Love of the Land: The Scud Saga Continues

The Scud Saga Continues

Noah Pollak
Contentions/Commentary
25 April '10

Michael Young, the opinion editor of the Beirut Daily Star, has a fine column parsing the latest developments on Syria, Lebanon, and the Obama administration. He confirms the interpretation I made recently on this blog, that the administration is puzzled at the failure of its opening gambits and unsure of what to do next:

The problem is that Washington is of several minds over what to do about Syria…because there is no broad accord, and because the president has not provided clear guidance on resolving Mideastern problems, there is confusion in Washington. And where there is confusion there is policy bedlam, with everyone trying to fill the vacuum. That explains why the Syrians feel they can relax for now, and why the Iranians see no reason yet to fear an American riposte.

Lebanon should be worried about American uncertainty. When there is doubt in Washington, it usually means the Israelis have wide latitude to do what they see fit here. With much of the Lebanese political class openly or objectively siding with Hezbollah, rather than shaping an American approach to Lebanon that might reinforce its sovereignty, we can guess the calamitous effect of that abdication.

Young’s worry is confirmed by this remarkable report from Foreign Policy’s Josh Rogin:

As for why Syria seems to be playing such an unhelpful role, “that’s the million-dollar question,” the [Obama administration] official said….”We do not understand Syrian intentions. No one does, and until we get to that question we can never get to the root of the problem,” the official said. “Until then it’s all damage control.”

This is quite simply amazing. The Assads, father and now son, have run the same foreign policy for decades.

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: The Scud Saga Continues

Love of the Land: Israel will preempt

Israel will preempt

Fresnozionism.org
14 April '10

(Whether this will be the straw that breaks the camels back I would not venture to guess, however it's clear that this does up the ante. Y)

The recent disclosure that Syria has transferred Scud missiles to Hizballah marks a significant turning point. If war on Israel’s northern border could have been avoided — and perhaps it was already a forgone conclusion — that is clearly not the case now.

With the addition of these missiles, which are capable of carrying chemical warheads, Hizballah changes from an irritant to an existential threat to Israel. It is now sufficiently dangerous that it cannot be permitted to strike first. Additional deliveries, such as advanced antitank and antiaircraft weapons — even intelligence that indicates that they will be delivered in the near future — may trigger a premptive response.

In my opinion, the US administration’s tilt away from Israel has caused Iran, Syria, etc. to think that they will be able to hit Israel hard enough to hurt her badly, while the US will step in immediately and prevent Israel from doing more than an acceptable amount of damage in return. And probably Israel’s decision-makers think so too. So this is another reason for Israel to choose to preempt.

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: Israel will preempt

RubinReports: If There's No Project to Engage Hizballah Why Do People Keep Telling Me They Were Contacted About It?

If There's No Project to Engage Hizballah Why Do People Keep Telling Me They Were Contacted About It?

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By Barry Rubin

Recently, I wrote an article about receiving a letter saying the Center for American Progress is running a project to advocate U.S. engagement with Hizballah and that high-ranking officials in the Obama administration were encouraging this as part of their own campaign to start talking with the Lebanese terrorist group that is a client for Iran and Syria in trying to take over Lebanon and destroy Israel.

The head of the project, Cambanis, a strong supporter of Hizballah, has denied it. Yes, he admitted. That's what my assistant wrote but he lied. The letter began, however, with the assistant saying the director asked him to write me. So one would think the director approved the letter.

Cambanis wrote last year

"The Islamist axis commands real power and is a force to be reckoned with. Israel has never stopped negotiating with Hamas and Hezbollah. European diplomats are quietly talking to Hezbollah officials, and looking for ways to initiate contacts with Hamas without violating European law. American intelligence services and diplomats find they have less and less leverage and understanding from their increasingly isolated stations and embassies; they’ll need to craft new channels through which to speak to groups in the Islamist axis."

For more on his strongly pro-Hizballah views, see here.

That sounds to me like advocating contacts with Hizballah as well as Hamas. The statement about Israel, by the way, isn't true at all, with the very limited exception of freeing Israelis held prisoner, which is not exactly the kind of political talks in which the United States would engage.

The Cable, a publication of Foreign Policy magazine, speaks dismissively of a "conspiracy" proving to be non-existent. In one-sentence, it said the Center for American Progress denied the story: "In a separate interview with The Cable, CAP's Katulis confirmed Cambanis's account and added that he's a `deep skeptic' of the prospects of engaging terrorists...."

Glad to hear it. I wrote in some detail, however, about why this response in the Cable wasn't satisfactory. But why have three different sources told me that they were explicitly contacted, invited to participate, and told that the Center for American Progress was doing this study by different people?

