Valedictory
My valedictory piece from The Daily Telegraph.....
Lebanon Bleeds as the World Fights its Bloody Wars
The Daily Telegraph 18 July 2006
Shed a tear for Lebanon, the beautiful country being destroyed by a war that is not of its own making.
After earlier suffering 15 years of civil war, Lebanon finally saw the departure of Israeli forces in 2000, followed five years later by the withdrawal of Syrian troops. But just as Beirut was rediscovering its old joie de vivre, the spectres of the past have returned: the Israelis, the Syrians, the Iranians and the Americans, all fighting their wars on Lebanese soil and playing with Lebanese lives. Lebanon may mean "white", but its colours have reverted to blood-red and burnt-black.
Supported by the US, Israel claims the bombardment of Lebanon and its attempt to crush Hizbollah are for Lebanon's own good. Syria and Iran are all too happy to stoke the conflict, support Hizbollah, and fight Israel to the last Lebanese. Lebanon is burning, on the Golan Heights the ceasefire line with Syria is the quietest of Israel's borders.
There is a risk that the conflict could expand to include Syria and others. For the moment none of the players wants the fighting to spread beyond the borders of Lebanon. Yet the impact of what happens in Lebanon, and the now forgotten fighting in the Gaza Strip that started the crisis, will have far-reaching consequences for the region.
The G8 summit this week pointedly blamed Hamas and Hizbollah, and by implication their sponsors in Syria and Iran. "These extremist elements and those who support them cannot be allowed to plunge the Middle East into chaos and provoke a wider conflict. The extremists must immediately halt their attacks," said the G8 declaration.
This must rank as one of the most pro-Israeli international statements in at least a decade. It is motivated by the fear that a victory for Hamas and Hizbollah will be a victory for the forces of extremism across the Islamic world. Arab leaders know this too, which is why they wring their hands about the agony of Lebanon but have done nothing to stop Israel, and have even muttered criticism of Hizbollah's "adventurism". Israel sees the war as an opportunity to change the perception that its withdrawals from Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005 were a sign of weakness. America, badly bled in Iraq by insurgents supported by Syria and Iran, and feeling too weak to take on its regional foes directly, now sees the fighting in Lebanon as a means of settling the score with Damascus and Teheran.
For Syria, the chaos gives it an opportunity to return to its favourite role as arsonist and fireman of regional conflicts: Damascus stirs trouble, and the world then comes begging for it to help put a stop to it.
And Iran, which has successfully manoeuvred its allies into positions of power in Iraq has turned Lebanon into its strategic front-line with Israel. The mullahs hold America by the cojones in Iraq, and are now trying to do the same to Israel in Lebanon.
Lebanon confuses the usual dividing lines of the region: the split between Arabs and Israelis, Persians and Arabs, Shia and Sunni, radical states and pro-western ones. Sunni Arab leaders are alarmed by the rise of Shia power in Iraq, fearing it would strengthen Iran, traditional rival to the Arabs, and stir up other Shia minorities in the Gulf. The last thing they want is for Hizbollah, an Iranian proxy, to hijack the great Arab cause of Palestine.
Who will win the contest? Playing the internal politics of Lebanon has proved treacherous for foreigners. The Israeli forces that invaded Lebanon in 1982 were greeted with sweets by ordinary Shiites, but a year later the same Shiites started sending suicide bombers against them. America and France (and Britain and Italy) sent peacekeeping forces into Lebanon and received the same treatment.
Surprisingly, perhaps, America did not absorb this lesson. As with the Israelis in Lebanon, the cheers for the US soldiers who brought down the statue of Saddam Hussein were soon followed by the explosions of human bombs.
It took an exhausted Israel two decades to leave Lebanon. America and Britain may fare no better. In many ways, America took on the wrong country. The bigger threat to the Middle East came from Iran rather than Iraq. The elimination of Saddam has emboldened Iran's clerical regime and encouraged it to accelerate its nuclear programme. If dealing with Iran and its extremist allies is difficult today, it will become all but impossible once Teheran has armed itself with atomic weapons.
