Obama: We want to strengthen Lebanese armed forces…

yalibnan.

U.S. President Barack Obama for the first time has met Lebanese President Michel Suleiman. Their discussions at the White House on Monday focused largely on efforts to prevent another outbreak of violence between Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon.

President Obama said that what happens in Lebanon has an impact far beyond its borders

Source: Dalati & Nohra

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“Obviously, Lebanon is a critical country in a critical region,” said President Obama. “And we want to do everything we can to encourage a strong, independent and democratic Lebanon.”

He said he spoke with President Suleiman about the implementation of a United Nations Security Council Resolution passed in 2006 that was intended to end fighting between Israeli and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon.

Mr. Obama said there has been progress, but not enough. He noted that while there might be differences between Washington and Beirut on the situation in the region, the two see eye-to-eye on the best approach.

“President Suleiman and I are not going to agree on every issue with respect to how Israel, Lebanon, the Palestinians, Syria are interacting,” said Mr. Obama. “What we do share is a commitment to resolve these issues through dialogue and negotiations as opposed to through violence.”

During their talks at the White House, President Suleiman urged the Obama administration to put more pressure on Israel. President Obama said the Israelis have reason to be worried about arms transfers to Hezbollah.

“President Suleiman emphasized his concerns with respect to Israel,” said President Obama. “I want to be clear that I emphasized to him our concerns about the extensive arms that are smuggled into Lebanon that potentially serve as a threat to Israel.”

Hezbollah has argued that it needs arms because the Lebanese government is incapable of protecting the country. As a result, President Suleiman was expected to urge the Obama administration to speed up delivery of weapons to the Lebanese army.

President Obama gave no guarantees in public. But he did talk in general terms about the importance of military aid to Lebanon.

“We want to strengthen Lebanese armed forces so that they can help to secure the sovereignty and the territory of Lebanon,” said Mr. Obama.

Mr. Obama alluded to a Lebanese cedar tree that was planted on the White House grounds 30 years ago. He said it is strong and thriving, and represents the friendship between the two countries.

Source: VOA

http://www.yalibnan.com/2009/12/15/obama-we-want-to-strengthen-lebanese-armed-forces/

Note:  Can it get any worse?  Oh, I'm sure it can, very shortly!  Bee Sting

Hezbollah's Penance: The Shiite Militia Works to Rebuild its Tarnished Image

TheWeeklyStandard.com

BY David Schenker

March 5, 2010 4:00 PM

Last week in Damascus, just days after the highest ranking visit from a U.S. official in years, Syrian President Bashar Assad hosted a state dinner for his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmedinajad. Welcoming Ahmedinajad so close on the heels of the U.S. diplomatic good will gesture was a pointed Syrian slight to the Obama administration, but the icing on the cake was Assad’s other guest of honor at the feast: Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

For Damascus and Tehran—the last two U.S.-designated state sponsors of terrorism in the Middle East—Hezbollah has long constituted a strategic asset and a point of pride. More recently, the organization successfully worked to broaden its appeal throughout the region. And indeed, after the Shiite terrorist organization fought Israel to a standstill in 2006, Hezbollah’s stature in the Arab world skyrocketed. Not only was Nasrallah the most compelling Arabic orator, Hezbollah became the most positive personification of Shiites in the largely Sunni Muslim region.

That was 2006. Today, while Hezbollah remains a formidable “resistance” force, in the past two years, a number of setbacks have tarnished the organization’s carefully cultivated image in Lebanon and the broader Arab world. Hezbollah’s military prowess may not be in doubt, but now for the first time, Lebanese and other Middle Easterners are starting to question the organization’s once unscrupulous morality. Nearly three decades after its establishment, the resistance has institutionalized and bureaucratized, and Hezbollah is starting to resemble other, corrupt Lebanese organizations.

The problems of the Party of God, Hezbollah's English translation, started in May 2008, when the militia violated its cardinal rule and turned its weapons—allegedly intended for use against Israel—on Lebanese citizens, when the organization invaded Beirut. Continuing this trend, three months later the militia opened fire (accidentally, Hezbollah says) on a Lebanese army helicopter, killing the co-pilot. Then, in November 2008, a 49-member Hezbollah cell was arrested in Egypt, accused of plotting attacks against Israeli tourists and Suez Canal shipping. (Nasrallah responded to the arrests by publicly calling on Egyptians to topple their government).

Setbacks continued into 2009. First came a damaging report in the May edition of Der Spiegel, implicating the militia in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri. (These allegations were recently confirmed by Le Monde). A month later, the heavily favored militia lost the Lebanese elections to its pro-West rivals.

Adding insult to injury, less than a week after its defeat at the polls, the organization was dealt yet another blow, when mass demonstrations erupted in Iran protesting the fraudulent elections. The rallies challenged Iran’s clerical leadership and its controversial doctrine of velayat-e faqih (Islamic government), threatening the seat of power of Hezbollah’s spiritual leader and financial patron Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

As if this weren’t enough, in September 2009 one of the militia’s chief local financiers, Salah Ezzedin, went bankrupt in a Ponzi scheme, ala Bernard Madoff. Ezzedin, who had promised rates of return up to 80 percent, ended up swindling 10,000 Lebanese Shiites out of an estimated $300 million.

Among the setbacks of the past two years, the Ezzedin scandal was perhaps the most damaging to Hezbollah because the militia’s leadership was so close to the disgraced financier, a relationship that led many investors to trust him with their money. (Indeed, Ezzedin named his publishing house after Nasrallah’s son, Hadi, who was killed by Israel in 1997). The Ezzedin affair implicated Hezbollah in the same kind of corruption it routinely accused the pro-West Sunni Government in Beirut of perpetrating.

Recognizing the implications for the organization’s reputation, Hezbollah went into damage-control mode. Nasrallah repeatedly denied any connection to the affair, claiming that the party itself lost $4 million. According to the Arabic news service Elaph, he also instructed Hezbollah clerics to issue a “fatwa-like” directive forbidding the mention of the militia in connection to the scandal, lest it provide fodder for Israeli and American propaganda machines to further “besmirch the organization’s name.”

But the damage was already done. In Lebanon, Hezbollah’s long suffering detractors were giddy with schadenfreude; meanwhile, many of the organization’s supporters expressed profound disappointment.

One article in the pro-Hezbollah Lebanese daily Al-Akbar, written by the paper’s editor Ibrahim al Amin shortly after the scandal broke, provides a good picture of the sentiment of Hezbollah’s base. Al Amin accused the organization of going soft after decades of hardship and of starting to live the good life corrupted by “greed.” This cultured lifestyle, he wrote, was “in opposition to the principle of sacrifice” that once was the hallmark of the resistance. Ending with a flourish, al Amin cited the famed Israeli Ministry of Defense advisor on Lebanon, Uri Lubrani, who long ago said that Israel would only defeat Hezbollah “when it became infected with the virus of the Palestinian Liberation Organization in Lebanon, in other words, when it alters its appearance and becomes bourgeoisie.”

It’s less clear how this scandal and other Hezbollah missteps are impacting the organization’s standing throughout the Arab world. While much of the regional polling is unreliable, it does reveal some trends. Pew polls taken in 2007 and 2009 indicate consistently high levels of Shiite confidence in Nasrallah, reaching 97 percent in 2009. During this same two year period, however, Sunni Muslim confidence in Seyyid Hasan dropped from an already low 9 percent to 2 percent. (The same 2009 poll showed a decline from 2007 in favorable views of the organization among Egyptians, Jordanians, and Palestinians). Other polls of Arabs also suggest a decline in support. According to polls conducted by Zogby International, in 2008 Nasrallah was the top vote-getter (at 27 percent) when Arabs were asked about their most admired foreign leader. In 2009—even prior to the Ezzedin affair—he only received 11 percent

Although difficult to prove, both based on the public opinion polling and anecdotal evidence, it appears that the last two years have undercut some of Hezbollah’s hard-won currency in the region. Of course, public opinion is fickle, and there is little doubt that the militia’s popularity would increase if another round of fighting erupted between the organization and Israel. During the summer war of 2006, for example, over a 33-day period, Hezbollah’s al-Manar satellite station viewership soared from 38 in the rankings into the top ten.

