Asia Times Special

Asia Times:
Clearing the path for US war on Iran

By Gareth Porter
Aug 9, 2006

WASHINGTON - Israel has argued that the war against Hezbollah's rocket arsenal was a defensive response to the Shi'ite organization's threat to Israeli security, but the evidence points to a much more ambitious objective - the weakening of Iran's deterrent to an attack on its nuclear sites.

In planning for the destruction of most of Hezbollah's arsenal and prevention of any resupply from Iran, Israel appears to have hoped to eliminate a major reason the US administration had shelved the military option for dealing with Iran's nuclear program - the fear that Israel would suffer massive casualties from Hezbollah's rockets in retaliation for an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

One leading expert on Israeli national-defense policy issues believes the aim of the Israeli campaign against Hezbollah was to change the US administration's mind about attacking Iran. Edward Luttwak, senior adviser to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, says administration officials have privately dismissed the option of air strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities in the past, citing estimates that a Hezbollah rocket attack in retaliation would kill thousands of people in northern Israel.

But Israeli officials saw a war in Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah's arsenal and prevent further resupply in the future as a way to eliminate that objection to the military option, says Luttwak.

The risk to Israel of launching such an offensive was that it would unleash the very rain of Hezbollah rockets on Israel that it sought to avert. But Luttwak believes the Israelis calculated that they could degrade Hezbollah's rocket forces without too many casualties by striking preemptively.

"They knew that a carefully prepared and coordinated rocket attack by Hezbollah would be much more catastrophic than one carried out under attack by Israel," he said.

Gerald M Steinberg, an Israeli specialist on security affairs at Bar Ilon University who reflects Israeli government thinking, did not allude to the link between destruction of Hezbollah's rocket arsenal and a possible attack on Iran in an interview with Bernard Gwertzman of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York last week. But he did say there is "some expectation" in Israel that after the US congressional elections, President George W Bush "will decide that he has to do what he has to do".

Steinberg said Israel wanted to "get an assessment" of whether the United States would "present a military attack against the Iranian nuclear sites as the only option". If not, he suggested that Israel was still considering its own options.

Specialists on Iran and Hezbollah have long believed that the missiles Iran has supplied to Hezbollah were explicitly intended to deter an Israeli attack on Iran. Ephraim Kam, a specialist on Iran at Israel's Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies, wrote in December 2004 that Hezbollah's threat against northern Israel was a key element of Iran's deterrent to a US attack.

Ali Ansari, an associate professor at the University of St Andrews in Scotland and author of a new book on the US confrontation with Iran, was quoted in the Toronto Star on July 30 as saying, "Hezbollah was always Iran's deterrent force against Israel."

Iran has also threatened direct retaliation against Israel with the Shahab-3 missile from Iranian territory. However, Iran may be concerned about the possibility that Israel's Arrow system could intercept most of them, as the Jaffe Center's Kam observed in 2004. That elevates the importance to Iran of Hezbollah's ability to threaten retaliation.

Hezbollah received some Soviet-era Katyusha rockets, with a range of 8 kilometers, and hundreds of longer-range missiles, after Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000. But the Israeli daily Ha'aretz, citing a report by Israeli military intelligence at the time, has reported that the number of missiles and rockets in Hezbollah hands grew to more 12,000 in 2004.

That was when Iranian officials felt that the Bush administration might seriously consider an attack on their nuclear sites, because it knew Iran was poised to begin enrichment of uranium. It was also when Iranian officials began to imply that Hezbollah could retaliate against any attack on Iran, although they have never stated that explicitly.

The first hint of Iranian concern about the possible strategic implications of the Israeli campaign to degrade the Hezbollah missile force in south Lebanon came in a report by Michael Slackman in the New York Times on July 25. Slackman quoted an Iranian official with "close ties to the highest levels of government" as saying, "They want to cut off one of Iran's arms."

The same story quoted Mohsen Rezai, the former head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, as saying, "Israel and the US knew that as long as Hamas and Hezbollah were there, confronting Iran would be costly" - an obvious reference to the deterrent value of the missiles in Lebanon. "So, to deal with Iran, they first want to eliminate forces close to Iran that are in Lebanon and Palestine."

Israel has been planning its campaign against Hezbollah's missile arsenal for many months. Matthew Kalman reported from Tel Aviv in the San Francisco Chronicle on July 21, "More than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to US and other diplomats, journalists and think tanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail."

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's main purpose in meeting with Bush on May 25 was clearly to push the United States to agree to use force, if necessary, to stop Iran's uranium-enrichment program. Four days before the meeting, Olmert told CNN that Iran's "technological threshold" was "very close". In response to a question about US and European diplomacy on the issue, Olmert replied, "I prefer to take the necessary measures to stop it, rather than find out later that my indifference was so dangerous."

