More
To Lebanon War
Than Meets The Eye
By Ramzy Baroud
24 July, 2006
Countercurrents.org
At
first glance, history seems to repeat itself in Lebanon, where a lengthy
cold war is intermittently interrupted by an extreme show of violence
as traditional players quickly sprint into action, stacking their support
behind one party or the other.
News headlines remind us
of past conflicts such as that of 1978 – when Israel illegally
occupied parts of Lebanon – and 1982 – when Israel unleashed
a full scale invasion and most deadly campaign against its small neighbor
to the north, killing tens of thousands, mostly civilians.
But the unreserved significance
of the ongoing conflict has more to do with Israel's military ambitions
– not necessarily colonial, but rather strategic - than with Hizbollah's
ability to strike deep into Israel.
Let's examine the bigger
picture, starting well before Hizbollah's daring capture of two Israeli
soldiers in cross border fighting, which unfortunately, at least as
far the media is concerned, is the solitary provocation that sparked
the current conflict. (A San Francisco Chronicle investigative report
by Matthew Kalman - Israel Set War Plan More Than a Year Ago, July 21,
2006 – sheds more light on Israel's intent to carry a three-week
bombardment of Lebanon as early as 2000.)
For years, Israel's strategic
objective has been to break up the Syria-Lebanon front – to isolate
Syria and meddle as always in Lebanon's affairs – while diminishing
whatever leverage Iran has in Lebanon through its support of Hizbollah.
As I argued in the first
chapter of my book: the Second Palestinian Intifada, Israel's military
defeat in Lebanon and its army's abrupt exit in May 2000, has espoused
what became increasingly known as "the spirit of resistance"
among Palestinians and Lebanese alike. Israel has proved once and for
all to have serious military shortcomings, and Hizbollah – an
organization that was comprised mostly of the relatives of Israel's
victims in the invasion of 1982 and subsequent years- was the single
entity that exposed those limitations.
Thus, Israel upgraded its
use of violence to unprecedented degrees during the Palestinian uprising
of September 2000 – months after the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon-
to send a clear message that their military travesty in Lebanon will
not be repeated elsewhere. Moreover, despite its insistence that it
left Lebanon for good, Israel never departed from its original military
goal of destroying Hizbollah or meddling in Lebanese affairs.
Then there was the American
attack on Iraq in March 2003 - clearly a highly dangerous military adventure
– which was lauded by Israeli and pro-Israeli neo-conservative
ideologues in Tel Aviv and in Washington as prudent and indispensable
involvement, that would further cement Israel's security and the US
strategic objectives in the Middle East – thoughtlessly considered
one and the same.
The Iraq war was anticipated
to be a 'cakewalk', which would be followed – according to various
neo-cons documents available on the web – by a regime change in
Syria and Iran, respectively. Though both countries have proved unequally
vital in the US so-called 'war on terror', Israel views both as imminent
and ominous threats, for only these countries, after the collapse of
the Iraqi military front, still possess real armies and potential military
threats. Of course, such a claim, at least in the Syrian case, is highly
questionable.
Bogged down in Iraq in an
impossible war, it became clear that the US military is simply incapable
of taking on more of Israel's foes. According to Israel's friends in
the US Congress and media – and they are plentiful – the
mission was not accomplished. This explains the growing neo-con intellectual
insurgency against the administration, accusing it of 'mishandling'
the Iraq conflict and failing to appreciate the gravity of the Iran
threat. While President Bush is relentless in his anti Iran and Syria
rhetoric, it's becoming more transparent that a full invasion of Iran,
or even Syria are now in the realm of wishful thinking.
With American military ambitions
slowly dying out in the dust of the battlefield in Baghdad and Ramadi,
Israel is growing utterly frustrated. Why? On one hand, despite the
intense pressure on Syria to abandon Lebanon – as it did –
Hizbollah's military and political influence hardly faded, as Israel
has hoped for an immediate overhaul of the political map of Lebanon
and the dismantling of Hizbollah. Even worse, a movement that is parallel
to Hizbollah in many ways in Palestinian and Arab psyche, Hamas, was
on the rise, this time – ironically - as part of the US advocated
democratic reforms campaign in the Middle East.
Hamas’ advent to power
in January 2006, was followed by a less decisive Israeli election that
brought to power a questionable coalition, whose prime minister and
defense minister are known for having no military browses, a major diversion
from Israel's traditional politics. In other words, the new Israeli
government had a great deal to prove on the battlefield to receive much
needed validation at home.
Similar to its political
pressure on Lebanon and Syria – using Washington as a conduit-
Tel Aviv took on Hamas: a suffocating economic siege, an international
smear campaign and a diplomatic blockade – using Washington, but
also corrupt ex-Palestinian officials to achieve its goals. That too
has failed terribly, which prompted military strikes against Gaza, killing
scores and wounding hundreds, mostly civilians. In a rare diversion
from its political leadership, the Hamas militant wing responded by
capturing an Israeli solider at the border, vowing to only release him
if all Palestinian women and children in Israeli jails are set free.
As far as Israel and the
US administration – and much of the Western media – are
concerned, Hamas provoked the Israeli military wrath that followed,
the killing and wounding hundreds of innocent people and destroying
what it has spared in past onslaughts. While Arab governments carried
on with business as usual, Hizbollah – who must've know that an
Israeli military campaign against Lebanon was inevitable any way –
decided to take the initiative by opening a war front on Israel's northern
border in the least comfortable times for the Israeli military, with
the hope to relieve some of the pressure on Palestinians. Whether it
miscalculated or not is another story.
Neither Syria nor Iran asked
Hizbollah to start a new war on Israel, though I can imagine that both
will likely attempt to reap its benefits in case Hizbollah manages to
survive the Israeli onslaught, which is, according to US analyst, William
Lind, a victory in itself.
Israel doesn't want to occupy
Lebanon, but is keenly interested in destroying Hizbollah, thus sending
a clear message to Iran that it is next. It also wants to broaden the
Middle East conflict to force the US into an uninvited showdown with
Iran and Syria. Expectedly, the US is providing 100 percent political,
military and financial cover to Israel's adventurism in Lebanon, but
will it go further?
Hizbollah cannot lose if
it wishes to survive as a formidable political force in Lebanon. If
Hizbollah is disarmed, it is feared that Israel will go back to its
full scale meddling in Lebanese affairs, isolating Syria even further,
and gaining a strategic battle in its looming showdown with Tehran.
Tragically, Israel's military
adventurism and the US reprehensible backing of Israel's endless quest
for regional domination has so far seen the death and wounding of thousands
of innocent Lebanese civilians, and the destruction of a nation that
has barely recovered from past Israeli wars, to once again collapse
under the rubble of a new one.
Ramzy Baroud
is a US journalist. He is the author of The Second Palestinian Uprising:
A Chronicle of a People's Struggle, published by Pluto Press in London,
available in the US from the University of Michigan Press, and everywhere
from Amazon.com. He is also the editor of PalestineChronicle.com.