Still, recent actions by Hezbollah suggest that the organization is concerned with its image in Lebanon and the Arab world. In November, two months after the scandal broke, for example, Nasrallah changed the topic and published a new Hezbollah “manifesto,” updating the 1985 charter. Like the previous document, the 2009 manifesto spelled out its enmity toward Israel and the United States. At the same time, though, the new charter sought to appeal to a broader Sunni audience by downplaying the organization’s historic allegiance to the clerical leadership in Tehran. Likewise, rather than urging Lebanese Christians to convert—“We call upon you to embrace Islam” read the 1985 manifesto—in 2009, Hezbollah adopted more conciliatory language toward its fellow countrymen.

Likewise, in December, to counter the growing impression of Hezbollah corruption, Nasrallah gave a speech promoting (of all things) adherence to Lebanese laws, including respecting traffic signals, paying for—and not stealing—Government water and electricity, abiding by building laws and civil codes, ending smuggling that undercuts Lebanese businesses, and emphasizing the importance of civil servants showing up for their jobs and actually performing their duties

This past February, the resistance really put the spin machine into full gear. First, in a speech during “Martyred Leaders Week,” Nasrallah—in an obvious bid to regain his standing with the Arab street—pledged that during the next war with Israel, Hezbollah would go toe-to-toe with Israel, threatening to “bomb Ben Gurion airport,” if the Jewish state targeted Beirut International.

Then, following the martyrs speech, Hezbollah’s website published a bazaar interview with Lebanese “economists” claiming that by establishing a credible deterrent threat, the Shiite militia had actually “improved [the] economic situation in Lebanon,” particularly the performance of the Beirut Stock Exchange. Not coincidentally, at about the same time, Al-Akbar publicized a poll by the pro-Hezbollah Beirut Center for Research and Information, indicating that 84 percent of Lebanese “trust the resistances’ capabilities facing any Israeli attack.”

The final piece of the puzzle in Hezbollah’s effort to rehabilitate its image at home and abroad is compensation for the victims of the Ezzedin Ponzi scheme. Because Hezbollah was so close to the financier, swindled Shiites—most of whom are supporters of the resistance—are petitioning the organization for financial restitution. And it’s not only the Lebanese. According to reports in the Arab press, several leading figures in Syria’s Assad regime, including Assad’s brother Maher and Vice President Farouk Shara’a also lost their investments, and are looking to Hezbollah—which captured Ezzedin on the lam with suitcases of cash in hand—to recoup some 17 million euros.

Not surprisingly, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Siyasa reported on February 28 that some time ago Nasrallah had contacted Supreme Leader Khamenei, requesting $300 million in funding to stave off a “crisis of confidence” among his constituents. Khamenei approved the appeal, and according to Al-Siyasa, the funds were transferred to Nasrallah by Ahmedinajad when they met in Damascus last week.

With money in hand, Hezballah will be able to placate its supporters. By threatening Israel, the militia may even be able to again generate some buzz in the Arab world. What the last two years have demonstrated, however, is that if the “resistance” isn’t resisting (i.e., actively fighting) Israel, the Arab world has little use for the militia, particularly if it is attacking Sunnis at home and subverting Arab regimes abroad.

During the dinner in Damascus for Ahmedinajad and Nasrallah last week, Assad pledged his regime’s continued backing for Hezbollah. “To support the resistance is a moral, patriotic and legal duty,” he said. Four years after the last war with Israel and a following a string of Hezbollah miscues, although the Shiite militia dominates Lebanese politics, Assad’s sentiments today appear to be shared by a minority of Middle Easterners. While the organization is making great efforts to reverse the tide, absent another war with Israel, the decline of Arab support for Hezbollah is a regional trend that’s likely to continue.

David Schenker is Aufzien Fellow and director of the Program on Arab Politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

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Lebanon urges France: Help prevent Israel from attacking us

Haaretz.com
By Jack Khoury, Haaretz Correspondent

Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Monday asked France to wield its power in the international arena and take a stance against any possibility of an Israeli attack on Lebanon.

During talks with the president of France's senate, Gerard Gérard Larcher, Berri said the world must force Israel to abide wholly by United Nations Resolution 1701 - which put an end to the 2006 war with Hezbollah - in order to ensure the security of the entire Middle East.

Syria last month vowed to stand by Lebanon's side in the case of an Israeli attack, but Israel has declared that it has no intention go to war with its norther nneighbor"The State of Israel is not looking for any kind of confrontation with Lebanon," Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office in January, adding, "Israel seeks peace with all of its neighbors."

Also last month, Hezbollah on Saturday lashed out at French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner over his recent comments condemning the group and linking it to Iran.

"Israel is our friend, and if there was a threat to Lebanon, it will only come from a military adventure carried out by Hezbollah in the best interest of Iran," Kouchner reportedly told the Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri during a visit to Paris.

In response, Hezbollah declared: "Kouchner's statement carried clear echoes for the Israeli voice and a full denial for France's history and its legacy in resisting aggression and occupation."

"This stance is an attempt to acquit Israel and to cover up its relentless violations of Lebanese sovereignty, the thing which represents a shield for its occupation and an encouragement for it to pursue its aggressions," Hezbollah said.
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Assad: Syria will stand by Lebanon

Photo by: AP

BY HERB KEINON
08/02/2010 01:32

Syrian president, Lebanese official discuss "repeated Israeli threats."Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Syrian President Bashar Assad went in different directions with their statements on Sunday, with Netanyahu making conciliatory comments, and Assad responding by talking again about war.

Assad, according to the Syrian SANA news agency, held talks with the speaker of the Lebanese parliament, Nabih Berri, in Damascus and stressed “Syria’s commitment to stand by Lebanon’s government and people against any Israeli aggression.”

According to SANA, “Talks during the meeting dealt with the Israeli repeated threats against countries of the region and Israeli extremism, which is poised for burying any chance for reaching peace by inflaming wars in the region and taking it into the unknown.”

By stressing that Damascus would stand by Lebanon “against Israeli aggression,” Assad seemed to be echoing Syrian Foreign Minister Wallid Muallem’s warning last week that Syria would not stand to the side if the IDF took action against Hizbullah.

Israel, meanwhile, has been saying consistently for months that it would hold the Lebanese government responsible for any aggression from Hizbullah, since Hizbullah is a member of Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s government.

Assad’s comments followed equally bellicose comments made earlier in the day by Syrian Minister of Information Mohsen Bilal, who said Israel was harming peace in the region and the world, and that its leaders should be tried in an international court.

Speaking at Kuneitra, on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, Bilal lashed into Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who said on Thursday in response to Muallem’s threats that if Syria waged a war with Israel it would not only lose the war, but Assad would also lose his power.

Bilal called Lieberman’s words “barbaric and aggressive,” and said the foreign minister was ostracized by the entire world. “These are barbaric and aggressive declarations that show the bankruptcy of that government, and the bankruptcy and barbarism of that man [Lieberman],” he said.

Netanyahu, who since the war of words with Syria began last week has been issuing statements trying to calm the situation, did the same on Sunday, saying at the opening of the weekly cabinet meeting that Israel hoped to complete peace agreements with all its neighbors, including the Palestinians and Syrians, just as it reached an agreement with Egypt and Jordan.

But, he said, Israel would be guided in those efforts by two principles. “First, we will conduct negotiations without preconditions. We do not accept the idea that Israel must always make extraordinary concessions in advance while the other side is exempt from making its own concessions. It is negotiations that will bring about an agreement and we will not enter into negotiations when everything is known in advance.”

Second, he added, “at the end of the negotiations we need to maintain Israel’s vital national interests, especially security. It is doubtful whether any peace agreement that is unaccompanied by solid security arrangements on the ground can last. We want peace that will last for years, decades and generations and to this end, these components, especially security, are essential.”

Although Netanyahu asked his ministers last week not to comment on the Syrian issue so as not to exacerbate a sensitive situation, National Infrastructures Minister Uzi Landau (Israel Beiteinu) told reporters before the cabinet meeting that while he wanted peace with Syria, it would have to be a peace with the Golan Heights in Israel’s hands.

“The Golan will not be given to Syria,” Landau said. “The Golan is in our hands, the Golan is part of Israel, the Golan is vital for Israel’s security, and those who want peace cannot give up the Golan. We want peace, but those who attack us will pay a very heavy price.”Welfare and Social Services Minister Isaac Herzog (Labor), meanwhile, called on members of the government to speak in more moderate tones.

“Israel has always known how to navigate in the world of diplomacy with responsibly, moderation and reasonableness, standing firm by its principles and positions,” said Herzog, whose father, Chaim, was an ambassador to the UN, and later the president of the state.

