Is
the Lebanon Invasion
A Step Toward A Regional War
In the Middle East?
By Kevin Zeese
17 August, 2006
Countercurrents.org
The
dividing line between peace candidates and pro-war candidates is no
longer opposition to the Iraq War – a view now held by large majorities
of Americans. It is whether they oppose the pre-meditated destruction
of Lebanon by Israel – with U.S. weapons, and oppose a first strike
military attack on Iran.
Israel’s massive attack
on Lebanon, resulting in the death of more than 1,100 civilians and
destruction of the Lebanese infrastructure, was certainly not about
the capture of two soldiers in a cross border incident. Rather, it was
a pre-meditated attack about a broader vision of a Middle East dominated
by Israel and the United States working together.
Further, it may be part of
a plan to attack Iran. The UN Security Council set a deadline of August
31 for Iran to stop its nuclear power program. Iran rejected the resolution
saying it was legal for Iran to develop nuclear power. Does the upcoming
escalation of the conflict between Iran and Israel/United States explain
the timing of the massive attack on Lebanon? Did Israel act now to prevent
a response from Hezbollah when Iran is attacked by Israel or the U.S.?
Already, President Bush acknowledges
the Lebanon conflict was a proxy war between Iran and the U.S.; time
will tell whether it develops into a direct conflict. But if an attack
on Iran does occur Israel’s claim that is was responding to Hezbollah’s
“terrorism” will be even more clearly seen for what is was
– akin to the manipulation of claims of alleged Iraqi weapons
of mass destruction by the Bush Administration – an excuse to
go to war.
In fact, the cross-border
incident that led to the attack on Lebanon, where two soldiers were
captured, was part of an ongoing series of conflicts at the Israel-Lebanese
border. The Christian Science Monitor reports:
“Since its withdrawal
of occupation forces from southern Lebanon in May 2000, Israel has violated
the United Nations-monitored ‘blue line’ on an almost daily
basis, according to UN reports. Hizbullah's military doctrine, articulated
in the early 1990s, states that it will fire Katyusha rockets into Israel
only in response to Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians or Hizbullah's
leadership; this indeed has been the pattern.”
The United Nations Interim
Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) reports that Israeli aircraft crossed the
line “on an almost daily basis” between 2001 and 2003, and
after that “persistently” including in 2006. They report
that these incursions “caused great concern to the civilian population,
particularly low-altitude flights that break the sound barrier over
populated areas.”
Or as George Monbiot reports
Hezbollah’s action “was simply one instance in a long sequence
of small incursions and attacks over the past six years by both sides.
So why was the Israeli response so different from all that preceded
it? The answer is that it was not a reaction to the events of that day.
The assault had been planned for months.”
Further evidence that this
reaction by Israel was premeditated is that fact that there is a long
history of prisoner exchange between the Palestinians and Israel as
well as Hezbollah and Israel dating back to 1948. In 2004 Israel released
436 prisoners in return for three Israeli soldiers and an Israeli intelligence
officer. The prisoners included 400 Palestinians; 23 Lebanese; two Syrians;
three Moroccans; three Sudanese; a Libyan; and a German Muslim. This
time Israel reacted out of character and turned a border skirmish into
an invasion with group punishment for Lebanese civilians.
Israel presented its plans
for destroying Lebanon to the Bush Administration a little more than
a year ago, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Israel's Lebanese
plans were at the center of political discussions during the annual
World Forum, organized by the neo-con American Enterprise Institute,
on June 17th and 18th of 2006. There, Benjamin Netanyahu and Dick Cheney
conferred at length, along with Richard Perle and Nathan Sharansky.
The White House gave the green light for Israel's invasion a few days
later.
This is confirmed by the
independent reporting of Sy Hersh in the New Yorker who wrote that the
Bush Administration had been told of the plans long in advance of the
capture of the Israeli soldiers. Hersh reports “Israel had devised
a plan for attacking Hezbollah—and shared it with Bush Administration
officials—well before the July 12th kidnappings. ‘It’s
not that the Israelis had a trap that Hezbollah walked into,’
he said, ‘but there was a strong feeling in the White House that
sooner or later the Israelis were going to do it.’”
Further, this pre-meditated
military assault on Lebanon – thorough and well-planned –
is consistent with a plan put forward for Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996,
“A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.”
The strategy noted that the border with Lebanon was a problem that could
be dealt with saying: “Syria challenges Israel on Lebanese soil.
