campaign. It has more to do with the political situation in Israel
than the military situation on the ground in Lebanon. As the Los Angeles
Times reported,
the real objective of the Israeli raid may not have been interdicting arms at
all:
"At least one independent analyst expressed skepticism of Israel's
claim that the raid was intended to intercept arms supplies. Arthur Hughes,
former director-general of the Egypt-Israel Multinational Force and Observers,
said the operation was so risky – both for the Israeli soldiers and the country's
international standing – that he found the government's official explanation
implausible. 'I would guess there was something of high value they were trying
to accomplish,' Hughes said, suggesting that a rescue mission for the captive
Israeli soldiers was more likely."
If the two Israeli soldiers could be rescued, then so could Olmert's government
– but it is more than just internal Israeli politics that is driving the IDF.
As I pointed out last
week, we were warned by Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who admitted "The
war isn't over yet." Indeed, if the Israelis have their way, it has
barely begun: they are now shifting their focus to a full-fledged effort
to embroil Damascus in the conflict, and I wouldn't rule out air strikes on
Syrian territory before all this is over.
Lebanon is just a pawn in the game: Israel's real objective is toppling Bashar
al-Assad and militarily confronting the Iranian mullahs – using
U.S. troops, of course. The resulting incredibly destructive regional war
will see not a few of their old enemies tossed in history's dustbin.
Israel's partisans in the U.S. have, in some instances, been quite open about
this objective: Michael Ledeen's infamous
taste for "creative
destruction" is vivid evidence of the
neocons' nihilism.
But this is nihilism with a purpose: out of all that death and destruction will
come a new world, the vaunted "transformation" of the region that
was supposed
to lead to democratic societies in nations that had never known any such thing.
But, as it turns out, democracy has nothing
to do with it: it's all about destabilizing the region to pursue an Israeli
agenda. That agenda is the breakup and atomization of the Arab-Muslim world,
so that it is little
more than a collection of splinters. Lebanon is only the first phase of
this campaign, and the Israelis are pushing ahead no matter what Washington
thinks.
That is really the big question: is the U.S. going to go along with this crazed
Israeli campaign? So far, George W. Bush has
gone along for the ride. However, the distance
between American and Israeli interests – never as aligned as the two governments
averred in public – is fast becoming apparent,
and it is only a matter of time before there is a public split.
I would qualify that, however, by adding that the prospects of a coming split
are based on the assumption that the White House is putting American interests
first, or is even concerned in the least with pursuing them. In the
case of this White House,
however, that may be assuming far too
much.
There is no doubt that the U.S. put
pressure on Israel to bring the "incursion" to a swift conclusion,
but that wasn't the White House talking. The direction and control of U.S. foreign
policy is the object of much internal
contention and is shaped by this internecine
struggle rather than any central authority.
To be sure, a pro-American faction in U.S. policymaking circles exists but,
so far, has been relatively powerless to exert any significant influence: only
when U.S. policy seems to go off the rails does it reassert itself. This impulse
resulted in the U.S./French effort to engineer a cease-fire, but, as we have
seen, the Israelis can violate this and face no immediately discernible consequences.
Condoleezza Rice went
to Israel to try to cobble together a cease-fire and was undercut
by the IDF's murderous
assault on Qana. Condi was reportedly
furious, but hers was an impotent rage. The Israelis delight in giving the
finger to foreigners who would limit the scope of their actions, and especially,
one suspects, to the Americans, whose largess
makes the Israeli state possible. Every form of dependency breeds resentment,
and in this case it is bound to come to a head in a very public way – given
a U.S. commitment to its own interests, that is. But don't
expect that from this White House:
"In Washington, the White House declined to criticize the raid, noting
that Israel said it had acted in reaction to arms smuggling into Lebanon and
that the UN resolution called for the prevention of resupplying Hezbollah with
weapons. 'The incident underscores the importance of quickly deploying the enhanced
UNIFIL,' a White House spokeswoman, Jeanie Mamo, said, referring to a force
of 15,000 UN peacekeeping troops called for by the cease-fire agreement to police
the truce."
With 130,000
American troops in the midst of a Shi'ite
sea in Iraq, with the entire
Arab-Muslim
world turning
against
the
U.S. on account of our countenancing
the rape of Lebanon, with our supply of vital oil and gas supplies endangered
by the outbreak of a regional war and our military
at the breaking point – in spite of all this, the president of the United
States forges
ahead with this mad plan to "transform"
the Middle East. It's an outrage, an act of treachery, and, yes, treason on
a scale never before seen.
For years,
we've been telling our readers that American foreign policy has been hijacked,
and here we have the confirmation. The invasion of Iraq, the campaign of threats
and provocations directed at Iran, and the destruction of Lebanon have all served
the interests of a single country,
and that country is not
the United States of America. In the most successful covert
action in history, Israel's
amen corner in the U.S. has essentially seized effective control of the
American giant, and is now riding
the dumb elephant for all he's worth through the rubble of the Middle East.
The Israeli raid has showed how powerless the UN and the U.S. are against not
Hezbollah, but Tel Aviv. As Maj. Gen. William L. Nash, a senior fellow at the
Council on Foreign Relations, put
it to the New York Times:
"We know what they're not going to do, but what will they do. They're
not going to disarm Hezbollah. But are they going to stop Israel from re-attacking
Hezbollah? If the Israeli government decides there is an imminent threat, and
attacks with F-16s, what is the mandate for the UN? What does the UN do?"
There is only one power on earth that can restrain the Israelis, and that is
Israel's American sponsors and financiers. But I wouldn't bet the ranch
on that happening, as long as George W. Bush – or his Democratic
equivalents – reside in the White House. What we have to look forward to,
in short, is perpetual war in the Middle East, for as far as the eye can see
– unless a miracle occurs and we can reclaim U.S. foreign policy for American
interests.
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