FDD

Hiding WMD? (CM)

Charles Krauthammer speculates on what Israel’s target in Syria may have been. He writes:

Circumstantial evidence points to this being an attack on some nuclear facility provided by North Korea….Pyongyang might be selling its stuff to other rogue states, or perhaps just temporarily hiding it abroad while permitting ostentatious inspections back home.

Second, there are ominous implications for the Middle East. Syria has long had chemical weapons — on Monday, Jane’s Defence Weekly reported on an accident that killed dozens of Syrians and Iranians loading a nerve-gas warhead onto a Syrian missile — but Israel will not tolerate a nuclear Syria.

He notes too:

The Third Lebanon War, now inevitable, awaits only Tehran’s order. …Iran’s assets in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq are poised and ready. Ahmadinejad’s message is this: If anyone dares attack our nuclear facilities, we will fully activate our proxies, unleashing unrestrained destruction on Israel, moderate Arabs, Iraq, and U.S. interests — in addition to the usual, such as mining the Strait of Hormuz and causing an acute oil crisis and worldwide recession.

This is an extremely high-stakes game. The time window is narrow. In probably less than two years, Ahmadinejad will have the bomb. …

The world is not quite ready to acquiesce. The new president of France has declared a nuclear Iran “unacceptable.” The French foreign minister warned that “it is necessary to prepare for the worst” — and “the worst, it’s war, sir.”

Which makes it all the more urgent that powerful sanctions be slapped on the Iranian regime. Sanctions will not stop Ahmadinejad. But there are others in the Iranian elite who might stop both him and the nuclear program before the volcano explodes. These rival elites may be radical but they are not suicidal. And they believe, with reason, that whatever damage Ahmadinejad’s apocalyptic folly may inflict upon the region and the world, on Crusader and Jew, on infidel and believer, the one certain result of such an eruption is Iran’s Islamic republic buried under the ash.

More here.

Badran on Syria

Research Fellow Tony Badran ran a piece today in The Daily Star on talks with Syria.

A tribute to Jeane Kirkpatrick (AV)

I was awakened this morning by a call from a friend informing me that Jeane Kirkpatrick had died. Ambassador Kirkpatrick, until fairly recently, was a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, where I interned last year, and her office was only a few steps away from my bay on the 11^th floor. She later went on to help found the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

Jeane would make a point of stopping for a chat every time she passed my bay at AEI, and we had many fascinating conversations about foreign policy, and I was constantly struck by her powerful mind, on which, mercifully, age was not taking its toll.

Being a somewhat bumptious sort, I would try to tease out her views on the issues facing us today—at the time, it was the floundering Iraq mission—and it was clear that her contributions deserved a more public airing. Fortunately, prior to her death, Jeane had finished writing a new book on foreign policy. Though I have not yet had the pleasure to read it (it will be published shortly), I am told by those whose judgment I trust that it is excellent.

I remember one particular conversation with Jeane during which, and this was the Tory in me speaking, I quizzed her about her role in the Falklands crisis, which had received unfavorable reviews in Margaret Thatcher's memoirs Downing Street Years. Jeane displayed her characteristic graciousness, explaining the basis for her skepticism at being too supportive of Britain's pursuit of its territorial claim, while conceding that hindsight showed her fears were too severe.

Jeane explained that she was worried that an embarrassment of the Argentinean government over the Falklands might lead to its replacement by a communist one. Jeane's thinking flowed from the powerful, and powerfully American traditions of the Monroe Doctrine, as well as her own thesis in Dictatorships and Double Standards, which foreign policy thinkers today, especially those specializing in the Middle East, are I think admonished to read. (A link to the original essay is here, and its book form here).

In vivid detail, Jeane explained that hindsight had vindicated Lady Thatcher's decision, not her own. Yet, in this concession, Jeane's graciousness and honor came through, and I came to see that any sensible policymaker in her place would have had the same fears as her, and would probably have come to the same decision: I, with all my sympathies for the Anglosphere and the old order, certainly would have.

Jeane then spoke to me about the profound ambiguity of foreign policy idealism that animated her Dictatorships and Double Standards thesis, subtly calling attention to a particular weakness in my own foreign policy thinking. I would say that if there is one essay that those who are called neoconservatives should read, it is Dictatorships and Double Standards.

