By
Kenneth R.
Timmerman
FrontPageMagazine.com |
July 20, 2006
Make no mistake about the
nearly month-old hot war between Hezbollah and Israel. This is the
opening salvo of Iran’s global assault on the United States and
its allies over Iran’s “right” to possess nuclear
weapons.
The Iranian-backed attacks are aimed at deterring an Israeli military
strike against Iranian nuclear and missile facilities.
A secondary Iranian goal is to deter Europe from backing U.S. efforts
to build a broad-based coalition to take Iran back to the United
Nations Security Council for its failure to respond clearly to a
Western ultimatum over its nuclear program.
French President Jacques Chirac was the first to bite on Iran’s
poisoned apple. Instead of blasting Hezbollah for abducting Israeli
soldiers and launching rocket attacks on Israeli towns and cities, he
blamed Israel for retaliating.
"One could ask if today there is not sort of a will to destroy
Lebanon, its equipment, its roads, its communications,” Chirac
said on Sunday at the St. Petersburg summit.
The Iranians created Hezbollah in 1983. Unlike many parents, they
never let their “child” alone, and have carefully
nurtured it with funds, weapons, ideological guidance and military
orders ever since.
When Hezbollah damaged an Israeli gunboat off the Lebanese coast last
week, Iranian officers supervised the launch of the Iranian-built
C-102 radar-guided missile.
"We see this as very profound fingerprint of Iranian involvement in
Hezbollah," Israeli General Ido Nehushtan told the Associated
Press.
The C-102 appears to be an Iranian version of an anti-shipping
missile provided to Iran by China initially more than a decade
ago.
Just as Iran supplied its own versions of Chinese missiles to Bosnia
in the mid-1990s, so Iran is providing home-grown versions of far
more sophisticated missiles to Hezbollah today. And no one seems
intent on making Iran – or China – pay a price for their
deeds.
George W. Bush gets the global war on terror. He understands that
¬Ýmany other nations will join the war against the
Islamo-fascists if only the United States takes a firm lead.
But the president got it wrong in private remarks that were reported
on international television during the G8 summit in St.
Petersburg.
"See the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get
Hezbollah to stop doing this (expletive) and it's over," Bush
reportedly told British Prime Minister Tony Blair as he chewed on a
buttered roll over lunch on July 16. Neither leader was aware that
their conversation was being picked up by a live microphone.
No one doubts that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is continuing to
provide logistical assistance to Hezbollah in Lebanon, just as his
father did for nearly twenty years before him.
After all, Syria had used Hezbollah repeatedly as a semi-proxy
against Israel and against the United States.
But Syria does not “control” Hezbollah. Iran controls
Hezbollah. And President Bush’s advisors need to get that one
straight.
Lebanon’s minister of telecommunications, Marwan Hamadeh, is no
friend of George W. Bush or of Israel. In earlier crises, he has been
quick blame Israel or the United States for Lebanon’s ills.
But in an interview with French state radio on July 17, just one day
after Bush’s comments in Saint Petersburg, Hamadeh took issue
with a French commentator’s analysis that Hezbollah had become
an “independent” player in Lebanese politics.
Hezbollah “depends directly on Iran for its weapons and for its
orders,” he said. “And it depends logistically on Syria.”
Hamadeh also swept aside accusations that Israel had somehow
orchestrated the latest round of Middle East fighting. “Hezbollah
is entirely responsible for the violence,” he said.
The escalation of Iranian-backed attacks against Israel has been
steady, and has been aimed at demonstrating new military capabilities
that Iran is hoping will eventually deter an Israeli attack against
Iranian nuclear and missile sites.
As several Iranian military and strategic affairs analysts explained
to me in recent interviews in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, the Iranians
are hoping they can demonstrate Israel will face encircling attacks
from Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria should Israel press forward with
military strikes on Iranian nuclear targets.
Yasser Arafat’s PLO launched Soviet-built katyusha rockets into
northern Israeli towns in 1982, prompting Israel’s “Peace
for Galilee” operation that ultimately led to Israel‘s
first-ever siege of an Arab capital that summer.
But Hezbollah’s latest rocket attacks against Israel have been
far more precise. A May 23 rocket attack by Hezbollah hit an Israeli
command and control position at Meron Air Force base in northern
Israel.
More recently, Hezbollah has launched rocket attacks against Haifa, a
major industrial city in northern Israel. And Syrian leaders have
warned publicly that Hezbollah also could strike against Israeli
nuclear sites in the south of the country.
Some Israeli analysts believe that Iran is using Hezbollah as a
classic Cold war deterrent.
“Iran knows that if their nuclear sites are attacked, they will
be destroyed. And they know that they will not be able to destroy
Israel,” one Israeli analyst said. “So Iran is using
Hezbollah to its advantage.”
Iranian arms deliveries to Hezbollah through Syria have increased
during the first half of 2006, Israeli sources told me. This has
occurred despite the fact that the Syrian army –, the UPS
trucks who deliver the weapons to Hezbollah posts in Lebanon –
has withdrawn from Lebanon.
Iran used to maintain around 1,500 Islamic Revolutionary Guards
troops in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. While Iran has withdrawn most
of the IRGC troops from Lebanon, it still maintains around 100
highly-specialized trainers and intelligence operatives in Lebanon,
to coordinate operations with Hezbollah.
“Consider the IRGC presence in Lebanon to military attaches,”
one Israeli analyst suggested. “They are terrorist attaches.”
The United States and like-minded countries have a clear weapon to
use against Iran (and Syria) in their effort to ignite another
Arab-Israeli war in Lebanon.
They can demand that the United Nations enforce UN Security Council
Resolution 1559, which not only calls for the withdrawal of all
foreign forces from Lebanon), but recognizes Lebanon’s
international border with Israel and demands the immediately
disarmament of all militias, including Hezbollah, in Lebanon.
If a formerly anti-Israeli member of Lebanon’s government –
Marwan Hamadeh – can demand the enforcement of UNSC resolution
1559, what’s stopping George W. Bush, Vladimir Putin, or
Jacques Chirac?
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