FDD

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.

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.

"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.

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.

 

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.

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.