Ultimately, difficult policy decisions cannot be entirely based on ex ante normative ideals, but prudential concerns, animated by history. Fortunately, this underscores the need for powerfully smart, and idealistic, statesmen, of which Jeane Kirkpatrick surely was one. Withal, Jeane's contribution to U.S. foreign policy was very significant, and her death is serious and in many ways sad, but she leaves behind many friends, a goodly number of acolytes, and a very, very significant legacy. May she rest in peace.

Walid Phares Media Roundup

In the Front Page Magazine Walid Phares writes about the terrorist assassination of Pierre Gemayel. "The assassination of Lebanese Christian politician Pierre Gemayel this Tuesday has revealed that the Tehran-Damascus axis remains busy with terror activities across the Fertile Crescent." In Washington Times he states:  "Al Qaeda and its advisers around the world want to provoke an "American Madrid." Portraying the United States as a bleeding bull in disarray, the war room projects its wish to see America's will crippled." In HS Today November Issue Walid Phares has a cover story "Education Versus Jihad". In the San Francisco Chronicle Phares was quoted on U.N. investigation of the last year murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and Bashar al-Assad regime in Damascus ."Any indictment of any Syrian official ... any implication of any Syrian intelligence officer will basically lead to indicting morally and politically the regime," Phares said".

U.S. Embassy: Assad allows attack, offers "protection" and aims at confusion (WP)

In the World Defense Review I argue that the strategic objective of the Assad regime today is to deter Washington from further pressures against Syria, in the form of the Hariri investigation, the U.S. pressure through the Security Council to deploy forces along the borders with Lebanon and the American ongoing support to the anti-Syrian Government in Beirut.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

 

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.

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 military assets, as Hezbollah does, is itself a war crime. In fact, a previous Human Rights Watch report - one that was far more fair and balanced - does make this point explicitly.

It is truly worrying that from its previous report (which was good) to its current report (which is bad), Human Rights Watch seems to have abandoned the idea that Hezbollah also has obligations to minimize Lebanese civilian casualties, and that because it is a non-state party to the conflict, Hezbollah is also bound by Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.

The Folly of Talking to Syria [TB]

Over at Across the Bay, I discuss the folly of the calls to "engage" Syria over the Lebanon crisis.

I particularly note the positions of people who have dealt with Bashar Assad in the past and went away with a bitter taste in their mouth, and a decision never to trust him or work with him again. One such person is French President Chirac, who talked to Le Monde about this issue. He said that he "realized that nothing would come out of it [dialogue with Assad]. [I realized] that the regime embodied by Bashar al-Assad appeared to me hardly compatible with security and peace." Chirac also thinks, as I have argued before, that Syria is actually a secondary player in this case. The real player is Iran. Syria is just trying to get as many scraps off Iran's table as it can. We should not fall for its bluff.

Martin Indyk, another person who has dealt with Bashar and regretted it, is also against talking to Syria about the current crisis.  He also had a similar reaction to Chirac's: Bashar is unreliable. Furthermore, Indyk added, "[t]he idea that Syria or Iran should become the arbiters of Lebanon's fate is basically to reward the arsonists by giving them control of the place where the fire's burning." That would also be a betrayal of the hundreds of thousands of Lebanese who took to the street in order to rid themselves of Syrian hegemony, Indyk said.

Finally, Indyk noted that the Bashar Assad's relationship with Hezbollah is very different from the one his father had: "[Bashar] is dependent on Hezbollah to maintain Syrian influence in Lebanon because he no longer has the troop presence that gave him control of Lebanon. He is dependent on Hezbollah to defend against an Israeli ground attack through Lebanon's Bekaa Valley into Syria. And therefore, his ability to curb Hezbollah is much more limited, if it's there at all."

Michael Young also wonders whether the people peddling the Syrian option have any memory at all: "it was under Syria that Hezbollah became a military power, and what the Syrians will demand, or maneuver to achieve, in exchange for "helping" would be onerous. They will want the international investigation of Rafiq Hariri's murder to be dropped, to save their regime that ordered the crime; and they will want oversight power over Lebanese affairs, which, with an armed Hezbollah as Praetorian Guard, would effectively mean they would again rule the country."