“I come from a family that understands a little bit about diplomacy, and I say that the diplomacy is measured first by restraint, cultured behavior and standing by our principles,” Herzog said.

Hezbollah is not the IRA.

Friday, February 5, 2010

MIDDLE EAST AND TERRORISM.COM

by Tony Badran

Islamist groups have invited a whole set of analogies purportedly aimed at better explaining them and how best to deal with them. One such analogy that has gained currency in recent years is the oft-encountered comparison between Islamist groups and the Irish Republican Army.

The point of the comparison is to show that as the IRA was purportedly co-opted through dialogue, the same method can be applied to other armed organizations as well. Hence, the argument runs, only such a peaceful process, and not military coercion, will lead to any given group’s decision to abandon violence, and ultimately to disarm and integrate into democratic politics. Of course, forsaking violence is not a prerequisite for dialogue, and engagement is further facilitated by a nifty conceit distinguishing a group’s “military wing” from its ostensibly more moderate or pragmatic “political wing.” Indeed, the British are currently pursuing this policy with Hezbollah – and going nowhere.

The argument has just been trotted out again in a rather fantastical and factually handicapped piece by Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson on the Foreign Affairs website.

The two authors get off to a sound start, noting a major difference between the IRA and Hezbollah, namely the organic ties between the Party of God and Iran, which have no parallel in the IRA. However, when they elide that inconvenient fact and nonetheless claim that “the similarities between the two cases are no less striking than the differences,” their argument goes off the tracks.

One “similarity,” they contend, is that both Hezbollah and the IRA have “political wings.” But this is misleading, not least of all because Hezbollah rejects and ridicules the proposition that it has a “political wing” separate from a “military” one.

Even if everyone knew that the IRA and its political wing, Sinn Fein, were separate only in name, Sinn Fein’s leaders still tried to deny any organizational links or knowledge of IRA operations. But that’s not how Hezbollah works. For instance, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times last spring, Hezbollah’s deputy secretary general, Naim Qassem, dismissed the supposed dichotomy outright. “All political, social and jihad work is tied to the decisions of this leadership,” he said. “The same leadership that directs the parliamentary and government work also leads jihad actions.”

In other words, far from being ready to “shift more decisively to the political realm,” as Simon and Stevenson contend, Hezbollah sees involvement in politics as serving its broader, regional, agenda: “resistance.”

It’s bad enough to misunderstand Hezbollah, but to make the case that engagement in peaceful dialogue is what leads to moderation and disarmament is to distort the historical record regarding the IRA as well. The British did not bring the IRA “in from the cold” through peaceful talks with its “political wing.” Rather they forced them to the table after infiltrating their ranks and cultivating informers even in the top echelons of the movement. Information from these informers was secretly passed to Loyalist paramilitary forces who used it to target IRA members extra-judicially.

In the end, the IRA was cornered, unable to force a British withdrawal, and, worse, unable to even protect its community from Loyalist gangs. It was not the Brits but the IRA that initiated talks when its armed struggle had reached a stalemate.

This is hardly where Hezbollah sees itself today, neither ideologically nor operationally. Instead of finding itself cornered by its local rivals, Hezbollah has used its weapons to extract powerful political concessions, neutralize the unfavorable result of democratic elections, and impose its priorities on its adversaries and the Lebanese government.

Why is Simon and Stevenson’s article riddled with so many errors and misconceptions? Because they assume an affirmative response to a key question that they never bother tackling: Does Hezbollah want to disarm? Without addressing this question convincingly, further misconceptions are inevitable, like the authors’ proposition, unsupported by any evidence, that Hezbollah is trying to distance itself from Iran, whose Ruling Jurist (Wali al-Faqih), as Hezbollah itself declares, has final say over all important decisions. The proper answer of course is that Hezbollah does not want to disarm since it makes no sense for it to do so, neither from a pragmatic perspective nor an ideological one.

The issue here is not sloppiness, but a chronic ailment afflicting Western writing on the Middle East, as what appears to be analysis is often something else entirely. Simon (who was recently in Lebanon at the invitation of the New Opinion Group) and Stevenson are not writing about Hezbollah or Lebanon, but Washington.
In 2003 the two co-wrote an essay arguing that the example of Northern Ireland was “a strong argument” against adopting a “lenient” policy with Hamas, so why do they now argue that such treatment will work with Hezbollah? Perhaps it is because there are figures in the Obama administration who are sympathetic to a policy of engagement with Hezbollah, like the NSC staff’s counterterrorism czar, John Brennan, who has publically implied an acceptance of the “political vs. military wing” dichotomy in Hezbollah, claiming that the “political wing” allegedly denounces the violence of the “military.”

Thankfully, when it comes to Hezbollah, as evident from the State Department’s quick rejection of Brennan’s views, there is more sobriety in Washington than in the poor Foreign Affairs article, or in the British Foreign Office for that matter.


Tony Badran is a research fellow with the Center for Terrorism Research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Suckered by Hamas and Hizballah: How the Media Interprets Radical Documents as "Proof" of Moderation.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

by Barry Rubin

After writing my article on the new Fatah Charter, I saw that JTA has published a story positively glowing about Fatah's "moderation," under the title, "New Fatah charter omits language on Israel’s demise." As did the Secrecy Monitor which originally made available the text, it claims:

"The charter focuses on democratizing the movement, a reflection of last summer's political struggle between the young guard and the more established leadership. Whereas the Central Committee for years had been an ad hoc collection of acolytes of the leadership, 18 of its 23 members must now be elected by the entire membership."

Well, not exactly. Most important, as I pointed out, the charter clearly and prominently says that the old charter is still in force and nothing in the new one contradicts it. So nothing has changed in fact. All the old language still stands. Why isn't it repeated? Because this document is only about Fatah's internal structure, not its policies or goals. Pretty obvious, right?

Moreover, while the charter has some language that sounds superficially democratic--and will never be implemented--it endorses the old Communist party system of "democratic centralism" and shows how totally the Central Committee rules by choosing most candidates for parliament, cabinet ministers, and large portions of most other Palestinian institutions. Moreover, while 18 members of the Central Committee were "elected," the leadership packed the delegates to ensure that its candidates all won!

And guess what? Precisely the same thing has just happened with Hizballah's new charter. According to AFP: "It's much more moderate and they've dropped their demands for an Islamist state in Lebanon based upon [the Iranian system]. On the basis of such nonsense, President Barack Obama fails to mention Hizballah's involvement in murdering Americans, his terrorism advisor announces that Hizballah isn't terrorist (because some of its members are lawyers) while the British government is edging toward direct contacts.

This is despite the fact that the charter states:

"The history of the Arab-Israeli conflict proves that armed struggle and military resistance is the best way of ending the occupation....We categorically reject any compromise with Israel or recognizing its legitimacy." In addition, Hizballah daily publicizes the Islamization of the areas it controls and the organization's loyalty to Tehran.

My favorite example is when a high-ranking Hizballah leader denied the group was originally founded in coordination with the Iranian regime, tossing a big Arabic-language book written by one of the founders at a journalist as proof. In fact, as Lebanon expert Tony Badran pointed out citing the page number, that book confirms the claim. Another example is that Hizballah's spiritual guide is the official representative in Lebanon of Iran's spiritual guide, the actual ruler of the Islamist regime there.

To make the situation more ridiculous, the Fatah charter is available in English and Hizballah has been bragging publicly about the hardline provisions in its own new charter.

It is amazing how easy it is for various radical Arab and Islamist groups to fool Western journalists. It always helps to read a document before describing it as a breakthrough for moderation.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal.
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Posted by Harry at 1:49 AM

US State Dept concerned about Hizbullah arming in Lebanon

By JPOST.COM STAFF
31/01/2010 12:13

A senior adviser to US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, Jeffrey D. Feltman, said on Sunday in an interview with Al-Hayat that he is concerned about hostilities breaking out between Israel and Lebanon.

According to Feltman, while the US government has no specific evidence about such a possibility, he is worried about reports of arms flowing to Hizbullah.

