In the Middle East Where Do We Go From Here?

Both sides in this, just the latest of several Middle East wars – always started by Muslims dedicated to the extermination of Israel, are claiming victory, and Condy Rice is trying to put the best face she can on the cease-fire agreement. There is no question in my mind, though, that Israel’s incompetence placed the United States in an untenable position, and we had to cut our own losses by agreeing to a cease-fire that, at least, sounds pretty good, but we know full well that the Lebanese Army will be completely ineffective in disarming and controlling Hezbollah, and that the UN force, mostly consisting of Jew-hating French, will look the other way as always.

We tried to give the Israelis the time to get the job done and destroy the Hezbollah, even though we were paying a terrible price in Iraq as Iraqi Shia did the only thing centuries of indoctrination told them to do – support their fellow Shia with demonstrations and violence – and we were losing the support of those Sunni Arabs (notably Saudi Arabia and Egypt) who also did not want the Hezbollah, backed by their mutual enemy, Iran, to win.

August 17, 2006
Can Israel Survive This Catastrophe?
By David Warren
Realclearpolitics.com

“The war was an unavoidable disaster for Lebanon. It ends in a worse disaster: the victory of Hezbollah. The great majority of Lebanese who want nothing to do with Hezbollah must now live in a country that the terrorist organization will soon take over. They have the force of arms, and as Mao Tse-tung correctly observed, "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." It is why the ruthless can prevail on this planet, and why it is never a mistake to confront them too early.

For Israel, the war was equally inevitable. No freely-elected government can stand and watch its citizens attacked and terrorized. For years Hezbollah had been dropping Katyushas into Israel's northern farms, without response. Since the year 2000, Israel had depended upon a final border with Lebanon, agreed by all parties through the U.N., in the hope of containing the problem. Finally Hezbollah performed a provocation larger and cockier than Israel could ignore. The capture of two IDF soldiers, infinitely more than the killing of six, was calculated to force a response. Israelis are rightly horrified at the thought of their own sons and daughters falling captive to such animals. Mere death they are accustomed to….

But now the ceasefire is a catastrophe for Israel to harvest, and Lebanon to share. And it was Israel's fault. Not for trying to destroy Hezbollah, but for failing to do so. A weak and stupid prime minister, Ehud Olmert, spent five crucial weeks changing his mind about what he was doing. The entire ruling establishment exposed itself as crippled by "political correctness", trying to fight against an enemy like Hezbollah, with the chief object of limiting civilian casualties.” David Warren

So where are we now? Let’s look at two comments William Bennett made on his radio show yesterday morning:

—The U.N. passes a resolution calling for Israel to withdraw, Israel begins withdrawals and Hezbollah’s soldiers are not disarming, they are shooting fireworks, driving around Southern Lebanon with their arms in their cars’ front seats, Israel does not get its kidnapped soldiers back, more land for peace in the form of Shebaa Farms is now on the negotiating table, Lebanon’s defense minister says the Lebanese government will not disarm Hezbollah…

—We were told Hezbollah was a state within a state. Does anyone doubt that Hezbollah is actually stronger and more popular than the Lebanese army that is now to patrol South Lebanon? The main state is Hezbollah, it can fairly be said, with the Lebanese government quite possibly subordinate to it: The state within the state is Lebanon, not Hezbollah. The PM of Lebanon has said supportive things of Nasrallah, the president, and Speaker of Lebanon are Syrian puppets and the newest, most popular fighting force in the Middle East is Hezbollah. William Bennett

I’m afraid that the following sequence of events has just become more likely: the Israelis will replace Olmert with a hard-liner, the Hezbollah will rearm with more powerful missiles from Iran and begin firing them into Tel Aviv, Israel will warn Iran to disband Hezbollah or suffer enormous consequences, and Tehran will then be leveled with a nuclear weapon. Before that, all that we have worked and sacrificed for in Iraq will come apart as an emboldened Iran steps up its involvement in Shia inspired violence, essentially splitting Iraq into three territories.