Finishing the Job
Trying to frame the violence in Lebanon, we have to think of it as a battleground between radical Islamist aggressors and pro-Western leaderships. The radicals are the mullahs of Iran and their extremist godchildren, Hezbollah and Hamas. Remember Hezbollah? It was the perpetrator of the 1983 truck-bomb murder of 241 peacekeeper marines sleeping in their Beirut barracks. And of course there is Syria, which gives sanctuary to leaders of dozens of terrorist networks.
The extremist character of Hezbollah is underscored by the unusually forthright way Arab states like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates have come out publicly for the first time against the terrorist organization for what they describe as its "unexpected, inappropriate, and irresponsible acts." The G-8 leaders also indicted the extremists and asserted Israel's right of self-defense. President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in particular, clearly recognize that the malign alliance of Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria, and Iran seeks to change the strategic balance of the whole of the Middle East, and that it must be stopped. Hezbollah's aggression has impelled Israel now to be a proxy for this effort, as well as the enforcer of U.N. Resolution 1559, whose requirement for the disbanding of regional militias, i.e. Hezbollah, has been ignored.
The United States and Britain are right not to endorse calls for a cease-fire just yet. Hezbollah would simply return to its bunkers and eventually start attacking again, with its remaining missile inventory, augmented by ever more dangerous Iranian-supplied rockets. This is the strategic imperative that drives Israel to pursue Hezbollah.
Parasites. The charge of a "disproportionate" response on the part of Israel is tantamount to going into a movie that is two-thirds over, knowing nothing of its beginning. We must remember that earlier in this movie, in 2000, Israel withdrew entirely from Lebanon of its own volition, and the borderline of its withdrawal was sanctioned by the U.N. Yet Hezbollah continued firing on Israeli villages and towns and continued trying to kidnap Israeli soldiers. In 2002, a Hezbollah team infiltrated a kibbutz, fired on a school bus, and killed six--and who called for a cease-fire back then?
Hezbollah should never have been allowed to develop as a state within a state, with its own private army in Lebanon, funded by Iran to the extent of $100 million a year, armed by Iran, and trained by the Iranians. (Its mission, in part, is to threaten Israel if Israel were to attack Iran.) Iran has provided Hezbollah with some 12,000 rockets, which have a range of 26 miles to almost 120 miles, the latter with the capacity to reach Tel Aviv. Iran has also trained some 3,000 Hezbollah terrorists, set up 20 permanent missile bases in Lebanon, and equipped Hezbollah with trucks to launch rockets and with experts to assist in targeting. Hezbollah aimed these weapons not at military targets but at population centers, intent on killing as many Israelis as possible.
When Hezbollah kidnapped the two Israeli soldiers this time, the Lebanese president should have called for their release as vehemently as he now calls for a ceasefire. But it was the leader of Hezbollah, Sheik Nasrallah, who spoke, painting himself as the "ruler of the Middle East" and dismissing the Israeli prime minister and defense minister as "rookies" and "pathetic individuals" who would be deterred by his threats from retaliating.
In this, Nasrallah failed to remember the admonition that "You do not disturb the alligator until you have crossed the river." Israel, of course, had no choice but to respond with force. Hezbollah, after all, is the al Qaeda of the Middle East, and Nasrallah the parasite on the body of Lebanon just as Osama bin Laden was the parasite on the body of Afghanistan.
The civilian casualties are very disturbing, but in Lebanon they are a direct consequence of the way the terrorists cynically hide behind civilians, concealing their rockets in private homes, paying rent for the concealment of launchers, leaving Israel with no choice but to respond, although it has done so only with precision weaponry.
Hezbollah can claim no such justification for the Israeli civilians killed by its weapons. It simply lobs rockets into urban areas. Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets into Israel, all against civilian targets. This is terror as statecraft.
The stakes today are high. A victory for Hamas and Hezbollah would radicalize the entire Middle East. Preventing this is an absolute imperative. For this, Israel needs the time to destroy the weapons, and to root out the radicals in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. There is a convergence of international interests among Israel, various Arab regimes, the United States, and even many in Lebanon who want their government to take full control of its land.
The recognition of Israel's right and need to remove Hezbollah is a wise and welcome change.
This story appears in the July 31, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.