An effective approach, and one with which American can sympathize, would
be if Israel seized the strategic initiative along its northern borders
by engaging Hizballah, Syria, and Iran, as the principal agents of aggression
in Lebanon.” The goal of the “Clean Break” plan was
to remake the Middle East -- much like the Bush neo-con vision -- beginning
with Iraq and then moving onto Syria and Iran.
Noted writer on U.S. intelligence,
James Bamford, reports in a July article, that planning for an attack
on Iran has been going on for five years. He describes the close relationship
between U.S. neo-cons and the pro-Israeli lobby, AIPAC, a relationship
that has led to indictments. And he reports how the neo-cons see the
current Lebanon attack as a next step. Bamford concludes his article
saying:
“To [the neo-cons],
the war in Lebanon represents the final step in their plan to turn Iran
into the next Iraq. Ledeen, writing in the National Review on July 13th,
could hardly restrain himself. ‘Faster, please,’ he urged
the White House, arguing that the war should now be taken over by the
U.S. military and expanded across the entire region. ‘The only
way we are going to win this war is to bring down those regimes in Tehran
and Damascus, and they are not going to fall as a result of fighting
between their terrorist proxies in Gaza and Lebanon on the one hand,
and Israel on the other. Only the United States can accomplish it.’”
Hersh reports the Bush Administration
supported Israel’s plans to attack Hezbollah as a prelude to a
U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran:
“President Bush and
Vice-President Dick Cheney were convinced, current and former intelligence
and diplomatic officials told me, that a successful Israeli Air Force
bombing campaign against Hezbollah’s heavily fortified underground-missile
and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could ease Israel’s
security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American
preëmptive attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations,
some of which are also buried deep underground.”
An attack on Iran may lead
to a regional war, but comments by American officials demonstrate the
chaos of regional war may be welcome. As Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice said in a press briefing on July 21, 2006: “What we're seeing
here is, in a sense, 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.”
After months of beating a
war drum for an attack on Iran around the issue of nuclear power and
nuclear weapons, the Bush administration seems to have failed to garner
enough support for this path to an attack. Perhaps after the August
31 UN deadline they will pound those drums louder, but it seems evident
that the U.S. is trying to use Lebanon, and their allegations of close
ties between Hezbollah and Iran, as another path to war with Iran.
The so-called opposition
party, the Democrats, are trapping themselves in a political corner
where they will be unable to oppose an attack on Iran. The House of
Representatives voted 410-8 in favor of Israel's war in Lebanon, a resolution
that also “condemns enemies of the Jewish state.” The Democrats,
loyal to their funders from the hard right Israeli lobby, are cheer
leading the attack on Lebanon and, sound like Bush when they discuss
Iran as well.
The defeat of Sen. Joe Lieberman
is just one more signal that this November’s elections are going
against pro-war legislators. The anti-war movement needs to build on
this momentum and not let an expansion of wars in the Middle East empower
pro-war politicians. The timing of an attack on Iran, whether it is
before or after the election – or whether it occurs at all –
could depend in part on how well the anti-war movement organizes electorally.
Anti-war voters need to make
clear that they will resist these manipulations by refusing to support
any politician who fails to actively oppose the Iraq quagmire, or other
escalation of combat in the region. Those voters opposed to war should
become committed peace voters and sign the VotersForPeace Pledge at
www.VotersForPeace.org and build a fierce anti-war electoral movement
which does not tolerate or protect pro-war incumbents from defeat this
fall. The peace movement must prepare to rapidly turn escalation of
hostilities into a political poison for pro-war politicians.
It is time for the anti-war
movement to put forward its vision for the future. A future that is
based on multi-national, not unilateral, actions; one that is rooted
in diplomacy and negotiation, not shock and awe and one built on stability
and peace, not instability and chaos.
For Israel the current path
does not lead to peace or security. It must make peace with its neighbors
– that begins with ending its occupation of Palestinian, Lebanese
and Syrian territories as well as the return of the thousands of political
prisoners it holds.
The success of Hezbollah
in responding to the awesome, high tech military power of Israel, along
with the success of the resistance in Iraq, should show the United States
and Israel that the future is not in bombs and military force, but in
multi-national diplomacy. Organized peace voters can drive that message
home.
Kevin B. Zeese is director of Democracy Rising (www.DemocracyRising.US)
and a candidate for U.S. Senate in Maryland (www.ZeeseForSenate.org).