Finally, with regards to the rather laughable notion of "weaning Syria away from Iran and back into the Sunni Arab fold" -- a baseless, historically malinformed notion -- I translate the remarks of a dissident Syrian analyst, Fayez Sarah, who correctly reminds everyone that the entire last year was wasted on Arab states trying to convince Syria to drop its relations with Iran. They failed miserably. And we're being asked to try that failed effort once more, because, in the words of Tom Friedman, it's "worth a shot." That's called folly.

Walid Jumblatt Criticizes Nasrallah [TB]

Lebanese Druze MP Walid Jumblatt strongly criticized Hezbollah's chief Hassan Nasrallah in an interview  published on Sunday in the pan-Arab Asharq al-Awsat. Here's a translation of what he said:

"The priority now is to stop the offensive, and then we gather the state together and go back to where we stopped at the national dialogue to discuss the subject of the defense strategy [i.e., Hezbollah's weapons]. At the same time we are saying that there should be no weapons outside the control of the state. We must send the Army to the south, and the decision to go to war should be in the hands of the state, not in the hands of one party, who, in the name of the umma or what have you, throws Lebanon into the unknown." He added, "what took place throws Lebanon into the struggle between two axes: Iranian-Syrian on one side and American-Israeli on the other."

Commenting on Nasrallah's recent interview on al-Jazeera, Jumblatt said:

"I could not find a Lebanese element anywhere in his talk. He reminds me of Arafat's experience in the siege of Beirut in 1982. In the end, Arafat left Beirut, but things are different here."

He added, "Iran has decided to fight the US by launching a war against Israel, which is an American [client] state of sorts, in response to the conflict over the nuclear issue. As for Syria, it wants to escape the international tribunal [for its role in the Hariri assassination.]" He asked, "Does Hassan Nasrallah have any Lebanese part when he talks about having friends in Damascus and Tehran? This insults our intelligence. As for his saying that whoever supports me deserves praise and whoever does not will be held accountable, that is a message. We received the message."

Jumblatt warned of a project "to reconsider the Taef Accord and the political direction, the reconstruction and the reconciliation [efforts] of Rafik Hariri."

As for what could be done to end the crisis, he said, "the matter is out of our hands. The decision is his in the end. He is mistaken when he says that he is relying on the cabinet statement, because no one commissioned him to fight in order to restore the Shebaa Farms and the prisoners. The Farms are liberated through [border] delineation [with Syria], and then through a request at the UN. The prisoners' case is solved through finding the body of Ron Arad." He warned, "the Lebanese public opinion is not convinced of the method and the price we are paying to bring back the prisoners, Hassan Nasrallah's way."

The solution in Jumblatt's opinion is for Hezbollah to "hand over its decision and its arms to the Lebanese state according to the mechanism of the [national] dialogue." He mentioned that "PM Fouad Seniora said in the last session of the dialogue that the summer was promising tourism-wise, and that one and a half million tourists were expected in Lebanon. Nasrallah replied then, 'you see Mr. Prime Minister, the weapons of the resistance do not scare off tourists.' But what happened did scare them off and has turned thousands of Lebanese into refugees."

He then asked Nasrallah, "where do you stand with respect to Lebanon and the Lebanese state? If you are a target, then now the entire country is a target." He denied having any contacts with Hezbollah in order to find a solution to the crisis, saying, "we have commissioned PM Seniora to negotiate in order to find solutions." He added, "there is great hope pinned on Speaker Nabih Berri, who was one of the pillars of the Taef Accord, along with [former] PM Hariri, for the sake of the future of the Shiite community in Lebanon, for a large community and a partner in the country should not feel as if it was dealt a blow after this storm passes."

Syria Threatens to Attack International Force in Lebanon [TB]

If this is not a threat, I don't know what is:

One Syrian official issued a strong warning against a proposal that was gaining momentum on Sunday for an international force to guard the Lebanon-Israel border. Deploying such a force without the cooperation of Syrian and Hezbollah, the official said, will risk repeating 1983. That was a pointed reference to the 241 United States service members and 58 French soldiers killed in attacks on military installations by suicide bombers. It has long been considered likely that Hezbollah sent the bombers with Syria’s blessing.