The senior US diplomat said that Washington contends that the weaponry is arriving into southern Lebanon in violation of UN resolution 1701, which ended the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

Note: He's "worried about reports of arms flowing to Hizbullah" but not worried about the arms and military training of the Palestinians in the West Bank!!! Hypocrisy shines its light on our government when it comes to who is arming who, all being enemies of Israel! BeeSting

Israel urged to widen any future Lebanon conflict to Syria

The Daily Star.com
Invading Bekaa Valley would strike ‘Real blow’ to Hizbullah
By Dalila Mahdawi
Daily Star staff
Saturday, January 30, 2010

BEIRUT: The Israeli state must take into account Syria’s role in supporting Hizbullah in any future war with the Lebanese group, an Israeli security analyst said on Friday. Renewed hostilities could also see Israel launch a ground invasion of the Bekaa to cut Syrian supply routes to the Shiite group, Jonathan Spyer, senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs Center, wrote in the Jerusalem Post. Hizbullah officials contacted by The Daily Star declined to comment on the story.

“Any future strike at Hizbullah that does not take into account its status as a client of Syria is unlikely to land a decisive blow,” he said, citing a recent report in the British magazine Jane’s Defence Weekly which claimed that Syria had supplied the Shiite group with missiles capable of hitting central Israel.

“The logic of confrontation in Lebanon suggests that Syria may find it hard to avoid direct engagement in a future Israel-Hizbullah clash,” Spyer said. The “point of no return” would be if Damascus provided anti-aircraft devices to Hizbullah to use during Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace.

The analyst also said that “if Israel wants … to strike a real blow against Hizbullah, this implies an Israeli ground incursion into the Bekaa” and areas close to the Syrian border, which allegedly now host most of the group’s military infrastructure.

Tensions between Israel and Lebanon have mounted in recent months, with Beirut accusing Israel of running espionage rings across the country. Earlier this month Tel Aviv blamed Hizbullah for planting 300 kilograms of explosives near the Blue Line border.

Last week Israeli minister without portfolio Yossi Peled said he believed another conflict with Lebanon was “only a matter of time,” prompting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to deny his government was seeking a war. In a meeting Wednesday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak was quoted by Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot as saying Israel had no “intentions to attack Syria or Lebanon.” Barak has in the past, however, said Israel would not only target Hizbullah but also Lebanon’s government and infrastructure in a future conflict.

During his own meeting with Mubarak on Thursday, Lebanese Prime Minister nevertheless said Beirut took all Israeli threats “seriously.”

“Any threat against Lebanese territory, whether in the south, Bekaa, [the Beirut suburbs of] Dahiyeh or any other region in Lebanon is a threat against all of Lebanon and the Lebanese government,” Hariri told reporters, calling for Arab solidarity to “counter these threats.”

Spyer said that the “ominous statements” by Israeli officials were not intended to announce the arrival of a war but rather to warn Syrian officials “that they should not think their alliance with Hizbullah is cost free.” A report published by Al-Liwaa newspaper last week claimed Lebanon could be dragged into a possible war with Israel as early as March.

The Israeli state launched a devastating 34-day war on Lebanon in July 2006 after Hizbullah members captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid. – With additional reporting by Wassim Mroueh

Note: cartoon and photo added by BeeSting.

Israel tries to block military aid to Lebanon

By Patrick Galey
Daily Star staff
Wednesday, January 13, 2010

BEIRUT: Israel has launched a diplomatic campaign aimed at countries providing military assistance to Lebanon, warning that any weapons or equipment given to Beirut will end up in Hizbullah’s hands, according to Israeli media. The Jerusalem Post, citing Israeli government sources, reported on Monday that Tel Aviv is calling on the international community to rethink supporting the Lebanese Army.

“The position Israel is trying to impress on countries that support Lebanon is that the Lebanese Army and Hizbullah are virtually indistinguishable,” the paper wrote.

It reported that Israeli concerns are likely to be raised this week during a visit from US National Security Adviser James Jones. Talks will touch on Israel’s refusal to accept the Lebanese Cabinet statement’s article six, which legitimizes the presence of a resistance to Israeli aggression in Lebanon, it added.

“There has been a great deal of concern here,” the paper quoted one official as saying over the resistance issue.

The campaign comes at a time when the US is considering providing Lebanon with support across a wide variety of security, development and reform projects. In talks with Lebanese President Michel Sleiman last weekend, the defeated US presidential candidate John McCain reiterated the US’s “commitment to supporting a strong, independent, and democratic Lebanon.”

Sleiman himself asked Washington in December for greater military assistance.

Simon Haddad, political science professor at Notre Dame University, said that weapons provided by the US would not reach Hizbullah.

“I don’t think that Hizbullah is in need of weapons; they have enough weapons that they can use in future confrontations with Israel,” he said.

Retired Army General Elias Hanna said that the type of support Lebanon received from the US should not concern officials south of the Blue Line, as it was not of use to Hizbullah. (Note - how absolutely naive!BeeSting)

“The US won’t provide Lebanon with anything that will change the balance of power,” he said. “Maybe Israel doesn’t want to add more complexities to its own situation. But this weaponry will not complicate the situation, because what the Americans give will be conventional weapons.”

Since 2005, the US has pledged to provide Lebanon with more than $500 million worth of military support to aid the capacities of its security forces, assist counterterrorism operations and work to prevent arms flowing into the country through its porous border with Syria, according to the US Congressional Research Service. This pales in comparison to the near $3 billion the US provides Israel’s military with annually.

The US State Department has said that military aid to Lebanon would, among other developments, “promote Lebanese control over southern Lebanon and Palestinian refugee camps to prevent them from being used as bases to attack Israel.” But political wrangling has delayed much of the US’ promised military support from reaching Lebanon.

“It’s true that the US is reluctant to provide Lebanon with certain things,” said Haddad, who added that the Lebanese Army command was likely to ask for an increase in US military provisions in the near future.

“[Israel] is afraid of any anti-aircraft missiles being provided to the Lebanese because this could change the status quo, but this is not the current issue,” he said. “The US is not willing to invest militarily in Lebanon, so in any case they would not [provide such weaponry].”

Haddad added that the US could be worried by Israeli warnings of weapons falling into the wrong hands. “The US would like to inquire more about the use of this [military equipment],” he added. “They need assurances.” (Note; How about trusting our ally, Israel, if you need "assurances"!)

Haddad said that irrespective of the military reality, “Israel’s arguments could be used to stop US support [for Lebanon].” Israel has repeatedly said that it will not accept Hizbullah as a member of Lebanon’s Cabinet and periodically warns that all of Lebanon will be held accountable if it is attacked by the group from positions in the south.

Hanna said that Hizbullah’s aims and those of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) were different, as was the military equipment both sought to obtain.

“Hizbullah does not need the LAF, the LAF is totally different from an ideological approach and practical capability,” he said. (Note: Hizbullah is part of the Lebanon government; Israel stated last summer, in so many words, that if they are hit by Hizbullah, blame Lebanon - no longer need to separate the two groups - they are ONE, consisting of all of Lebanon!)

Israel’s reported diplomatic offensive seeking to diminish military assistance to Lebanon in fear of strengthening Hizbullah was unfounded, according to Hanna, who said that US funding was aimed at “local stability, as the Americans will not give us advanced weapons.” “All they want is to make the LAF capable enough to implement Resolution 1701 and keep us from falling as a proxy of Iran,” he said.

Note: I have read this article, the excuses for arming militant governments and organizations, such as the Palestinians, and the fact that the United States is in the game of arming, training, and submitting monies to enemies of an ally is outrageous! It does not matter if more money, aid is give to an ally, as long as one penny is contributed to an ally's enemy! Does not take rocket science to figure this one out! Oh, is $940 MILLION DOLLARS to Gaza a drop in the bucket? Well, that is what the United States handed over to Gaza i.e. Hamas government rules Gaza, so that means our nation is most certainly contributing money to TERRORISTS, under the Obama Administration. BeeSting)
Note: Hezibollah cartoon added by BeeSting

Hezbollah denies drug trafficking to fund Israel attacks

Haaretz.com byDPA

The Lebanese-based militant organization Hezbollah on Tuesday denied reports issued that it was trafficking drugs to Europe in order to fund activities against Israel.

Der Spiegel reported last week that the German police arrested two Lebanese nationals residing in the country in October 2009 for allegedly transferring large sums of money to a family in Lebanon reportedly connected to Hezbollah.

