ISRAEL - IRAN - SYRIA - HAMAS - HEZBOLLAH - WWWIII?

Depends on what you mean by "defeating the enemy". How would you say Hezbollah should be defeated?

Killing them would suffice.

East and West must beware new Barbarians at the gates
By Allister Heath
The Business
06 August 2006

WALID Phares, the brilliant scholar of terrorism, lived through the worst of times in Lebanon, the country where he was born. At the height of the civil war, he would make the perilous journey out of Lebanon in flimsy vessels that were easy targets for Syria's long-range missiles. "In the 1980s, we used commercial ships, with no Navy escort, sometimes under direct artillery action," he recalls.

It was in the rather more relaxed setting of London's Savoy Hotel that I met Phares, who now lives in America and has made his name since 9/11 as one of the leading analysts of terrorism. His latest book, Future Jihad: Waging War Against the West, will be published in the UK in the autumn; its superb US edition has become a must-read in foreign policy circles in Washington and for good reason. Talking to Phares, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies, made me realise how right Lenin was when he said "everything is connected to everything ". What was supposed to be a quick chat about recent events morphed into a lengthy and fascinating seminar about the history of the Islamic world and the theory and practice of jihad across the ages, but still left me hungry for more.

The emergence of current strands of Islamic extremism long predates the creation of Israel or the Cold War, Phares explains. He peppers the conversation with Arabic to make his case, which is that today"s jihadist movements see themselves as a continuation of the Islamic state and strive for its reestablishment within in its old borders.

The abolition of the Caliphate by Ataturk in 1924 freed jihadists from an ultimate Islamic authority for the first time since the seventh century. This unleashed the Saudi Wahhabis, and triggered the creation of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. The Afghan battlefield produced a convergence into al-Qaeda, which soon became a rival school of its own. All these groups compete over the best way to re-establish the Sunni Caliphate, held up as the solution to the Muslim world's problems. Meanwhile, the Iranian revolution saw the rise of a Shia jihadism; it too seeks leadership of Islam and to wage war against the infidels.

Phares, who advised the UN on disarming Hezbollah, is at his most passionate when discussing his native Lebanon. "As long as there is no strategic change in Lebanon, starting with Hezbollah's disarming and having international forces taking the control of the Lebanese-Syrian and Lebanese-Israeli borders, the bombings may give Israel some time, but will eventually transform Lebanon into an extension of Iran", he argues.

When Rafiq Hariri, the Lebanese Prime Minister, was murdered in 2005, prompting the Cedar Revolution, one and a half million people "Christians, Druze, Sunnis and even some Shia" marched for democracy, dealing Hezbollah and their Iranian paymasters a devastating blow. It shattered the myth of Syria's "brotherly" occupation, forced Damascus to withdraw, and proved that only a minority supported Hezbollah.

But the jihadists immediately fought back to re-establish the Tehran-Damascus-Beirut axis at the heart of the Iranian regime's blueprint for dominance of the global jihadist movement. Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, struck a deal with Prime Minister Fouad Seniora: three members of Hezbollah joined the cabinet, laying the seeds for disaster. As part of a one-year plan, Hezbollah, perhaps with the help of Syrian intelligence, launched an assassination campaign against politicians and journalists supportive of the Cedar Revolution, convincing most anti-Syrian politicians that any serious opposition to Iran-Syria-Hezbollah would be savagely punished.

The government was forced to stall on UN Security Council resolution 1559, which stipulates that all militias should be disarmed, and to sit down instead with Hezbollah to "discuss" the future of their weapons. Parliament was paralysed with the help of the pro-Syrian speaker Nabih Berri and the Aoun bloc; the allies of Emile Lahoud, the equally pro-Syrian president, were also tapped. Soon, says Phares, the Lebanese army command was intimidated, the Lebanese diaspora divided, pro-Syrian and jihadist networks in Lebanon and within the Palestinian camps reactivated, and weapons distributed to allied militias.

Hezbollah's plan was to bring war with Israel back to the forefront of Lebanese politics; eventually, Seniora would be accused of treason and overthrown, and a new, non-Cedar government imposed, realigning the country with Tehran. As to timing, events in the region were crucial: Iran needed to divert attention from its nuclear programme; Syria wanted to inflame the Gaza and the Israeli-Lebanese borders to overshadow the UN investigation on the assassination of Hariri; finally, Hamas needed a new clash with the "Zionist enemy" to deflect attention from its looming civil war with Fatah.

