Future
History: A Glimpse Of What
U.S. Lebanon Policy Could Spawn
By Lawrence Pintak
04 August, 2006
CommonDreams.org
It
is very likely that the world will look back at the summer of 2006 as
a seminal moment in Middle East history.
We may well be seeing, as
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says, “the birth pangs of
a new Middle East.” But it is also quite possible a monster will
be born.
If the Bush administration
is not very careful in the next few weeks, history may well record that
this bloody summer was one in which:
1. Arabs realized, once and
for all, that Israel had definitively lost its façade of invincibility.
Hezbollah – which humbled America in 1983 and drove Israel out
of south Lebanon in 2000 – has won this war by the very fact that
it fights on. Israel’s survival has always depended on the perception
of strength. The implications of the loss of that psychological armor
are profound, both for its impact on Israel’s enemies and the
potential destabilizing effect of an Israel that must restore the balance
of fear.
2. Hezbollah reclaimed the
crown of militant Islamic leadership from al Qaeda and the Sunnis of
Iraq. Videos from the Hindu Kush and internecine slaughter in Iraq pale
in comparison to fighters locked in what is being positioned in the
Arab media as an epic battle. A new phase has begun.
3. Iran re-emerged as the
region’s broker of war and peace. Already empowered by America’s
toppling of its one real rival, Saddam Hussein, the Tehran regime –
even without nuclear weapons – sent a strong message to both Washington
and the conservative Arab governments: Don’t mess with us. The
Gulf could once more become the Persian lake it was under the Shah.
4. The leaders of the “old”
Arab world were rocked by the power of the Arab street. The initial
condemnation of Hezbollah by the governments of key Sunni countries
has sparked a popular backlash. Suddenly the democracy so ardently sought
by the Bush administration is taking form in a way never anticipated;
public opinion is driving policy – in a direction counter to U.S.
interests and dangerous for existing regimes.
5. A powerful new confluence
of interests arose between Sunni and Shi’ite militants –
and angry young secular Arabs – around Palestine, regional political
change and opposition to America. The movement will resemble the brief
alliance-of-convenience in the 1950s between Nasserites and Muslim Brothers
that sparked the Egyptian revolution. Look for Iranian-funded militants
to step up efforts to undermine regimes in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and
Egypt.
6. The Arab world was cleaved
into a dangerous new top-down Sunni-Shi’ite Cold War, driven by
Sunni governments and elites threatened by the rise of Iran and the
Shia. Even as the agendas of the most militant Sunni and Shi’ite
forces – Hezbollah, Hamas, al Qaeda and their kin – briefly
coincide, a regional confrontation between nations could result.
7. Lebanon once more descended
into civil war as Hezbollah usurped the power of the central government.
Many Lebanese Sunnis and Christians have rallied to Hezbollah’s
side in the face of the Israeli assault, but it will not take much to
send the country spiraling back into confessional chaos.
8. The obituary for America’s
Iraq adventure was written. The intimate ties of family and religion
between the Shi’ites of Lebanon, Iraq and Iran mean engagement
with Hezbollah via the Israelis could easily provoke open war against
the U.S. by the Shia of Iraq. Even Iraq’s U.S.-backed prime minister
is a Hezbollah ally.
9. Western peacekeepers embarked
on a doomed mission to restore peace to Lebanon. Multinational forces
have been trying to bring peace to the country since the 1840s. Each
time, they have been driven out bearing coffins. The tactics being now
used against American forces in Iraq were pioneered in Lebanon.
10. A new terrorist force
was awakened. Hezbollah has not targeted U.S. interests since the 1980s.
But America’s support for Israel’s attempt to annihilate
it may change all that.
The last time a U.S. administration
tried to isolate and marginalize Syria and Iran, the result was the
birth of Hezbollah, the dawn of suicide bombing and the humbling of
a superpower. Now, America is at it again.
“Folly,” wrote
historian Barbara Tuchman, is “the pursuit of policy contrary
to self-interest.”
The Bush administration set
out to redraw the map of the Middle East. Instead, it has set it on
fire. Three weeks ago, Hezbollah was a militia/political party engaged
in a domestic struggle to survive on the new Lebanese political landscape
reshaped by the withdrawal of Syria’s forces. Today, it is the
inspiration for a generation. Meanwhile, Iraq is becoming the new Afghanistan.
This is, President Bush tells
us, “a moment of opportunity.” The question history will
decide is, for whom?
Lawrence Pintak
is the director of the Adham Center for Electronic Journalism at The
American University in Cairo. A former CBS News Middle East correspondent,
he is the author of Seeds of Hate: How America’s Flawed
Middle East Policy Ignited the Jihad. His most recent book
is Reflections in a Bloodshot Lens: America, Islam & the
War of Ideas. He can be reached at lpintak at aucegypt.edu.