In a statement on Tuesday, Hezbollah deemed the magazine "morally and

legally responsible for the false fabrications it issued against the party." The movement called on Der Spiegel's management "not to be a cheap tool manipulated by the Zionist entity to cover up for its crimes in Lebanon and Palestine." Hezbollah also called on the magazine "to be a true reflection of reality that reveals the injustice suffered by the Lebanese and Palestinian people." Note: Photo of Hezbollah added by BeeSting

Israel-Turkey relations deteriorate as FM seeks to recall envoy in Ankara

Haaretz.com
By Barak Ravid

Senior officials in his own ministry say Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is trying to foil the scheduled visit of Defense Minister Ehud Barak to Ankara following renewed tensions in relations between the two countries. Barak is scheduled to travel to Turkey on Sunday for an official visit in which he will meet with Turkey's defense and foreign ministers.

The Foreign Ministry officials made the comments over Lieberman's instructions yesterday to respond harshly to the broadcast of an episode of a Turkish television series that was full of anti-Israeli messages and to vitriol from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

"There's a feeling Lieberman wants to heat things up before Barak's visit to Turkey," a senior Foreign Ministry official said. "Everything that took place yesterday was part of Lieberman's political agenda."

Barak and his labor colleague, Minister of Industry and Trade Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, have been trying to mend relations with Turkey, and the Turks are expected to greet them with an exceptionally warm welcome for Barak as a message to Lieberman, said ministry sources.

Lieberman has declared he will never accept Turkey as a mediator in talks with Syria. According to Channel 1 news, Lieberman suggested to Netanyahu that Israel should recall its envoy in Ankara, but the prime minister vetoed the idea.

Meanwhile, Haaretz has learned that Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon and Turkey's ambassador to Israel, Ahmet Oguc Celikkol, met yesterday at short notice, which was seen as a Lieberman attempt to embarrass the Turkish diplomat. A photo-op was held at the start of the meeting, during which Ayalon told the photographers in Hebrew: "Pay attention that he is sitting in a lower chair and we are in the higher ones, that there is only an Israeli flag on the table and that we are not smiling."

During the meeting itself, Ayalon protested to the Turkish ambassador and told him the substance of the offensive television program in question was unacceptable.

"These things endanger the lives of Jews in Turkey and may harm relations between our countries," Ayalon said. "Israel expects that the government of Turkey will find a way to prevent the repetition of such phenomena and state that such views are not acceptable."

The series, "Valley of Wolves," is something like the American series "24" and is very popular. It does not usually deal with Israel but the last episode showed Mossad agents kidnapping Turkish babies and hiding them in the Israeli embassy. One scene depicts the assassination of Israel's ambassador. This is not the first time the series has stirred controversy in Turkey. In previous episodes on Kurdish terrorism, public criticism was intense.

A short while after the meeting between Ayalon and Tan, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan once more attacked Israel during a joint press conference with his visiting Lebanese counterpart, Saad Hariri.

Erdogan insisted Israel must cease violating the airspace of Lebanon and its territorial waters and accused Israel of threatening world peace. He also called on the United Nations Security Council to pressure Israel in the same way it is pressuring Iran with regard to each country's nuclear program.

The Foreign Ministry said in a statement: "Israel is careful to respect Turkey and seeks continued proper ties between the countries, but we expect reciprocity." The statement called Erdogan's remarks an "unbridled tongue-lashing."

The statement added: "The State of Israel has every right to protect its citizens from the missiles and terror of Hamas and Hezbollah, and the Turks are the last [people] who can preach morality to the State of Israel and the Israel Defense Forces."

Obama's Engagement Fallout: Lebanon Surrenders.

by Jonathan Tobin

This past weekend, one of the genuine triumphs of American foreign policy in the past decade was officially reversed. When Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Harriri went to Damascus to pay tribute to his country’s Syrian overlord, the 2005 Cedar Revolution was buried. Less than five years ago, American pressure, which encouraged those forces in Lebanon that longed to be free, helped bring about the withdrawal of the Syrian troops that had occupied that country since the 1970s. Syria had overreached when it sponsored the assassination of Harriri’s father, Rafik, who preceded him as prime minister. That, combined with the increased influence in the region of the United States in the wake of the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, had convinced the Syrians that they must retreat.

But although the Syrian army has not returned, it now doesn’t have to. Hezbollah, the potent terrorist force that serves as a proxy for both Iran and Syria, has effectively strangled any hope of Lebanon’s escaping the grasp of those rogue regimes. Syria’s influence is once more unchallenged in Beirut. Rather than witnessing an international tribunal arraigning Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and his underlings for the murder of his father, as well as the transformation of Lebanon into a genuine Arab democracy, Saad Harriri has been compelled to swallow the humiliation of fawning on his father’s murderer.

What changed? According to the New York Times, the failure of Harriri to maintain his country’s independence is due to one major difference between 2005 and 2009: “since then, the United States and the West have chosen to engage with Syria, not isolate it.” As a result, those who thought they had the West’s backing for resisting the thugs of Damascus have been forced to swallow their pride and swear loyalty to Assad in order to save their lives.

All of which means that we can chalk up another defeat for the United States that can be put at the feet of Barack Obama’s fetish for diplomacy for its own sake. Like the opposition in Iran, the pro-independence Lebanese have been left in the lurch while Washington fecklessly pursues deals with dictators who have no intention of playing ball. And why should they, given the administration’s distaste for confrontations and its inability to rally international support for action on behalf of either a nuclear-free Iran or a free Lebanon?

It is worth recalling that back in the fall of 2008, when Joe Biden and Sarah Palin met for the vice-presidential nominees’ debate, Biden committed a gaffe when he claimed that Hezbollah had already been kicked out of Lebanon. Palin didn’t pick up on this blooper, and Biden escaped the derision he deserved for a passage in which he claimed that the best solution for Lebanon was a NATO intervention (had Palin committed such a blunder, she would never have heard the end of it). Biden probably meant Syria when he said Hezbollah, and his intention was to claim that Bush’s policies had failed in Lebanon because of Hezbollah’s revival. But as much as it should be conceded that Bush failed to sufficiently follow up on the Cedar Revolution, we now see what a year of the Obama-Biden administration has achieved in the region.

Their blind belief in engagement, as well as increased pressure on Israel, has emboldened both Syria and Iran. Those wishing to see what kind of difference Obama has made in the Middle East need only regard the wince-inducing spectacle of Saad Harriri bowing to Assad. The consequences of American engagement are not a pretty sight.

Jonathan Tobin

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Israel not worried by Syria-Lebanon alliance

www.chinaview.cn 2009-12-21 02:17:46

by David Harris

JERUSALEM, Dec. 20 (Xinhua) -- The headline from two days of talks between top Syrian and Lebanese officials, as far as Israel is concerned, is that Beirut seemingly wants to realign itself with Damascus in order to reduce the Israeli threat.

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri was hosted by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad over the weekend, the first time Hariri visited Syria since his father was assassinated less than five years ago. Many Lebanese blamed Syria for involving in the murder, however Damascus denies it had anything to do with it.

The visit is the latest stage in the rapprochement between the Levant neighbors, having exchanged ambassadors for the first time in some 60 years earlier this year.

However, Israeli analysts believe so far there should not be much making Israel worried in concern with the recent developments on the relations between the two countries, both are regarded as long-time enemies of Israelis.

INSEPARABLE NEIGHBORS

It has also been almost five years since Syrian forces left Lebanon after a 29-year military present. Pro-Western analysts in Lebanon argue that Syria still has a major influence over affairs of state in Beirut, particularly via Hezbollah and other allies.

Israeli experts agree with the idea. "The idea that Lebanon is free from Syria and its government is pro-American is just not serious," said Eyal Zisser, the director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University.

The very fact that Hariri, who was the head of the anti-Syrian camp, paid his visit to Damascus is the proof of this, Zisser added.

The opinion is shared by Guy Bechor, who heads the Middle East Studies Division at Israel's Interdisciplinary Center. "It shows Lebanese politics can't function without Syria," Bechor said.

It also points to an inherent fear of Syria on Lebanon's part, he added.

Both Bechor and Zisser dismissed as incorrect a suggestion by a reporter for Israel Radio that Syria needs Lebanon more than Lebanon needs Syria. The journalist suggested on Sunday morning that Syria needs to show the international community it is back on good terms with Lebanon, in order to continue its return to the fold of the international community, particularly with Western nations.

Bechor and Zisser agree that it will not harm Syria's standing, but that, despite many of its actions, Syria is already well on its way back into the club of nations, particularly in the Middle East.

Either way, there appears to be a newfound closeness between Hariri and al-Assad, something that Hariri believes will stand the Arab world in better stead in face of the Israeli threat.

