FDD

FDD Media Roundup

Cliff May's latest Scripps Howard column discusses the mistakes that were made in the planning and execution of the war in Iraq, and offers some practical lessons on what could have been done differently.

Claudia Rosett, writing in the Wall Street Journal, discusses the possibility of UN sanctions against Iran and how effective these might be given the failure of the sanctions regime against Iraq.

J. Peter Pham, writing in Family Security Matters, exposes Iran's connection to Congo (Kinshasa). 

Re Khatami (CM)

Some choice quotes from the NRO symposium.

Anne Bayevski writes: “If we aren’t prepared to isolate Iran, why should anyone else?”

Pooya Dayanim writes that Khatami’s visit will be “aslap in the face of Iran’s pro-democracy movement.”

Faith McDonnell writes: “[S]hould we be surprised that the National Episcopal Cathedral has chosen an Islamist mullah whose goal is the destruction of Israel, under whose regime persecution of Christians flourished, and who ruthlessly repressed Muslim reformers in Iran, to speak about the role of the three "Abrahamic faiths" in promoting peace? Sadly, no, this absurdity is not surprising. The Cathedral and the U.S. Episcopal Church leadership in general have made appeasement and denial tenets of their particular version of faith for some time.

Michael Ledeen writes:” For those who believed Bush is serious about regime change, this is a numbing blow. Would FDR have given Goebbels a visa while the Reich was attacking Czechoslovakia?”

We cannot invent a pseudo-faction of “moderates” amongst the ayatollahs just because some of us would rather look the other way and pretend it is not so. … Tehran is not an actor rationally working in the national interest of Iran and the Iranians. It is serving its ideological mania.

Much more here.

Might Khatami still be denied entry? (AV)

There is an excellent symposium on NRO on the decision to grant former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami a visa to enter the United States. The consensus is that it was a bad move strategically.

Unremarked upon, surprisingly, is that Khatami's entrance to the United States is still not assured. Khatami must produce his visa at a port-of-entry, where an agent from Customs and Border Protection (part of the Department of Homeland Security) can still deny entry to Khatami. That is to say, a visa only gives you the right to present yourself at a point-of-entry; once there, it's a DHS agent who determines if you enter the country or not.

At point-of-entry, Khatami should be subject to a vigorous interview and, unless he can show that he poses no threat the United States - which should be difficult for someone who presided over Iran's nuclear program - he should be denied entry to the United States.

FDD Media Roundup

This week's Notes & Comments are now online. Cliff May comments on how the kidnapping and intimidation of journalists influences media coverage of the Palestinian issue He also reports on support for the war on terrorism in Hollywood, the latest news from the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, and the progress of liberal democracy in the Middle East.

Over at TechCentralStation, J. Peter Pham & Michael I. Krauss discuss Europe's Munich moment.

Somalia's collapse into jihadism (AV)

This week brought yet more troubling news about the Islamist takeover of Somalia. The Union of Islamic Courts, which currently controls the capital of Mogadishu, has adopted a policy of confrontation towards all NGOs and civil society groups.

"[T]he Islamists' head for the social affairs Sheik Fanah also pointed out that NGOs under any name could not hold any meeting or a news conference without the Islamists' knowledge."

This is disastrous for Mogadishu, which is extremely poor and relies on outside assistance to meet its basic needs. As I wrote about during my recent visit to Mogadishu, "Store shelves are completely empty except for Coca Cola products (Somalis need their Fanta Orange!). There are no decent or even half-decent restaurants, there being no tourists or expat workers. All there is to eat, if you're lucky enough to find it, is rice with a splash of watery tomato sauce, which tastes even more foul than it sounds. The streets are empty. There are no big markets." Remember, too, that warlord-induced famines are not new to Somalia.

Somalia also occupies a crucial position in East Africa. It is surrounded by countries most of whose governments are led by Christians or secular-minded leaders. Yet many of these countries have large Muslim populations that are in the process of being radicalized. At the same time, Somalia has access to crucial shipping ports, making it easy for it to serve as a haven for illicit weapons smuggling, as well as being able to hold its landlocked neighbors hostage.

As I explained in June in an article in the Somaliland Times, unless the United States is prepared to support the breakaway statelet of Somaliland - which is democratic and non-sectarian - the situation in Somalia will continue to deteriorate in an anti-American direction. Somaliland can provide the United States with reliable intelligence on developments in Mogadishu, as well as a foothold into the country and is, perhaps, the most poignant manifestation of what the Bush Doctrine was designed to encourage - the spread of liberal democracy to guarantee America's basic security needs.

If pursuing an explicitly pro-Somaliland position is too heady for the Bush administration, then its best hope, at this point, is supporting Ethiopia's efforts in the country, which are largely positive. Ethiopia is working to stabilize and support the democratically-elected transitional government based in Baidao, as well as guarantee its access to ports in North-East Somalia (also known as Puntland).

The situation in Somalia has not reached crisis stage, nor will it, probably, for years to come - but we don't need to search too far into U.S. history to find examples of failed states taken over by Islamist militants who then conspired to harm the United States. Unless someone explains why we should expect Somalia to be an exception to the rule, ignoring its descent into jihadism is an utterly reckless solution.

Fox News Team Release: What is the Jihadi Message? (WP)

The release in Gaza today of Fox News journalist Steve Centanni and camera man Olaf Wiig, kidnapped as of August 14 by a group calling itself "Holy Jihad Brigade" raises a number of salient issues related to the kidnapping and release:

1) "We were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint," Centanni told FOX News. "Don't get me wrong here. I have the highest respect for Islam, and I learned a lot of good things about it, but it was something we felt we had to do because they had the guns, and we didn't know what the hell was going on."