Ceasefire Should Not Be at the Expense of the State [TB]

LBCI News quoted Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt as calling on Egyptian TV for a ceasefire "within the framework of a resolution that protects Lebanon and does not come at the expense of the state." He stressed that the need is to safeguard the Taef Accord and the armistice agreement with Israel, so that war does not erupt again under whatever pretext.

He was also quoted in AKI as saying, "southern Lebanon needs international protection and not a [Hezbollah-Israeli] ceasefire at the country's expense."

Jumblatt rejected the latest address by Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah, especially the part where Nasrallah said that Lebanon was in a war "whether it wants to or not." Jumblatt said nobody can singlehandedly hijack the decision of war and peace, and the solution is for the Lebanese state to exert its control over all its territories, adding: "no one can play around with the security of the south and the security of Lebanon."

The Druze leader also criticized the bombastic rhetoric of the Iranian president who "does not care for the Lebanese people," and who has bigger non-Lebanese calculations, as well as the talk of the Syrian regime and of presidents Bashar Assad and Emile Lahoud, who hold a "vengeful hatred towards the state of independence in Lebanon."

Jumblatt called for a passageway for humanitarian purposes, but said that it should not be via Damascus, "whose regime is assassinating [former PM] Rafik Hariri for a second time." He added, "we say to this regime that our patience is long, and one day the truth will be revealed." He pointed out that since the war broke out, the Syrian regime has been trying to escalate in order to escape the international tribunal, as it is the only court that could hold it accountable. He assured that "no matter how many bombs fall on us, we must not forget the issue of the international tribunal, no matter the price."

Required Reading (CM)

Andy McCarthy:

“Israel's war against Hezbollah is a watershed in the war on terror. As long as we understand that it's not just Israel's war.”

His column is here.

Charles Krauthammer:

“The road to a solution is therefore clear: Israel liberates south Lebanon and gives it back to the Lebanese.”

His column is here.   

Alan Dershowitz:

“While Israel does everything reasonable to minimize civilian casualties -- not always with success -- Hezbollah and Hamas want to maximize civilian casualties on both sides. Islamic terrorists, a diplomat commented years ago, ‘have mastered the harsh arithmetic of pain. . . . Palestinian casualties play in their favor and Israeli casualties play in their favor.’"

His oped is here.   

Jed Babbin:

“A cease-fire would benefit Hezbollah and threaten Israel. It would protect both Hezbollah and the nations that support it--Syria and Iran--as well as the Lebanese who have accepted the terrorist organization as a legitimate part of their government. A cease-fire would allow Hezbollah to rebuild its power base and enable it to resume its attacks whenever Damascus and Tehran desired. For Israel, a U.N. force would create no security whatever against future attacks.

“The U.N.'s years-long record on the Israel-Lebanon border makes mockery of the term "peacekeeping." … the U.N. presence [in southern Lebanon] serves as a shield against Israeli strikes against the terrorists. … For the first time, Israel has acted in accordance with what used to be President Bush's theory: that a government that contains, supports or harbors terrorists is responsible for their actions. Israel is now demonstrating that there is a price to be exacted from nations who collaborate with terrorists.”

His op-ed is here.      

Michael Rubin:

"’Lebanon . . . is not willing to be the spearhead of the Arab-Israeli conflict,’ former President Amin Gemayel said. ‘Hezbollah will have to explain itself to the Lebanese,’ Druze leader Walid Jumblatt told Le Figaro. The independent Beirut daily Al-Mustaqbal quoted Lebanese Communications Minister Marwan Hamada saying, ‘Syrian Vice President Faruq al-Shara gives the commands, Hezbollah carries them out, and Lebanon is the hostage. … Ahmed al-Jarallah, editor of Kuwait's Arab Times, condemned both Hezbollah and Hamas in an editorial that same day, writing, ‘Unfortunately we must admit that in such a war the only way to get rid of 'these irregular phenomena' is what Israel is doing.’"

His op-ed is here.

