How to Deal with The Lobby

The De-Zionization of the American Mind
By JEAN BRICMONT
CounterPunch
August 12, 2006

Americans are constantly told that they have to defend themselves against people who "hate them", but without understanding why they are hated. Is the cause our secular democracy? Our appetite for oil? There are lots of democracies in the world that are far more secular than the United States (Sweden, France ...) and lots of places that want to buy oil at the best possible price (China) without arousing any noticeable hatred in the Middle East.

Of course, it is true that, throughout the Third World, Americans and Europeans are often considered arrogant and are not particularly liked. But the level of hatred that leads a large number of people to applaud an event like September 11 is peculiar to the Middle East. Indeed, the main political significance of September 11 did not derive from the number of people killed or even the spectacular achievement of the attackers, but from the fact that the attack was popular in large parts of the Middle East. That much was understood by Americans leaders and infuriated them. Such a level of hatred calls for explanation.

And there can be only one explanation: United States support for Israel. It is indeed Israel that is the main object of hatred, for reasons we shall describe, but since the United States uncritically supports Israel on almost every issue, constantly praises it as "the only democracy in the Middle East" and provides its main financial backing, the result is a "transfer" of hatred.

Why is Israel so hated? The constant stalling of "peace plans" in favor of more settlements and more war aggravates that hatred, but the basic cause lies in the very principles on which that state is build. There are basically two arguments that have justified establishing the State of Israel in Palestine: one is that God gave that land to the Jews, and the other is the Holocaust. The first one is deeply insulting to people who are profoundly religious, like most Arabs, but of another creed. And, for the second, it amounts to making people pay for a crime that they did not commit.

Both arguments are deeply racist, with their claim that it is right for Jews, and only Jews, to set up a state in a land that would obviously be Arab, like Jordan or Lebanon, if not for the slow Zionist invasion. This is illustrated by the "law of return": any Jew, anywhere, having no connection with Palestine whatsoever, and not suffering from the slightest persecution, can, if he so wishes, emigrate to Israel and easily become a citizen, while the inhabitants who fled in 1948, or their children, cannot. Add to that the fact that a city claimed to be Holy by three religions has become the "eternal capital of the Jewish people" (and only them) and one should start to understand the rage that all this provokes throughout the Arab and Muslim world.

It is precisely this racist aspect that infuriates most Arabs, even if they do not have any personal connection to Palestine (if they live, say, in the French banlieues). This situation delegitimizes the Arab regimes that are impotent in the face of the Zionist enemy and, after the defeat of the region's two main secular leaders, Nasser and Saddam Hussein (the latter thanks to the US), leads to the rise of religious fundamentalism.

Now, people often find racism far more unacceptable than "mere" economic exploitation or poverty. Consider South Africa: under apartheid, the living conditions of the Blacks were bad but not necessarily much worse than in other parts of Africa (or even than in South Africa now). But the system was intrinsically racist, and that was felt as an outrage to Blacks everywhere, including in the United States. This is why the conflict over Palestine goes beyond the second class status of Israeli Arabs or even the treatment of the Occupied Territories. Even if a Palestinian state were established on the latter, and even if full equality were granted to Israeli Arabs, the wounds of 1948 would not heal quickly. Arab leaders, even religious ones, can of course sign peace agreements with Israel, but they are fragile so long as the Arab population considers them unjust and does not accept them wholeheartedly. Palestine is the Alsace-Lorraine or the Taiwan of the Arab world and the fact that it is impossible to take it back does not mean that it can be forgotten . (I am not arguing here in favour of « wiping Israel off the map », or in favor of a « one state solution » but simply underlining what seems to me to be the root and the depth of the problem. In fact, I am not arguing for any solution partly because none seems to me to be attainable in the short term, but, more fundamentally, because I do not think that outsiders to the Middle East should propose such solutions.)

There is no sign that any of this is understood in Israel by more than a few individuals; if Arabs hate them, this is just another instance of the fact that everybody hates Jews and it only proves that they have to "defend themselves" (i.e. attack others pre-emptively) by any means necessary. That is bad enough, but why isn't this understood in the United States either? There are traditionally two answers to that: one is that the population is manipulated into supporting Israel by the government, the arms merchants or the oil industry, because Israel is a strategic U.S. ally; the other answer is that the United States is manipulated by the Israel lobby. The idea that Israel is a strategic ally, if by that one means a useful ally (useful to, say, the oil interests, broadly understood), although widely accepted, specially in the Left, does not survive a critical examination. That may have been the case in 1967 or even during the Cold War period, although one could argue that, even then, the Arab states were attracted by the Soviet Union only because it might support them in their struggle against Israel, albeit ineffectively. But both in 1991 and in 2003, the United States attacked Iraq without any help from Israel, even begging Israel not to intervene in 1991, in order for its Arab coalition not to collapse. Or consider the post-2003 occupation of Iraq, and suppose that the goal of that occupation is control over oil. In what sense does Israel help in that respect? Everything it does (the currents attacks on Gaza and Lebanon for example) further alienates the Arabs, and U.S. support for Israel makes the control of oil harder, not easier. Even the Iraqi parliament, Malaki and Sistani, who are the closest to allies that the United States can find there, condemn Israel's actions.

Finally, just imagine that the United States would make a 180 turn and suddenly side with the Palestinians, as they did with the Kosovars against the Serbs--who, by the way, were, like the Israelis, richer and more "Western" than their Albanian adversaries . Such a change of policies is by no means impossible : when Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975, the US supported the invasion by providing most of Indonesia's weapons. Yet, 25 years later, the US supported, or at least did not oppose, East Timor's accession to independence.

What effect would that have? Can anyone doubt that such a change of policy would facilitate U.S. access to oil fields and help it gain strategic allies (if any were still needed) throughout the Muslim world? In the Middle East, the main charge against the United States is that it is pro-Israel, because it lets itself be "manipulated by the Jews". Therefore, if Washington switched sides, there would be no more basis for hostility to U.S. presence, including its control over oil. Thus the notion of Israel as "strategic ally" makes no sense.

This leads us to the "Israel lobby" answer, which is closer to the truth, but not the whole truth. To get a complete picture, one has to understand why the lobby works as effectively as it does, and that depends on factors lying outside the actions of the lobby itself. After all, the militant Zionists constituting the lobby are a minority among Jews, who themselves form a small minority of the American population. The Israel lobby does not work like other lobbies, for example, the arms and the oil industry lobbies (which is one of the reasons why it is easy to dismiss it as irrelevant, as long as one does not understand how it really exerts its influence).

Of course, like the latter, the Israel lobby does fund electoral campaigns and its power derives in part from its ability to target people in Congress who deviate from its "line". But if that was all, it could easily be defeated ­indeed, there are other sources of electoral funding, the big industrial lobbies for example, and if the pro-Israel candidates could be shown to be paid to serve the interests of another State, their opponents could denounce the people who receive money from the lobby as some sort of agents of a foreign power. Just imagine a pro-French, pro-Chinese or pro-Japanese lobby that would try to significantly influence the US Congress. Certainly, money alone cannot suffice.

What protects the Israel lobby is the fact that anyone who would denounce an opponent funded by the Lobby as a quasi-agent of a foreign power would immediately be accused of anti-Semitism. In fact, imagine that Big Business is unhappy with the current U.S. policies (as it well may be) and wants to change them--how could they do it? Any criticism of Lobby influence on U.S. policy would immediately trigger the anti-Zionism-is-anti-Semitism accusation.

So the strength of the Israel lobby resides in part in this second line of defense, which itself is linked to its influence on the media. But even that could easily be defeated -- not all the media are under the lobby's influence, and, more importantly, the media is not all-powerful: in Venezuela, it is anti-Chavez, but Chavez regularly wins elections. In France, the media were overwhelmingly in favour if the "yes" vote to the referendum on the European Constitution, yet the "no" won. The problem, and that is why the Israel lobby is so effective, is that it expresses a world view that is accepted too easily by too many Americans. After all, nothing could be more ridiculous than accusing someone of anti-Semitism because he wants or claims to put America's interests above those of Israel. Yet, the accusation is likely to be effective, but only because years of ideological brainwashing have predisposed people to consider U.S. and Israeli interests as identical -- although instead of "interests" one speaks of "values".