Incidentally, aside from Obama's "counter-"terrorism advisor John Brennan, who favors engaging Hizballah, the other most militant such official in the Obama administration on these issues is Mara Rudman, on the staff of Middle East negotiator George Mitchell. She is a former leading figure at the Center for American Progress.

She is also the most likely candidate as the source for a particularly nasty slur leaked on National Security Council official Dennis Ross, who was said to be more loyal to Israel than to the United States because he didn't think the administration's current confrontation with Israel was a good idea. Ross, by the way, may be the only foreign policy expert so respected that he was appointed to a high position under Presidents Bush, Clinton, and now Obama, that is three of the last four chief executives.

It's peculiar. If someone was running around falsely claiming he was doing a project for your think tank wouldn't you expect that institution to loudly proclaim it isn’t true and to be real angry with Cambanis for saying otherwise? Has the Center for American Progress sent an angry note to Cambanis asking him to stop using their name? Has Cambanis fired his assistant for a great (alleged) ethical abuse?

So I’m getting even more suspicious that the story is true and they are undertaking such a project, albeit somehow making a denial on some technical grounds.

RubinReports: If There's No Project to Engage Hizballah Why Do People Keep Telling Me They Were Contacted About It?

RubinReports: Answering Readers' Questions and Updates: Fatah and Turkey

Answering Readers' Questions and Updates: Fatah and Turkey

Please subscribe to the blog that raises the questions--and answers them--that the media misses or mistakes

1. Fatah, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan

Question: You describe Fatah hardliners as seeking a Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. Why don't they want to take over Jordan also? And why is a similar change of mind impossible about a permanent peace with Israel?

Answer: Historically, the PLO and Fatah have not sought to overthrow Jordan and take it over. The exception is when they were overconfident during the 1968-1970 period and even then that was more a PFLP and DFLP idea than a Fatah one. While seeking revenge through the Black September terrorist group from 1970 to 1972, Fatah and the PLO have not worked actively to subvert Jordan, in part remembering the total defeat Jordan gave them in September 1970. Actually, the fact is that Hamas has largely displaced the PLO and many Palestinian Jordanians support the Muslim Brotherhood-related Islamic Action Front today. Jordan does worry about an independent Palestinian state but doesn't see Fatah as a direct threat today.

2. Fatah and the Al-Aqsa Brigade

Question The new Fatah charter refers to Al Asifa as its military wing. Is there a reason that Fatah seems to be abandoning Al Aqsa martyrs brigade? Or did Fatah itself use both names?

Answer: Al-Asifa has been the name of the PLO irregularforces (guerrilla/terrorist) since the 1960s. Al-Aqsa is not controlled by the Fatah Central Committee. One might call it a deniable terrorist force which is under the control of the West Bank local Fatah organization. Although the Western news media often falls for the trick, since Fatah has never tried to stop the group or disciplined any member for participating in it, al-Aqsa is clearly a Fatah group but, again, not necessarily one controlled from the top Fatah bureaucracy. Al-Aqsa was created by Marwan Barghouti, who is now a member of the Fatah Central Committee though in an Israeli prison for organizing the bloody second intifada--by his own admission--in 2000.

3. Turkish Regime's Plans to Take Over Army

Following the Turkish regime's attempt to intimidate me and my article about how that Islamist government is slandering the army and intimidating or throwing into jail peaceful critics, the next step in the campaign has been taken. Today's Zaman, the leading organ of the regime, now says the solution is that the armed forces reflect Turkey's diversity by admitting Islamist officers. Eventually, of course, the regime would ensure that the army is ideologically loyal to itself. So this is the plan: keep accusing the army of planning coups and terrorism (including schemes to put bombs in mosques), discredit it with the public, and blackmail it into becoming Islamist-oriented, thus completing the AKP regime's control over all Turkish institutions.

RubinReports: Answering Readers' Questions and Updates: Fatah and Turkey

Love of the Land: Arming Lebanon is arming Hizballah

Arming Lebanon is arming Hizballah

Fresno Zionism
12 January '10

A few days after the start of the Second Lebanon War, on July 14, 2006, Hizballah fired an Iranian copy of the Chinese C-802 anti-ship missile, making a direct hit on the Israeli Navy’s corvette Hanit. The ship was seriously damaged; four sailors were killed and several others injured. It was remarkable that the Hanit managed to stay afloat, and even returned to Ashdod under its own power. Although the ship had sophisticated anti-missile capabilities, the systems were turned off, either because the crew did not believe that Hizballah had such a missile, or because they wanted to reduce the chance of accidentally firing at nearby Israeli aircraft. Several officers were disciplined as a result of the affair.

