Israel Disappoints the Neo-cons: More on Lebanon as a U.S. Proxy War

[norml]

Israel Disappoints the Neo-cons: More on Lebanon as a U.S. Proxy War

By 911
review | bio

Hear, Oh Israel! Charles Krauthammer is disappointed. Very disapppointed. And he clearly speaks for the rest of the neo-conservative fraternity that has worked so hard to destroy any distinction between U.S. interests and Israeli interests. That’s because, as we pointed out a couple of days ago, the Bush administration sees Israel’s war in Lebanon as its own war, by proxy, against Iran. And Israel is quite simply failing to deliver the knockout blow against Hizballah that Washington is demanding — it can’t be done, of course, but reality has never restrained the neocons from pursuing their fantasies, at the expense of thousands of lives. Krauthammer offers candid confirmation of what many, including Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah, have suspected all along:

Israel’s leaders do not seem to understand how ruinous a military failure in Lebanon would be to its relationship with America, Israel’s most vital lifeline… America’s green light for Israel to defend itself is seen as a favor to Israel. But that is a tendentious, misleadingly partial analysis. The green light — indeed, the encouragement — is also an act of clear self-interest. America wants, America needs, a decisive Hezbollah defeat.

He explains, as we’ve done, that the U.S. sees Hizballah as nothing more than a cat’s paw for Iran, which it sees as its major strategic competitor in the Middle East. It therefore saw the Hizballah provocation as a gold opportunity to strike a blow, by proxy, at an organization deemed an important part of Iran’s own deterrent capability. It is also mindful of the power of the challenge offered by Hizballah to further destabilize the decrepit autocracies in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia on which its influence in the Arab world rests.

Hence Israel’s rare opportunity to demonstrate what it can do for its great American patron. The defeat of Hezbollah would be a huge loss for Iran, both psychologically and strategically. Iran would lose its foothold in Lebanon. It would lose its major means to destabilize and inject itself into the heart of the Middle East. It would be shown to have vastly overreached in trying to establish itself as the regional superpower.

The United States has gone far out on a limb to allow Israel to win and for all this to happen. It has counted on Israel’s ability to do the job. It has been disappointed… (Olmert’s) search for victory on the cheap has jeopardized not just the Lebanon operation but America’s confidence in Israel as well. That confidence — and the relationship it reinforces — is as important to Israel’s survival as its own army.


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http://americaabroad.tpmcafe.com/blog/911review/2006/aug/04/israel_disappoints_the_neo_cons_more_on_lebanon_as_a_u_s_proxy_war

[wakeme2008]

1. IMHO the Neo-cons are not upset with Israel BUT Syria and Iran..

IMHO I think they expected Syria and Iran to jump in to Lebenon and give them their excuse for a new war.

[Hoping4Change]

2. I've wondered about that myself.

Taht this massive offensive against Lebanon started when there seemed to be no agreement bu Iranians to stop its nuclear programme seems more than coincidental. If Iran got involved here the US would be given a green light to bombard Iran.

[Lerkfish]

4. right. but never misunderestimate the naivete of the neocons

they only make one plan, and keep hammering at it whether it works or not. They don't understand the term "plan b"

[Ms. Clio]

3. excellent article, thanks for posting

More:

Today, Sharon’s propagandists may have convinced much of the U.S. media that the reason there was no peace was that Arafat wouldn’t make a deal, but it’s conveniently forgotten that Sharon himself opposed the deal offered by Barak at Camp David far more vehemently than Arafat ever did. More importantly, it’s also ignored that the neocons who have guided so much of the Bush Administration’s Middle East policy — Paul Wolfowitz, Elliot Abrahams, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle (and even others who are not neocons, just ignorant ultra-nationalists like Dick Cheney) — were as vehemently opposed to the Oslo Peace process. And just as they set out to overturn the U.S. involvement in pressing Israel to conclude a two-state peace based on the 1967 borders, they also set out to overturn the Israeli electorate’s preference for governments committed to the same principle. (does that sound vaguely familiar???)

Perle, in fact, led a study group that included Feith and which compiled a strategic guideline for the incoming Netanyahu government in 1996, titled A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, which amounted to a manifesto to reverse the prevailing “Land for Peace” logic and instead pursue tough action to remak the Middle East, including Iraq — which they (as if to illustrate the almost psychedelic giddiness of their fantasies) envisaged turning into another kingdom under the rule of the Jordanian royal house.

Thoughtful Israeli voices are beginning to count the cost of the “friendship” from the U.S. to Israel orchestrated by this crowd. Daniel Levy writes in Haaretz, that in the case of Lebanon, “Israel was actually in need of an early exit strategy, had its diplomatic options narrowed by American weakness and marginalization in the region, and found itself ratcheting up aerial and ground operations in ways that largely worked to Hezbollah’s advantage.” This, says Levy, is symptomatic of a deeper problem, which is the hegemony in Washington’s Middle East decision making of the neo-cons’ fabulist narrative:

The key neocon protagonists, their think tanks and publications may be unfamiliar to many Israelis, but they are redefining the region we live in. This tight-knit group of “defense intellectuals” - centered around Bill Kristol, Michael Ledeen, Elliott Abrams, Perle, Feith and others - were considered somewhat off-beat until they teamed up with hawkish well-connected Republicans like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Newt Gingrich, and with the emerging powerhouse of the Christian right. Their agenda was an aggressive unilateralist U.S. global supremacy, a radical vision of transformative regime-change democratization, with a fixation on the Middle East, an obsession with Iraq and an affinity to “old Likud” politics in Israel. Their extended moment in the sun arrived after 9/11.

[mom cat]

5. Thanks for quoting more of the article. It is well worth the time. K&R

[Raster]

7. Correction: "Their extended moment in the sun arrived WITH 9/11.

Without 9/11 bush* would have served only one term, just like his father. Immediately before 9/11 the bush* pResidency's numbers were already in steady decline as it became more apparent that bush* did not have the mettle for the job. For bush*, the neocons, the military/industrial complex and the Texas white-boy petroleum mafia 9/11 was the equivalent of winning the lottery.

[Zodiak]

6. Hizzbollah or Hezbollah

Is there a distinction to be made between the spellings because both appear in this article.

Of course, I could just be nit-picky.

[Raster]

8. Can't we just call the whole thing off?

[agincourt]

9. I would go as far to say

That the current rubbish that comprises the US gov't may even have strong armed Israel to start this war. They wanted a strike against Iran for the mid-terms to jack up their freeper base. This was it. I don't see Israel getting much out of this operation.