Such a statement raises a number of points. First it is not unusual that Jihadists groups would force hostages to convert to Islam. But at the same time it hasn't been a systematic behavior. Over the past 25 years, Jihadist organizations, cells and captors -including al Qaida, Hezbollah, Laskar Jihad, Jemaa Islamiya, Salafi Combat group, etc have taken hostages. In many cases the Jihadists either asked the hostages or forced them to convert. But in other cases they haven't. Statistically, most hostages who have been executed were not asked to convert, while those who were released were either asked if they wished or in some cases were told that it would be better for them to do so. Obviously, hostages -especially if they weren't evangelists - would accept the conversion as a mean for securing liberation or at least physical security. But there were cases of Priests, Evangelists and Christian local leaders, who were executed after they refused to convert. These cases didn't receive the publicity received by media or secular Western citizens’ hostages.   

Iran's Two-Track Strategy (WP)

In the World Magazine Weekly News Walid Phares was quoted on calling ambiguous salvo part of Iran's two-track strategy. "Iran's foreign minister and others are buying as much time as possible with the international community," he said, "while real assembly and building up of the technology continues."

Eurabia? (CM)

My former NY Times colleague Youssef Ibrahim writes that in Europe today:

Muslim fascists roam the landscape freely, speaking publicly, surfing the Internet, running fiery Web sites, extolling the murder of Westerners, and, most important, trampling on the Western democratic values of separation of church and state and freedom of expression — all in the name of Islam.

What is far more sinister is that these horsemen of the apocalypse benefit from near universal approval by Europe's nearly 35 million immigrant Muslims.

A few, not nearly enough, European political leaders are beginning to see this situation for what it is: an irremediable clash of civilizations.

More here.

Iran, Vanuatu with a frown? (AV)

Steve Sailer, from the American Conservative, has joined the ongoing effort to wish the United States' Iran problem away. Sailer writes:

That Iran's GDP is about 1/20th of ours, that their installed base of post-1978 aircraft and tanks is paltry, that they have virtually no offensive capability to seize territory where the local population doesn't support them, and that they have been spending a no higher percentage of their limited GDP on their military than we spend (and possibly less), suggests Iran is not a major threat to conquer the Middle East. This is as if bored New York sportswriters, following, say, a collapse by the large market Boston Red Sox, got into a frenzy over the long term threat to Yankee dominance posed by the small-market Kansas City Royals. Well, it wouldn't happen on the sports pages, because baseball fans know the numbers and the pundits would get laughed at by their own readers.

There's a lot to disagree with in this; let's begin with his baseball analogy.

Forget about the KC Royals. Iran is more like the Oakland Athletics. As Michael Lewis explained in Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, Oakland's GM Billy Beane manages a minuscule budget compared to, say, the Yankees. Yet, he has succeeded in creating a winning franchise. Sure, Oakland poses no long-term threat to the Steinbrenner empire, but they certainly pose problems in the short term, partly because of shrewd decisions by management but also because they're in a weak division.

On to Iran: That Iran is no match for the United States in a conventional war does not mean that the threat they pose is being overblown. With their piffling military budget, Iran funds Hezbollah, a terrorist organ that, prior to 9/11, had killed more Americans than any other terrorist group on the planet. Iran also funds Shiite death squads in Iraq and their regional policy consists of encouraging destabilization and sectarian warfare. Iran is proof that it is a lot easier (and cheaper) to create a mess than to clean it up.

Second, that Iran's GDP is insignificant compared to the United States shouldn't obscure us from the fact that a nuclear bomb is the great equalizer, and that Iran's pursuit of nuclear technology greatly magnifies the threat that their military budget would otherwise pose if restricted to conventional weapons.

Why Do They Hate Us? (CM)

Shelby Steele writes:

Islamic extremists don't hate the West because they are oppressed by it. They hate it precisely because the end of oppression and colonialism forced the Muslim world to compete with the West. Less oppression opened this world to the sense of defeat that turned into extremism. Islamic extremism is the saber-rattling of an inferiority complex. 

More here.

Call the Enemy by the Name it Calls Itself

In the Sun Sentinel, Walid Phares writes “Just as the word "Crusaders" doesn't equate with "Christians, " the term "Islamist" doesn't equate with "Muslims."

He points out:

The term used by the president -- "Islamic fascists" -- when referring to the al-Qaida plotters in London, triggered a wave of negative reactions by Islamist lobbies, but also by moderate Muslim groups worldwide. The president most likely meant "Islamo-fascists" when he was attempting to expose the radicals. But Islamist lobbies were quick to "interpret" it as implying that "Muslims are fascists" -- an assumption which would necessarily elicit strong negative feelings from the Muslim community, moderates included.

In view of sensitivities and the complexity of the debate, terms to avoid are any association between the term Muslim and terrorism, fascism, etc, especially if it is generalized. One may be born a Muslim, but becomes an Islamist. So the term Islamic is an attribute to a behavior, an action or a self-assertion.

Islamist is a perfectly legitimate term that describes a particular ideology such as Salafism, Khumeinism or jihadism. Not only is it used in the academic world as an indicator for an ideology and not a community, but it is used by followers around the world. Thus adding attributes to Islamist is academically sound and understood. For example: Islamist-fascists or Islamo-fascist, Islamist-Salafist, etc.

It is important that leaders, intellectuals and academics explain to their audiences that words are part of the War of Ideas. The public must understand that there are political forces that are putting pressure on governments and media around the world to block knowledge as part of an effort to shield the radicals and the terrorists.

Hezbollah's al-Manar Television in New York?

The US Attorney's office announced the arrest yesterday of a Pakistani national living in New York for the broadcasting of Hezbollah's television station al-Manar to his U.S. customers. 

In March 2006, the US government designated al-Manar as a specially designated global terrorist entity making it illegal to provide support to the terrorist station.  In December 2004, the U.S. State Department placed al-Manar on its Terrorism Exclusion List. 