Associated with this identification comes a systematically hostile view of the Arab and Muslim world, which both increases the lobby's effectiveness and is in part the result of its propaganda. Despite all the talk about anti-racism and "political correctness", there is an almost total lack of understanding of the Arab viewpoint on Palestine, and, in particular, of the racist nature of the problem. It is this triple layer of control (selective funding, the anti-Semitism card, or rather canard, and the interiorization) that gives the lobby its peculiar strength. (And that is also why it is easy to dismiss its strength by saying, for instance, that, obviously, Jews don't control America. Sure, but direct control is not the way it works.)

People who think that it is the arms or the oil industry that are running the show in Washington as far as foreign policy is concerned, should at least answer the following question: how does it work? There is no evidence whatsoever that the oil industry, for example, pushed for the Iraq war, the threats against Iran or the attack on Lebanon . (There is a lot of evidence that the Israel lobby pushed for the Iraq war; see Jeff Blankfort, A War for Israel.They are supposed to act secretly, of course, but where is the evidence that they do? And if they is no evidence, even no indirect evidence, how does one know? Profits from the war, at least for major corporations, haven't materialized yet, and there are many indications that the U.S. economy will suffer a lot from war-related expenses and the associated deficits. On the other hand, it is enough to open any mainstream U.S. newspaper or TV and read or hear opinions expressed by Zionists calling for more war. War needs war propaganda and a supporting ideology, and the Zionists provide it, while none of this is offered by Big Business in general or the oil industry in particular.

One may also think of historical precedents, like the China lobby (made of post-1949 Chinese exiles and ex-missionaries, supported by their domestic churches) in the 1950's and 1960's. That lobby led the United States to maintain the ridiculous claim that a billion people were represented by a government (Taiwan) that had no control over them whatsoever. It was also very influential in bringing on the Vietnam war. Whose interests were they serving? The ones of the American capitalists? But the latter make huge profits in post-Nixon recognized China. And the same is true in Vietnam.

In fact both countries, as well as most of Asia, were anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist, as well as anti-feudal (partly because the feudal structures did not allow them to resist foreign invasions). But they were anti-capitalist (in the rhetoric, since capitalism barely existed there) mostly because their aggressors --the West--were capitalist. So that the main lesson to be drawn from the tragic history of the China lobby is that it held, during decades, the US policies hostage to revanchist feudal and clerical forces that were alien to mainstream America, and actually harmful to capitalist America. But they worked to the extent that their ideology-- mixing fear with racist contempt for the "Asian mind" -- was in sync with Western prejudices. Replace the China lobby by the Israel one and the Asian mind by the Arab one and you get a fair picture of what is going on right now in the U.S.-Middle East relation.

What should the Left do? Well, simple: treat Israel as it did South Africa and attack the Lobby. The reason Israel acts as it does is that it feels strong and that, in turn, is for two reasons: one is its "all-powerful army" (currently being tested in Lebanon, not conclusively yet); the other is the almost complete control over Washington policy-making, specially the Congress. Peace in the Middle East can only come when this feeling of Israeli superiority is shattered, and Americans have a great responsibility is doing half of the job, the one concerning kneejerk U.S. support.

Now, there are, in principle, two ways to do that: one is to appeal to American generosity, the other is to appeal to their self-interest. Both ways should be pursued, but the latter is not enough emphasized by the Left . (See Michael Neumann, What is to be said ?, for a discussion of the ethical aspects of that choice.) That's probably because self-interest does not appear to be "noble" and because the pursuit of the "U.S. national interest" has all too often been interpreted as overthrowing progressive governments, buying elections etc. But, if the alternative to self-interest is a form of religious fanaticism, then self-interest is far preferable: if the Germans had followed self-interested policies in the 1930's, even imperialist policies, but rational ones, World War II could have been avoided. Also, if the United States were to distance itself from Israel, it would pursue policies opposed to the traditional ones, and far more humane. The other problem is that a large part of the Right (from Buchanan to Brzezinski) correctly sees American interests as being opposed of those of Israel, and the Left (understandably) does not like to make common cause with such people. But if a cause is just (and, in this case, urgent) it does not become less just because unsavory people endorse it (the same argument applies to genuine anti-Semitic hostility to Israel). The worst thing that the Left can do is to leave the monopoly of a just cause to the Right.

The Left cannot expect the American people to change radically overnight, abandon religious fundamentalism, give up oil addiction or embrace socialism. But a change of perspective in the Middle East is possible: the strength of the lobby is also its weakness, namely the naked king effect-everybody fears it, but the only reason to fear it is that everybody around us fears it. Left alone, it is powerless. To change that, one should systematically defend every politician, every columnist, every teacher, who is targeted by the lobby for his or her views or statements, irrespective of their general political outlook (to take an analogy, act as civil libertarians do with respect to free speech).

When people in the antiwar movement divert attention from Israel by blaming Big Oil or Big Business for the wars (specially the one in Lebanon, or the threats against Iran) one should demand that they provide some evidence for their claims. Challenge all the apologists or excuse makers for Israel or its lobby within progressive circles. When politicians and journalists claim that Israel and the United States have common interests, ask what services exactly has Israel rendered to the United States recently. Of course one can always point to some (minor) services; but, then, ask them what a cold-blooded cost-benefit analysis would reveal and why such an analysis is impossible to undertake publicly. If they speak of common values (the fallback position), provide a list of discriminatory Israeli laws for non-Jews.

Rolling back the lobby would necessitate a change of the American mentality with respect to the people of the Middle East, and to Islam, like ending the Vietnam war required a change in the way Asians were looked at. But that alone would have a greatly humanizing effect on American culture.

It is true that a change in the U.S. policy with respect to the Israel-Palestine conflict would change nothing about traditional imperialism-- the United States would still support traditional elites everywhere, and press countries to provide a "favorable investment climate". But the conflict in the Middle East, involving Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, has all the aspects of a religious war-with Islam on one side and Zionism as a secular Western religion on the other. And wars of religion tend to be the most brutal and uncontrollable of all wars. What is at stake in the de-Zionization of the American mind is not only the fate of the unfortunate inhabitants of Palestine but also unspeakable miseries for the people of that region and maybe of the rest of the world. The ultimate irony in all this is that the fate of much of the world depends of the American people exercizing their right to self-determination, which, of course, they should.

Jean Bricmont teaches physics in Belgium. He is a member of the Brussells Tribunal. His new book, Humanitarian Imperialism, will be published by Monthly Review Press.

Demonstrators carry flags of Lebanon and Palestine

AFP - Sat Aug 12, 6:07 PM ET
Demonstrators carry flags of Lebanon and Palestine during a march near the White House in Washington, DC.
Several thousand people demonstrated outside the White House to protest Israel's US-backed military operations in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.(AFP/Mandel Ngan)

Rice hopes hostilities will stop "in a day or so."

JERUSALEM (AP) Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice tells Israel TV she hopes hostilities will stop "in a day or so."

Learning From Hezbollah

By Brian E. Humphreys
Washington Post
August 12, 2006

From my first day in Iraq as a young infantry officer, I was struck by the huge perceptual gulf that separated us from the Iraqis. My first mission was to escort a civil affairs team assigned to supervise the rebuilding of a local school. After tea, smiles and handshakes, we departed and were promptly struck by a roadside bomb. Our modest efforts to close the perceptual gulf, exemplified in our smile-and-wave tactics and civil affairs missions, seemed to my mind well-intentioned but inadequate.

At a deeper level, the motives of the local populace remained largely invisible to us, as people smiled one minute and attempted to blow us up the next. We knew little or nothing about their grievances and aspirations, or where the political fault lines ran in the cluster of small cities in the Sunni Triangle we were tasked with pacifying.

We experienced many periodic spasms of violence that seemed to come out of nowhere before disappearing again. Of course they came from somewhere, but it was a somewhere we didn't understand. In a battalion of more than 800 men, we had one four-man team assigned to interact directly with the local population, and even this team was frequently sidetracked to deal with routine translation duties or interrogations.

Perhaps understandably for a conventional military force trained to focus on the enemy, our primary intelligence focus was on the insurgents. Much less attention was paid to the larger part of the population. Although we were a visible and sometimes forceful presence, I'm not sure we were a truly influential one.

Now, watching the latest news dispatches from Lebanon, I find myself comparing our efforts to introduce a new order in Iraq with Hezbollah's success as an effective practitioner of the art of militarized grass-roots politics. Frankly, it's not a favorable comparison -- for us. Hezbollah's organizational resilience in the face of an all-out conventional assault shows the degree to which it has seamlessly combined the strategic objectives of its sponsors with a localized political and military program.

