Lebanon:
A Critical Battle
For New Middle East
By Ramzy Baroud
17 August, 2006
Countercurrents.org
Using
the July 12 capture of two Israeli soldiers - whose unit had apparently
crossed the Israeli border into Lebanon - as a pretext, the Bush administration
quickly sprung into action: imagining yet a new Middle East, where democracy
and freedom reigns over militancy and oppression.
Since the neoconservative
takeover of America's foreign policies, it has become apparent that
the neocons do not operate with such impulsiveness. The plan for a new
Middle East was introduced as early as 1992 by then less influential
neoconservative elements. Those ideals were accentuated in 1996 by Richard
Pearle and company, then advising Israel's Prime Minister at the time,
Benjamin Netanyahu.
Exploiting the tragedy of
the September 11 terrorist attacks to achieve what until then seemed
unfeasible, Washington's neocons were hard at work: an invasion of Iraq,
then Iran and Syria, which would naturally lead to the plunging of Lebanon
into Israel's political sphere. Meanwhile, Israel would be entrusted
with the ominous task of imposing whatever solution it finds suitable
on defenseless Palestinians. But when it all seemed set for the advent
of a new Middle East, Iraqis exhibited stiff resistance that bogged
down America's military power and stretched its resources beyond expectations.
The tens of billions of initial costs for war led to tens of millions
more, with no end in sight.
It was all but a secret that
the neoconservative dream of a new Middle East would once again be postponed.
So the debate instead was tilted toward a much more urgent issue: how
to escape Iraq with the least political damage possible. Yet, as some
Americans wrangled with the quandary, desperate elements with and around
the administration insisted that a new Middle East was still possible.
But that hope too seemed
to slowly falter, as Iran insisted on its right to civilian nuclear
technology with little or no enthusiasm by America's top military echelon
to respond by exporting its military blunders east of the Iraq border.
Add to this eerie scenario
the backfiring of their championed Middle East democracy project. The
project was aimed at rearranging the region using the back door, with
democracy being the new mantra. The advent of Hamas, Israel's most formidable
foe in Palestine – as a result of one of the most transparent
democratic elections ever held in the Middle East exposed the American
democracy charade in phenomenal time and most ironic ways: the same
Palestinians who were told to live up to Israel's high democratic standards
were collectively punished, thereafter with the withholding of aid for
doing just that. The democracy nuisance proved yet another embarrassing
episode for the American administration – the supposed harbinger
of democracy. As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice barefacedly journeyed
to world capitals to ensure the success of its government's sanctions
on Palestinians, Israel unleashed a most violent campaign in the Occupied
Territories, killing hundreds and arresting scores of Palestinian MPs
and cabinet ministers.
Now that most of the doors
have been shut before a new Middle East, there remained one unexplored
possibility, the reordering of the original neoconservative plan, starting
with Lebanon; but why Lebanon?
The original neoconservative
doctrines - Paul Wolfowitz's doctrine of 1992, Pearle's foreign policy
document of 1996, and those of the Project for a New American Century
in later years - assured the collapse of the Lebanese front immediately
after the elimination of the Syrian threat. Syria, it is believed, holds
all the cards to Lebanese politics. Syria, however, is hardly perceived
as a military threat the same way Iran is; thus political channels –
at the UN and US Congress - were successfully used to pressure Syria
to concede its Lebanese fortress to a pro-American Lebanese government.
The subsequent events were anything but consistent with Israel's designs:
Hizbollah was not disarmed to pave the way for the triumphant return
of Israel to extend its political outreach as a regional power to its
neighbor to the north, and to further push an increasingly isolated
Syria into a corner, who would eventually deport anti-Israeli occupation
factions based in Damascus.
Desperate times call for
desperate measures cannot be any truer than in Israel's war against
Lebanon. Media reports suggest that Israeli war plans against Lebanon
were concocted years ago. UN reports indicate that Israeli forces have
crossed the border into Lebanon on numerous occasions in the past, since
the Israeli withdrawal from most Lebanese territories in July 2000,
which mostly went unchallenged by the Lebanese resistance. July 12 was
the exception. Why Hizbollah chose to respond to the Israeli provocation
at such a scale on that specific date remains unclear. Did its leadership
believe that capturing Israeli soldiers would strengthen their position
when the predicted Israeli war was unleashed?
The fact of the matter is
that the war on Lebanon was premeditated, with the hope that an easy
war would bring an end to the resistance, coerce the country into an
unwanted peace settlement, deliver a blow to Iran and Syria's regional
ambitions, but most importantly downgrade Iran's regional import, perhaps
as a stepping stone toward the long envisioned regime change.
The defeat of Hizbollah would've
indeed breathed life and enabled the full return of the original neoconservative
plans to the Middle East. It was no wonder that Secretary Rice took
the podium and giddily declared the need for a New Middle East almost
immediately after Israel began pounding Lebanon's civilian infrastructure.
Such a Middle East would indeed require time and patience and anything
but an 'immediate ceasefire'.
The war on Lebanon indeed
is generating a new Middle East, but hardly the one the US and Israel
have long fought for. Arabs, and for the first time in their recent
history unreservedly speak of a real military victory. Of course, neither
the US nor Israel are prepared to accept such an outcome. Without a
doubt, a decisive battle for a new Middle East is going on in Lebanon,
the question is who will define it and at what cost?
-Ramzy Baroud
is a US author and journalist, currently based in London. His recent
book, “The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s
Struggle” (Pluto Press, London), is now available at Amazon.com.
He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Palestine Chronicle