Lebanon--A Powder Keg Ready To Blow
Yesterday, Minister Gamayel was assassinated by a hit squad in Lebanon, and my beautiful and highly talented and intelligent wife did the best thing she could in covering it for us. She put up links to those who had been on the story since it broke early yesterday. So, where does the powder keg come into this? Let me highlight an interview with that Hugh Hewitt had with Victor Davis Hanson:
HH: I thought we might have a month away from the bad news, but as Beirut descends into crisis tonight, it appears as though the bad guys sense an opening.
VDH: Yeah, they do, and I think this should be a wake up call for everybody in the United States who wants to bring in the 1990's realist team, that anybody who thinks that they can have some sort of reconciliation with Syria and Iran are missing the entire problem in the Middle East. The problem is those two countries, and those two governments.
HH: Victor Davis Hanson, if you had a chance to visit with the President tonight, what would you be telling him?
VDH: Don't give up. Don't weaken. Don't hesitate. Don't pause. Do not cut a deal with those two governments. They're killing American soldiers through surrogates in Iraq. They're trying to destabilize Lebanon like they did in the 1980's. They're the source of most of the evil that's now causing us problems from Afghanistan to Iraq. And this idea that you're going to bring James Baker back, and that team back who gave us everything from Iran-Contra to jobs, jobs, jobs as the only reason we're going to go into the Middle East, to flank the Jews. I could go on, but it's a very sensitive point with me. I think a lot of us, Hugh, stood by this administration through thick and thin when the paleocons turned on them, when the liberal hawks turned on them, when the neocons are starting to bail. But my God, if you're going to go into the Middle East, and put 130,000 Americans in harm's way, fighting for democracy, and then you turn around and you appease those two governments who are killing people, I don't think a lot of us are going to stand for that.
HH: Is this an Archduke Ferdinand moment with the assassination of Gemayel?
VDH: I think it may be. I really do. I think that Syria realizes that as soon as they saw that the United States was going to cease pressure on them, it was time to go in and start killing non-Shia politicians, reporters especially. They've killed journalists, they've killed T.V...it's not just this Gemayel. It's not just a Christian politician. They've been doing this for two years, killing, systematically, any critics. And they sense that they get a green light from us when we pull back. And I think it should be a wake up call for the United States, that when you go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, you don't go to war in a half measure. You either go to war or you don't go to war. And we're in a war in Iraq, and we're in war with, as the President said, Islamic-facism, and autocracy and dictatorship, and there's no better examples than Iran and Syria.
Now Hugh draws a comparison to what is happening right now between Syria and Lebanon is eeriely similar to Anschluss--the annexation of Austria. I can see this clearly as a strong comparison. Syria, despite the UN's demands they vacate Lebanon, has never given up the hope of toppling the government there. The Anschluss that led to the annexation of Austria to the Nazis was orchestrated by the Nazi Party, from within Austria and from without.
That's exactly what Hezbollah has been doing, as a proxy of both Syria and Iran. Their war with Israel was not just designed to strike at their enemy, but also to turn as many Lebanese against the Israelis as possible. In the end, because of the withdrawal of Israeli forces, Nasrallah (the leader of Hezbollah) was revered in Lebanon as some sort of hero. And with Hezbollah backing him up, he started making demands of the government, and making moves to secure his place there. And all at the behest of the two nations causing the most trouble in the region. Nasrallah has no problem being the puppet of Assad and Ahmadinejad as long as he gets to do what he enjoys doing, and that folks is killing Jews.
If the Lebanese government falls, and it's very close to that, a civil war could break out that could spread throughout the region. That doesn't bode well for our efforts there, nor does it help the Israelis. The Israelis know that they'll be handcuffed in any confrontation. The patience of the West lasted only a few weeks before it turned on Israel, and demanded a cease-fire.
A confrontationis going to come about over there, and we can't play patty-cake with these guys. We can't run the war in cycles where one month we're kicking in doors, and knocking out teeth, and the next month we get all apologetic on our enemy. When you go to war, you go all out. The destruction of the enemy is the ultimate goal in war, and if you're not committed to that end, you shouldn't be deploying your forces. We have seen in the Iraq theater that we lack the fortitude, at times, to deal with our enemy, or our forces are constrained by the Iraqi government, and ultimately their commanders. War isn't PC, folks. It's nasty, and all too often we see nations verbally browbeat into not taking the steps necessary to win. That must end, here and now, in the Middle East. If the West is to take up the role of cleaning up this cesspool, then they go all the way.
And that would be my personal advice to the president. Don't back down, and don't capitulate. Send a clear message to Syria that this sort of garbage isn't going to fly. And there should be another warning to BOTH Syria and Iran that if they don't knock it off, there will be serious repercussions, and no, we're not going to take our gripes to the UN. We'll do it alone. We can't allow Assad and Ahmadinejad to win a victory in Lebanon. If they do, the confrontation in the Middle East will come much quicker than people would care to admit.