Using the grass-roots approach, Hezbollah has been able to convert the ignored and dispossessed Shiite underclass of southern Lebanon into a powerful lever in regional politics. It understands that the basic need in any human conflict, whether or not it involves physical violence, is to take care of one's political base before striking out at the opponent.

As many informed observers have pointed out, Hezbollah has engrafted itself to the aims and aspirations of the Lebanese Shiite community so completely that Israel cannot destroy it without also destroying the community, with all the attendant political and moral costs. It is the willingness of women, children and old men to support Hezbollah and its political program at the risk of their lives that gives the organization power far beyond its military means.

Whatever the objective truth of Hezbollah's motives, its many supporters in southern Lebanon believe fervently that it is their organization, not an Iranian surrogate. Few if any American units in Iraq have achieved anything close to this level of success in winning the support of the local population. (Of more concern is the fact that few Iraqi security units or political leaders appear to have done so, either.) Commanders have come and gone, elections have been held, Iraqi soldiers trained, all manner of strategies for dealing with the insurgency attempted -- but with only limited and localized successes. Hezbollah's success among civilians in Lebanon, which is only reinforced by a ruthless pummeling from a reviled enemy, contrasts sharply with the continued fragility of the much more modest U.S. gains in Iraq, achieved at a much higher price.

The lessons should be clear. To engage in insurgency or counterinsurgency -- fancy terms for grass-roots politics by other means -- one must be willing and, most of all, able to work in the underbelly of local politics, as Hezbollah has done in Lebanon. It is the politics of getting people jobs, picking up trash and getting relatives out of jail. Engaging in this politics has the potential to do much more than merely ingratiate an armed force with a local population. It gives that force a mental map of local pressure points and the knowledge of how to press them -- benignly or otherwise -- to get desired results.

Some may say that this is just standard insurgency-counterinsurgency doctrine. True, but one has to ask why Hezbollah has been able to pull it off in Lebanon, while young Americans continue to endure a host of nasty surprises in Iraq.

The writer served in Iraq as a Marine infantry officer in 2004.

One Month Later in Lebanon

Editorial
The New York Times
August 12, 2006

It took unconscionably long — almost a month — for the United Nations Security Council to produce a formula to end the fighting in Lebanon. While the diplomats dithered, hundreds of Lebanese and Israelis died, one-third of Lebanon’s population was uprooted, and new layers of anger and fear were sown on both sides of the border.

The resolution that the Council finally passed last night will have to be put into effect as quickly and thoroughly as possible, and must lead to a lasting political solution that can avoid future conflicts. That will require more than just an immediate halt to hostilities by both sides and an early withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon. It will also require the dispatch of an international military force with sufficient authority and firepower to guarantee that there can be no repeat of the Hezbollah provocations that set off this destructive conflict.

The Council’s resolution represents a compromise between the United States and France, and standing behind them, Israel and Lebanon. Washington wanted Israeli withdrawals linked to a political settlement and a strong new international force. France wanted Israeli withdrawal to come first.

They finally agreed to combine elements of both approaches, with some of the language on Israeli withdrawals left elliptical and some of the language on the international force left implicit. These locutions must not be allowed to unravel the consensus that more than a mere cease-fire is needed.

As hard as it will be to seal the border against Hezbollah infiltrations into Israel, that will not be enough. Hezbollah has rockets that can be fired from deep inside Lebanon at targets deep inside Israel. These must be stopped as well, ideally by the full disarmament of Hezbollah that the Security Council first called for in 2004.

As a political movement, Hezbollah will always be a significant force in Shiite south Lebanon and in the Lebanese Parliament. But it cannot remain an armed state within a state.

This ugly, unnecessary war had many losers and no real winners. Hezbollah will boast that it stood up to four weeks of Israeli firepower. But it cannot disguise the cost that all of Lebanon has paid. Israel incurred civilian and military losses and inflamed Islamic and world opinion without succeeding in destroying Hezbollah or its rocket arsenal.

Washington, which rightly stood by Israel but wrongly refused to call for a cease-fire or engage in meaningful diplomacy with Syria, also paid a price that could further complicate problems in Iraq and Afghanistan. A rapid and effective follow-through on yesterday’s resolution could make up for some of these losses. Anything less will only compound the damage already done.

The Only Option Is to Win

By Newt Gingrich
The Washington Post
Friday, August 11, 2006; A19

Yesterday on this page, in a serious and thoughtful survey of a world in crisis, Richard Holbrooke listed 13 countries that could be involved in violence in the near future: Lebanon, Israel, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Uzbekistan, Somalia. And in addition, of course, the United States.

With those 14 nations Holbrooke could make the case for what I describe as "an emerging third world war" -- a long-running conflict whose latest manifestation was brought home to Americans yesterday with the disclosure in London of yet another ghastly terrorist plot -- this one intended to destroy a number of airliners en route to America.

But while Holbrooke lists the geography accurately, he then asserts an analysis and a goal that do not fit the current threats.

First, he asserts that the Iranian nuclear threat is far less dangerous than violence in southern Lebanon. Speaking of the Iranian-American negotiations, Holbrooke asks, "And why has that dialogue been restricted to the nuclear issue -- vitally important to be sure, but not as urgent at this moment as Iran's sponsorship and arming of Hezbollah and its support of actions against U.S. forces in Iraq?"

In fact an Iran armed with nuclear weapons is a mortal threat to American, Israeli and European cities. If a nonnuclear Iran is prepared to finance, arm and train Hezbollah, sustain a war against Israel from southern Lebanon and, in Holbrooke's own words, "support actions against U.S. forces in Iraq," then what would a nuclear Iran be likely to do? Remember, Iranian officials were present at North Korea's missile launches on our Fourth of July, and it is noteworthy that Venezuela's anti-American dictator, Hugo Chávez, has visited Iran five times.

It is because the Bush administration has failed to win this argument over the direct threat of Iranian and North Korean nuclear and biological weapons that Americans are divided and uncertain about our national security interests.

Nevertheless, Holbrooke has set the stage for an important national debate that goes well beyond such awful possibilities as Sept. 11-style airliner plots. It's a debate about whether we are in danger of losing one or more U.S. cities, whether the world faces the possibility of a second Holocaust should Iran use nuclear or biological weapons against Israel, and whether a nuclear Iran would dominate the Persian Gulf and the world's energy supplies. This is the most important debate of our time. It rivals both Winston Churchill's argument in the 1930s over the nature of Hitler and the Nazis and Harry Truman's argument in the 1940s about the emerging Soviet empire.

Yet Holbrooke indicates that he would take the wrong path on American national security. He asserts that "containing the violence must be Washington's first priority."

As a goal this is precisely wrong. Defeating the terrorists and thwarting efforts by Iran and North Korea to gain nuclear and biological weapons must be the first goal of American policy. To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, if violence is necessary to defeat the terrorists, the Iranians and the North Koreans, then it is regrettably necessary. If they can be disarmed with less violence, then that is desirable. But a nonviolent solution that allows the terrorists to become better trained, better organized, more numerous and better armed is a defeat. A nonviolent solution that leads to North Korean and Iranian nuclear weapons threatening us across the planet is a defeat.

This failure to understand the nature of the threat is captured in Holbrooke's assertion that diplomacy can lead to "finding a stable and secure solution that protects Israel." If Iran gets nuclear weapons, there will be no diplomacy capable of protecting Israel. If Iran continues to fund and equip Hezbollah, there will be no stability or security for Israel. Diplomacy cannot substitute for victory against an opponent who openly states that he wants to eliminate you from the face of the earth.

Our enemies are quite public and repetitive in saying what they want. Not since Adolf Hitler has any group been as bloodthirsty and as open. If Holbrooke really wants a "stable and secure" Israel he will not find it by trying to appease Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas.

This issue of national security goals will be at the heart of the American dialogue for some time. If our enemies are truly our enemies (and their words and deeds are certainly those of enemies) then victory should be our goal. If nuclear and biological threats are real, then aggressive strategies to disarm them if possible and defeat them if necessary will be required.