Weapons Shipment from Syria [TB]

The Lebanese station LBCI is reporting that the IDF has struck four trucks carrying weapons to Hezbollah coming from Syria. The station's news ticker is reporting that the IDF is now conducting strikes and air raids in the Bekaa region, in eastern Lebanon, and near the border with Syria.

Update: The "News Flash" section on the Lebanese news site Naharnet reads:

"The Israeli army says aircraft destroyed four trucks traveling from Syria with weapons and munitions destined for Hizbullah in the Bekaa."

"Israeli planes raid the Deir al Ahmar bridge that links north Lebanon to the Bekaa Valley."

Nexus of hate [AV]

I have two backgrounders up.

The first chronicles the support Syria provides Hezbollah, and why it must bear considerable responsibility for the havoc Hezbollah's occupation of Southern Lebanon has wrought in Lebanon and Israel.

The second explores the deeds and words of Hezbollah's current leader Hassan Nasrallah, explaining how his war isn't just against Israel, nor even against the United States, but against the entire civilized world.

Syria and Iran's Bid for Regional Dominance [TB]

Over at Across the Bay, I pick up on an article by Michael Oren in TNR today that makes a case for Israel striking Syria.

Oren revisits the 1967 war and Syria's role back then and explains, "By 1967, ten years after the Sinai Campaign, the Arab-Israeli dispute had settled into an uneasy status quo... But one Arab state did not want peace. Syria, then as now under the rule of the belligerent Baath Party, wanted war." Then as now, Syria used proxies based in Lebanon.

Oren suggests the following, "The answer lies in delivering an unequivocal blow to Syrian ground forces deployed near the Lebanese border. By eliminating 500 Syrian tanks--tanks that Syrian President Bashar Al Assad needs to preserve his regime--Israel could signal its refusal to return to the status quo in Lebanon."

I argue that the inter-Arab dynamics that Oren touches on are relevant today as well. What Bashar Assad is doing, as Iran's client, is nothing short of a coup; changing the balance of powers in the region in favor of the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah-Hamas axis. Therefore, a main target of this war by proxy that Iran and Syria are launching is the undermining of the Sunni Arab regional players, namely Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. This is exactly how these states are reading the current conflict. Robin Wright quotes an anonymous senior US official as saying: "What is out there is concern among conservative Arab allies that there is a hegemonic Persian threat [running] through Damascus, through the southern suburbs of Beirut and to the Palestinians in Hamas."

By controlling the trigger, Assad and Iran want to demonstrate that they hold the keys to the stability of the region, something the Arab states, as well as Israel and the US, do not want to see. Already, the Syrian regime's cheerleaders in the US and in Syria are betting that Israel and the US will acknowledge their victory and come knocking for a deal that would recognize the new balance of powers in the region.

That is why Oren concludes, "[I]f the past is any guide, and if the Six Day War presents a paradigm of an unwanted war that might have been averted with an early, well-placed strike at Syria, then Israel's current strategy in Lebanon deserves to be rethought. If Syria escapes unscathed and Iran undeterred, Israel will remain insecure."

Is Israel's response disproportionate? [AV]

The French government condemned Israel's response to the kidnapping of its soldiers as "a disproportionate act of war."

Disproportionate relative to what?

The French, in calling Israel's response disproportionate, are almost certainly measuring it against the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers. Bad as kidnapping Israeli soldiers is, the French reason, Israel's response is far more severe and, hence, disproportionate.

Except, this is the wrong standard. When speaking of proportionality, we shouldn't measure Israel's response against the initial wrong; instead, we should measure it against what it will take to stop that harm.

It is self-evidently true that if Israel were to kidnap three Hezbollah members - a par excellence proportionate response by French standards - this won't in any way reduce the threat it faces from Hezbollah.

This is why Israel is trying to disable the entire Hezbollah infrastructure in Lebanon, because only this, Israel calculates, will end the threat. This is also why Israel's response is proportionate - measured not just against the threat it faces but against what it will take to end that threat.

Syria's Nexus of Terror

Alykhan Velshi's latest backgrounder outlines Syria's role in supporting terrorism and its history of facilitating attacks against Israel and U.S. forces in Iraq.