A short time later, the IAF bombed several coastal radar stations belonging to the Lebanese army. It’s thought that they provided tracking data to Hizballah. In 2006, Hizballah had far less power and control in Lebanon than it does today. Nevertheless, probably one-third of the Lebanese Army in 2006 consisted of Shiites who might be sympathetic at least to Hizballah.

Today Hizballah has complete freedom of action in Lebanon, and all but controls the government — and the army. It is hard to believe that arms supplied to the Lebanese army could be kept from Hizballah:

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Arming Lebanon is arming Hizballah

RubinReports: Why Can’t Western Policymakers Believe There are Actual Revolutionaries in the World?

Why Can’t Western Policymakers Believe There are Actual Revolutionaries in the World?

By Barry Rubin

A reader sent me an article asking me if it made me feel like laughing or crying. Neither. I just gasped in amazement. Studying the Middle East isn’t really a matter of being a Democrat or Republican; liberal or conservative; “pro-Israel” or “pro-Arab.” It should be based on the simplest possible common sense, along with a basic knowledge of the situation under discussion.

But nowadays it is as if nothing can be too bizarre to say as long as it is based on wishful thinking and mirror-imaging. Often, it seems as if the most elementary rules of human conduct and international affairs are forgotten by those who claim to be experts and, much worse, those who have positions to direct national policies and preserve or put at risk millions of lives.

Consider Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson, “Disarming Hizballah: Advancing Regional Stability,” for Foreign Affairs. These gentlemen have good reputations and are not ideologues. One is at the Council on Foreign Relations, and the other is a professor at the Naval War College. Perhaps the problem is that they are experts on "terrorism" but don't really understand Middle East politics. They do acknowledge that Hizballah is gaining power in Lebanon and is a threat to Israel, but despite these successes they think it is on the verge of becoming moderate. Why? I have no idea and don’t see any evidence presented in the article.

Nevertheless they maintain, “Hezbollah, like the IRA 15 years ago, may be ready to shift more decisively into the political realm.” According to a RAND study, we are told, “Hezbollah was distancing itself from Iranian patronage in order to increase its domestic legitimacy among parties that have viewed it as Tehran's lackey. ....Some of Hezbollah's leaders might see a move toward demilitarization as a new avenue for increasing the group's appeal and bolstering its credibility as a party. Contact with Hezbollah would have to exploit this impulse to be useful.”

Let’s consider what’s being said here. Despite its radical Islamist ideology, despite the fact that it has been advancing steadily in power, despite the fact that it depends on Iran for money and weapons, despite its tight organic links to Tehran, Hizballah is supposedly distancing itself from the Islamic republic.

Why? Because this supposedly will make more voters support them. Hello? This is Lebanon. Hizballah’s supporters are Shia Muslims. They know they won’t win over Christians, Sunnis, and Druze by posing as more independent. The Lebanese non-Shia, who haven’t the benefit of advanced academic degrees, know they can’t trust Hizballah, and Hizballah knows it as well.

Moreover, Hizballah’s leaders know that their political power depends on their militia’s strength. The idea that they believe demilitarization is a good idea because it will bolster the group’s credibility is awesomely ridiculous.

To make matters far worse, the prescription offered is that the Obama administration should start official contacts with Hizballah with the aim of moderating that group. If the U.S. government can succeed in deciding Hizballah to throw away its arms (remember, this is the Middle East we are talking about), the authors say, then everything will be just great. The chance of war with Israel will be lowered, there will be peace within Lebanon, the lion will lay down with the lamb, and by the way I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.

Oh, and as is usual in such cases the bait is for Israel to make more concessions by turning over some territory to Lebanon (the Shabaa Farms) and limiting any responses it makes to attacks on itself.

Another article in Foreign Affairs is introduced with this summary: “Washington's only option is to confront Hezbollah indirectly: by getting its backers, Syria and Iran, to help change its focus from militancy to politics.”

But why should Damascus and Tehran abandon a trust, successful ally for Western promises? And why should Hizballah change its focus from militancy to politics? Can’t one do both at the same time?

Every day Iran and Syria make statements about their solidarity and tighten their relations through actions overt and covert. Virtually every day Hizballah leaders praise and pledge allegiance to Tehran, receives weapons and money from Iran and Syria, while also deriving benefits in Lebanese politics from its military power. How can dozens of Western analysts simply leave all this out to prefer their own personal interpretations of what these forces “really” want?

These kinds of ideas, produced by well-paid, highly credentialed and honored “experts” are just nuts, showing absolutely no comprehension of the situation. It is even more daunting coming from people who are mainstream foreign policy thinkers one would expect to know better.