Holbrooke represents the diplomacy first-diplomacy always school. We saw its workings throughout the 1990s, as Syria was visited again and again by secretaries of state who achieved absolutely nothing. Even a secretary of state dancing with Kim Jong Il (arguably a low point in American diplomatic efforts) produced no results; such niceties never do in dealing with vicious dictators.

The democracies have been talking while the dictators and the terrorists gain strength and move closer to having the weapons necessary for a terrifying assault on America and its allies. The arrests yesterday of British citizens allegedly plotting to blow up American airliners over the Atlantic Ocean are only the latest example of the determination of our enemies. This makes the dialogue on our national security even more important.

Richard Holbrooke has established a framework for a clear debate. The Bush administration should take up his challenge.

The writer, a former speaker of the House, is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of "Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America."

Islamic fascists

GREEN BAY, Wisc. (AP) President Bush says the foiled terrorist plot in London was a "stark reminder that his nation is at war with Islamic fascists."

Bush's Change of Heart on the Middle East

His support for a cease-fire was slow in coming, but the proposal reclaims the moral high ground.
EDITORIAL
Los Angeles Times
August 8, 2006

PRESIDENT BUSH WAS SLOW TO endorse an immediate cease-fire in Lebanon, and his explanation for the delay is hardly convincing: An earlier pronouncement would have been pointless, he said, because there was no consensus about how to deal with the "root cause" of the conflict. Yet even an "unsustainable" cease-fire a week ago could have spelled the difference between life and death for many innocent Lebanese and Israelis.

Still, those who favor a more cynical explanation — that Washington is acting now because Hezbollah has put up unexpected resistance against the Israeli army — should welcome the administration's change of heart. In asking the U.N. Security Council to adopt a French-U.S. resolution calling for an immediate "cessation" of hostilities, as opposed to a "cease-fire," Bush has regained the moral as well as the diplomatic high ground.

In an appearance Monday with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the president explained that the cessation would be the first stage of a two-part process. In the first stage, the Security Council would adopt a cease-fire resolution that would also impose an embargo on the shipment of arms into Lebanon. A second resolution would provide for the deployment of the Lebanese army to the southern part of the country, where it would receive aid from an international peacekeeping force.

The challenge, and it's a formidable one, is to persuade the government of Lebanon to endorse, or at least accept, the resolution. Theoretically, Lebanon should welcome the disarmament of Hezbollah, which has created an armed faction in southern Lebanon reminiscent of the Palestine Liberation Organization's similar apparatus in the late 1970s and 1980s. But Beirut cannot be seen as buckling under to U.S. or Israeli pressure.

Initial criticism of the resolution by Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora suggests that changes may be necessary to win Lebanon's support. For example, the draft calls for "the immediate cessation by Hezbollah of all attacks." But it orders Israel to stop only "offensive" operations — a distinction that seems to create a loophole for Israel to engage in post-cease-fire operations that it could characterize as defensive.

Less valid is criticism that the cease-fire must be accompanied by the complete withdrawal of Israeli ground forces from Lebanon. After all, Hezbollah started this conflict — after Israel withdrew from Lebanon — and the government in Beirut was unable to restrain it. Beirut's attitude may be changing, however. On Monday the Cabinet approved sending 15,000 troops to the south in the event of a cease-fire.

It would be in Israel's interest to associate itself with Bush's promise Monday that "as these Lebanese and international forces deploy, the Israeli defense forces will withdraw." Diplomacy may yet provide Israel with the protection for its citizens that weeks of war have not achieved.

Military Power Challenged

By Rowan Scarborough, The Washington Times
Washington Times
August 10, 2006

The Israeli Defense Forces is billed as the most high-tech, well-motivated armed forces in the Middle East -- one that has won five major wars against Arab neighbors, dominating the fields of battle in the air and on the ground.

But the IDF finds itself today in a new kind of unconventional war with the terror group Hezbollah, which is just as motivated, driven by radical Shi'ite clerics bent on achieving martyrdom for the cause of Islamic rule.

Trained and financed by Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Hezbollah has an arsenal of 13,000 rockets, which it uses to pummel Israel daily and then move the launchers to evade detection. Hezbollah also is displaying small-unit battle tactics to combat Israel's overwhelming firepower.

Israel deploys main battle tanks -- in this case the homegrown Merkava -- to win in the villages. But military sources said Hezbollah has been able to destroy tanks using Iranian-provided rocket-propelled grenades. They worry that such weapons may show up in Iraq, adding to the woes of American troops already bedeviled by improvised explosive devices. Like U.S. forces in Iraq, Israel now finds itself fighting an unfamiliar foe on foreign land and is trying to adjust with new countertactics.

"The IDF's capability is the best in the Middle East for fighting conventional wars," said Richard H. Shultz Jr., author of "Insurgents, Terrorists and Militias: The Warriors of Contemporary Combat," a new book on counterterrorism. "But they're fighting an armed group that is following an unconventional, asymmetrical strategy. They were not ready."

Syrian, Egyptian and Jordanian forces retreated during past wars with Israel, but Hezbollah fighters are willing to die for the cause of leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, who has pledged to destroy Israel and convert Lebanon into an Iranian-style Shi'ite theocracy.

"They actually have an adversary that doesn't roll over and die on command," said Robert Maginnis, a former Army artillery officer who has analyzed the IDF's tactics. "They're up against Hezbollah people who are trained reasonably well. They are better than a lot of their Arab counterparts. They are willing to die. ... It's a mini-Iran and they are charged up because they are the Islamic resistance in Lebanon."

Still, military sources said they think Israel ultimately will be able to clear the scores of hamlets in southern Lebanon where Hezbollah has dug in, established bases and practiced unconventional warfare.

"It's going better than we're hearing," said an Army Special Forces soldier who has deployed to the Middle East. "Some of the cease-fire overtures wouldn't be occurring if the Israelis weren't doing much damage. The IDF knew of the tunnels and traps waiting for them, so they softened it up with air power directed by operations. The main thing is that the links to Iran and Syria are becoming known to the public. The American people have to know who we eventually have to fight."

Born in 1948 with the creation of the Jewish state, the IDF today stands as a near-mirror to the U.S. military. Its air force is led by F-15 and F-16 fighters, armed with U.S.-designed missiles and precision-guided munitions. Israel receives $1.8 billion annually in military aid, which is used to buy U.S. equipment.

The IDF active force numbers about 170,000 on an annual budget of $34 billion. Unique to Israel, women as well as men face compulsory service and also serve in a 400,000-member reserve force. The army is built around six divisions and nearly 1,700 main battle tanks. The air force maintains 400 combat aircraft. The naval fleet features three submarines able to fire cruise missiles, and 66 coastal boats with guns and ground-attack missiles.

Rice’s Hurdles on Middle East Begin at Home

By HELENE COOPER
The New York Times
August 10, 2006

WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 — As fighting was breaking out last month between Hezbollah and Israel, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice worked through the night at her guest quarters on Russia’s Baltic coast to draft America’s response to the unfolding crisis.

The strategy she outlined that night, the eve of the Group of 8 meeting, dispensed with traditional diplomatic flourishes. It included no call for an immediate cease-fire and expressly stated that Israel had a right to defend itself.

The approach, which President Bush approved the next morning and has served as the basis for American strategy during the crisis, was more than a policy blueprint. It was also Ms. Rice’s answer to opposing camps within the Bush administration. Ms. Rice, one senior administration official said, “staked out a position that was sufficiently unlike the usual State Department” approach to satisfy conservatives in the government, including Vice President Dick Cheney, who were pushing for strong American support for Israel.

As Ms. Rice has struggled with the Middle East crisis over the last four weeks, she has found herself trying to be not only a peacemaker abroad but also a mediator among contending parties at home.

Washington’s resistance to an immediate cease-fire and its staunch support of Israel have made it more difficult for Ms. Rice to work with other nations, including some American allies, as they search for a formula that will end the violence and produce a durable cease-fire.

On her recent trips to the Middle East, Ms. Rice was accompanied by two men with very different outlooks on the conflict: Elliott Abrams, senior director at the National Security Council, and C. David Welch, a career diplomat and former ambassador to Egypt who is assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs.

Mr. Welch represents the traditional State Department view that the United States should serve as a neutral broker in the Middle East. Mr. Abrams, a neoconservative with strong ties to Mr. Cheney, has pushed the administration to throw its support behind Israel. During Ms. Rice’s travels, he kept in direct contact with Mr. Cheney’s office.