Middle East Round Up, Cont...

National Review editorializes:

The Hamas leader, Khalid Mashaal, has headquarters in Damascus, protected by the thugocracy of Bashar al-Assad, himself protected by Iran. The overpowering of Hezbollah might lead Hamas’s sponsors around the Middle East to conclude that they can’t engage in a proxy war against Israel with impunity. If not, the targeted killings of Mashaal and his lieutenants in Syria would be appropriate, and other targets there might beckon as well. It is right to eliminate terror masters, and beyond that, the weakening and humiliation of its wretched Syrian stooge would be a suitable reward to Iran for its mischief-making.

In the New York Sun, Youssef Ibrahim explains how "The Road to Beirut Leads Straight to Damascus."

Revolutionary Guards Trapped in Lebanon? [AV]

Michael Ledeen, writing on NRO, points out that "[t]he Lebanese Tourism Ministry’s Research Center announced an amazing statistic in early July: in the first six months of the year, 60,888 Iranian tourists visited Lebanon."

That's a lot of Revolutionary Guardsmen "vacationing" in Antelias

Interestingly enough, doesn't the disabling of Lebanon's transportation infrastructure mean that these Iranian agents are now trapped in Southern Lebanon?

The New York Flood Starts in Lebanon? (WP)

More information has transpired about one of the designated participants in the alleged plot, which according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was to bomb the Holland Tunnel, connecting New Jersey with Manhattan, with the ostensible goal of flooding the financial district of Manhattan. Details of the plot were published in the New York Daily News.

Sources in Lebanon revealed that a key figure in the plot was a Lebanese national, who had been arrested in Lebanon on April 27, 2007 upon the request of US authorities. His real name is Assem Hammoud, who also used the name of Amir Andalousi. The sources said he is a computer science professor. He is apparently the only Lebanese among the eight suspects, who are from six or seven countries. It is understood that Hammoud was close or part of the Zarqawi group.

Syria Monitor [AV]

This week's Syria Monitor is now available. In it, Tony Badran, a Research Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, provides an update on the latest news affecting Syria's opposition and dissident movements.

This week's Syria Monitor reports on the fallout from the National Salvation Front conference, including reactions from the Secretariat and news of member defections, updates on two writers being targeted by the Syrian regime, as well as news of a resolution to be considered by the European Parliament that would cancel the EU Association Agreement with Syria because of the regime's human rights abuses.

You can sign up here to receive the Syria Monitor, which is sent out every Tuesday. You can track daily developments in Syria at the Syria Monitor blog. Previous Syria Monitors can be viewed here.

This week's Syria Monitor is now available. In it, Tony Badran, a Research Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, provides an update on the latest news affecting Syria's opposition and dissident movements.

This week's Syria Monitor reports on the fallout from the National Salvation Front conference, including reactions from the Secretariat and news of member defections, updates on two writers being targeted by the Syrian regime, as well as news of a resolution to be considered by the European Parliament that would cancel the EU Association Agreement with Syria because of the regime's human rights abuses.

You can sign up here to receive the Syria Monitor, which is sent out every Tuesday. You can track daily developments in Syria at the Syria Monitor blog. Previous Syria Monitors can be viewed here.

The Syria Monitor

This week's Syria Monitor is now available. In it, Tony Badran, a Research Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, provides an update on the latest news affecting Syria's opposition and dissident movements.

This week's Syria Monitor includes reports of a hunger strike being planned by prisoners of conscience at Adra prison, state harassment of signatories of the Suwayda petition, as well as a recap of what happened at the National Salvation Front conference that was held in London over the weekend.

You can sign up here to receive the Syria Monitor, which is sent out every Tuesday. You can track daily developments in Syria at the Syria Monitor blog. Previous Syria Monitors can be viewed here.

This week's Syria Monitor is now available. In it, Tony Badran, a Research Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, provides an update on the latest news affecting Syria's opposition and dissident movements.

This week's Syria Monitor includes reports of a hunger strike being planned by prisoners of conscience at Adra prison, state harassment of signatories of the Suwayda petition, as well as a recap of what happened at the National Salvation Front conference that was held in London over the weekend.