And the same kind of thinking is going on in the United States and Western countries about Iran, Syria, the Iraqi insurgents, the Taliban, Afghanistan, Hamas, Venezuela, North Korea, and lots of other issues.

A large part of the problem is a disbelief in the possibility that one would want to remain radical; or that militancy can co-exist with running for office and having a political party. But why is this so hard to understand?

Thank goodness for al-Qaida, giving us at least one group in the world that Western intellectuals and policymakers don’t think they can win over by sympathy, conversation, and concessions.

RubinReports: Why Can’t Western Policymakers Believe There are Actual Revolutionaries in the World?

RubinReports: Terrorism and State Sponsorship: Not Gone but in a Lull and Proving Profitable

Terrorism and State Sponsorship: Not Gone but in a Lull and Proving Profitable

By Barry Rubin

Let me start with a true story. In 1984 I founded what was just about the first program on terrorism in the United States, at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) with a small grant from the Ford Foundation. We brought together journalists, officials, and academics to discuss the threat of terrorism to the United States and U.S. policies. I edited three books on terrorist groups.

After the grant ended I went to the Ford Foundation office in New York to discuss renewing it. The grants’ officer had made up his mind before I stepped into his room. “We aren’t going to renew the grant,” he said, “because we don’t believe terrorism will be a problem in the future.”

This experience came into my mind as I was conversing with a leading world expert on terrorism who asked me an interesting question: Has state sponsorship of terrorism declined nowadays? It was a very good question indeed.

A superficial examination would say that the answer is “Yes.” But a more careful look suggests that this is illusory in two respects. First, the state sponsorship that is continuing is largely overlooked. Second, terrorism has gone big-time and mainstream.

In the old days, a wide range of countries systematically supported terrorism internationally. These particularly included Cuba, the Soviet bloc, Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan and North Korea. Iran and Afghanistan entered the field after Islamist revolutions there. Several of these countries were Communist, and with the fall of the Soviet empire in 1991 their involvement declined. With the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iraq dropped out. The same U.S. invasion of Iraq that brought down Saddam also intimidated Libya, that most wild-eyed of dictatorships, into caution.

Then, too, there arose Usama bin Ladin and the many radical Islamist groups that formed part of his organization. The word was that terrorism had been privatized, backed by the bin Ladin family wealth rather than the treasury of any specific country. Moreover, the PLO largely transformed itself into the Palestinian Authority, which negotiated with Israel and looked to the United States as its main aid-giver. State sponsorship, it appears, has gone out of fashion.

Under intensive pressure from Turkey, Syria expelled the Kurdish terrorist PKK. Bin Ladin voluntarily left Sudan, while he and his Taliban sponsors were on the run after the post-9/11 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Cuba and North Korea quieted down, in part because they felt so much on the offensive and overt sponsorship of major terrorist attacks seemed too risky with the United States waging a War on Terrorism.

And yet while there has been a decline in state sponsorship in many ways, appearances are also deceiving and even that lull may be partly illusory. Three countries stand out today as especially energetic: Iran, Syria, and Pakistan. While stating that as a fact is not so surprising, the consequences of this sponsorship has been strongly downplayed by the media and Western governments for strategic or diplomatic reasons. After all, to admit and define a problem is to create pressure for doing something about it. In addition, the idea that al-Qaida is without state sponsorship has become a dogma which resists evidence to the contrary.

Let’s examine the issue in detail starting with Pakistan. There is a huge amount of evidence that Pakistan sponsors the Taliban and other terrorist groups in Afghanistan as well as those attacking India. The organizations which carried out the bloody Mumbai attack in 2008 and much terrorism in disputed Indian Kashmir, for example, operate freely in Pakistan and it is hard to believe that Pakistani military intelligence is not well appraised of each detail of their plans. Indeed, it funds and protects them.

Why, then, is not this seen globally as a major instance of state sponsorship of terrorism? Because Pakistan is needed by the United States to conduct operations in and near Afghanistan. Thus, Pakistan is regarded as a U.S. ally, receives massive funding, and little criticism. The Indian government cannot retaliate no matter how great is the provocation since it lacks international support and Pakistan is a nuclear power. Thus, Pakistan has become a state sponsorship of terrorism which is immune to pressure or punishment.

As for Syria, it is an active state sponsor of terrorism on several fronts. In recent years, it was deeply involved in terrorist attacks in Lebanon against moderates who advocated the expulsion of Syrian influence and a more independent policy for their own country. In conjunction with Iran and Hizballah, assassinations were carried out that included the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. An international tribunal was set up to investigate this responsibility but despite leaks that it found involvement by the highest elements in the Syrian government, the West has not pushed for the culmination of the tribunal and Lebanon has been intimidated out of doing so.