ISRAEL SEES NO CHANGE

The two Arab leaders discussed Israel during their three-hour session on Saturday, according to Bouthaina Shaaban, Syrian minister and senior adviser of al-Assad.

"The discussions also dealt with the Arab situation, the challenges facing Syria and Lebanon due to the Israeli occupation of Arab territories, the importance of coordination between Syria, Lebanon and the Arab countries as well as the Arab solidarity to close the Arab ranks and restore the legitimate rights," she told reporters.

In Zisser's opinion, Hariri is not taken particularly seriously by Israel. The Israeli government is far more concerned by the comments and actions of Hezbollah, which is backed by Syria and Iran.

There is no Israeli threat, even if Hariri spoke of one, said Bechor.

"There's no reason for Israel to attack Lebanon, unless it attacks Israel first," he said.

The only thing that unites the region, including Iran, is Israel, and so leaders throw out the Israel subject from time to time to show a commonality between Arab states, Bechor suggested. "It's used to bridge enormous divisions," he said.

Israel would like to see negotiations with Lebanon, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. However, top officials in Beirut have made clear that will not be happening anytime soon.

Israeli analysts believe Lebanon will not enter peace talks with Israel until Syria has successfully concluded a dialogue with Israel, resulting in the handover to Syria of the Golan Heights, which was captured by Israel during the 1967 War.

DOMESTIC DEVELOPMENTS

The real reason for Hariri's trip is that he is building on Syria to ensure his own political survival, said Zisser. The Shiites in Lebanon, headed by Hezbollah, are becoming increasingly strong and Hariri needs to ensure his own position by building a close bond with Syria, which is seen as being one of Hezbollah's backers, alongside Iran.

Bechor offers a different view on Hariri's domestic agenda and Syrian influence. In his opinion, even though Hezbollah sits in the Lebanese government, its power is not that great as it does not have a veto over ministerial decisions and as a result the moderate, more pro-Western line will win the day.

Lebanon is receiving the U.S. weaponry and helicopters because of its anti-Hezbollah and more so its anti-Syria stance, said Bechor. Commercial flights may soon resume between Lebanon and North America. Therefore, he is somewhat perplexed by Hariri's weekend visit to Damascus.

However, he sees all the machinations as being inter-Lebanese and inter-Arab and as a result not of any real concern for Israel.

Hezbollah's reaction to the Hariri visit has been upbeat. It was "a positive step that promotes a calm and relaxing climate," the organization's leader Hassan Nasrallah was quoted as saying by Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV. However, Hezbollah added that it would monitor events closely.

Lebanon remains, as it always has been, a deeply divided society and any apparent political maneuver is examined closely by all parties, fearing that a jump in one direction or another could knock the delicate balance of political life firmly off kilter.
Editor: Mu Xuequan

The Enduring Iran-Syria-Hezbollah Axis Part I

Friday, December 18, 2009

The Enduring Iran-Syria-Hezbollah Axis Part I

by Michael Rubin

1st part of 2

The Obama administration would like to move Syria into the camp of more moderate Arab states, but there is scant evidence that Syria is willing to give up its support for terrorist organizations. Like Iran, it remains a destabilizing and dangerous force in the region.

Key points in this Outlook:

* The Lebanese and Israeli border is calmer today than during the 2006 war, but the potential for regional conflict is great.

* Both the Syrian and Iranian governments have used Hezbollah to conduct proxy warfare against Israel.

* The Obama administration has tried to move Syria from a rejectionist state into the more moderate Arab camp, but there is no evidence that the engagement policy has worked.

The 2006 war between Lebanon and Israel took not only outside observers by surprise, but also Israel and the government of Lebanon. A day after an operation in which Hezbollah killed five Israeli soldiers and captured two others, the Israel Defense Forces struck Lebanese targets as far north as Beirut. Over subsequent days, the Israeli Air Force bombed Hezbollah-controlled neighborhoods in Beirut and struck targets in the country's

north. U.S., European, and Arab diplomats scrambled to prevent the spread of hostilities.

While Arab governments remained conspicuously silent, unwilling to support Hezbollah publicly, if at all, Iranian authorities egged on the militia. Speaking six days after the war began, Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, the speaker of Iran's parliament, declared, "To Hassan Nasrallah [Hezbollah's secretary general] we say, well done. This religious scholar roars like a lion, and the blood of Imam [Ruhollah] Khomeini rages in his veins."[1] Iran's supreme leader encouraged Hezbollah to keep fighting. According to Nasrallah, Ali Khamenei sent him a letter two days after the war began, which stated, "You have a hard war ahead, but if you resist, you will triumph."[2]

United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 1701 restored calm, but only a tenuous one. While the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) returned to Lebanon, it failed to prevent the resupply of Hezbollah with an arsenal even more advanced than before the 2006 conflict. The Lebanese and Israeli border may be calm today, but the potential for regional conflict has only grown. If a new conflict erupts, it likely will be deadlier and harder to contain to Israel and Lebanon. Hezbollah now possesses missiles capable of striking not only Haifa, but also Tel Aviv.[3]

The Obama administration, meanwhile, has reached out diplomatically to both Syria and Iran in the belief that a less confrontational approach to conflict resolution might lead the two states to reconsider their rejectionist behavior. It has not worked. While Tehran and Damascus may welcome the incentives inherent in U.S. engagement, both states continue to use proxies to pursue radical aims and undercut stability. Iran may be Hezbollah's chief patron, but Syria is the lynchpin that makes Iranian support for foreign fighters possible. While Israel may be the immediate target of the Iran-Syria nexus, the partnership threatens broader U.S. interests.

A Proxy Is Born

Hezbollah formed against the backdrop of Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon as an Iranian proxy. Ali Mohtashimi, Iran's ambassador to Syria from 1982 to 1985, discussed the group's beginnings in an interview with the Iranian newspaper Shargh on August 3, 2008:

After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Ayatollah Khomeini changed his mind about sending large forces to Syria and Lebanon. . . . I was really worried about Syria and Lebanon. I went to Tehran and met with Ayatollah Khomeini. As I was worried about Lebanon and enthusiastic about the idea of sending forces to Syria and Lebanon, I started talking about our responsibilities and what was going on in Lebanon. The imam cooled me down and said the forces we send to Syria and Lebanon would need huge logistical support. . . . The only remaining way is to train the Shi'a men there, and so Hezbollah was born.[4]

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) supported the new group as it fought or co-opted other Shia militias in southern Lebanon. The Iranian government is not shy about credit. On May 14, 2009, the London-based pan-Arab daily Ash-Sharq al-Awsat published an interview with Mohammad Hassan Akhtari, the Islamic Republic's ambassador to Syria from 1986 to 1997, and again from 2005 through 2007.

Correspondent Manal Lufti described Akhtari as "the operational father" of Hezbollah, "engineer of the special relationship" between Syria and Iran, and "coordinator of Iran's relations with Palestinian organizations in Damascus," groups listed annually as terrorist organizations in the State Department's Country Reports on Terrorism.[5] Indeed, according to Ash-Sharq al-Awsat, "the Iranian embassy in Damascus became the most important Ira-nian embassy in the world. It represented something akin to a 'regional center' for Iran's diplomatic activities that extended from Damascus to Beirut and the Palestinian territories and became privy to files on several matters, chief of which was Iran's relations with Syria, Hezbollah, [and] the Palestinian organizations."[6]

Iran and Syria worked jointly to unify the Shia who, through the early 1980s, were divided between Amal and Hezbollah. Akhtari described how he and Ghazi Kanaan, the Syrian intelligence chief in Lebanon, met over months to manage reconciliation, which ultimately led to the victory of Hezbollah, the more religious of the two groups.[7] While Syria cultivated a reputation for secularism among many Western academics, Akhtari describes a different regime.[8] "The late President Hafiz al-Asad trusted Ayatollah Khomeini and respected him. He was one of those who believed that any opposition to the Islamic Republic in any shape or form and under whatever pretext amounted to treason to the Arab, Islamic, and Palestinian causes."[9] By 1988, Hezbollah was the dominant force not only in southern Lebanon, where it painted itself as the vanguard of resistance against Israel's occupation, but also in Beirut, which would remain under Syrian occupation for the next seventeen years.