Democratisation of the Middle East had been President George W Bush's big idea to win the "war on terror": given the right to choose their own governments, Muslims would turn away from anti-western extremism. In practice, many of those given the vote chose the extremists. Iraq is in the hands of religious parties, Hizbollah increased its vote in Lebanon, the Muslim Brotherhood made big advances in Egypt and Hamas took power in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
So now America and Israel have returned to the use of force. A success against Hizbollah in Lebanon is important, but it is difficult to see what would constitute a clear "victory".
Perhaps Israel can destroy enough Hizbollah missiles, and even kill some senior Hizbollah leaders hiding in their underground bunkers in Beirut's southern neighbourhoods, to weaken the organisation. Israeli commanders are confident they can win the military campaign, given enough time. Yet time plays against Israel by stoking international protest over the plight of civilians, and increasing the chances that a misdirected bomb on a building filled with civilians will turn the military venture into a political disaster. And with more time, a weakened Hizbollah will reconstitute itself and restart the violent cycle.
The international intervention force being pushed by Tony Blair will either be ineffectual, like the current Unifil force, or, if it tries to take on Hizbollah, risks turning itself into a target for the same kind of attacks that drove the Israelis out of Lebanon.
Perhaps the best chance of success lies in politics and diplomacy, but it will be a long haul. Some Lebanese politicians have already accused Hizbollah of dragging the country into pointless war by attacking Israel behind the UN-demarcated border. The task for the world will be to strengthen them and empower the Beirut government to assert its authority, extend its control to the south of the country and disarm the state-within-a-state that is Hizbollah.
More unified big-power diplomacy will be vital in restraining Syria and forcing Iran to back down on its nuclear programme. And a concerted effort is needed to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that fuels radicalism elsewhere.
Yes, the world has to tell Israel to give up the occupied territories. But at the same time it must hold the Palestinians to account for suicide bombers and rockets sent into Israel.
Israel must be made to retreat to internationally recognised borders for the sake of peace. But peace is only possible if those frontiers are sacrosanct. That is the heart of the matter in Gaza and Lebanon.
Lebanon Bleeds as the World Fights its Bloody Wars
The Daily Telegraph 18 July 2006
Shed a tear for Lebanon, the beautiful country being destroyed by a war that is not of its own making.
After earlier suffering 15 years of civil war, Lebanon finally saw the departure of Israeli forces in 2000, followed five years later by the withdrawal of Syrian troops. But just as Beirut was rediscovering its old joie de vivre, the spectres of the past have returned: the Israelis, the Syrians, the Iranians and the Americans, all fighting their wars on Lebanese soil and playing with Lebanese lives. Lebanon may mean "white", but its colours have reverted to blood-red and burnt-black.
Supported by the US, Israel claims the bombardment of Lebanon and its attempt to crush Hizbollah are for Lebanon's own good. Syria and Iran are all too happy to stoke the conflict, support Hizbollah, and fight Israel to the last Lebanese. Lebanon is burning, on the Golan Heights the ceasefire line with Syria is the quietest of Israel's borders.
There is a risk that the conflict could expand to include Syria and others. For the moment none of the players wants the fighting to spread beyond the borders of Lebanon. Yet the impact of what happens in Lebanon, and the now forgotten fighting in the Gaza Strip that started the crisis, will have far-reaching consequences for the region.
The G8 summit this week pointedly blamed Hamas and Hizbollah, and by implication their sponsors in Syria and Iran. "These extremist elements and those who support them cannot be allowed to plunge the Middle East into chaos and provoke a wider conflict. The extremists must immediately halt their attacks," said the G8 declaration.
This must rank as one of the most pro-Israeli international statements in at least a decade. It is motivated by the fear that a victory for Hamas and Hizbollah will be a victory for the forces of extremism across the Islamic world. Arab leaders know this too, which is why they wring their hands about the agony of Lebanon but have done nothing to stop Israel, and have even muttered criticism of Hizbollah's "adventurism". Israel sees the war as an opportunity to change the perception that its withdrawals from Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005 were a sign of weakness. America, badly bled in Iraq by insurgents supported by Syria and Iran, and feeling too weak to take on its regional foes directly, now sees the fighting in Lebanon as a means of settling the score with Damascus and Teheran.