You can sign up here to receive the Syria Monitor, which is sent out every Tuesday. You can track daily developments in Syria at the Syria Monitor blog. Previous Syria Monitors can be viewed here.

The Syria Monitor

This week's Syria Monitor is now available. In it, Tony Badran, a Research Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, provides an update on the latest news affecting Syria's opposition and dissident movements.

This week's Syria Monitor includes reports on rallies being organized in Paris, London and Beirut to demand the release of Syrian prisoners of conscience; more information on next week's National Salvation Front Conference, which will take place in London; an update on the deteriorating health condition of Anwar al-Bunni, who has been on a hunger strike since being arrested two weeks ago; as well as news on the continuing harassment of signatories of the Beirut-Damascus Declaration.

You can sign up here to receive the Syria Monitor, which is sent out every Tuesday. You can track daily developments in Syria at the Syria Monitor blog. Previous Syria Monitors can be viewed here.

"Who's Really Afraid of Iran?"

The Weekly Standard has an interesting piece on Iran's threat -- not just to Israel and the West, but to its neighbors in the Gulf.  FDD's Tony Badran is quoted on how Syria fits into the equation:

Pressure on Syria would be a logical move to counter Iran. Damascus, says Tony Badran, research fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, is not only "Iran's central client-proxy, but has also played the mediator between [Iran] and the Gulf states."

Tony has much more on this topic at his blog, Across the Bay.

The Syria Monitor

Tony Badran, FDD's Research Fellow focusing on the Levant, has started a dedicated blog, the Syria Monitor to track news about the Syrian opposition, both inside and outside of Syria. In the last few weeks in particular, the Syrian regime has cracked down on opposition leaders, forbidding meetings of more than five people, arresting activists who traveled abroad,and charging them with crimes such as inciting foreign aggression against Syria which carry life sentences.

In the Syria Monitor, Tony Badran provides recent reports not only on the fate of Syria's political prisoners, but also on the opposition's activities, including alliances being formed, meetings and conferences, statements to the media, and advocacy efforts with government officials in the United States, Europe, Lebanon and Turkey. The Syria Monitor is updated 3 to 4 times a week.

In addition, subscribers can sign up to receive a weekly e-mail digest of the blog's post or read the digest on FDD's website.

Which Way on Syria? (BM)

David Schenker of the Washington Institute argues in this op-ed that the U.S. ought to ratchet up the pressure on the Syrian regime by enlisting European help:

For Washington, now is the time for a full-court press. The pressure strategy is working but requires some additional international - particularly European - assistance. Only with a fully joint U.S.-European approach can a tough policy toward Syria have a chance of success. To get the Europeans on board, Washington will have to convince key European capitals that behavior change - and not regime change - is the true policy goal.

FDD Fellow Tony Badran, who covers Syria and Lebanon, has a slightly different take:

I ultimately feel that his conclusion, as realistic and pragmatic as it is, ultimately won't matter to Bashar.   He's playing a zero sum game. I.e., all he needs to do is survive.  He has shown clearly that he has no interest in giving concessions to the EU, not even at the threat of sanctions (he snubbed them by shutting down that HR center built by the EU).

It is clear to anyone watching Bashar that he has chosen the Iran client-proxy choice, and so thinking that he will somehow be brought back into the fold, one way or the other, is ultimately false, in my view. He simply doesn't feel he needs  to do it. He can just wait it out, and cause enough trouble to see cracks emerge in the consensus. They already have. It's a movie we've seen before. It's clear in his policy choices, his behavior, his rhetoric, everything.

So ultimately, this will return us to the situation we had with the Syrians in the 90s, which is horrible. This is not what Schenker is advocating to be sure, but I just think that it will ultimately lead back there. In fact, Bashar is counting on precisely that, which is why he doesn't feel the need to offer any compromises, even as he stares sanctions in the face. In a zero sum game, anything short of regime change, is seen as an acceptable, temporary, sacrifice that will eventually be reversed, and people will "come crawling back" to cut a deal, as Khadddam has said after defecting (explaining Bashar's policy on Iraq and Lebanon).