Hezbollah thrived under Syrian occupation. Both the Syrian and Iranian governments used Hezbollah to conduct proxy warfare against Israel. Symbolism is important in the Middle East. In April 2001, when Nasrallah met Khamenei, Nasrallah kissed Khamenei's hand, symbolizing fealty.[10] In the decade before Israel's 2000 withdrawal from southern Lebanon, Hezbollah conducted more than three dozen suicide attacks against Israeli forces in Lebanon.[11] Between Israel's withdrawal and the eruption of war between Israel and Lebanon, Hezbollah conducted twenty-one additional operations against Israel itself.[12]

The Syrian government not only turned a blind eye toward the group's activities in Lebanon as Hezbollah systematically worked to undercut that state's sovereignty, but also facilitated a supply of Iranian missiles to Hezbollah. As Patrick Devenny, Henry M. Jackson National Security Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., noted in a prescient article six months before the 2006 war, "The Hezbollah missile threat to Israel has expanded not only in quantity but also in quality. In recent years, the group's operational artillery reach has grown. Experts and analysts generally put the Hezbollah rocket force somewhere between 10,000 and 12,000 missiles. The heart of this arsenal remains rooted in Hezbollah's massive stocks--perhaps 7,000 to 8,000--of 107mm and 122mm Katyusha rockets, virtually all of which were supplied directly from existing Iranian army stocks."[13]

The Israel Defense Forces' failure to eradicate Hezbollah in the 2006 war led many analysts to declare Hezbollah the victor.[14] Hezbollah had survived Israel's onslaught and become the first Arab entity to hit Haifa since Israel's founding in 1948.[15] Robert G. Rabil, director of graduate studies at Florida Atlantic University and a well-regarded Syria and Lebanon analyst, went further, suggesting that Hezbollah's rise may have come at Syria's expense.[16]

Michael Rubin

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors../..

The Enduring Iran-Syria-Hezbollah Axis. Part II

by Michael Rubin

2nd part of 2

Is Syria Still Important?

Syria enabled Hezbollah's rise. It became the transit point for Iranian arms. In addition, Syria provided crucial safe haven for offices, personnel, and organization, not only for Hezbollah, but also for Palestinian terror groups and, since 2003, Islamist terrorists operating in Iraq. Through it all, Iranian support has been key.

In a 1996 speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, then-secretary of state Warren Christopher noted that Iran provides significant financial assistance to many terrorist groups that maintain offices in Lebanon. "Iran has not stopped at rhetoric. It meets frequently with all the major terrorist groups--including Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the PFLP-GC [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command]. . . . It provides them with money--up to several million dollars a year in the case of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and others, and up to $100 million a year for Hezbollah alone. Iran also supplies them with arms and material support, training, and--in some cases--operational guidance."[17] More recently, Western diplomats in Lebanon estimate that Iranian assistance to Hezbollah is closer to $200 million annually.[18]

The arms trade continues through Syria. As the German military prepared to enforce the prohibition on Hezbollah resupply under terms of its UNIFIL mandate, the German news magazine Focus reported on October 9, 2006, that Germany's Federal Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst, BND) had concluded that the Islamic Republic had already resupplied missiles to Hezbollah in the aftermath of the war. The BND reported that the resupply had occurred over land through Syria.[19] In 2008, Akhtari estimated that the volume of total trade ranged from $2.5 to $3 billion.[20] While illegal arms are but a tiny fraction of that figure, such trade traditionally provides cover for arms transfers. On May 29, 2007, for example, a Turkish train carrying construction supplies from Iran to Syria hit a mine allegedly laid by a Kurdish terrorist group and derailed. Police discovered an undeclared cache of Iranian arms, including rocket launchers and rifles.[21] The Turkish route into Syria may become more important as Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoˇgan tightens relations with both Tehran and Damascus. Regardless, Iranian cargo planes land frequently at Damascus International Airport.[22] Suspicion over their role in the illicit weapons trade led the European Union to sanction Iran Air Cargo.[23]

Hezbollah is not the only recipient of Iranian largesse on Syrian territory. Matthew Levitt, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) terror and financial analyst, noted in congressional testimony that estimates of Iranian assistance to Hamas ranged between $20 million and $50 million each year through the 1990s.[24] Much of this money was and still is channeled through Hezbollah.[25] Upon Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's death in 2004, for example, Iranian intelligence reportedly channeled $22 million through Hezbollah to fund Palestinian terrorist groups more sympathetic to the Iranian line.[26]

The assassination of Hezbollah terrorist Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus highlights the crucial role Syria plays in international terrorism, regardless of its diplomatic posturing. On February 12, 2008, a car bomb in Damascus killed Mughniyeh, a fixture on the FBI's most-wanted list until his death. In the wake of Mughniyeh's death, Akhtari's comments highlighted the importance of Syria in the terror nexus. "We trust Syria," the Iranian ambassador explained. "It is their concern more than ours because Mughniyeh was their guest in Damascus and, of course, because of the close relations between Hezbollah and Syria."[27] Indeed, Hezbollah agents may do Syria and Iran's dirty work, not only against Israel and Western forces in Iraq, but also against Lebanon itself. A lengthy UN investigation of the assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri appears ready to finger Hezbollah as the trigger party.[28]

Syria Remains Pivotal

Desire to make progress on the Middle East peace process, unravel the Syria-Iran axis, and end Syrian support for terrorism motivates the Obama administration's efforts to flip Syria diplomatically from its role as a rejectionist state into the more moderate camp populated by countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Jordan, which may not always be pro-American in the expression of their foreign policy, but at least keep their support for terrorism indirect and do not countenance Iranian influence.[29]

There is no evidence, however, that the State Department's engagement policy has worked. Syrian concessions--allowing the American Cultural Center to reopen, for example--have been halfhearted and more than offset by revelations of continued Syrian proliferation efforts and its facilitation of terror.[30] Nor does it appear that Tehran and Damascus have loosened their relations. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has met Syrian president Bashar Assad repeatedly, most recently last month in Turkey.[31]

Welcoming Syrian foreign minister Walid al-Muallim to Tehran on November 5, 2009, Ahmadinejad said, "Comprehensive Tehran-Damascus relations keep getting deeper, wiser, and stronger with the passage of each new day, and such relations are not easily subjected to other developments."[32]

Meanwhile, successful U.S. and Israeli interdiction efforts of Iranian arms at high sea, while embarrassing to Iran, have made Syria's role as a route for weapons delivery more important. The last decade has witnessed several high-profile interceptions of weapons:

ON JANUARY 29, 2001, THE ISRAELI NAVY SEIZED TWO CONTAINERS OF WEAPONS, REPORTEDLY OFFLOADED IN WATERTIGHT CONTAINERS BY THE CALYPSO, A LEBANESE ARMS-SMUGGLING SHIP.

ON MAY 7, 2001, THE ISRAELI NAVY SEIZED THE SANTORINI WHILE IT WAS ON ITS FOURTH ARMS-SMUGGLING MISSION. THIS SHIP CARRIED 107MM ROCKETS, MORTARS, ROCKET-PROPELLED GRENADES, ANTIAIRCRAFT MISSILES, AND ANTITANK WEAPONRY.

ON JANUARY 3, 2002, THE ISRAELI NAVY INTERCEPTED THE KARINE-A, A GAZA-BOUND FREIGHTER, WHILE IT WAS ON THE RED SEA. ONBOARD, NAVAL COMMANDOS FOUND FIFTY TONS OF SOPHISTICATED IRANIAN WEAPONRY.[33]

ON MAY 20, 2003, THE ISRAELI NAVY INTERCEPTED THE ABU HASSAN, A FISHING VESSEL CARRYING WEAPONS, EXPLOSIVES, AND DETONATORS.[34]

ON JANUARY 19-20, 2009, THE U.S. NAVY INTERCEPTED THE MONCHEGORSK, AN IRANIAN FREIGHTER CARRYING MILITARY SUPPLIES TO SYRIA IN VIOLATION OF UN SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 1559.[35]

ON NOVEMBER 4, 2009, THE ISRAELI NAVY INTERCEPTED THE FRANCOP, AN ANTIGUA-FLAGGED VESSEL THAT WAS ALLEGEDLY CARRYING THREE HUNDRED TONS OF IRANIAN WEAPONRY TO HEZBOLLAH.[36]