At the same time, Syria and Iran backed two major terrorist groups, Hamas and Hizballah, in attacking Israel. They are headquartered in Damascus and while in no way purely puppets or instruments of their two sponsors certainly pay close attention to their wishes. Their weapons and budget are largely supplied from Tehran and Damascus. Yet for a variety of reasons, ranging from Israeli policy to U.S. engagement efforts, Syria does not pay much of a penalty for its behavior.

Perhaps more shocking is the fact that Syria is waging a war of terrorism against America in Iraq and the group it is sponsoring there is al-Qaida. Thus, it is an open secret that Syria is now allied with al-Qaida, the group that carried out the September 11 attacks on America, yet pointing out the logical bottom line seems to many people as some far-out or silly notion. Moreover, terrorists trained, armed, financed, and given safe haven in Syria are killing American soldiers and civilians in Iraq. Yet the U.S. government won’t even back Iraqi complaints and demands for action on this issue.

Lip service is given to Iran’s being the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism but many argue that this activity has declined in recent years. To do so, however, they must leave out Iranian operations in regard to Hamas, Hizballah, and insurgents in Iraq, which include direct attacks (often through Iranian-made roadside bombs) against U.S. troops.

The current defense minister of Iran is a wanted terrorist for his involvement in the bloody attack on the Jewish center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, while he and his predecessor, then stationed in Lebanon, were involved in the attack on the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1984 which killed 241 Americans. This last point has not even been mentioned by any U.S. official. Few Americans know that a U.S. court found Iranian involvement in the terrorist attack on American military personnel in the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia.

Since the emphasis now is on conciliation rather than confrontation, Western governments find it convenient to forget past and ignore present-day state sponsorship of terrorism.

All of this leads to the second point: the mainstreaming of terrorism. Hamas now rules the Gaza Strip; Hizballah has ministers in the Lebanese government. Both have run in elections. There are many in the West who argues—though this has nothing to do with reality—that these groups each have a military wing (bad) and a political wing (good). There is tremendous pressure in Europe, especially Britain, to engage with the “good” Hizballah.

Indeed, the advisor to President Barack Obama on terrorism stated that Hizballah couldn’t be a terrorist organization because its membership included lawyers. Further afield, the Sri Lankan terrorist group, the Tamil Tigers, has attained respectability, notably in Canada. The Tigers’ representative in the United States, V. Rudrakumaran, is himself a lawyer. In Europe, the PKK runs a television station, while Hizballah’s al-Manar television is shown by many cable networks—though barred from others—around the world. With the Goldstone Commission report, the UN has been transformed into a propaganda organ for Hamas, despite the report’s minor criticisms of that group which did not appear in the General Assembly’s resolution bashing Israel.

Thus, state sponsorship has been airbrushed out for political reasons, while terrorist groups have reinvented themselves as political parties without abandoning their ideology or terrorism. Since terrorism has proven to be so profitable and sponsorship so low cost, it is reasonable to worry that both phenomena will increase in future and that the current period will prove to be a lull and not an end. Unfortunately, it is a lull during which the West is helping to show that these are low-risk, high-yield policies for radical regimes.

RubinReports: Terrorism and State Sponsorship: Not Gone but in a Lull and Proving Profitable

RubinReports: White House on Beirut Marine Barracks Bombing--Can't Remember Who Murdered 241 Americans

White House on Beirut Marine Barracks Bombing--Can't Remember Who Murdered 241 Americans

[Please subscribe. There's too much news from the Middle East to miss a single article; and too little good analysis in the media to miss a single analysis.]

By Barry Rubin

The White House has just released a very routine but still quite disturbing declaration by President Barack Obama. And it goes like this:

"On the anniversary of the attack on the U.S. Marine Barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, we remember today the 241 American Marines, soldiers, and sailors who lost their lives 26 years ago as the result of a horrific terrorist attack that destroyed the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. The military personnel serving in Beirut were there to bring peace and stability to Lebanon after years of internal strife and conflict. The murder of our soldiers, sailors, and Marines on this day on 1983 remains a senseless tragedy....In remembering this terrible day of loss, we are at the same time hopeful that a new government in Lebanon will soon be formed. We look forward to working with a Lebanese government that works actively to promote stability in the region and prosperity for its people."

The problem is not so much the wording of the declaration but the context in which it's issued. After all, the president of the United States has access to U.S. intelligence. And U.S. intelligence knows:

--That the bombing was carried out by cadre of Hizballah under the guidance of Syria and Iran.

--Today, attacks are being carried out against U.S. military personnel in Iraq under the guidance of Syria and Iran, and

--Iran is trying to stage such attacks in Afghanistan.