Comments on the First Anniversary of the Syrian Withdrawal from Lebanon (WP)

When reviewing the events leading to the Syrian redeployment out of Lebanon, and the developments that followed since, one can note the following realities:

1.      It is thanks to the efforts of the Lebanese Diaspora’s lobby and the forces of civil society in Lebanon that Western democracies led by the United States and France, decided to seize the United Nations Security Council and issue UNSCR 1559 asking the Syrian regime to pull its forces out of Lebanon, disarm the militias and promote democracy.

2.      It is thanks to the UNSCR 1559 and the courageous response of the Lebanese masses on March 14, 2005 to the assassination of former Prime Minister Hariri on February 14 and the pro-Syrian demonstration by Hizbollah on March 8, that the Cedars Revolution broke the wall of fear from Syrian repression.

3.      In response to the Cedars Revolution, it is thanks to the strong warnings by US President George Bush and French President Jacques Chirac to the Assad regime in Damascus during the months of March and April 2005 that Syrian forces began to pull out from the country. 

The Syrian pull out came as a result of the combined efforts by the US-led international pressures and the popular uprising of the Cedars Revolution. However let’s note today, one year after the redeployment, that Lebanon is still far from full recovery.

Profile in Courage (CM)

Dr. Wafa Sultan’s life “changed in 1979 when she was a medical student at the University of Aleppo, in northern Syria. At that time, the radical Muslim Brotherhood was using terrorism to try to undermine the government of President Hafez al-Assad. Gunmen of the Muslim Brotherhood burst into a classroom at the university and killed her professor as she watched, she said.

"They shot hundreds of bullets into him, shouting, 'God is great!' " she said. "At that point, I lost my trust in their god and began to question all our teachings. It was the turning point of my life, and it has led me to this present point. I had to leave. I had to look for another god." …

An angry essay on that site by Dr. Sultan about the Muslim Brotherhood caught the attention of Al Jazeera, which invited her to debate an Algerian cleric on the air last July.

In the debate, she questioned the religious teachings that prompt young people to commit suicide in the name of God. "Why does a young Muslim man, in the prime of life, with a full life ahead, go and blow himself up?" she asked. "In our countries, religion is the sole source of education and is the only spring from which that terrorist drank until his thirst was quenched." …

"The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions or a clash of civilizations," Dr. Sultan said. "It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality." ...

[S]he has received numerous death threats on her answering machine and by e-mail.

One message said: "Oh, you are still alive? Wait and see." She received an e-mail message the other day, in Arabic, that said, "If someone were to kill you, it would be me."

Dr. Sultan said her mother, who still lives in Syria, is afraid to contact her directly, speaking only through a sister who lives in Qatar. She said she worried more about the safety of family members here and in Syria than she did for her own.

"I have no fear," she said. "I believe in my message. It is like a million-mile journey, and I believe I have walked the first and hardest 10 miles."

The NYT story on her is here. The MEMRI video of her is here.

CLIFF MAY: Stability in Syria?

The Jerusalem Post reports:

The last-minute alterations made to the Detlev Mehlis report on the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri may have been made under pressure by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Israel Radio reported Friday afternoon. 

A diplomatic source reported that Annan had an interest in removing the name of Syrian President Bashar Assad's brother and brother-in-law, along with other important Syrian officials, from the list of suspects in the Hariri killing. 

Assad's brother and brother-in-law had previously been implicated in having involvement in the Hariri assassination.

Annan, according to speculations, was concerned that the harsh report could cause political instability in Syria, perhaps even leading to an overthrow of the Assad regime, and thus preferred a watered-down version of the report.

Glen Reynolds notes:  “Oh, yeah, we wouldn't want that. Are there any tyrants Annan won't cover for?”

I’d add this: The U.N. today includes democratic nations and dictatorial despotic regimes. Institutionally, the UN hasn’t much preference between the two. If anything, it favors the latter.

Syrian Schools for Terrorists

From the Times of London: "The training takes place at secret camps in the Syrian desert, near the Iraqi border. Some attacks are even planned in advance in Damascus and Aleppo. Once the team is ready, a guide leads them across the rugged border into Iraq where they are taken to a safe house." The article is here. Hat tip: Laurie Mylroie.