For Syria, the chaos gives it an opportunity to return to its favourite role as arsonist and fireman of regional conflicts: Damascus stirs trouble, and the world then comes begging for it to help put a stop to it.
And Iran, which has successfully manoeuvred its allies into positions of power in Iraq has turned Lebanon into its strategic front-line with Israel. The mullahs hold America by the cojones in Iraq, and are now trying to do the same to Israel in Lebanon.
Lebanon confuses the usual dividing lines of the region: the split between Arabs and Israelis, Persians and Arabs, Shia and Sunni, radical states and pro-western ones. Sunni Arab leaders are alarmed by the rise of Shia power in Iraq, fearing it would strengthen Iran, traditional rival to the Arabs, and stir up other Shia minorities in the Gulf. The last thing they want is for Hizbollah, an Iranian proxy, to hijack the great Arab cause of Palestine.
Who will win the contest? Playing the internal politics of Lebanon has proved treacherous for foreigners. The Israeli forces that invaded Lebanon in 1982 were greeted with sweets by ordinary Shiites, but a year later the same Shiites started sending suicide bombers against them. America and France (and Britain and Italy) sent peacekeeping forces into Lebanon and received the same treatment.
Surprisingly, perhaps, America did not absorb this lesson. As with the Israelis in Lebanon, the cheers for the US soldiers who brought down the statue of Saddam Hussein were soon followed by the explosions of human bombs.
It took an exhausted Israel two decades to leave Lebanon. America and Britain may fare no better. In many ways, America took on the wrong country. The bigger threat to the Middle East came from Iran rather than Iraq. The elimination of Saddam has emboldened Iran's clerical regime and encouraged it to accelerate its nuclear programme. If dealing with Iran and its extremist allies is difficult today, it will become all but impossible once Teheran has armed itself with atomic weapons.
Democratisation of the Middle East had been President George W Bush's big idea to win the "war on terror": given the right to choose their own governments, Muslims would turn away from anti-western extremism. In practice, many of those given the vote chose the extremists. Iraq is in the hands of religious parties, Hizbollah increased its vote in Lebanon, the Muslim Brotherhood made big advances in Egypt and Hamas took power in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
So now America and Israel have returned to the use of force. A success against Hizbollah in Lebanon is important, but it is difficult to see what would constitute a clear "victory".
Perhaps Israel can destroy enough Hizbollah missiles, and even kill some senior Hizbollah leaders hiding in their underground bunkers in Beirut's southern neighbourhoods, to weaken the organisation. Israeli commanders are confident they can win the military campaign, given enough time. Yet time plays against Israel by stoking international protest over the plight of civilians, and increasing the chances that a misdirected bomb on a building filled with civilians will turn the military venture into a political disaster. And with more time, a weakened Hizbollah will reconstitute itself and restart the violent cycle.
The international intervention force being pushed by Tony Blair will either be ineffectual, like the current Unifil force, or, if it tries to take on Hizbollah, risks turning itself into a target for the same kind of attacks that drove the Israelis out of Lebanon.
Perhaps the best chance of success lies in politics and diplomacy, but it will be a long haul. Some Lebanese politicians have already accused Hizbollah of dragging the country into pointless war by attacking Israel behind the UN-demarcated border. The task for the world will be to strengthen them and empower the Beirut government to assert its authority, extend its control to the south of the country and disarm the state-within-a-state that is Hizbollah.
More unified big-power diplomacy will be vital in restraining Syria and forcing Iran to back down on its nuclear programme. And a concerted effort is needed to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that fuels radicalism elsewhere.
Yes, the world has to tell Israel to give up the occupied territories. But at the same time it must hold the Palestinians to account for suicide bombers and rockets sent into Israel.
Israel must be made to retreat to internationally recognised borders for the sake of peace. But peace is only possible if those frontiers are sacrosanct. That is the heart of the matter in Gaza and Lebanon.
posted by Anton La Guardia at 9:19 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home