--In addition, Iran's current minister of defense was the head of covert operations at the time that these were killing U.S. citizens.

--Hizballah was involved in other attacks on U.S. citizens and servicemen in Lebanon.

--It is also the anniversary of the killing of three U.S. security agents by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who the Palestinian Authority never punished and Hamas is now protecting. There is no apparent effort by the U.S. government to bring these killers to justice or to press the Palestinian Authority and Hamas to cooperate in doing so or to punish them for not doing so.

All of these forces, however, are left anonymous. No one is named for involvement in that "horrific terrorist attack." And, of course the attack was not "senseless" but part of an Iranian-Syrian-Hizballah campaign to take over Lebanon and drive U.S. influence out of the region. In fact, it was counted as a great victory for these forces since it showed America's vulnerability to being hit by terrorism--an inspiration for September 11?--and did succeed in paralyzing the U.S. effort in Lebanon. Ultimately, this lead to the withdrawal of the peace-keeping forces altogether, paving the way for Syria's turning Lebanon into a satellite state for two decades at a great financial and strategic profit. .

None of these attacks were perpetrated by al-Qaida, the only group that remains a target of this administration's version of a war on terrorism, a phrase which is no longer used.

It is bad enough the administration doesn't say any of this. Is it aware of these factors at all?

Indeed, the president's advisor on terrorism is on record as saying that Hizballah is no longer a terrorist group, which opens the door for U.S. contacts in future.

This raises the question of the declaration's final sentence. Let's repeat it:

"We look forward to working with a Lebanese government that works actively to promote stability in the region and prosperity for its people."

While negotiations are complex and ongoing, the government being discussed for Lebanon would include a large contingent of Hizballah cabinet ministers and would give Hizballah veto power over government decisions.

Now it could be argued that this would not constitute, in U.S. eyes, a goverment promoting stability and prosperity. But who knows? Without even naming Hizballah as an adversary, however, the implication is that the United States does not oppose a government including Hizballah, which is one more step to having such a government.

Consider just one such additional case. Colonel William Richard Higgins, kidnapped by Hizballah men while serving with UN peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon in 1988, horribly tortured, turned over to the Iranians and murdered. Does the White House remember him?

So 241 U.S. servicemen died 26 years ago. Who killed them? Will the murders be punished in any way or will the groups and states that stood behind the attack be rewarded? On this, the declaration is silent.

RubinReports: White House on Beirut Marine Barracks Bombing--Can't Remember Who Murdered 241 Americans

RubinReports: How Reuters Rewrites an Israeli Intelligence Analysis to Ignore its Conclusions and Use it Against Israel

How Reuters Rewrites an Israeli Intelligence Analysis to Ignore its Conclusions and Use it Against Israel

By Barry Rubin

The pervasive media slant on Middle East issues is so obvious that it’s funny, and also transgresses the proper rules of journalism.

Here’s a headline on a Reuters dispatch today:

“Israeli official doubts Syria's clout on Hezbollah.”

So, you’d think, Syria isn’t that responsible for what the Lebanese Islamist organization does. In fact, the purpose is shown in the lead:

“Syria may not be able to curb Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas, a senior Israeli official said on Tuesday, casting doubt on the feasibility of a long-standing Israeli condition for a peace deal with Damascus.”

Get it? So Israel cannot ask Syria to stop providing Hezbollah (I prefer Hizballah but I’ll stick with Reuters transliteration here) with advanced arms or not urge it periodically to attack Israel. The poor Syrians are just innocent little lambs.

But what was Amos Gilad, former military intelligence chief and today an advisor to Israel’s defense minister actually saying?

He was saying first that Syria has less influence because Iran is the main sponsor of Hezbollah; second that Hezbollah practically controls Lebanon; and third that Hezbollah can start a war when it chooses and drag in Lebanon, as happened in 2006.

So the headline and lead might have been:

Israeli official says Hezbollah is an arm of Iran.

Or

Israeli official says Hezbollah now dominates Lebanon.

Read All at :

RubinReports: How Reuters Rewrites an Israeli Intelligence Analysis to Ignore its Conclusions and Use it Against Israel

RubinReports: Israel: A Country Where The Army Commander and An Arab (Terrorist Agent) Work Out at the Same Gym

Israel: A Country Where The Army Commander and An Arab (Terrorist Agent) Work Out at the Same Gym

By Barry Rubin

An ounce of reality is worth a ton of propaganda. Every day we are deluged with material about how horrible Israel is. For example, a petition to a Canadian film festival—signed by Alice Walker, Jane Fonda, and Danny Glover—oppose including films on Tel Aviv because Israel is allegedly an “apartheid” state.