Al-Manar is owned and operated by Hezbollah and financed by the Iranian regime.  It has an estimated 10-15 million daily viewers and broadcasts a steady diet of incitement to violence, glorification of suicide bombings and calls for death to Americans and Israelis. 

It has also been banned by a number of European governments for its racist and anti-Semitic programming which included a 28-part series played over the Muslim holy month of Ramadan depicting an Orthodox Jew slitting the throat of a Christian child and draining the child's blood to make food for the Passover holiday. 

FDD's Coalition Against Terrorist Media, comprised of Muslim, Christian, Jewish and secular organizations - American and European - has worked with governments and the private sector to remove al-Manar from broadcasting on eight out of ten satellite providers, deny the terrorist station millions of dollars in corporate advertising and encourage the designaton of al-Manar as a terrorist organization.

More information on the arrest can be found here, here, here and here.

UPDATE: Further information is now here.

The Threat from Tehran (CM)

Charles Krauthammer writes that "there would be terrible consequences from an attack" to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons capability.

He adds:

These must be weighed against the terrible consequences of allowing an openly apocalyptic Iranian leadership to  acquire weapons of genocide.

The point of the current elaborate exercise in multilateral diplomacy is to slightly alter that future  calculation. By demonstrating extraordinary forbearance and accommodation, perhaps we will have purchased the cquiescence of our closest allies -- Britain, Germany and, yes, France -- to a military strike on that fateful day when diplomacy has run its course.

More here.

FDD Media Roundup

Cliff May asks whether Americans are up to the challenge of seeing this war through to the end.

Michael I. Krauss and J. Peter Pham highlight the absurdity of the UN ceasefire to the Israel/Hezbollah conflict.

J. Peter Pham discusses the uncomfortable truth that China is currently building alliances with despots the world over to balance against American power.

Iranian official lies about Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (AV)

Ali Larijani, secretary of the Iranian Supreme Council for National Security, recently said:

Article 11 of the NPT states that if we are threatened, we can act in secret. If you want our activity to be transparent, you should not use the Security Council as leverage for your own benefit. If you do so, then according to the NPT, we are required to act in secret, in the face of your threat.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, what Article 11 of the NPT actually says is, "This Treaty, the English, Russian, French, Spanish and Chinese texts of which are equally authentic, shall be deposited in the archives of the Depositary Governments. Duly certified copies of this Treaty shall be transmitted by the Depositary Governments to the Governments of the signatory and acceding States."

Oops...

Is the Bush Doctrine Dead? (CM)

Not according to Norman Podhoretz, it isn't.

He writes:

So far as the implementation of this new strategy goes, it is still early days--roughly comparable to 1952 in the history of the Truman Doctrine. As with the Truman Doctrine then, the Bush Doctrine has thus far acted only in the first few scenes of the first act of a five-act play. Like the Truman Doctrine, too, its performance has received very bad reviews. Yet we now know that the Truman Doctrine, despite being attacked by its Republican opponents as the "College of Cowardly Containment," was adopted by them when they took power behind Dwight D. Eisenhower. We also know now that, after many ups and downs and following a period of retreat in the 1970s, the policy of containment was updated and reinvigorated in the 1980s by Ronald Reagan (albeit without admitting that this was what he was doing). And we now know as well that it was by thus building on the sound foundation laid by the Truman Doctrine that Reagan delivered on its original promise.

It is my contention that the Bush Doctrine is no more dead today than the Truman Doctrine was cowardly in its own early career. Bolstered by that analogy, I feel safe in predicting that, like the Truman Doctrine in 1952, the Bush Doctrine will prove irreversible by the time its author leaves the White House in 2008. And encouraged by the precedent of Ronald Reagan, I feel almost as confident in predicting that, three or four decades into the future, and after the inevitable missteps and reversals, there will come a president who, like Reagan in relation to Truman in World War III, will bring World War IV to a victorious end by building on the noble doctrine that George W. Bush promulgated when that war first began.

His Commentary essay is here.

For more notes & comments see this week's e-newsletter.

Risk Assessment (AV)

David Frum, writing on NRO, criticizes a website run by Samana Siddiqui that aims to "help Canadian Muslim women avoid harassment and worse as they peaceably go about their daily lives."

Frum highlights "some good news for Ms Siddiqui: Even in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, in 2001-2002, hate incidents against Muslims occurred with vanishing rarity."

"Which is not to say", Frum goes on to explain, "that Canadian Muslim women can relax. Indeed there is one form of threat that they should worry about probably much more than they do: religiously motivated violence emanating from within their own community."

Read the whole thing here.

On the precipice of Ragnarök? (AV)

Ross Douthat has a characteristically sharp piece in The Wall Street Journal arguing that the dividing line in foreign policy isn't between left and right, hawk and dove, idealist and realist. Nor, for that matter, is it between neoconservatives, democratic globalists, progressive realists, democratic realists, or anything else so neoteric.

Instead, Ross argues that we are divided by history. Some believe that it is 1919, that Bush is Woodrow Wilson, and that we are tying ourselves to a world we don't understand; other believe it's 1938, our enemy is Hitler-esque, and we have to choose between being Churchill or being Chamberlain; still others think it's 1972, that America is exaggerating the threat it faces, and that we are the source of our own problems; still others believe it's 1942 and that, although we didn't want this fight, we are duty-bound to end it. And so on...

It's an interesting thought experiment. Still, the flaws in Ross' methodology are obvious. History doesn't repeat itself, it only appears to to those unfamiliar with its details. Also, why should we confine ourselves to history from the past century? Why not reach further back into our collective experience - say, to the 30 Years' War, which in many ways is a more relevant historical analogy? Indeed, for more reasons that can be explained in a blog post, Ross' analogies obscure more than they clarify.

