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Is
the Lebanon Invasion a Step Toward a Regional War in the Middle
East?
By KEVIN ZEESE
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.
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