The director of the festival rejected their demand but agreed that Tel Aviv was “contested ground.”

So now it is becoming acceptable in polite Western cultural circles not only to agree with the Palestinian demand for a West Bank-Gaza State with its capital in east Jerusalem but also to consider that maybe all of Israel should be wiped off the map.

I don’t know what films about Tel Aviv are being shown but I’ll bet one of them is a recent production about a homosexual love affair between a Palestinian and an Israel in which the Palestinians are portrayed quite sympathetically.

Now David Hornik points out this amazing detail. Recently, an Israeli Arab plotted as an agent of Hizballah to assassinate the Israeli military’s chief of staff, the highest-ranking officer.

But how did the would-be assassin stake out the general? Simple. They belong to the same health club where they both work out! Imagine any other country where the head of a military does his exercise at a public gym, much less one that isn't so elite that anyone can join . And so much for that "apartheid" nonsense.

Oh, and isn’t Hizballah that group which President Barack Obama’s terrorism advisor says isn’t a terrorist group, and the one the British government is starting to engage with as a normal political party?

Read All at :

RubinReports: Israel: A Country Where The Army Commander and An Arab (Terrorist Agent) Work Out at the Same Gym

FORMER CIA OPS OFFICER ON HIZBALLAH

taken from B'NAI ELIM (http://bnaielim.blogspot.com/)

Former CIA Ops Officer on Hizballah

Maj. W. Thomas Smith, Jr.

Maj. W. Thomas Smith Jr. is director of the Counterterrorism Research Center of the Family Security Foundation. A former U.S. Marine infantry leader and shipboard counterterrorism instructor, Smith writes about military/defense issues and has covered conflict in the Balkans, on the West Bank, in Iraq and Lebanon. He is the author of six books, and his articles have appeared in USA Today, George, U.S. News & World Report, BusinessWeek, National Review Online, CBS News, Townhall.com, The Washington Times, and others.

Among my sources for a recent piece, “Are We Funding the Lebanese Army or Hizballah?” (Human Events, Oct. 20, 2008), was my friend and colleague, Clare M. Lopez, who – when I mentioned to her my concerns regarding Hizballah’s having wormed its way into the legitimate Lebanese Defense apparatus as an official component of the army – said to me, “It’s actually the other way around. The army now appears to be part of Hizballah.”

Lopez – a former operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency who is today a widely sought expert in the interconnected realms of strategic policy, counterintelligence, and counterterrorism – clearly understands the dynamics of Lebanon, its strategic importance in the war on terror, and its increasingly dominant kingdom within the state, Hizballah.

While pulling together information for the piece from additional sources, I spoke with Lopez a couple of times by phone and email. And her analysis for me was so informationally rich that – though I was unable to include all of it in our Human Events piece – I am including it here now.

I’m doing so on the 25th anniversary of the terrorist bombing of the U.S. Marine Barracks in Beirut. The suicide attack – carried out by fledgling Hizballah on Oct. 23, 1983 – killed 241 American Marines, sailors, and soldiers.

Following is Lopez’s unedited, exclusive analysis regarding Hizballah:

“Tom, yes, since May 2008, when Hizballah swiftly and brutally demonstrated its ability to impose military control throughout Lebanon, literally at will, and then with the July formation of the government of national unity (wherein Hizballah wields cabinet veto power), it is clear that Hizballah – and by extension, Iran – owns Lebanon. This means that a radical, revolutionary, and expansionist Shi'a jihad force occupies a foothold on the southeastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea.

“The Lebanese Army stood aside when Hizballah made its move in May: no big surprise to anyone who understands what has been happening demographically in Lebanon these last years: as a Shi'a majority force, the Army's sympathies are obviously with Hizballah. Other militias and political groups within Lebanon – from Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement, to Druze leader Walid Jumblatt's Progressive Socialist Party, to Amal leader Nabi Berri, and now even a clutch of Sunni parties – are lining up to ally themselves with Hizballah.

“Some say that even Saad Hariri's revered father, Rafiq, may have been killed with Saudi involvement because of his close relationship with [Hizballah Secretary General Hassan] Nasrallah – who can be seen on YouTube, by the way, waxing eloquent about Rafiq in front of millions of cheering Lebanese. The lead UN investigator has also spoken publicly about Saudi involvement in the assassination.

“U.S. Middle East policy is woefully misguided, in my opinion. How could it be otherwise? Thirty-five years of graduates from Saudi-Wahhabi-Salafi-funded Ivy League Middle East Studies programs now occupy top positions throughout our Dept. of State, Intelligence Community, think tanks, media, and academia itself.