Ross directs considerable anger at the so-called 1938ers. Several weeks ago, the 1938 glitterati - everyone from Newt Gingrich to Sean Hannity to Bill O'Reilly - said we were fighting World War 3. Not to be outdone, Michael Ledeen and Norman Podhoretz claim we are in the middle of World War 4.

Ross may recoil at this, as will others who think the Bush administration is reenacting Wagner's Götterdämmerung. The sad reality, however, is that all we're doing is taking our enemies at their word.

Did Israel violate the ceasefire? (AV)

Kofi Annan has blamed Israel for violating the ceasefire after it launched a raid against an arms shipment to the Bekka Valley. But Annan's position is not - nor can it be - supported by the actual ceasefire resolution, UNSCR 1701 (2006).

Structurally, UNSCR 1701 does two things: first, it forces an immediate and temporary ceasefire based upon the cessation of actual hostilities; second, it calls for an international presence in southern Lebanon to help Lebanon maintain the ceasefire. Right now, we are somewhere between Stage 1 and Stage 2. So a resort to force is justified if it derives sanction from the actual text of UNSCR 1701 or a right enshrined in the UN Charter or in international law generally. With this as the standard, there is a case to be made that Israel's commando raid against an arms shipment in the Bekaa Valley is lawful.

Israel is pointing out (correctly) that the resolution bans offensive military operations; this is a truism since a Security Council resolution cannot ban defensive operations. Israel is claiming its actions are justified by the right of self-defense, which is given partial expression in Article 51 of the UN Charter. The key requirement here is that Israel's response be necessary and proportional.

It is certainly proportional, since a commando raid that results in little collateral damage is proportional to the threat posed by an arms shipment to Hezbollah, and the proximate relationship between that shipment and an attack on Israel's territorial integrity. But was it necessary? This is a more difficult question, but there is a strong case to be made that the answer is yes.

Operative Clause 8 of UNSCR 1701 calls upon Israel and Lebanon " to support a permanent ceasefire and a long-term solution based on the following principles." It then goes on to define these principles, the support of which is necessary, by the resolution's own language, for a permanent ceasefire: subclauses 2,3 and 5 list those that I think are most relevant: removing armed personnel, assets and weapons unless those authorized by the government of Lebanon from south of the Litani; the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon; no sale or supply of arms and related material to Lebanon except as authorized by its government.

Before we reach Stage 2 of the ceasefire, the only parties capable of enforcing the terms of UNSCR 1701 are the governments of Israel and Lebanon, and nothing in the resolution precludes Israel from enforcing its terms, especially if this strengthens Israel's right of self defense. We should note that if the UN Security Council wanted Israel to remain uninvolved in the enforcement of the technical terms of the resolution, it could have done so. For example, when the Security Council authorized a coalition to use force against Iraq to remove it from Kuwait, the resolution was worded such that Israel could not be part of that coalition. Here, in the absence of such wording, Israel is fully justified in enforcing the resolution.

I eagerly await a press release from Kofi Annan criticizing the country that sent that shipment, which assuredly is in violation of UNSCR 1701. It is up to Israel and her allies to rebut the perfidious Kofi Annan when he tries to pin the blame for the collapse of his UN mission on Israel.

Walid Phares on al Hurra "Eye on Democracy"

FDD Senior fellow Walid Phares appeared on Al Hurra TV show "Eye on Democracy",  last Thursday to discuss the role of the democracy forces in the region. Phares argued that "democracy trends can be defeated at some point by Terror and authoritarianism, but they are irreversible in the Middle East, long term." (Tape will be made available through FDD later)

NSA program hits speed bump, then drives over it (AV)

There is an excellent editorial on NRO rubbishing Judge Anna Diggs Taylor's decision to strike down the NSA surveillance program.

Judge Taylor's opinion is funny rather than sad, because there is a 0% chance that its rationale will be endorsed by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Taylor, surveying the NSA program, found violations of the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the Separation of Powers, and two federal statutes. If she looked harder, she may very well have found a violation of Roe v Wade, too.

Senator Specter's bill before Congress to, as it were, normalize the NSA wiretap program, will if it is passed, moot the question of whether the program violates FISA, but leave open the question of whether it violates the Constitution. Suffice it to say, for now, that even fierce critics of the NSA program are unwilling to sign up to Judge Taylor's take on that bold claim.

Judge Taylor's opinion is a damp squib; already, her permanent injunction against the NSA program's continued operation has been stayed, so it will, at least for the time being, continue to yield actionable intelligence.

Dispatches from the Danger Zone: Castro's Cuba

I had responsibility for Radio Marti into Cuba for six years during the cold war.

We broadcast a line of sight signal from a tethered aerostat balloon off Marathon Island in the Florida Keys into Cuba bringing honest news and information to an island dictatorship with no free press and no information beyond what Castro personally wanted his citizens to have.

The Left in Congress and in the Public Policy Think-Tank World, then still in the throes of their long homo-erotic love affair with Fidel Castro (and the mega- loser Che Guevara,) hated Radio Marti and worked hard to undermine it. 

These were often the same people who talked frequently about human rights and press freedoms but never demanded them for the captive people of Cuba because they wouldn’t criticize Castro.

“No enemies on the left,” was their motto and that of their friends in the mainstream press, who were always fawning on Fidel. 

Castro was only 32 when he came to power. 

He has ended up as the world’s longest-serving leader, the media keeps reminding us. The man who outlasted nine US presidents.  Although as Buckley Carlson pointed out to me those American leaders had to contend with the annoying inconvenience of being democratically elected.

FDD Media Roundup

Pham & Krauss argue that the ceasefire in the conflict in Lebanon "is really the intermission after the first act of an ongoing drama."

