Posted on 07/19/2006 6:45:07 AM PDT by conservativecorner
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice should stay home if her mission is to go to the Middle East in an attempt to tell Israel to stop the war against Hezbollah.
President Bush's message that Israel should use "restraint" in dealing with Hezbollah is equally off the mark. In his first term, President Bush understood the use of pre-emptive war as a necessary national security strategy designed to deal effectively with terrorists. Would President Bush refrain from going to war if Hezbollah sleeper cells launched a terrorist attack in the United States?
Hezbollah committed an act of war when terrorists crossed the Lebanon border into Israel and captured two Israeli soldiers. Truthfully, Hezbollah has been launching rockets into northern Israel killing civilians for years. Israel understands that the recent step-up in Hezbollah violence against Israel was in direct response to orders issued by Iran to divert attention at the recent G-8 meeting in St. Petersburg away from Iran's decision to continue enriching uranium.
Israel understands that Hezbollah is conducting a proxy war on behalf of Iran. The mullahs created Hezbollah and even today Tehran funds Hezbollah to the tune of $250 million a year. If the world succeeds in calling Israel off, then terrorists throughout the world will be emboldened. Israel is now in a vice where enemies on all sides are calling for the destruction of the Jewish state – Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Gaza and Ahmadinejad in Tehran.
At this moment, with Israel just about to launch a ground incursion into southern Lebanon, Hezbollah itself is at an existential moment. Israel has the power not only to disarm Hezbollah, but to destroy Hezbollah as a political movement within Lebanon.
Hezbollah's prestige in the terrorist world comes from the 1983 suicide bombing attack on the American Marines barracks in Beirut. The result: President Reagan decided to withdraw all U.S. troops from Lebanon. Then, in 2001, Hezbollah boasted that it defeated Israel by forcing Israel to withdraw from Lebanon. Right now, Hezbollah is viewed as the only terrorist force in the world that has defeated both the United States and Israel, a feat even Iran itself cannot claim.
Israel is at the first stages of going for a fundamental and historic strategic realignment of power in the Middle East. Hezbollah disarmed would become a Lebanese minority political party that at best could command some 20 to 25 percent of the popular vote. Moreover, a defeat for Hezbollah would be a serious defeat for Iran. Tehran hopes desperately that the world community will step in to restrain Israel before Israel scores a knockout punch on Hezbollah.
This time Israel is playing for keeps. With Iran pursuing nuclear weapons and Ahmadinejad openly proclaiming that Israel needs to be wiped off the face of the earth, Israel knows that war with Iran is inevitable, probably sooner rather than later. Removing Hezbollah as an armed terrorist organization would remove a major weapon from the Iranian arsenal.
Even if the war expands to Syria and then to Iran, Israel would rather take both countries on now, before Iran has the short time yet needed to produce deliverable nuclear weapons of their own making.
The United States can exert strong-arm pressure on Israel, but to do so would be to our detriment. By attacking Hezbollah with a determination to destroy Hezbollah as an armed terrorist organization, Israel truly is doing the dirty work for the United States.
If President Bush is truly serious about waging a successful war on terrorism, the administration must be instructed to give Israel enough time to do the job. No one doubts that the Israeli military has the needed skill and force to get the job done. All that is needed now is the political will in Washington to stay the course and back Israel, our only true ally in the region.
If we waver now, Israel will only fear doubly that the coming showdown with Iran may be one Israel will have to face alone. The Bush administration should do everything necessary right now to avoid putting this fear into Israel. The more Israel feels isolated today, the more resolved the Israeli government will become that Israel alone must defend Israel, regardless what anyone, including President Bush, thinks or says.
Maybe she'll visit Damascus and Tehran and ask Syria and Iran to call off the dogs.
Personally, I don't see much to be accomoplished in the region. Thus far the Arab states are quite restrained, that leaves only Israel to "negotiate" with.
They'll slam her in 2007 when she becomes the VP.