While the response from Israel, as well as the original reaction from Seniora and most Arab states "they didn't extend their full support to Hezbollah" took the Iranians by surprise, they quickly readjusted their strategy. Together with supporters of ex-premier Michel Aoun, Hezbollah unleashed a campaign to depict the Israelis as aggressors rather than victims, making full use of horrible tragedies such as the civilians deaths in the Lebanese village of Qana. Lebanon and the Arab world are all now furiously condemning Israel. "Hezbollah's plan for the Lebanese army is to drag it into a fight with Israel, to destroy it," says Phares. "The options are very limited: either Hezbollah will dominate Lebanon, or the latter will disarm Hezbollah. Anything in between would be a waste of time. The international community must form a multinational force to assist the Lebanese army".

As to the wider war on terror, Phares is angry that the West has ignored moderate Muslims and reformers, in the West as well as in the Islamic world, instead treating those who support the jihad as truly representative. "For decades, the only 'issue' debated was the Arab- Israeli conflict", he says. There was little study of jihadism, human rights abuses, women's liberation movements or the treatment of minorities; worst of all, terrorists were routinely presented as reformers.

"The vast majority of intellectuals still live on a pre 9/11 planet. They refuse, even after the rise of democratic movements and dissidents in the region, to acknowledge that the jihadists are a fascist movement". This must change, Phares pleads; the only hope is to support young Muslims who advocate democracy and social change.

Across the centuries, the jihadists often agreed temporary tactical alliances with one enemy, better to defeat another, a lesson which France, China and even Russia appear not yet to have learnt. But Phares's crucial lesson is that we should never forget that all jihadist strands, regardless of how much they hate one another, are ultimately committed to the same aim, which is to wage war against those with whom they disagree. "The barbarians killed each other more than they killed Romans," Phares warned me. "Yet they eventually destroyed the empire."

gungasnake wrote:

Killing them would suffice.

A difficult task indeed, seeing as every Hezbollah fighter that dies is considered a martyr and propaganda for Hezbollah. Killing them all is impossible, without at least killing a good deal of innocent people as well.

Kill all [snip] who do not assist the killing of all the eitm.

ican711nm wrote:

Kill all [snip] who do not assist the killing of all the eitm.

Ah. I see. You're saying that everybody should be killed, except for those who are already killing those who are killing others.

Yes. That sounds like the roadmap to peace and stability.

A difficult task indeed, seeing as every Hezbollah fighter that dies is considered a martyr...

Its called "war," old europe. Not a pretty picture,

but we didn't ask for it. It is they that started it.

As far as your question about "defeating the enemy," I don't think we have come to grips with the reality of what might be necessary to do it. The reality of it is as has been already posted, is kill them off or until they give up. I don't see them giving up, so little alternative is left but killing them, and they are not few.

Old europe, if you can cite an example of where anything other than complete victory by one side and complete surrender by the other has led to any lasting peace, be my pleasure, as I would love to know about it.

The Only Option Is to Win
By Newt Gingrich
Friday, August 11, 2006; Page A19

Yesterday on this page, in a serious and thoughtful survey of a world in crisis, Richard Holbrooke listed 13 countries that could be involved in violence in the near future: Lebanon, Israel, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Uzbekistan, Somalia. And in addition, of course, the United States.

With those 14 nations Holbrooke could make the case for what I describe as "an emerging third world war" -- a long-running conflict whose latest manifestation was brought home to Americans yesterday with the disclosure in London of yet another ghastly terrorist plot -- this one intended to destroy a number of airliners en route to America.

But while Holbrooke lists the geography accurately, he then asserts an analysis and a goal that do not fit the current threats.

First, he asserts that the Iranian nuclear threat is far less dangerous than violence in southern Lebanon. Speaking of the Iranian-American negotiations, Holbrooke asks, "And why has that dialogue been restricted to the nuclear issue -- vitally important to be sure, but not as urgent at this moment as Iran's sponsorship and arming of Hezbollah and its support of actions against U.S. forces in Iraq?"