The importance of Syria grows as authorities in Tehran make clear their commitment to support Hezbollah and Palestinian groups, which the United States considers terrorists. When Ahmadinejad visited Damascus last spring, he met with the leaders of Damascus-based terrorist groups and promised them continued support.[37] Less than three weeks later, Ali Larijani, the speaker of the parliament whom some American journalists dub a pragmatist,[38] declared, "We are proud to defend Hamas and Hezbollah. We are not trying to hide it. They are fighters in the path of God, and you can call them whatever you like," adding that the idea that Tehran would ever abandon the two groups was a "U.S. dream."[39]

The Danger of Syria's Safe Haven

Syria's continued support for terrorists and other foreign fighters undermines any diplomatic gains the United States achieves. Because of Syria, UN Security Council Resolution 1701 has failed to prevent Hezbollah's rearmament. Meanwhile, the IRGC has more political power now than at any previous point in its history.[40] As such, statements by its commander that "in the near future, we will witness the destruction of Israel, the aggressor, this cancerous microbe Israel, at the able hands of the soldiers of the community of Hezbollah," should raise concerns in Washington and European capitals about the possibility of a regional conflagration.[41]

Recent reports that Iran transshipped gas masks and chemical weapons through Syria to Hezbollah should only heighten concern as the Islamic Republic increases its defiance in international discussions about its nuclear activities.[42] Across the U.S. political spectrum, analysts agree that, should Israel, the United States, or any other power strike at Iran's nuclear facilities, the Islamic Republic would respond, at least in part, by activating its proxy terrorist networks. Palestinian groups in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and foreign fighters in Iraq all have Syrian support in common.[43] Not only Hezbollah's rhetoric but also its track record suggest a willingness to attack Western targets, should war against Iran erupt.

Given both the circumstances and the stakes, it is ironic that U.S. officials continue to accept the fiction of Syrian sincerity. As difficult as stopping terrorist supplies may be, the likelihood that proxy groups will voluntarily forfeit their capability is low, and the cost of allowing terrorists to use such arms is high.

Michael Rubin

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Notes

1.Middle East Media Research Institute, "Iranian Parliament Speaker: The Blood of Khomeini Rages in Nasrallah's Veins; The Confrontation Is Not Only in Lebanon, but Deep Inside Occupied Palestine and within the Range of the Lion Clubs of Hizbullah . . . No Place in Israel Will Be Safe," Special Dispatch 1210, July 21, 2006, available at www.memri.org/ report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/1749.htm (accessed December 14, 2009).

2."Enemies Working to Eliminate the Guardianship of the Supreme Jurisconsult," Partow-e Sokhan, in Persian, December 13, 2006, in Open Source Center IAP20061220011007.

3.Yoav Stern, "Report: Hezbollah's New Missiles Have Range 'Israel Can't Fathom,'" Haaretz (Tel Aviv), August 29, 2008.

4.Quoted in Manal Lufti, "The Making of Hezbollah," Ash-Sharq al-Awsat (London), May 18, 2008.

5.U.S. Department of State, "State Sponsors of Terrorism," Country Reports on Terrorism 2008 (Washington, DC, 2009), available at www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2008/122436.htm (accessed December 11, 2009); and Manal Lufti, "The Making of Hezbollah."

6.Manal Lufti, "The Making of Hezbollah."

7.Ibid.

8.Patrick Seale, Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East (London: I. B. Tauris, 1990), 169-79.

9.Manal Lufti, "The Making of Hezbollah."

10.Mehdi Khalaji, "Iran's Shadow Government in Lebanon" (PolicyWatch 1124, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, July 19, 2006), available at www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2489 (accessed December 11, 2009).

11.Robert Pape, Dying to Win (New York: Random House, 2005), 265-81.

12.Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "Hizbullah Attacks along Israel's Northern Border May 2000-June 2006," June 1, 2006, available at www.mfa.gov.il/NR/exeres/9EE216D7-82EF-4274-B80D-6BBD1803E8A7 (accessed December 11, 2009).

13.Patrick Devenny, "Hezbollah's Strategic Threat to Israel," Middle East Quarterly (Winter 2006).

14.Efraim Inbar, "How Israel Bungled the Second Lebanon War," Middle East Quarterly (Summer 2007).

15.Nadia Abou El-Magd, "For the Majority of Arabs, Hezbollah Won, Israel Is No Longer the Undefeatable Army," Associated Press, August 18, 2006.

16.Robert G. Rabil, "Has Hezbollah's Rise Come at Syria's Expense?" Middle East Quarterly (Fall 2007).

17.Warren Christopher, "Fighting Terrorism: Challenges for the Peacemakers" (Soref Symposium, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1996), available at www.washingtoninstitute.org/ templateC07.php?CID=69 (accessed December 11, 2009).

18.Scott Wilson, "Lebanese Wary of a Rising Hezbollah," Washington Post, December 20, 2004.

19.Josef Hufelschulte, "Neue feuerkraft für Hisbollah" [New Fire Power for Hezbollah], Focus (Munich), October 9, 2006.

20.Manal Lufti, "The Making of Hezbollah."

21."Konteynırda silahları" [Weapons Container], Hürriyet (Istanbul), May 30, 2007.

22.Matthew Levitt, "The New Lebanon: Democratic Reform and State Sponsorship" (PolicyWatch 1016, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, July 21, 2005), available at www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2346 (accessed December 11, 2009).

23.European Union, "Acts Adopted under Title V of the EU Treaty," Official Journal of the European Union L 61/49 (February 28, 2007), available at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2007:061:0049:0055:EN:PDF (accessed December 11, 2009).

24.House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia, Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, Iranian State Sponsorship of Terror: Threatening U.S. Security, Global Stability, and Regional Peace, 109th Cong., 1st sess., February 16, 2005.

25.Ibid.

26."Iran Expands Its Palestinian Control; Offers al-Khadoumi Five Million Dollars," Al-Watan (Kuwait), December 13, 2004, quoted in House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia, Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, Iranian State Sponsorship of Terror: Threatening U.S. Security, Global Stability, and Regional Peace.

27.Manal Lufti, "The Making of Hezbollah."

28.Erich Follath, "Breakthrough in Tribunal Investigation: New Evidence Points to Hezbollah in Hariri Murder," Der Spiegel Online, May 23, 2009, available at www.spiegel.de/international/ world/0,1518,626412,00.html (accessed December 14, 2009).

29.Seymour M. Hersh, "Syria, Israel, and the Obama Administration," The New Yorker, April 6, 2009.

30."IAEA Inspects Nuclear Research Reactor in Syria," Agence France Presse, November 17, 2009.

31. "Ahmadinejad ba ra'is jomhuri-ye Suriya didar kard" [Ahmadinejad Meets with the President of the Republic of Syria], Asr-e Iran (Tehran), November 9, 2009.

32."Ahmadinejad: Regional Conditions in Iran's, Syria's Favor," Fars News Agency (Tehran), November 5, 2009.

33.Akiva J. Lorenz, "The Threat of Maritime Terrorism to Israel," International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, September 24, 2007, available at www.ict.org.il/Articles/tabid/66/Articlsid/ 251/ currentpage/6/Default.aspx (accessed December 11, 2009).

34.Shaul Shay, The Axis of Evil: Iran, Hizballah, and thePalestinian Terror (Edison, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2005), 156.

35. "Cyprus Unloads 'Gaza Arms' Ship," BBC News, February 13, 2009.

36."Israel Navy Chief: Hezbollah-Bound Iran Ship Carried Hundreds of Tons of Arms," Haaretz.com (Tel Aviv), November 4, 2009, available at www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/ 1125807.html (accessed December 14, 2009).

37."Iran and Syria Continue to Support Resistance," Gulf News (Abu Dhabi), May 6, 2009.

38.See, for example, Barbara Slavin, "How Bush Saved Iran's Neocons," Foreign Policy (November 2007).

39."Tehran Proud to Support Hamas, Hezbollah," PressTV.ir, May 25, 2009, available at www.presstv.ir/ detail.aspx?id=95985 (accessed December 7, 2009).

40.Danielle Pletka and Ali Alfoneh, "Iran's Hidden Revolution," New York Times, June 17, 2009, available at www.aei.org/ article/100635.

41."Israel to Be Destroyed by Hezbollah," Fars News Agency (Tehran), February 19, 2008.

42."Hezbollah Silent over Report that Group Got Chemical Weapons," Daily Star (Beirut), September 4, 2009.

43.Brian Fishman, ed., Bombers, Bank Accounts & Bleedout: Al-Qa'ida's Road In and Out of Iraq (West Point, NY: Harmony Project, 2008).