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May 27, 2008

Exclusive: Tehran Wins; the State Department Spins

Joel Himelfarb

What kind of fantasy world does the State Department live in? And do these people ever talk with the White House in order to forge some kind of coherent common position on Middle East policy? During his just-concluded visit to the region, President Bush and members of his senior staff did a commendable job of explaining the threat posed by Iran and Syria and the need to stand firm against Jihadist terror. Mr. Bush told the Israeli Knesset May 15th that a strategy of trying to negotiate with "terrorists and radicals" was a "foolish delusion." The president added: "We have an obligation to call this what it is: the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history." But just six days later, David Welch, the State Department's senior Middle East diplomat, signaled U.S. acceptance of the Lebanese government's surrender to Tehran's terrorist proxy Hezbollah - allowing it to retain its military communications network in Lebanon and giving the group enough cabinet seats to exercise veto power over government policy.

Welch said that the deal brokered by the Arab League after five days of negotiations in Qatar was "a necessary and positive step" that will let Lebanon's political process move forward. But it's difficult to see much of anything positive about the deal - unless you're a supporter of Hezbollah or its backers in Tehran and Damascus. Hezbollah, which recently saw its Iranian assistance more than triple, launched a military blitzkrieg against Sunni Muslim and Druze political opponents that left more than 80 people dead, while the Lebanese Army, which has received close to $400 million in U.S. aid in the past two years, stood by and did nothing.

The attacks came in response to the Lebanese government's May 6th declaration that Hezbollah's covert telecommunications network was a threat to Lebanese national security, and the government's reassignment of a Hezbollah ally who directs security at Beirut International Airport.

Under the Lebanese Constitution, the government had every legal right to demand that Hezbollah shut down the network - which enables it to mobilize its army to take over the country in conjunction with Iran and Syria in the event of a crisis. And the Lebanese government had every right to reassign the employee: This is especially true in view of evidence that forces under his command were conducting surveillance of flights in and out of the airport. According to Lebanon scholar Walid Phares, the Hezbollah communications network enables it to activate its massive rocket and missile system across Lebanon without significant interference from the West. This arsenal would be ideal for use against an international force (such as the expanded United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon - the expanded peacekeeping force installed in Southern Lebanon after the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.)

So, when the Lebanese government demanded that the telecommunications network be shut down, Hezbollah reacted quickly and ferociously. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah denounced the government's decision as a "declaration of war." He called the phone network an essential part of the group's weaponry, which it refuses to give up. "We have said before that we will cut off the hand that targets the weapons of the resistance," Nasrallah said May 8th.

The following day, all-out warfare broke out between Hezbollah and allied street gangs and Sunni gangs loyal to Prime Minister Fuad Siniora's Lebanese government and bankrolled by Saudi Arabia. In less than seven hours of all-out fighting, Hezbollah forces routed the pro-government side, occupied much of Western Beirut and plastered the walls with posters of Syrian President Bashar Assad. (The irony was not lost on Lebanese: After the February 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, most likely by Syrian government agents, the resulting international outcry forced the Syrian dictator to withdraw his occupation troops - but not his intelligence operatives - from Lebanon.) Lebanese newspapers were filled with pictures of bound, blindfolded members of the defeated pro-government forces who were captured by Hezbollah forces who sauntered through Beirut boasting how they had forced members of the losing side to beg for their lives.

Unfortunately, the Bush administration has been spinning ever since May 9th, with officials saying Washington believes Hezbollah has "bitten off a bit too much" and now risks alienating the rest of Lebanon's population. "Hezbollah has been politically damaged by what it did this week," an unnamed U.S. official told Robin Wright of The Washington Post.

But across the Middle East, America's friends and foes are more grounded in reality. "The U.S. has failed in Lebanon," said Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, whose private militia was also beaten by Hezbollah. "We have to wait and see the new rules which Hezbollah, Syria and Iran will set. They can do what they want." Sheik Yazeeb Khader, a Ramallah-based Hamas political activist, saw Hezbollah's Lebanon coup as evidence that Mideast radicals were gaining power at the expense of U.S. backed regimes - just as Hamas did last June in seizing power in Gaza and exiling Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to the West Bank. "What happened in Gaza in 2007 is an achievement; now it is happening in 2008 in Lebanon. It's going to happen in 2009 in Jordan and it's going to happen in 2010 in Egypt," Khader told The Washington Times.

Whether this effort to redraw the map of the Middle East against the United States will spread to Jordan and Egypt remains to be seen. But given their recent successes in Gaza and Lebanon, no one can doubt that Tehran's allies are emboldened and that they will try again soon.

Joel Himelfarb is an editorial writer for The Washington Times. The views expressed here are his own.

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