Publius II
Yesterday, Minister Gamayel was assassinated by a hit squad in Lebanon, and my beautiful and highly talented and intelligent wife did the best thing she could in covering it for us. She put up links to those who had been on the story since it broke early yesterday. So, where does the powder keg come into this? Let me highlight an interview with that Hugh Hewitt had with Victor Davis Hanson:
HH: I thought we might have a month away from the bad news, but as Beirut descends into crisis tonight, it appears as though the bad guys sense an opening.
VDH: Yeah, they do, and I think this should be a wake up call for everybody in the United States who wants to bring in the 1990's realist team, that anybody who thinks that they can have some sort of reconciliation with Syria and Iran are missing the entire problem in the Middle East. The problem is those two countries, and those two governments.
HH: Victor Davis Hanson, if you had a chance to visit with the President tonight, what would you be telling him?
VDH: Don't give up. Don't weaken. Don't hesitate. Don't pause. Do not cut a deal with those two governments. They're killing American soldiers through surrogates in Iraq. They're trying to destabilize Lebanon like they did in the 1980's. They're the source of most of the evil that's now causing us problems from Afghanistan to Iraq. And this idea that you're going to bring James Baker back, and that team back who gave us everything from Iran-Contra to jobs, jobs, jobs as the only reason we're going to go into the Middle East, to flank the Jews. I could go on, but it's a very sensitive point with me. I think a lot of us, Hugh, stood by this administration through thick and thin when the paleocons turned on them, when the liberal hawks turned on them, when the neocons are starting to bail. But my God, if you're going to go into the Middle East, and put 130,000 Americans in harm's way, fighting for democracy, and then you turn around and you appease those two governments who are killing people, I don't think a lot of us are going to stand for that.
HH: Is this an Archduke Ferdinand moment with the assassination of Gemayel?
VDH: I think it may be. I really do. I think that Syria realizes that as soon as they saw that the United States was going to cease pressure on them, it was time to go in and start killing non-Shia politicians, reporters especially. They've killed journalists, they've killed T.V...it's not just this Gemayel. It's not just a Christian politician. They've been doing this for two years, killing, systematically, any critics. And they sense that they get a green light from us when we pull back. And I think it should be a wake up call for the United States, that when you go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, you don't go to war in a half measure. You either go to war or you don't go to war. And we're in a war in Iraq, and we're in war with, as the President said, Islamic-facism, and autocracy and dictatorship, and there's no better examples than Iran and Syria.
Now Hugh draws a comparison to what is happening right now between Syria and Lebanon is eeriely similar to Anschluss--the annexation of Austria. I can see this clearly as a strong comparison. Syria, despite the UN's demands they vacate Lebanon, has never given up the hope of toppling the government there. The Anschluss that led to the annexation of Austria to the Nazis was orchestrated by the Nazi Party, from within Austria and from without.
That's exactly what Hezbollah has been doing, as a proxy of both Syria and Iran. Their war with Israel was not just designed to strike at their enemy, but also to turn as many Lebanese against the Israelis as possible. In the end, because of the withdrawal of Israeli forces, Nasrallah (the leader of Hezbollah) was revered in Lebanon as some sort of hero. And with Hezbollah backing him up, he started making demands of the government, and making moves to secure his place there. And all at the behest of the two nations causing the most trouble in the region. Nasrallah has no problem being the puppet of Assad and Ahmadinejad as long as he gets to do what he enjoys doing, and that folks is killing Jews.
If the Lebanese government falls, and it's very close to that, a civil war could break out that could spread throughout the region. That doesn't bode well for our efforts there, nor does it help the Israelis. The Israelis know that they'll be handcuffed in any confrontation. The patience of the West lasted only a few weeks before it turned on Israel, and demanded a cease-fire.
A confrontationis going to come about over there, and we can't play patty-cake with these guys. We can't run the war in cycles where one month we're kicking in doors, and knocking out teeth, and the next month we get all apologetic on our enemy. When you go to war, you go all out. The destruction of the enemy is the ultimate goal in war, and if you're not committed to that end, you shouldn't be deploying your forces. We have seen in the Iraq theater that we lack the fortitude, at times, to deal with our enemy, or our forces are constrained by the Iraqi government, and ultimately their commanders. War isn't PC, folks. It's nasty, and all too often we see nations verbally browbeat into not taking the steps necessary to win. That must end, here and now, in the Middle East. If the West is to take up the role of cleaning up this cesspool, then they go all the way.
And that would be my personal advice to the president. Don't back down, and don't capitulate. Send a clear message to Syria that this sort of garbage isn't going to fly. And there should be another warning to BOTH Syria and Iran that if they don't knock it off, there will be serious repercussions, and no, we're not going to take our gripes to the UN. We'll do it alone. We can't allow Assad and Ahmadinejad to win a victory in Lebanon. If they do, the confrontation in the Middle East will come much quicker than people would care to admit.
Publius II
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 5:56 PM
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