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Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Israel’s status must weather new challenge
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Israel should leave southern Lebanon.
Just as soon as Hezbollah is rendered militarily inert. Destroying the entire organization is not required. The existence of its political wing, with 14 of 128 seats in the Lebanese Parliament, is an internal matter of no international concern — until it gives rise to terrorism or to military aggression.
When the job’s done, a cease-fire should be arranged. Not before.
The real war here is between Iran and the United States. The provocation, aided and abetted by Syria and delivered through its Hezbollah proxy, targeted Israel. The timing was clearly intended to divert world attention from Iran’s nuclear ambitions, to rattle nerves in the West and to weaken its will.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad learned saber-rattling from the National Basketball Association. Mouth. Game. Beat ‘em before tipoff. The difference is, however, that Ahmadinejad is a seriously dangerous leader whose nuclear ambitions give the world, and especially his neighbors in the region, a narrow time frame for dealing with him — certainly less than five years.
Pressing a premature cease-fire on Israel, as United Nations Secretary General Kofi Anan has urged, solves nothing. It leaves a terrorist organization in place. When Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bashir Assad again decide that there’s some strategic, propaganda or diversionary value in provoking Israel, the world will be here again.
Newt Gingrich is right that World War III is upon us. The conflict in southern Lebanon is a part of it.
It’s not inevitable, by any means, that the war will spread now beyond Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon to Syria and Iran. While the United Nations is likely to be of little value — 2,000 U.N. peacekeepers were stationed in southern Lebanon even as Hezbollah fortified the region for its rocket attacks — the possibility does exist that an international coalition, not involving U.S. ground troops, can police the military resurgence of Hezbollah after Israel completes its mission.
The larger problem, one without a solution until Syria and Iran are pushed out, is the creation of a Lebanese government capable of standing up to and disarming Hezbollah. That’s simply not possible so long as Syria and Iran continue to provide arms and training. Syria’s military may be gone from Lebanon, but its agents aren’t.
For the United States, the course couldn’t be clearer. It is to support Israel, to protect its flanks in the United Nations and with the international community, until it is satisfied that the mission in Lebanon has been accomplished.
Ultimately, this is not about Israel, though Israel’s destruction would be a satisfying outcome to fanatical Islamists. It is a war against the West, and the United States in particular.
While that amounts to World War III, it need not be a series of military confrontations. Israel’s neighbors, Egypt and Jordan, prove that peaceful coexistence is possible. While street sentiment in those countries may still wish for Israel’s destruction, self-interest and the educating potential of television offer promise.
The promise is that the free world, and more peaceful Arab neighbors such as Saudi Arabia, can communicate with the masses in Syria and Iran to convince them that their personal fortunes are served by coexisting peacefully.
Admittedly, given polls in Iran that strongly support the notion that Israel should be pushed into the sea, education and enlightenment are not ready prospects. The point is that alternatives exist.
The fact is, however, that Iran cannot under any circumstances be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. If the world doesn’t take out Iran’s nuclear weapons potential, Israel has to.
For that reason, the United States cannot allow Israel to come out of its military excursion in southern Lebanon weakened in any way whatsoever.
It can’t be seen as unable, either because of world opinion or U.S. pressure, to punish its enemies so thoroughly that Hezbollah knows, and Hamas sees, that retaliation will be swift, certain and decisive.
The world, and this country’s left, which has been dangerously flirtatious with the idea of neutrality in the Middle East, needs to see that the United States is not neutral — and won’t be. The United States absolutely cannot be a party to seeing Israel come out of southern Lebanon diminished militarily or in the eyes of its enemies.
World War III is not all combat. But if Israel is undercut now, and if its enemies are emboldened, it could be.
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