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In the past few weeks since the Gaza and Lebanon invasions began, I’ve been inveighing against George Bush’s ineffectual response to the mass mayhem. I thought it was sheer ineptitude a la Hurricane Katrina. But with U.S. veto of a Lebanese government call for a cease fire in return for deployment of the Lebanese army in the country’s south, I wonder whether there may not be more far-reaching and sinister purposes. One of the reasons these doubts come to mind is that Lebanon’s prime minister, in offering to deploy army troops in previously Hezbollah-held territory, has satisfied a prime demand of both Israel and the UN. What more could the U.S. want from Lebanon before supporting a ceasefire? Return of the kidnapped soldiers? How can Lebanon return hostages it doesn’t hold? Bush and Israel’s negative response to the Lebanese proposal smells fishy to me. It’s clear to me why Israel would not want the war to end. But it is unclear to me why Bush wouldn’t.
Everyone in the media talking about this crisis notes that Hezbollah is a Syrian and Iranian proxy. But no one is saying that Israel may be a U.S. proxy. Not that Israel is doing on our behalf anything it doesn’t want to do. But may we not be advancing our own foreign policy objectives in confronting Iran through Israel’s bloodying of Lebanon and by extension Hezbollah? Are we allowing Israel to fight the first phase of a proxy war against Iran in much the same way that the Nazis used the Franco forces in the Spanish Civil War both as a proxy and as a stepping stone to a much greater conflict to come? And if there is any truth here (and this is all educated conjecture on my part), then the second phase of this conflict could be a direct confrontation between Iran and the U.S.
Sy Hersh has been all over the story of the Bush Administration’s preparations for military action against Iran. His latest, Last Stand, came out earlier this month in the New Yorker. Now, with Hezbollah attacking Israel and Iran’s fingerprints all over the action could Bush be hoping to use Iran’s complicity as yet another excuse for war (or at least air war)?
Blogging the Middle East actually first planted this idea in my head when I read this:
Fouad al Sanyura just made a public statement accepting to send the Army to the border (Israel’s initial and continuing demand throughout the raids) and called for immediate cessation of air raids and a ceasefire through the UN. This was (of course) categorically rejected by Israel, which said it will continue to pound Lebanon. Make no mistake, this is not about the 2 soldiers…nor is it about HezbAllah. This is part of the Bush administration’s Greater Middle East Initiative, and this explains the “strange” U.S/British silence that many people I have been talking to have observed…
The point is, and I don’t think anyone in this stupid ignorant world can deny it anymore, Israel’s intention from day 1 was not the recovery of the kidnapped soldiers, nor deterrence (what deterrence?), nor the elimination of HezbAllah. As I said HezbAllah is still operating freely in the south…
He doesn’t flesh it out entirely but given the confusion of facing Israeli aerial bombardment and one’s home shaking to its very foundations, it’s no wonder that it may be hard to complete a thought or two.
The neocons have wanted a war with Iran for a long time. One wonders whether the Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal see Lebanon as a golden opportunity to fiddle around with that notion to see what “fruit” it may bear. If there is any truth in this then the deeply cynical policy treats Lebanon as the innocent victim of a proxy war between two stronger powers. Lebanon is caught in a brutal auto da fe and the U.S. and Iran are the torturers turning the screws.
All I can say is for shame if any of this is true.