In fact an Iran armed with nuclear weapons is a mortal threat to American, Israeli and European cities. If a nonnuclear Iran is prepared to finance, arm and train Hezbollah, sustain a war against Israel from southern Lebanon and, in Holbrooke's own words, "support actions against U.S. forces in Iraq," then what would a nuclear Iran be likely to do? Remember, Iranian officials were present at North Korea's missile launches on our Fourth of July, and it is noteworthy that Venezuela's anti-American dictator, Hugo Chávez, has visited Iran five times.

It is because the Bush administration has failed to win this argument over the direct threat of Iranian and North Korean nuclear and biological weapons that Americans are divided and uncertain about our national security interests.

Nevertheless, Holbrooke has set the stage for an important national debate that goes well beyond such awful possibilities as Sept. 11-style airliner plots. It's a debate about whether we are in danger of losing one or more U.S. cities, whether the world faces the possibility of a second Holocaust should Iran use nuclear or biological weapons against Israel, and whether a nuclear Iran would dominate the Persian Gulf and the world's energy supplies. This is the most important debate of our time. It rivals both Winston Churchill's argument in the 1930s over the nature of Hitler and the Nazis and Harry Truman's argument in the 1940s about the emerging Soviet empire.

Yet Holbrooke indicates that he would take the wrong path on American national security. He asserts that "containing the violence must be Washington's first priority."

As a goal this is precisely wrong. Defeating the terrorists and thwarting efforts by Iran and North Korea to gain nuclear and biological weapons must be the first goal of American policy. To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, if violence is necessary to defeat the terrorists, the Iranians and the North Koreans, then it is regrettably necessary. If they can be disarmed with less violence, then that is desirable. But a nonviolent solution that allows the terrorists to become better trained, better organized, more numerous and better armed is a defeat. A nonviolent solution that leads to North Korean and Iranian nuclear weapons threatening us across the planet is a defeat.

This failure to understand the nature of the threat is captured in Holbrooke's assertion that diplomacy can lead to "finding a stable and secure solution that protects Israel." If Iran gets nuclear weapons, there will be no diplomacy capable of protecting Israel. If Iran continues to fund and equip Hezbollah, there will be no stability or security for Israel. Diplomacy cannot substitute for victory against an opponent who openly states that he wants to eliminate you from the face of the earth.

Our enemies are quite public and repetitive in saying what they want. Not since Adolf Hitler has any group been as bloodthirsty and as open. If Holbrooke really wants a "stable and secure" Israel he will not find it by trying to appease Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas.

This issue of national security goals will be at the heart of the American dialogue for some time. If our enemies are truly our enemies (and their words and deeds are certainly those of enemies) then victory should be our goal. If nuclear and biological threats are real, then aggressive strategies to disarm them if possible and defeat them if necessary will be required.

Holbrooke represents the diplomacy first-diplomacy always school. We saw its workings throughout the 1990s, as Syria was visited again and again by secretaries of state who achieved absolutely nothing. Even a secretary of state dancing with Kim Jong Il (arguably a low point in American diplomatic efforts) produced no results; such niceties never do in dealing with vicious dictators.

The democracies have been talking while the dictators and the terrorists gain strength and move closer to having the weapons necessary for a terrifying assault on America and its allies. The arrests yesterday of British citizens allegedly plotting to blow up American airliners over the Atlantic Ocean are only the latest example of the determination of our enemies. This makes the dialogue on our national security even more important.

Richard Holbrooke has established a framework for a clear debate. The Bush administration should take up his challenge.

"The democracies have been talking while the dictators and the terrorists gain strength and move closer to having the weapons necessary for a terrifying assault on America and its allies." What's hypoctical about that is Hamas is duly elected, and Lebanon's PM is duly elected and even Iran's government is duly elected.

In fact an Iran armed with nuclear weapons is a mortal threat to American, Israeli and European cities. If a nonnuclear Iran is prepared to finance, arm and train Hezbollah, sustain a war against Israel from southern Lebanon and, in Holbrooke's own words, "support actions against U.S. forces in Iraq," then what would a nuclear Iran be likely to do? Remember, Iranian officials were present at North Korea's missile launches on our Fourth of July, and it is noteworthy that Venezuela's anti-American dictator, Hugo Chávez, has visited Iran five times.

I think Newt isn't warmongering at all. And we're dealing with a people who considers it an HONOR to be dead in the name of Allah. You get virgins and such for that HONOR. I'm to the point that thinks we should be honoring these idiots of evil as much as we possibly can.