One administration official described how during the trip — including a July 29 discussion in Ms. Rice’s Rabin suite at the David Citadel Hotel, with its panoramic view of Jerusalem’s Old City — Mr. Welch and Mr. Abrams served as counterfoils, with Mr. Welch arguing the Arab view and Mr. Abrams articulating the Israeli stance.

Ms. Rice selected Mr. Abrams for the National Security Council staff in 2002 when she was national security adviser. His return to government service was unexpected. After President George H. W. Bush pardoned Mr. Abrams in 1992 for his role in the Iran-Contra affair during the 1980’s, Mr. Abrams said he would never work as policy maker again.

State Department officials say that Mr. Abrams serves as a buffer for Ms. Rice with some neoconservatives who are critical of her policies. “The genius of Elliott Abrams is that he’s Elliott Abrams,” one senior administration official said. “How can he be accused of not sufficiently supporting Israel?”

Several State Department officials have privately objected to the administration’s emphasis on Israel and have said that Washington is not talking to Syria to try to resolve the crisis. Damascus has long been a supporter of Hezbollah, and previous conflicts between the group and Israel have been resolved through shuttle diplomacy with Syria.

Two weeks ago, Ms. Rice instructed Stephen A. Seche, the chargé d’affaires at the United States Embassy in Damascus, to approach Syria’s foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem in Damascus. The two met, but Mr. Moallem “gave no indication that they would be moderately constructive,” a senior administration official said, and there have been no overtures since.

The tensions in the region and within the administration have left Ms. Rice visibly weary and she has at times spoken in unusually personal, emotional terms. After the meeting in her suite, Ms. Rice, Mr. Abrams, Mr. Welch and Richard Jones, the United States ambassador to Israel, had dinner with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. There, Ms. Rice showed a rare flash of impatience with him. When Mr. Olmert responded to her request to suspend airstrikes for 48 hours by saying that Israel had warned residents to evacuate, Ms. Rice shook her head, according to two American officials.

“Look, we’ve had this experience, with Katrina, and we thought we were doing it right,” she reportedly said. “But we learned that many people who want to leave can’t leave.”

Though Ms. Rice was not directly involved in the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina, she told colleagues last summer that she had been appalled at the slow reaction and had urged Mr. Bush to do more to alleviate the hardship of residents, many of them black, who were trapped in the flooded city.

Ms. Rice got the suspension she sought from the Israelis, but it proved short-lived. Her plane had barely left Israeli airspace when Israel resumed aerial strikes, though the bombing slowed for 48 hours.

Ms. Rice has been sharply criticized by some conservatives for pushing Israel too far to end its military operations in Lebanon. “Dump Condi: Foreign policy conservatives charge State Dept. has hijacked Bush agenda,” read the headline July 25 in an online version of Insight Magazine, published by The Washington Times.

“She’s being hammered by those who believe that this crisis will only be resolved by a strategic victory by Israel, backed by the United States,” said Aaron David Miller, a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center who was a senior adviser for Arab-Israeli relations at the State Department under the last three presidents. “That belief says that unless Hezbollah is handed a strategic retreat, the war on terror will suffer a huge defeat.”

But, Mr. Miller said, “she’s also being hammered by the Europeans and Arabs for what they believe to be her inactivity.”

The popular image of Ms. Rice as America’s impeccably clad, composed, dashing diplomat — an image she and her aides have encouraged — has given way to a more somber figure struggling, like many of her predecessors, to resolve a Middle East conflict.

Ms. Rice’s carefully scripted talking points have sometimes fallen flat. Her comment that the Israel-Lebanon war represented the “birth pangs of a new Middle East”— coming at a time when television stations were showing images of dead Lebanese children — sparked ridicule and even racist cartoons. A Palestinian newspaper, Al Qud, depicted Ms. Rice as pregnant with an armed monkey, and a caption that read, “Rice speaks about the birth of a new Middle East.”

She became angry when a reporter asked her, after Israel’s promised 48-hour suspension of airstrikes ended 36 hours early, how she felt when she found out. “I have had more questions about how I felt,” she said. “The question is what we do. And what we did was to seek clarification from the Israeli government about whether or not they were adhering to the agreement here.”

Before leaving for her trip to the Middle East, she told an acquaintance, with a tone of resignation, that every secretary of state, sooner or later, had to mediate a dispute in the region. “Now, I guess it’s my turn.”

Shiites Press For A Partition Of Iraq

Creating federal regions would curb the violence, backers say. Others see it as a grab at oil wealth.
By Borzou Daragahi, Times Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times
August 9, 2006

BAGHDAD — They have a new constitution, a new government and a new military. But faced with incessant sectarian bloodshed, Iraqis for the first time have begun openly discussing whether the only way to stop the violence is to remake the country they have just built.

Leaders of Iraq's powerful Shiite Muslim political bloc have begun aggressively promoting a radical plan to partition the country as a way of separating the warring sects. Some Iraqis are even talking about dividing the capital, with the Tigris River as a kind of Berlin Wall.

Shiites have long advocated some sort of autonomy in the south, similar to the Kurds' 15-year-old enclave in the north, with its own defense forces and control over oil exploration. And the new constitution does allow provinces to team up into federal regions. But the latest effort, promulgated by Cabinet ministers, clerics and columnists, marks the first time they have advocated regional partition as a way of stemming violence.

"Federalism will cut off all parts of the country that are incubating terrorism from those that are upgrading and improving," said Khudair Khuzai, the Shiite education minister. "We will do it just like Kurdistan. We will put soldiers along the frontiers."

The growing clamor for partition illustrates how dire the country's security, economic and political problems have come to seem to many Iraqis: Until recently, the idea of redrawing the 8 1/2 -decade-old map of Iraq was considered seditious.

Some of the advocates of partitioning the country are circumspect, arguing that federalism is only one of the tools under consideration for reducing violence.

But others push a plan by Abdelaziz Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a political party. Hakim advocates the creation of a nine-province district in the largely peaceful south, home to 60% of the country's proven oil reserves.

Sunni leaders see nothing but greed in the new push — the Shiites, they say, are taking advantage of the escalating violence to make an oil grab.

Iraq's oil is concentrated in the north and south; much of the Sunni-dominated west and northwest is desolate desert, devoid of oil and gas.

"Controlling these areas will create a grand fortune that they can exploit," said Adnan Dulaimi, a leading Sunni Arab politician. "Their motive is that they are thirsty for control and power."

Still, even nationalists who favor a united Iraq acknowledge that sectarian warfare has gotten so out of hand that even the possibility of splitting the capital along the Tigris, which roughly divides the city between a mostly Shiite east and a mostly Sunni west, is being openly discussed.

"Sunnis and Shiites are both starting to feel that dividing Baghdad will be the solution," said Ammar Wajuih, a Sunni politician.

Critics scoff at the idea that any geographical partitioning of Sunnis and Shiites will make the country safer. Some observers warn that cutting up the country's Arab provinces into separate religious cantons would be as cataclysmic as the partition of Pakistan and India in 1947.

Although growing numbers of Iraqis acknowledge that their country is in an undeclared civil war, a partition would "actually lead to increasing violence and sectarian displacement," said Hussein Athab, a political scientist and former lawmaker in Basra.

Critics of partitioning note that rival Shiite militias with ties to political parties in government appear to be responsible for as much of Iraq's violence as Sunni insurgents are, and have been known to turn their guns on one another.

"They're always talking about reconciliation and rejecting violence, but in truth they're not serious," Wajuih said. "Whenever there is a security escalation or violence, they bring the issue of federalism up again."

One Western diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, suggested that the Shiites were using the prospect of a southern ministate to gain political concessions from Sunnis — "a threat that they wouldn't want to have to exercise" because tearing the country asunder would be so traumatic.

A U.S. Embassy spokesperson declined to comment publicly on such a volatile issue. But U.S. policymakers also have begun to warm to the idea. Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, one of the Democratic Party's leading voices on foreign policy, began openly advocating such a move this year.

"I think it's the only way out," says Ivan Eland, a former House Foreign Affairs Committee staffer who is now an analyst at the Independent Institute, an Oakland think tank. "Iraq is already partitioned. Kurds don't want to be part of it. And any central government controlled by one group, the other groups are going to be afraid of being oppressed by it."