“There seems to be little to no comprehension or willingness on the part of the Bush administration to recognize current hard realities in the Levant, primary of which is the massive and nefarious influence of Iran. I don't know exactly why there is such fear and reluctance to confront Iran, but my own personal suspicions lie with the status of its nuclear warhead development program – and where those warheads may now already be deployed. Iran's threats, and Hizballah's ability, to field scores, if not hundreds of suicide bombers to Iraq, Israel, and our own cities in the West may also be a reason why our national leadership seems paralyzed with fear about Iran.

“Thing is, this is not going to improve with time if we don't do something to confront it....we'll simply be forced into a position of total submission – dhimmitude–vis-a-vis Iran and the forces of jihad. What this means in the first instance is abandonment of Israel, our foremost ally in the Middle East and the only reliable outpost of liberal democracy in the region. Obama already has promised his support to Muslims and Palestinians, and has indicated he will end the special relationship between the U.S. and Israel – in truth, not a big change from the policies of the Condi Rice State Dept., but now it will be official policy, if he wins the presidency.

“It is Iran that guided and funded and armed the formation of Hizballah in 1982 – and continues to do so. It is Iran that advises, arms, funds, and guides the Palestinian terror organizations sworn to the destruction of the State of Israel: Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Fatah militias (Tanzim, Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade). It is Iran that reportedly has provided Hizballah with something on the order of $3 billion for reconstruction in Lebanon since the summer 2006 war. Not the Lebanese government, not the French or Americans or Europeans or the international community: Iran – which means Nasrallah gets to take credit among [many of] the Lebanese people, who obviously adore the guy. Nasrallah is known as the ‘man who never lies,’ because the promises he makes, he keeps.

“Most dangerous for Israel, it is Iran that has rearmed Hizballah in the aftermath of that war with Fajr 3 and Fajr 5 surface-to-surface missiles, Chinese-made shore-to-sea C-802 missiles, Zelzal-2 and Zelzal-3 missiles (which are capable of delivering CBW munitions a distance of 250 km.), wire-guided TOW missiles, and AT-3 Sagger antitank missiles, antiaircraft cannons, SA-7 anti-aircraft missiles, shoulder-fired Strela-7 and mobile Rapier 2 ground-to-air missiles, Katyusha artillery rockets, sophisticated explosive charges, and small arms.

“Hizballah's command-and-control system is fully integrated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran. Its military telecommunications system -- the one the Fuad Siniora government made a weak (and ultimately futile) move to bring under central Lebanese government control in May, is world-class and now demonstrably untouchable by the Lebanese government. Its broadcast network – TV, radio, Internet – is modern, sophisticated, and very large.

“Since taking control of Lebanon in May, Hizballah forces have occupied all the key high ground and established layered defenses north of the Litani River, in the southern and central Bekaa Valley, and reinforced their presence in southern Beirut.

“UNIFIL's 15,000 ground forces in Lebanon have failed utterly to enforce UN Resolution 1701 and instead of preventing Hizballah's massive rearmament following the summer 2006 war, they have engaged in liaison and pay-off operations with Hizballah for the purpose of force protection.

“So, the U.S. government decision to grant the Lebanese Army millions of dollars worth of military assistance, in full knowledge that those weapons will never be used to confront Hizballah, and more than likely will only add to their arsenal, is foolish in the extreme, in my opinion. After the events of May and July, there can simply be no doubt in any sane person's mind about who controls Lebanon: it is not the Fuad Siniora government! Hassan Nasrallah controls Lebanon.

“I am not one who believes Hassan Nasrallah dances on a puppeteer's strings manipulated out of Tehran – I think he uses Iranian and Syrian assistance for his own ends in Lebanon (although he may be more willing to do their bidding abroad) – but their common purpose surely is the destruction of the State of Israel.

“All I can think is that our national security policy is in the hands of those who do not really believe in the defense of liberal democracy – and most especially if that liberal democracy is embodied in a Jewish State of Israel. There is a terrible strain of anti-Semitism that has taken root and grown in the ranks of our State Dept. and CIA in particular – again, perhaps the result of all those years of Saudi-Wahhabi indoctrination in our top universities. But the result is clear: Condi's readiness to throw Israel under a bus at Annapolis last November [2007]; the Bush administration's refusal to deal with Iran, despite a lot of soaring rhetoric, and now, a real and perceptible diminishment in the bilateral commitment.

“The naiveté of our government’s dealings with Syria, as well as this military deal with the Lebanese Army, seems incomprehensible to me. The ability to distinguish between friend and foe in the Middle East seems lost and will have disastrous consequences for our own national security objectives in the region and ultimately, at home.” — Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com.