It's just part of the "no one is as correct as me" syndrome.
"Plausible deniability."
Corsi is prematurely off base. W is playing this like a fox.
I checked, and their was
nothing
between the lines.
Who do you think Condi is going to visit, and for what purpose? What sort of diplomatic settlement do you think Condi can pull off next week between Israel, Syria, and Iran? What would you expect the underlying purpose of the trip to be?
She won't be visiting Baghdad, Tehran or Beirut. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, they're not displeased with what's happening.
Likely Tel Aviv. The only thing I can think of is calling Israel off, but perhaps she'll be going to offer support.
Thank you...I agree
You really believe Rice is going over there--which I never disputed, btw--to say "OK, enough!" and Israel will shrug and say "Darn! Oh, ok!"
Diplomacy = capitulation? Wha...?
Everything we see--everything we are allowed to see--is diplomacy. As I said before, it's the chess game. Israel and the US are in concert here, making moves in front of the cameras ("Yes, the US will get over there and stop this right away! Well, in a few days, we'll get over there and chat about it. And of course, Israel will just stop. Yeah.") but who knows what's going on behind the scenes? We don't.
Israel's been doing what they have to do, and the US is doing what IT has to do, namely make these empty nothing calls for ending violence--"Oh, please, oh, stop, oh, please stop what you're doing Israel or, well, we'll send Condi over after you've done most of what you probably plan to do, anyway..."
I can't understand why we all brush off the MSM until something like this, and then they're the fountain of all knowledge. See what actually happens, as opposed to what the MSM is TELLING you is going to happen.
OK, we'll see. I have little faith though...
Ecc 3:8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
None.
I think she's going there because Israel WANTS her to be there (obviously, or they'd have short-circuited the visit before we even knew abotu it).
I don't have any inside info, but then no one else does, especially the MSM. But people have to remember that in this kind of thing everything is done for a purpose.
My guess, purely speculative? Israel will have accomplished what they want to achieve at some point and then will allow the US to act as "peace broker," to improve OUR standing in the area, AND to show that Israel is not to be messed with (since obviously THEY aren't going to gain anything from appearing diplomatic). What's good for the US is good for Israel when it comes to kciking Hezbollah's ass.
Sure, all we can do is sit back and wait. We'll know what happens when it happens. That's why Drudge annoys me, sometimes. When news becomes "prognostication" it is pandering to the weak in the audience who need comforting. The rest of us need to wait and watch and deal with what actually happens.
Corsi is always off the base....
Actually, Corsi's first sentence makes it clear that he would object to her mission being shutting down the situation, rather than letting the combatants resolve it. I agree with him, as far as that goes.
It must be a Law of Nature like the Sun rising in the East.
Israel's wars have a time limit. Finished or not, in days or weeks, it must end. Israel rushes its wars- there is a strategic penalty to be paid.
And how does it end- always.
Advantage Israel. Arabs live to fight another day after they rebuild their fantasies that they held off Israel and that was a win.
And when they do fight on that other day- the world is shocked at the "outbreak" and "cycle of violence".
How long have the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan lasted? How about the US just allows Israel a small measure of that same time? To be deliberate. To be precise. To once and for all finalize something.
Better yet, how about the US concluding that it is not its place to allow or disallow Israel. That's too much I guess.
Condi, go shopping instead. You want to look fabulous for your next meeting with Kofi and other appeasers
Yep. Yep. Oh and thanks for the Thai recommendation again! Everytime I drive past the place, I think of you. AW!
Personally I don't think, at least I hope, she'll go until the fighting is over, hopefully a natural conclusion. I don't want her going to Tel Aviv now either. Likely the statement is more political in nature, as this has been the Dems whine. After all, Clinton and Albright negotiated the "successful" agreement in 2000 that created this mess.
Children in Islam are programmed to hate anyone not Islamic from the beginning. Those seeds are firmly planted, then nurtured religiously until they grow up to be suicide bombers.
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