FDD Student Fellow Ilya Bourtman studies the Israel-Azerbaijan relationship.

Walid Phares and Claudia Rosett discuss the implications of a UN ceasefire here and here.

Danger Zone Available for Podcast

August 13th's episode is now available for download.

Dispatches from the Danger Zone: "Try not to let the facts get in the way of a good story"

U.S. Bloggers really hung the news agency Reuters out to dry – and about time.

They caught them doctoring a photograph of downtown Beirut after an attack by the Israeli air force.   

Reuters had added an extra amount of smoke and a few extra buildings to make the bombing look more serious and more severe than it really was.

Reuters has admitted the doctoring, done by computer software, and blamed the photographer, one Adnan Hajj, who now has been fired.

He is the same Reuters cameraman who was accused of doctoring photos after an Israeli air attack on the Lebanese town of Qana.   

That picture showed a man, standing in rubble, holding a dead girl, a small child, aloft for the camera lens. A picture taken at 7:21 am shows the dead girl being held above an ambulance.   A picture three hours later, at 10:25am, shows the same girl being loaded in the same ambulance.   Another photo, taken 20 minutes later, shows the same child being carried by a Lebanese rescue worker, no ambulance in sight.

This propaganda, aided by news photographers, is typical of Hezbollah and their friends.  When they report civilian casualties in Lebanon they invariably double the actual figure. 

Walid Phares in al Muharer: "The Cedars Revolution was failed"

In an article published in the weekly al Muharer, FDD Senior Fellow Walid Phares said the "Cedars Revolution was betrayed by its own politicians who failed to proceed with political change: Despite an overwhelming mandate by one and a million people on March 14, 2005, the political representatives of the masses stopped short of removing the pro-Syrian President, brought back the pro-Syrian speaker of the Parliament, brought Hezbollah into the Government, and wasted precious time in photo ops with Hassan Nasrallah, while Hezbollah was preparing for a war to suppress the Revolution and crumble the Government." The article covers the issues of al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Syria, Iran, and many other items. Download al_muhahrer_p181918806.pdf

"Iran Poised To Be 'Mother of All World Threats'"

In an interview NewsMax, FDD Senior Fellow Walid Phares, the author of the bestselling book Future Jihad, warns that Iran's influence will continue to grow in Lebanon and Hezbollah may turn its weapons against the Cedar Revolution in order to build a "‘Khumeinist Republic' on the Eastern shores of the Mediterranean."

Read it here.

Dispatches from the Danger Zone: Israeli Intelligence

The Israeli Air Force has been unable to employ targeted killings in the fight against Hezbollah to any significant degree because of a shortage of real-time intelligence, a high-ranking IDF officer told the Jerusalem Post.

The good news is that this has caused the three Israeli intelligence agencies- the Mossad, the Shin Bet and Military Intelligence - to work together in an almost unprecedented way, Israeli’s are saying. Of course, The universal competitiveness of every government’s bureaucratic agencies is both their strength and their weakness and, of course, it is always more difficult to gather intelligence during a war than before the fighting begins.

Reform Still Best Hope for Middle East

In today's World Politics Watch, FDD Senior Fellow Khairi Abaza argues that political reform remains the best long-term hope for reducing the supply of terrorist recruits and creating peace in the Middle East:

Despite virtual around-the-clock coverage of the war between Israel and Hezbollah, one important aspect remains poorly understood: the reaction of the 300 million strong "Arab Street." Turn on any Arab television channel, though, and you can't miss the rage and widespread support for Hezbollah and Hamas: streets roiling with protestors, callers to talk programs denouncing Israel and the United States, and clerics defending Hezbollah and calling for holy war.

Five years after 9/11, the West still struggles to understand this rage that pushes Arab masses to view radical groups as heroic forces of resistance. On one extreme, there are those who indict Islam or Arab culture as the culprit. On the other, there are those who blame it on Israeli aggression and U.S. bias towards Israel. Both are equally simplistic explanations of the contemporary Arab mindset, which is due in large part to the way Arab governments have deliberately nurtured this anger towards Israel, and increasingly the United States, for more than five decades.

The rest is here.

World Politics Watch is a new online daily focused on foreign policy and national security.  It features original commentary and reporting and a helpful roundup of international news from top sources.  Well worth bookmarking.

London: The "Shoe Bomber Factory" Again? (WP)

Quick reaction: British security’s reports about a plot to destroy airliners traveling from London to the US and the decision by UK authorities to ban passengers hand bags on board brings back the whole question of the "factory" again, an issue I have been tiredly raising with legislators and officials on both sides of the Atlantic: From shoes to hand bags, the Jihadists are not letting go of their morbid fantasy: bleeding the skies over the Atlantic. While most investigation will direct itself on the "hand bag" weapon in the next few hours and probably days, the larger question on the mind of Jihadist analysts will certainly be: where do these Jihadists come from and how come there are more of them?

Danger Zone Available for Podcast

August 6th's episode is now available for download.

Baghdad Bob in Beirut (AV)

First Reuters, now the Associated Press...

How is Israel faring in its war against Hezbollah? Pretty badly, if the Associated Press is to be believed:

Sunday's deaths brought to 93 the number of Israelis killed, including 45 soldiers, the 12 reservists and 36 civilians. Israel's attacks on Lebanon have killed at least 591 people, including 509 civilians, 29 Lebanese soldiers and 53 Hezbollah guerrillas.

Israeli has suffered greater casualties than Hezbollah? Right...

Frankly, many of those whom the AP calls Lebanese civilians are in fact Hezbollah members; unless, that is, you believe Nasrallah's press releases that Israel is being slaughtered on the battlefield.

