The Daily Star--Lebanon
By Marc J Sirois
Daily Star staff
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Lebanon is being systematically dismantled by one of the world's most fearsome military machines, and the bombs are not just wrecking Lebanese infrastructure and killing Lebanese children: They are also making a shambles of US credibility in the Middle East. Washington's effort to pose as an even-handed broker in the Arab-Israeli conflict has always been a ridiculous affectation, but George W. Bush's reaction to the war that started on July 12 has set new standards for a public fiction that no one likes to mention. In essence, Bush and his administration have decided that the primary goal of US policy at this juncture should be to buy time for Israel so it can keep pummeling its hapless neighbor. At the same time, however, the United States claims an unshakable commitment to the Lebanese people and professes to be concerned about the survival of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's government. This self-evident contradiction is just the latest permutation of America's long history of trying to have it both ways, so it has not exposed a sinister "secret angle" of US policy. It has intensified speculation, however, as to precisely what that policy is.
Bush's drive to "democratize" the Middle East has largely been reduced to obligatory rhetoric, which is a good thing because his linguistic deficiencies are not nearly so deadly as some of his other failings. The misbegotten project in Iraq has plunged that country into a maelstrom of sectarian bloodshed, but it has had the salutary effect of demonstrating the folly of neoconservative ideas about reordering the region according to fancy instead of managing it based on fact. It must not have dawned on Bush (not much does) that while Saddam Hussein was no teddy bear, he was to Iraq what Josip Broz Tito was to Yugoslavia: someone strong enough - and, yes, brutal enough - to keep disparate ethnic and religious communities from going for each other's throats. He likely never imagined, either, that Iraq's Shiite population might not be especially trusting of him after they were encouraged to rise up against Saddam in 1991 and then left to twist in the wind. He seems at least and at last to understand that knocking off the government of a sovereign nation is not an endeavor into which even an unrivaled superpower can enter lightly.
This is unfortunate from the Bushian perspective, because two of its leading candidates for "regime change," Iran and Syria, are still guided by leaderships that refuse to acquiesce in US/Israeli hegemony over the region. The ease with which Saddam was dislodged had to be unsettling to both Tehran and Damascus, but they breathe easier now in the belief that the subsequent spectacle of national disintegration in Iraq has had a chastening effect on Bush's grand plans. What remains to be seen is how far the standoff over Iran's nuclear program can go before the unpleasantness in Iraq is no longer sufficient to keep America's horns drawn in.
This brings us back to Lebanon, where scenarios for a possible flare-up between Israel and Hizbullah have been bandied about for months. One burning question was whether, in the event of an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, Hizbullah would come to the aid of its sponsor by lashing out at the Jewish state with its arsenal of rockets and mostly crude missiles. This led thoughtful observers to ponder another possibility: Might the Israelis try to eliminate Hizbullah beforehand so as not to be distracted when and if they decided it was time to deal with Iran? One theory was that a pretext would be desirable so that pre-emption could be made to look like retribution.
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http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=1&article_id=74278
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