The prospect of a decentralized Iraq drove opposition groups for decades; Shiites and Kurds were brutally suppressed under Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime, and once they came to power they wanted to weaken the central government. In a referendum last year, a constitution including the option of devolution was approved despite nearly uniform Sunni opposition.

Under the constitution, any of Iraq's 18 provinces, or a group of provinces, may hold a referendum to form a federal region. But the charter was vague on the definition of "federal." In Kurdistan it in effect has meant grouping three provinces into an autonomous enclave that has its own military, intelligence apparatus, prime minister and oil ministry.

The Kurdish experiment has inspired many Shiite leaders, especially Hakim. Clerics loyal to him already have begun using street demonstrations as well as Friday sermons to advance to desperate and war-weary Shiite masses the idea that an autonomous southern region will stem the bloodshed and bring prosperity.

"Those afraid of federalism in the south and middle are afraid that we will get our rights back," Shiite cleric Sadruddin Qubanchi told the faithful gathered for Friday prayers in Najaf last month.

"Why not now?" said a July 30 column in Al Adala, a Shiite daily newspaper. "We are in a race against time to establish federalism in Iraq."

Hakim's advisors have already begun drawing up proposals for the rights and territorial boundaries of such a region, said Haithem Hussein, one of his deputies. In one plan, the Shiite militias now considered part of Iraq's cycle of violence could serve as a regional security force, just as the Kurdish peshmerga militias form the core of Kurdistan's regional security forces.

"We don't want to establish a Shiite state or a state within a state," said Mukhlis Zamel, a Shiite lawmaker from the southern city of Nasiriya. "But we want to manage ourselves by ourselves."

In the halls of parliament, Sunni politicians say their Shiite colleagues try to strong-arm them to go along with their plan.

"They try to convince you that federalism is the only solution, whether you like it or not," said Salim Abdullah Jabouri, a former law professor now serving in parliament as a member of the main Sunni coalition.

Most agree that a partitioning of Iraq along the geographical lines advocated by Shiites would be an agonizing and traumatic process.

Almost all of Iraq's major tribes include both Shiite and Sunni branches, and cross-sectarian marriages abound.

Baghdad, Diyala, northern Babil and southern Salahuddin provinces are thoroughly mixed, often patchworks of Shiite and Sunni villages. Basra in the south includes a significant Sunni minority, while Mosul in the north includes significant numbers of Shiite Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens.

But all of these complications can be worked out, said analyst Eland.

"They could work out an oil-sharing agreement," he said. "It's a fallacy that you have to have contiguous borders. You could have deterrence: We won't hurt your minority if you don't hurt ours."

Sheik Diyadhin Fayadh, a Shiite politician, offered another solution to the sectarian patchwork stemming from a partition: "If people don't like the system in one region," he said, "they can go to another region."

Times staff writer Saif Rasheed in Baghdad and special correspondent Saad Fakhrildeen in Najaf contributed to this report.

Iraqi Kurds Publish Draft Oil Law

London Financial Times
August 8, 2006

Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region yesterday published a draft version of a law giving itself the right to control petroleum operations in its own territory and the disputed province of Kirkuk.

A memorandum attached to the draft provided by the Kurdish regional government said a final version would be presented to the Kurdish parliament in September, and that it had also prepared a draft of a petroleum law for the entire country.

The move seems intended to rekindle debate on an issue which appeared to have been temporarily shelved. Iraqi officials say they hope to pass a hydrocarbons law this year, but many observers believe that it will be postponed until 2007.

The question of who controls oil exploration - whether it be Iraq's federal government or regions like Kurdistan - was dodged during the run-up to last year's constitution, which included vague language allowing the federal government to administer "current" fields provided it split revenues "in a fair manner" among the regions.

End This Tragedy Now

Israel Must Be Made to Respect International Law
By Fouad Siniora
Washington Post
August 9, 2006

BEIRUT -- A military solution to Israel's savage war on Lebanon and the Lebanese people is both morally unacceptable and totally unrealistic. We in Lebanon call upon the international community and citizens everywhere to support my country's sovereignty and end this folly now. We also insist that Israel be made to respect international humanitarian law, including the provisions of the Geneva Conventions, which it has repeatedly and willfully violated.

As the world watches, Israel has besieged and ravaged our country, created a humanitarian and environmental disaster, and shattered our infrastructure and economy, putting an intolerable strain on our social and economic systems. Fuel, food and medical equipment are in short supply; homes, factories and warehouses have been destroyed; roads severed, bridges smashed and airports disabled.

The damage to infrastructure alone is running into the billions of dollars, as are the losses to owners of private property, and the long-term direct and indirect costs due to lost revenue in tourism, agriculture and industrial sectors are expected to be many more billions. Lebanon's well-known achievements in 15 years of postwar development have been wiped out in a matter of days by Israel's deadly military might.

For all this carnage and death, and on behalf of all Lebanese, we demand an international inquiry into Israel's criminal actions in Lebanon and insist that Israel pay compensation for its wanton destruction.

Israel seems to think that its attacks will sow discord among the Lebanese. This will never happen. Israel should know that the Lebanese people will remain steadfast and united in the face of this latest Israeli aggression -- its seventh invasion -- just as they were during nearly two decades of brutal occupation. The people's will to resist grows ever stronger with each village demolished and each massacre committed.

On July 25, at the international conference for Lebanon in Rome, I proposed a comprehensive seven-point plan to end the war. It was well received by the conference and got the unanimous and full backing of the Lebanese Council of Ministers, in which Hezbollah is represented, as well as of the speaker of parliament and a majority of parliamentary blocs. Representatives of diverse segments of Lebanese civil society have come out strongly in favor, as has the Islamic-Christian Summit, representing all the religious confessions, ensuring a broad national consensus and preserving our delicate social equilibrium.

The plan, which also received the full support of the 56 member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, included an immediate, unconditional and comprehensive cease-fire and called for:

*The release of Lebanese and Israeli prisoners and detainees through the International Committee of the Red Cross.

*The withdrawal of the Israeli army behind the "blue line."

*A commitment from the U.N. Security Council to place the Shebaa Farms and Kfar Shouba Hills areas under U.N. jurisdiction until border delineation and Lebanese sovereignty over them are fully settled. Further, Israel must surrender all maps of remaining land mines in southern Lebanon to the United Nations.

*Extension of the Lebanese government's authority over its territory through its legitimate armed forces, with no weapons or authority other than that of the Lebanese state, as stipulated in the Taif accord. We have indicated that the Lebanese armed forces are ready and able to deploy in southern Lebanon, alongside the U.N. forces there, the moment Israel pulls back to the international border.

*The supplementing of the U.N. international force operating in southern Lebanon and its enhancement in numbers, equipment, mandate and scope of operation, as needed, to undertake urgent humanitarian and relief work and guarantee stability and security in the south so that those who fled their homes can return.

*Action by the United Nations on the necessary measures to once again put into effect the 1949 armistice agreement signed by Lebanon and Israel and to ensure adherence to its provisions, as well as to explore possible amendments to or development of those provisions as necessary.

*The commitment of the international community to support Lebanon on all levels, including relief, reconstruction and development needs.

As part of this comprehensive plan, and empowered by strong domestic political support and the unanimous backing of the cabinet, the Lebanese government decided to deploy the Lebanese armed forces in southern Lebanon as the sole domestic military force in the area, alongside U.N. forces there, the moment Israel pulls back to the international border.

Israel responded by slaughtering more civilians in the biblical town of Qana. Such horrible scenes have been repeated daily for nearly four weeks and continue even as I write these words.

The resolution to this war must respect international law and U.N. resolutions, not just those selected by Israel, a state that deserves its reputation as a pariah because of its consistent disdain for and rejection of international law and the wishes of the international community for over half a century.

Lebanon calls, once again, on the United Nations to bring about an immediate cease-fire to relieve the beleaguered people of Lebanon. Only then can the root causes of this war -- Israeli occupation of Lebanese territories and its perennial threat to Lebanon's security, as well as Lebanon's struggle to regain full sovereignty over all its territory -- be addressed.

I believe that a political resolution rooted in international law and based on these seven points will lead to long-term stability. If Israel would realize that the peoples of the Middle East cannot be cowed into submission, that they aspire only to live in freedom and dignity, it could also be a stepping stone to a final solution of the wider Arab-Israeli conflict, which has plagued our region for 60 years.