What Do Most Lebanese Think? (CM)

Michael Béhé writes in The New Republic:

The Security Council's Resolution 1559--that demanded that our government deploy our army on our sovereign territory, along our international border with Israel and that it disarm all the militia on our land--was voted on September 2, 2004.We had two years to implement this resolution and thus guarantee a peaceful future to our children, but we did absolutely nothing. Our greatest crime--which was not the only one!--was not that we did not succeed, but that we did not attempt or undertake anything. And that was the fault of none else than the pathetic Lebanese politicians. …

All those who assume public and communicational responsibilities in this country are responsible for this catastrophe. Except those of my colleagues, journalists, and editors, who are dead, assassinated by the Syrian thugs, because they were clearly less cowardly than those who survived. …

And when I speak of a catastrophe, I do not mean the action accomplished by Israel in response to the aggression against its civilians and its army, which was produced from our soil and that we did strictly nothing to avoid, and for which we are consequently responsible. Any avoiding of this responsibility--some people here do not have the minimal notions of international law necessary to understand!--means that Lebanon, as a state, does not exist. …

Each Irano-Syrian fort that Jerusalem destroys, each Islamic fighter they eliminate, and Lebanon proportionally starts to live again! Once again, the soldiers of Israel are doing our work. Once again, like in 1982, we are watching--cowardly, lying low, despicable, and insulting them to boot--their heroic sacrifice that allows us to keep hoping. To not be swallowed up in the bowels of the earth. …

Like the overwhelming majority of Lebanese, I pray that no one puts an end to the Israeli attack before it finishes shattering the terrorists. I pray that the Hebrew soldiers will penetrate all the hidden recesses of southern Lebanon and will hunt out, in our stead, the vermin that has taken root there. Like the overwhelming majority of Lebanese, I have put the champagne ready in the refrigerator to celebrate the Israeli victory …

[The Israelis] are also fighting for our liberty …And in the name of my people, I wish to express my infinite gratitude to the relatives of the Israeli victims--civilian and military--whose loved ones have fallen so that I can live standing upright in my identity. They should know that I weep with them.”

More here.

More notes & comments are available in this week's e-newsletter.

Walid Phares: Lebanon's Government is hostage to Hezbollah

In an interview with Neil Cavuto on Fox News I argued that Hezbollah will continue to receive supplies and support from Iran via Syria through the Lebanese-Syrian borders, which do not exist. Hezbollah's deadliest and long range weapons are most likely redeployed in the central and northern Bekaa. On the other hand, answering a question, I stated that the only player in this whole equation which is supposed to call on the international community to intervene and would order the Lebanese Army to deploy, is obviously the Lebanese Government. Unfortunately the Seniora cabinet has a gun aimed at its head, and that is Hezbollah. If it had the courage to act, the Government would have ordered all these measures. The concern is, if no multinational force deploys fast, that Hezbollah would crumble this Government and form a Government of its own. See link Fox News   

Ceasefire proposal - the devil's in the detail (AV)

Dore Gold, Israel's former Ambassador to the United Nations, makes a terrifyingly good point about the proposed ceasefire to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that has been embraced by France and the United States. As the New York Sun's Eli Lake reports,

"[T]he draft U.N. resolution sponsored by France and America calls on the establishment of a multinational force under Chapter 7 of the U.N. charter, which deals with grave threats to international peace and security.

As such, the second resolution authorizing the peacekeepers could lead to sanctions or military strikes against Israel should Jerusalem take pre-emptive military action against a Hezbollah militia that the Israel Defense Force is unlikely to be able to disarm by the time the armistice kicks in."

The draft resolution calls for the "immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations." What will happen if the proposed ceasefire fails, the international force sent in is a paper tiger, and Hezbollah begins launching attacks against Israel?

Israel can - again - launch an attack against Hezbollah based on principles of self-defence, but Israel's antagonists will be able to say that Israel is explicitly violating the terms of a UN Security Council resolution. Nothing new there...

What will however be different is that, this time, the resolution will have been passed under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which means, in practice, an escalation of the charges against Israel.

Furthermore, since Kofi Annan will be charged with implementing the resolution, and will have an important say in determining whether it is being followed, this proposed resolution may turn out to be yet another cudgel the world uses to bash Israel. A cudgel, I might add, that offers no guarantee of increasing Israel's security.

 

Is international law standing in the way of a ceasefire? (AV)

Professor Eugene Kontorovich has a controversial op/ed in the New York Sun explaining why the latest proposals for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah violate international law. He writes:

The most surprising aspect of international proposals for a ceasefire in the Israel-Lebanon conflict is their endorsement of Hezbollah's demand that Israel give it territory, known as the Sheba Farms, in exchange for a end to rocket attacks on Israeli cities...What is certain — and yet entirely neglected in the discussion of the issue — is that the proposal violates bedrock norms of international law. Nations cannot enlarge their borders through the use of aggressive force. There are no exceptions to this non-acquisition principle.

Let's leave to one side the wisdom of ceding territory to a terrorist organization like Hezbollah and deal instead with Kontorovich's seductive claim that it violates international law.

It is certainly true that the UN Charter permits no exceptions to the non-acquisitive principle (this is the practical effect of Article 2(4) and Article 51 of the Charter). Still, Kontorovich is overstating his case with regard to international law generally - unless, that is, he is laboring under the mistaken view that international law is whatever the United Nations and Kofi Annan say it is. It isn't, mercifully.

The truth is, although there is a general presumption against the acquisition of territory as a result of aggression, this is a neoteric doctrine - emerging as it did in the 20th century. In the past, conquest was a legitimate way to acquire territory. Of course, during the 20th century we have understandably moved away from this extreme position, but there is no absolute rule of non-acquisition when aggression is involved.

