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Multi-Proxy War
Leaving aside for the moment the diversion from Iran's nuclear program caused by these attacks on the eve of the G-8 summit, we should look at the oldest motivator first. Leadership of all of Islam requires a commanding position in the battle against Israel. Since 1948, the Sunni-dominated governments of Egypt and Saudi Arabia have set the agenda for the Palestinian cause. According to the blogsite Tigerhawk, in order for Iran to achieve its "rightful" place as the lead advocate for Palestine, it must replace the Egyptians and the Saudis as the premier Muslim advocate for Palestine. The Fatah movement of Yasser Arafat was an Arab nationalist, not a radical Islamist. Traditional Arab nationalism is now a thoroughly discredited ideology As a result, the Middle East today finds Iran and its clients - Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah on one team and the remnants of Fatah, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the secular and Christian parts of Lebanon and the Gulf States on the other. The big prize is who will be seen as the champion of the Palestinian people? Who will be credited with being the guarantor of the Palestinian agenda? Iran's ambitions to become the regional hegemon may have boxed it in to a difficult proposition. If it is the champion of the Palestinians, it can never be seen as backing down from any real or perceived Zionist attack. The world community knows this. So do Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Their comments about the current violence have been quite muted. They have signaled Israel that taking Hamas and Hezbollah down a bit would be welcome. especially if it also took Syria and Iran down a peg or two as well. For the U.S., a vital question is whether the Shiites in Iraq become more active or less. The first front of the Iranian attack is still the Shia insurgents planted in Iraq. Tehran intends to create Israeli violence in order to highjack the G-8 agenda in St. Petersburg beginning the 15th. The action that would most disrupt the Iranian plans would be an Israeli attack on Syria. Israel can strike from the air with impunity. The Syrian army is weak. The Iranian mullahcracy declared war on the U.S. 27 years ago and has never been held accountable. Michael Ledeen, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, holds that the Iranian Mullahs have convinced themselves that they are winning and we are powerless to reverse the tide. They believe that America and Israel are both politically paralyzed and neither can take decisive action against Iran. That is because neither country can sustain a long conflict or absorb significant casualties. Every fight either nation is in generates pictures of carnage that can be used against them. No nation can escape, the Mullah's believe. Their enemies must either defeat them or submit to them. It is unlikely that Iran would ever give up its nuclear program and accept the intrusive inspections necessary to prove they weren't lying. On the other had, no U.S. President wants to be the one who let Iran have the bomb. The price of oil has risen from $30 a barrel to $76 a barrel. For Iranians and Saudis alike, free-floating and impossible-to-trace petrodollars fund Wahabbi and 12th Imam fantasies alike. It is important to understand that, as Conor Cruise O'Brian said in his book The Siege, "There is no path for real compromise between a state that believes it has a right to exist and its enemies whose primary goal is for that state to be destroyed." All road maps are false. Columnist Ricard Baehr says that the best current estimate of the world's Jewish population is about 13 million. About six million perished in Europe during the Holocaust. Barely one million remain in Europe. Their numbers decline due to a low birth rate and a high inter-marriage rate. About 40 % of Jews live in the United States and about 40% in Israel. The ones who live in Israel are extremely vulnerable. Some 60 percent of them live in a coastal strip of land less that 75 miles long and 10 miles wide, about the size of Rhode Island. Hezbollah's rockets or missiles hit Israel's third largest city, Haifa, on Thursday. The psychological effect on Israel would be akin to Texas accepting small border incursions and then suddenly finding that a missile landed in Houston. The result for the moment seems to be that both Israel and Lebanon see the war as a fight with Hezbollah, not with each other. The Sunni Arab nations seem to have decided that they will not automatically go to war on behalf of Iranian-backed terror groups. Israel does not call up its reserves unless it is serious. The kidnapping of conscripts and the strike all the way to Haifa leaves Israel with a need to establish its war-fighting credentials once again. It will go as deep into Lebanon as necessary to liquidate Hezbollah and to get beyond rocket range The Bekaa Valley is the seat of Hezbollah power and the location of many of its facilities- communications centers, munitions, ammunition and rocket storage and vehicles. Not wanting to get bogged down with its flanks exposed, expect Israel to attack, wreck everything in sight and then withdraw. World opinion won't matter. Since it is going to be attacked by the EU anyway, Israel might as well achieve its goals, says the Sratfor Red Alert. Israel must destroy Hezbollah. Iran will once again have to face the limits of its power. Iraqi Shia should take note. Iran has abandoned its allies before. Apostates are expendable. July 14, 2006 |
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Tom Huheey has more than four decades of experience in writing, editing and publishing books, magazines and newsletters. He has been actively involved with the national political scene in Washington since 1971, the second term of Richard Nixon. From time to time he has been a member of the adjunct faculty of George Washington University. He writes from a non-partisan but distinctly libertarian viewpoint. |
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