The 2002 Arab summit in Beirut, which called for a just, comprehensive and lasting peace based on the principle of land for peace, showed the way forward. A political solution cannot, however, be implemented as long as Israel continues to occupy Arab land in Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank and the Syrian Golan Heights and as long as it wages war on innocent people in Lebanon and Palestine. As Jawaharlal Nehru said, "the only alternative to coexistence is co-destruction."

Enough destruction, dispossession, desperation, displacement and death! Lebanon must be allowed to reclaim its position in this troubled region as a beacon of freedom and democracy where justice and the rule of law prevail, and as a refuge for the oppressed where moderation, tolerance and enlightenment triumph.

The writer is prime minister of Lebanon.

Israel's Way Out

Hezbollah and Hamas attacks have backed it into a corner. Escalation against Iran and Syria might be the best hope.
By Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
Los Angeles Times
August 8, 2006

FOR THE SECOND TIME in the long history of the Middle East conflict, an enemy of Israel has effectively said: We do not care what you do.

Hezbollah — in choosing not to return the two soldiers it seized on July 12, and in its bombardment of Israel — has declared that it does not care if its war-making leads Israel to attack Lebanon's cities, ruin that country's economy and kill its people. What matters most is inflicting damage on Israel, weakening its morale and goading it to a level of destruction that will incite the world's wrath. The Palestinians said as much with their second intifada and their suicide bombings. But this is different because Hezbollah's daily rainfall of rockets in Israel portends an intolerable military assault without end.

What can Israel do — what could any country do? — with such an enemy? Except for a desperate Saddam Hussein during the Persian Gulf War, other countries and armies that would have liked to destroy Israel did not target Israeli cities because they knew that Israel would intensely bomb Cairo, Amman or Damascus. Israel had deterrence. Had an enemy dared such an attack, Israel could have compelled it to stop by inflicting massive damage. With Hezbollah — and with Hamas as well — Israel's ability to deter attacks or to compel them to stop has been lost.

The third strategic means of dealing with an enemy — making a genuine peace — has not been possible because Hezbollah and Hamas are expressly committed to Israel's destruction. They see any cessation of hostilities as an interlude before further attack.

So Israel has adopted the fourth strategic possibility: to devastate its dangerous foe, which also would restore deterrence. Yet Israel has discovered that against combatants who look like civilians and whose rockets are hidden everywhere, it must fight longer and occupy and destroy much more of Lebanon than it may deem moral, wise or feasible. Even a future international force in southern Lebanon — the possibility of which is highly uncertain — may be incapable of thwarting Hezbollah and would still leave northern Israel in Hezbollah's rocket range.

What strategies remain? No. 5 is intolerable: living with ongoing, and probably increasing, rocket attacks into northern Israel and beyond. Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, promises that "there are many cities in the center [of Israel] which will be targeted in the phase of 'beyond Haifa.' "

The sixth option is to compel Hezbollah's suppliers and patrons — Syria and Iran — to end the terror. Neither country wishes a war with militarily superior Israel (Syria's saber rattling notwithstanding). If every Hezbollah missile into Israel produced Israeli retaliation against Syria, and possibly Iran (including its nuclear production sites), Syria and Iran would be forced to make Hezbollah stop. Obviously, this is a last-ditch option. It would escalate the conflict and increase international pressure on Israel to desist.

All of Israel's strategic choices are bad or ineffective or undesirable. And yet this last option would be the most likely to reestablish the deterrence critical to Israel's long-term survival — and to peace in the region — by demonstrating Israel's enduring power to compel an end of attacks. And it might prevent still more massive devastation of Lebanon.

Make no mistake: Israel is fighting for its life. It faces a historically new kind of fanatical foe, political Islam, which combines three characteristics: a political-religious ideology calling for its enemies' annihilation; indifference to, even the celebration of, its own people's death (because martyrs are rewarded with a place in heaven); and virtually unstoppable technology (missiles) and techniques (suicide bombing) of terror.

The political Islamists are emboldened by their newfound power. As Nasrallah has boasted, "When were 2 million Israelis forced to become displaced, or to stay in bomb shelters for more than 18 days?" And the danger will escalate a thousandfold if Iran, the epicenter of political Islam and Hezbollah's master, achieves its own invulnerability with nuclear weapons, so that it too can launch rocket and other attacks against its many targets. Iran's former president and current power broker, Hashemi Rafsanjani, spoke candidly in 2001: "The use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything," he said, although it would harm the Islamic world. "It is not irrational," he went on, "to contemplate such an eventuality."

A nuclear Iran, sharing Hezbollah's and Hamas' enmity for Israel's very existence, is a foe with a million times the wealth and destructive might to found, fund and supply many more Hezbollahs against many more enemies, including the hated West.

Israel's political Islamic enemies are studying and rejoicing over the new geostrategic situation. These totalitarians' ultimate targets — all "infidels," especially here and in Europe — should study it as well, be sobered and realize that Israel, in fighting this war in its self-defense, to reestablish a geostrategic balance, and for its long-term survival, is ultimately fighting for them as well.

DANIEL JONAH GOLDHAGEN, a member of Harvard University's Center for European Studies and the author of "Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust," is completing a book on genocide.

A Way Out Of Iraq: Divide The Country

USA Today
August 8, 2006

With Iraq virtually immersed in a civil war, perhaps it's time to partition the country. In the meantime, more U.S. troops should pour in to snuff out the violence. As Israel has shown in Lebanon, brute force is sometimes a necessary evil.

Cal Thomas is a conservative columnist. Bob Beckel is a liberal Democratic strategist. But as longtime friends, they can often find common ground on issues that lawmakers in Washington cannot.

Today: Israel's response to Hezbollah can be instructive to U.S. forces trying to stabilize Iraq.

Bob: The Israel-Hezbollah battle in Lebanon is just the latest in a seemingly endless series of conflicts in the Middle East where civilians suffer more than the combatants. But we need to keep the bigger picture in mind here. With few exceptions, Muslim leaders and a substantial number of their followers agree with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the state of Israel should be exterminated. For radical Islamists this is as fundamental to their faith as Mecca. Muslim leaders believe and teach that the United States is the devil, and it, too, should have no presence in the region. Just look at a Pew Research survey of attitudes toward America among Muslims. By overwhelming numbers Muslims have deeply held negative feelings about the United States.

Cal: You have captured the issue better than the diplomats and many politicians, Bob. It isn't about “two states living side by side in peace,” as the Bush administration repeats like a chant. Israel's enemies could have had that in 1948. This is genocidal, unrelenting, cultural and religious warfare that will not end unless free nations end it. The secular West doesn't understand how any “compassionate and merciful” God could be behind such evil. He isn't, of course, but his name has been appropriated by the radicals to justify the kind of evil that places Hezbollah terrorists among civilians. They use them as human shields. When the Israelis respond to shelling of Israeli civilians, Lebanese civilians are killed and Israel is blamed.

Bob: And Lebanon is the example, we are told, of democratic progress in the Middle East. President Bush, in his second inaugural address, called for democratic elections around the world. The Middle East had several. In the past two years, Palestinians voted for a terrorist group, Hamas, to lead their government. Iranians elected the anti-Semitic Ahmadinejad as president. And, in the supposedly successful “Cedar Revolution” in Lebanon, Hezbollah, the terror group that attacked Israel and started today's conflict, now makes up 11% of the national assembly. In Iraq, where the United States presumably has some influence, members of the newly elected parliament call U.S. forces invaders. So in the Middle East, democratic elections provided legitimacy to forces that hate democracy.

Cal: I fear you may be right, though I'm not yet prepared to cede the point that democracy can't work in at least some countries in the region. Democracies take time even in the best of circumstances. When religion is involved it can take much longer because it is difficult to negotiate and compromise with people who believe they have a divine mandate to do things their way. There is even disagreement within Islam as to who are “heretics” and who are in the “will of God.” Our system works because no one is allowed sufficient power to consistently impose policies that reflect a single and narrow point of view.

Bob: Thus amplifying the importance of our separation of church and state.

Cal: Certainly our Founders knew how religion could, and should, exist in a democratic society. Religion is part of our mix, but it doesn't get to dictate to everyone all the time. And no one cleric has the power to make rules for us all. Part of the problem in the Middle East is that, with the exception of Israel, most nations are closed societies. Their media spew inflammatory anti-Semitic and anti-American propaganda. Their schoolbooks are full of hate, teaching a new generation the grievances of their parents. If that could be ended and their media opened to competing ideas instead of propaganda, democracy might have a chance.