For example, the rule of uti possidetis - the principle that territory vests to the victorious party - has essentially kept the fragile peace in many African conflicts after initial disputes over post-colonial border. The International Court of Justice recognized something approaching this in its deliberations on the land and maritime border dispute between Nigeria and Cameroon. Recently, this led to a truce and subsequently an agreement between these two countries. International law is better discerned from the way states act and their reasons for so acting rather than universalist-abstractions in the UN Charter.

In many ways, Kontorovich reveals the poverty of international law as a dispute resolution mechanism. Its boundaries are unclear, far too many people make authoritative statements when nuanced ones would be more appropriate, and by focusing too much on ex ante rules, it does not concern itself with creating lasting peace.

So, to answer the question posed in the title - International law isn't standing in the way of a ceasefire, the UN Charter is.

Is Reuter's Hijacking Lebanon's Answer to the UN? (WP)

A few hours after a Franco-American draft for a UN Security Council resolution was released, pro-Hezbollah lobbies and allies launched a campaign to hijack the response of Lebanon to the United Nations. As noted by seasoned observers, the campaign started at the top with an alert release by News Agency Reuters written by Lin Noueihed. The article, put out early Sunday has reached the four corners of the Globe and its title has framed the position of the Lebanese people in a "no" to the UN expected resolution. Amazingly enough, Lin Noueihid titles her release "Lebanon rejects draft UN resolution." But when you read the release you realize that the "representative" of all of Lebanon in the eyes of the Reuters reporter is no one other than pro-Syrian, Hezbollah ally, Nabih Berri, the leader of Shiite Movement Amal.    
                  
Noueihid wrote that "Lebanon rejects a draft U.N. Security Council resolution to end 26 days of fighting because it would allow Israeli forces to remain on Lebanese soil, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said on Sunday." Basing her entire report on one of the most powerful supporters of the Syrian occupation and who heads a militia allied to Hezbollah, Noueihid gives Berri the full power of the credibility of Reuters. This title will find itself printed from Yahoo to the last local newsletter in the Fidji islands. Evidently, local editors around the world trust Reuters as they trust the Red Cross, and will conclude that indeed "Lebanon" has rejected a UN resolution, while in reality, it is Tehran-Damascus-Hezbollah axis that rejected it, and unfortunately a Reuters writer framed it otherwise.

Dispatches from the Danger Zone: Lest we Forget

Lots of talk about Hezbollah these days and some mention of the lethal attacks they have made on Americans in the past:

• the Khobar Towers attack in Saudi Arabia
• the Marine barracks attack in Beirut back in 1983,
• the kidnappings and killings in Beirut of CIA station Chief Bill Buckley and US Marine Colonel Rich Higgins
• the murder of navy Diver Robbie Stethem when Hezbollah hijacked a TWA flight in 1985.

What seldom, if ever, gets mentioned though are some of the other atrocities against Americans committed by Hezbollah –all of which have gone unpunished. Let me refresh the record with mention of a few of them.

The UN Security Council Resolution Regarding Israel-Hezbollah Conflict (WP)

The current consensus within the United Nations Security Council on the resolution to address the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is the result of a review of four positions and the selection of the middle way between all the latter:

Hezbollah: Yes to a cease fire, and only cease fire, leaving open the question of disengagement. Hezbollah, Iran and Syria wants to stop the Israeli campaign, rearm and reorganize; but also concentrate their pressure on the Lebanese Government to crumble it and replace it with a pro-Hezbollah cabinet. 

Seniora Lebanese Government: (The so-called 7 points plan). Yes to a cease fire with measures on the ground that would be considered as a disengagement. Yes in principle to the idea of a multinational role without many details nor a discussion of Hezbollah's arms.

The French position Yes to a cease fire, a disengagement plan and the principle of a multinational force to be discussed in details later.

The American position Yes to a disengagement plan based on the formation of a multinational force which would secure a cease fire, and remove Hezbollah's weapons.

The Israeli position Yes to a resolution that would call for disarming Hezbollah, forming a powerful multinational force and as a result of it a long term cease fire.

Walid Phares: Saad Bin Laden in Lebanon?

In an MSNBC interview with Tucker Carlson yesterday, I commented on the report by a German publication that Iranian authorities have "released Saad Bin Laden from his house arrest in Iran to be assigned at the Lebanese Syrian borders." My comments, short and analytical, summarize as follow:

Is Hezbollah Launching Iran's Armageddon?

In today's Philadelphia Inquirer, Omar Fadhil of the indespensible blog Iraq the Model has what should be required reading for anyone interested in the much larger game that Iran is playing in the battle between Hezbollah and Israel.  He argues we are witnessing the start of an Iranian-Israeli conflict (as opposed to previous Arab-Israeli wars) -- and that it has an apocalyptic theological component with implications that stretch throughout the region:

It's common wisdom to say that the war between Hezbollah and Israel is a regional struggle that also includes Iran and Syria, who have supported and supplied Hezbollah. What seems to be less understood is that this is the first war between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Israel, via Iran's proxy Hezbollah, and that its overarching purpose is to advance Iran's ambitions to export the Islamic revolution throughout the Middle East.

Thus, while religion has always played an important role in prior Arab-Israeli wars, this time it has moved to center stage. It is the theological aspect of this conflict that makes it so explosive and could lead to its expansion.

As an observer of the conflict from Iraq, I see the signs that Iran may be starting to launch the mullahs' version of an Armageddon, exploiting the religious beliefs of devout Shiites in the region. While this may sound more the stuff of prophecies than international relations, it is important to understand - especially in countries such as Lebanon and Iraq that have large Shiite populations.

Read the entire article here.

Dispatches from the Danger Zone: "A Tough Week"

At his weekly briefing, the spokesman for coalition forces in Iraq, Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, said progress is being made to restore order to the streets of the Iraqi capital but acknowledged that it had been "a tough week."

In one 24 hour period last week Police in Baghdad recovered 38 bodies in the city. All showed signs of terrible torture.

5,800 civilian deaths occurred in Iraq in May and June alone.

These are Muslims killing Muslims, and in the most cowardly, sneaky, dishonorable ways. What is wrong with these people? What animals the so-called "insurgents" are.

Also, this week's Danger Zone radio lineup is here and last week's podcast is here.

UN Peacekeepers? (CM)

Since 1948, the U.N. has stepped into the Arab-Israeli maelstrom five  times. But few of these efforts have paid off. Unless it takes a radically different shape, a new intervention could well make matters  worse, not just for the parties on the ground, but for the U.N. itself. ...

If recent history teaches anything, it is that half-hearted efforts--which give a false sense that something is being done but only end up costing peacekeepers' lives--can be worse than none at all.

More here.

A Chance to Curb Iran in Lebanon (CM)

Charles Krauthammer writes:

Unlike many of the other terrorist groups in the Middle East, Hezbollah is a serious enemy of the United States. In 1983 it massacred 241 American servicemen. Except for al-Qaeda, it has killed more Americans than any other terror organization.

More important, it is today the leading edge of an aggressive,nuclear-hungry Iran. Hezbollah is a wholly owned Iranian subsidiary. Its mission is to extend the Islamic Revolution's influence into Lebanon and Palestine, destabilize any Arab-Israeli peace, and advance an Islamist Shiite ascendancy, led and controlled by Iran, throughout the Levant.

America finds itself at war with radical Islam, a two-churched  monster: Sunni al-Qaeda is now being challenged by Shiite Iran for primacy in its epic confrontation with the infidel West. With al-Qaeda  in decline, Iran is on the march. It is intervening through proxies throughout the Arab world -- Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army in Iraq -- to subvert modernizing, Western-oriented Arab governments and bring these territories under Iranian hegemony. Its nuclear ambitions would secure these advances and give it an overwhelming preponderance of power over the Arabs and an absolute deterrent against serious counteractions by the United States, Israel or any other rival. ...

The defeat of Hezbollah would be a huge loss for Iran, both psychologically and strategically. Iran would lose its foothold in Lebanon. It would lose its major means to destabilize and inject  itself into the heart of the Middle East. It would be shown to have vastly overreached in trying to establish itself as the regional superpower.

The United States has gone far out on a limb to allow Israel to win and for all this to happen. It has counted on Israel's ability to do the job. It has been disappointed. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has  provided unsteady and uncertain leadership. Foolishly relying on air power alone, he denied his generals the ground offensive they wanted, only to reverse himself later. He has allowed his war cabinet meetings  to become fully public through the kind of leaks no serious wartime leadership would ever countenance. Divisive cabinet debates are broadcast to the world, as was Olmert's own complaint that "I'm tired.  I didn't sleep at all last night" (Haaretz, July 28). Hardly the stuff to instill Churchillian confidence.

More here.

Article in La Razon of Spain on the Lebanon Evacuation (WP)

La Razon daily in Spain has published an article by Walid Phares on the Evacuation dangers in Lebanon.Download la_evacuation_larazon.pdf

Fetishizing ceasefires [AV]

A cacophony of calls for a ceasefire confirms the apotheosis of hope over experience in the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel.

Any ceasefire must address the factual predicate for the latest hostilities, namely, the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers and the constant rocket attacks against Israel from southern Lebanon.

Without the disarmament (and disbandment?) of Hezbollah, or some sort of military presence, whether led by the Lebanese government or the international community, along the Lebanon-Israel border, is it realistic to believe that any ceasefire is durable?

Almost certainly not; which is why fetishizing a ceasefire does nothing to address the reason why this war is being fought in the first place.

Media Roundup

In his latest column, Cliff argues that Hezbollah is a master of psychological operations, and, if not defeated, they will become the dominant player in Lebanon, destroying hope for democracy and opening the door for Syrian occupation again.

J. Peter Pham argues that Ameica has an interest in the politics of West Africa.

NRO's Kathryn Lopez interviews Walid on the crisis in the Middle East.

War crimes through the looking glass [AV]

Peter Bouckaert, the Emergencies Director at Human Rights Watch, claims in the Guardian newspaper that "our investigations have not found evidence to support Israeli allegations that Hizbullah are intentionally endangering Lebanese civilians by systematically fighting from civilian positions."

Really?

I found this image telling.
As well as this video of Hezbollah launching Katyusha rockets from civilian areas.

Also, it's worth pointing out that, by Human Rights Watch's own definition, "Hezbollah is an organized political Islamist group based in Lebanon, with a military arm and a civilian arm, and is represented in the Lebanese parliament and government." Since Hezbollah is not the same thing as the Lebanese army, any area the group operates out of is by definition a civilian area.

Human Rights Watch, a study in bias [AV]

Human Rights Watch has issues a scathing attack on Israel's conduct in its war with Hezbollah. The tragedy of this report is that, because it is selective, disingenuous and biased, it undermines Human Rights Watch's credibility, and threatens the organization's noble vision of strengthening the international protection of human rights.

The report's executive summary criticizes Israel for its attacks on Lebanese homes. Human Rights Watch calls them "civilian targets." Tragically, this is only half the story, as many of the homes are also used to store missiles. They are, properly understood, dual-use - and are therefore similar to bridges and roads. That does not per se make them lawful targets, but it does mean that in determining whether Israel is committing war crimes by bombing them one needs to look at the totality of the circumstances, including the likelihood that the area as a whole is dual-use. The Human Rights Watch summary gives only a passing treatment to what is, frankly, the heart of the issue.

More problematically, the Human Rights Watch report, at least in its executive summary, does not adequately consider Hezbollah's obligation to to protect civilians from dangers, and that using civilian shields to protect mi