Bob: We have tried Cal — especially in Iraq — and the signs there are not good. It appears that the United States is now virtually alone there. The British have done their share admirably, but in the end, the burden is on America. European nations have done virtually nothing. Our allies in the region, such as the Saudis and Jordanians, sit on the sidelines while our soldiers die. Enough is enough. The Kurds have essentially partitioned themselves off from the Sunnis and Shiites who, no matter what Bush thinks, are in a civil war, with Americans in the crossfire. It's time to consider partitioning the rest of Iraq. If the Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites were essentially autonomous, with a very loose central governing authority, the United States could get out.

Cal: The Kurds have done themselves proud in the north. They are advertising on Web pages (theotheriraq.com) and limited other media for tourists to come to “the other Iraq.” They have relative peace in the north precisely because there are no religious and political rivalries. But in the south, separating the Sunnis from the Shiites may be the only solution. It's worth a try, particularly if the bloodshed continues.

Bob: You know, Cal, I wonder what countries like France — which criticizes Israel for its forceful retaliation against Hezbollah — expect Israel to do. A limited response would have left thousands of Iranian-supplied rockets in southern Lebanon, still aimed at Israel. Every nation has the right and responsibility to protect its citizens. If Israel had not been aggressive, the terrorists on its borders would feel free to continue to attack and kill with impunity. I see that President Bush has ordered more U.S. troops to Baghdad to try to stop the sectarian killings that are spiraling out of control. Many military experts recommended more troops at the beginning of the Iraq war. Maybe the president could learn a lesson from Israel here?

Cal: Indeed he could, and possibly he has with this call for more troops to focus on securing the capital once and for all. One southern Iraqi province is now completely in the hands of Iraqis. That's progress. As for France and the rest of Europe, they are playing a dangerous and losing game. They have large numbers of Muslim immigrants who refuse to assimilate into their cultures. Those immigrants — many of them illegal — are building mosques like Starbucks franchises. Britain continues to allow many radical clerics to spew hate from their mosques and publish inflammatory literature. Tony Blair's government had promised to deport them. Will Europe awaken to the problem of its own making only after one, two or three more terrorist attacks, which are surely coming? Has it learned nothing from history about what happens when free people try to appease dictators?

Bob: That's my point about Israel. Facing attacks daily from radical Islamic terrorists gives Israel a perspective Europeans don't see. If attacked, it is necessary to respond strongly and quickly, or wait for the next attack. It's sad, but is there any other way, Cal?

Cal: This is not a conventional war, so it will not be ended in a conventional way. After Israel made too many concessions and did not properly respond to previous attacks, Hezbollah, Iran and al-Qaeda (all members of the same dysfunctional family) calculated Israel is weak and would not fight after the kidnapping of its soldiers and the shelling of its neighborhoods. The proper approach in Iraq is to do what the Israelis are doing — times 10. Send in as many troops as needed to end the escalating violence. Evil cannot be accommodated. It must be crushed, or it will crush us. What will we do if terrorists get their hands on nuclear weapons and send them to their agents in the USA and Europe? What will we do if they threaten to kill millions of us if we don't do their bidding? If we wait for that day, it will be too late. We must act as if that day is coming. If we don't, we can be sure the Islamo-fascists will. They already are.

Text of the Draft Security Council Resolution

August 5, 2006

Following is the text of the draft U.N. Security Council resolution:

The Security Council,

PP1. Recalling all its previous resolutions on Lebanon, in particular resolutions 425 (1978), 426 (1978), 520 (1982), 1559 (2004), 1655 (2006) and 1680 (2006), as well as the statements of its President on the situation in Lebanon, in particular the statements of 18 June 2000 (S/PRST/2000/21), of 19 October 2004 (S/PRST/2004/36), of 4 May 2005 (S/PRST/2005/17) of 23 January 2006 (S/PRST/2006/3) and of 30 July 2006 (S/PRST/2006/35),

PP2. Expressing its utmost concern at the continuing escalation of hostilities in Lebanon and in Israel since Hizbollah's attack on Israel on 12 July 2006, which has already caused hundreds of deaths and injuries on both sides, extensive damage to civilian infrastructure and hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons,

PP3. Emphasizing the need for an end of violence, but at the same time emphasizing the need to address urgently the causes that have given rise to the current crisis, including by the unconditional release of the abducted Israeli soldiers,

PP4: Mindful of the sensitivity of the issue of prisoners and encouraging the efforts aimed at settling the issue of the Lebanese prisoners detained in Israel,

OP1. Calls for a full cessation of hostilities based upon, in particular, the immediate cessation by Hizbollah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations;

OP2. Reiterates its strong support for full respect for the Blue Line;

OP3. Also reiterates its strong support for the territorial integrity, sovereignty and political independence of Lebanon within its internationally recognized borders, as contemplated by the Israeli-Lebanese General Armistice Agreement of 23 March 1949;

OP4. Calls on the international community to take immediate steps to extend its financial and humanitarian assistance to the Lebanese people, including through facilitating the safe return of displaced persons and, under the authority of the Government of Lebanon, reopening airports and harbours for verifiably and purely civilian purposes, and calls on it also to consider further assistance in the future to contribute to the reconstruction and development of Lebanon;

OP5. Emphasizes the importance of the extension of the control of the Government of Lebanon over all Lebanese territory in accordance with the provisions of resolution 1559 (2004) and resolution 1680 (2006), and of the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords, for it to exercise its full sovereignty and authority;

OP6. Calls for Israel and Lebanon to support a permanent ceasefire and a long-term solution based on the following principles and elements:

- strict respect by all parties for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Israel and Lebanon;

- full respect for the Blue Line by both parties;

- delineation of the international borders of Lebanon, especially in those areas where the border is disputed or uncertain, including in the Shebaa farms area;

- security arrangements to prevent the resumption of hostilities, including the establishment between the Blue Line and the Litani river of an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the Lebanese armed and security forces and of UN mandated international forces deployed in this area;

- full implementation of the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords and of resolutions 1559 (2004) and 1680 (2006) that require the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon, so that, pursuant to the Lebanese cabinet decision of July 27, 2006, there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese state;

- deployment of an international force in Lebanon, consistent with paragraph 10 below;

- establishment of an international embargo on the sale or supply of arms and related material to Lebanon except as authorized by its government;

- elimination of foreign forces in Lebanon without the consent of its government;

- provision to the United Nations of remaining maps of land mines in Lebanon in Israel's possession;

OP7: Invites the Secretary General to support efforts to secure agreements in principle from the Government of Lebanon and the Government of Israel to the principles and elements for a long-term solution as set forth in paragraph 6 above;

OP8: Requests the Secretary General to develop, in liaison with key international actors and the concerned parties, proposals to implement the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords, and of resolutions 1559 (2004) and 1680 (2006), including disarmament, and for delineation of the international borders of Lebanon, especially in those areas where the border is disputed or uncertain, including by dealing with the Shebaa farms, and to present those proposals to the Security Council within thirty days;

OP9. Calls on all parties to cooperate during this period with the Security Council and to refrain from any action contrary to paragraph 1 above that might adversely affect the search for a long-term solution, humanitarian access to civilian populations, or the safe return of displaced persons, and requests the Secretary General to keep the Council informed in this regard;

OP10. Expresses its intention, upon confirmation to the Security Council that the Government of Lebanon and the Government of Israel have agreed in principle to the principles and elements for a long-term solution as set forth in paragraph 6 above, and subject to their approval, to authorize in a further resolution under Chapter VII of the Charter the deployment of a UN mandated international force to support the Lebanese armed forces and government in providing a secure environment and contribute to the implementation of a permanent ceasefire and a long-term solution;

OP11. Requests UNIFIL, upon cessation of hostilities, to monitor its implementation and to extend its assistance to help ensure humanitarian access to civilian populations and the safe return of displaced persons;

OP12. Calls upon the Government of Lebanon to ensure arms or related materiel are not imported into Lebanon without its consent and requests UNIFIL, conditions permitting, to assist the Government of Lebanon at its request;

OP13. Requests the Secretary-General to report to the Council within one week on the implementation of this resolution and to provide any relevant information in light of the Council's intention to adopt, consistent with paragraph 10 above, a further resolution;

OP14. Decides to remain actively seized of the matter.