At his meeting with Bush, according to Yitzhak Benhorin of Israel's ynetnews, Olmert pressed Bush on Israel's intelligence assessment that Iran would gain the technology necessary to build a bomb within a year and expressed fears that diplomatic efforts were not going to work.

It seems likely that Olmert discussed Israel's plans for degrading Hezbollah's missile capabilities as a way of dramatically reducing the risks involved in an air campaign against Iran's nuclear sites, and that Bush gave his approval. That would account for Olmert's comment to Israeli reporters after the meeting, reported by ynetnews but not by US news media: "I am very, very, very satisfied."

Bush's refusal to do anything to curb Israel's freedom to cause havoc on Lebanon further suggests that he encouraged the Israelis to take advantage of any pretext to launch the offensive. The Israeli plan may have given US Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld new ammunition for advocating a strike on Iran's nuclear sites.

Rumsfeld was the voice of administration policy toward Iran from 2002 to 2004, and he often appeared to be laying the political groundwork for an eventual military attack on Iran. But he has been silenced on the subject of Iran since Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice took over Iran policy in January 2005.

Gareth Porter is a historian and national-security policy analyst. His latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was published in June 2005.

(Inter Press Service)

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Asia Times:
'We are just hit-and-run guerrillas'

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

SOUTH LEBANON - Over the past days, this correspondent has met many Hezbollah field commanders on the war front, as well as in other parts of Lebanon, but they have been too concentrated on their military campaign to offer any real insights.

Similarly, Hezbollah ideologues and, of late, even parliamentarians have gone underground to avoid Israeli spies, or even being attacked.

However, after an arduous process spread over several days, Asia Times Online managed to arrange an interview with Sheikh Bilal. Bilal, who wears a white turban and a black robe, is a close aide of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and in charge of a region in south Lebanon.

He is also an ideologue of Hezbollah, having been educated in the Iranian city of Qom and then sent by the Iranian leader ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini back to Lebanon to "guide" Hezbollah.

Bilal comes from the Dahieh district of Beirut, but constant bombing of the area forced him to leave his home. He agreed to meet this correspondent on condition that no hint of the location would be given.

Sporting a small white beard, Bilal sat in front of a picture of Nasrallah, but refused to have his own picture taken.

Asia Times Online: How do you view the Israeli plans? Will they be able to push into south Lebanon and destroy Hezbollah's arms?

Bilal: Israel is the fourth-strongest power in the world. The Americans, British and even Arab countries support its designs, but I tell you, despite all of this, the whole war is in our hands, not in the hands of Israel. We are pulling the strings of this war, not the Israeli war machine. It is because Allah is with us.

Even though they [Israelis] are very powerful, they believe in a tangible life in which they eat, sleep and entertain, and then die. We believe in eternal life, which starts from our apparent death [Bilal then quoted a long phrase from Nahjul Balagha (The Peak of Eloquence) - a collection of sermons, precepts, prayers, epistles and aphorisms of Imam Ali to support his statement.]

ATol: But still, you are an organization. Israel is a state. There is surely no match?

Bilal: But the question is, who has better control over the battlefield? I accept Hezbollah is not a conventional army. We are just hit-and-run guerrillas. Israel is trying to get into Lebanon with its 30,000 men equipped with the best war equipment. Has it achieved anything? No. Its achievement is zero because it has failed to inflict any serious losses on Hezbollah. I swear to you, Israel has only one edge on us, and that is its air force.

Were the air force removed from over our heads, we would go deep inside Israel and liberate Palestine. The whole Israeli activity is a brutal bombardment of civilians and on the infrastructure. But when they finish with their spray of guns and expect a free walkway into south Lebanon and go for a military push, we will catch them in the middle and force them to retreat. In about a month of war they have not even established exactly where we are based and how and from where we confront them.

ATol: There was a time when Palestine was a matter of honor for Arab nations. They fought many wars against Israel, but now when Hezbollah confronts Israel, why do Arab countries criticize Hezbollah?

Bilal: They are scared that any appreciation or encouragement of Hezbollah would encourage other resistance movements in their own country and ultimately the present rulers would lose their governments and Islamic movements would take over control. For instance, Egypt and Jordan are fearful of Iqwanul Muslemeen [Muslim Brotherhood]. The Muslim Brotherhood tried to take to the streets in Egypt in favor of Hezbollah, but the Egyptian government suppressed them with force. This is the situation of this whole region.

ATol: Hezbollah and the Brotherhood are very close. What is the secret of their closeness, despite Hezbollah being Shi'ite and the Brotherhood predominately Sunni?

Bilal: Yes, this is true that we are close and we both work for the Islamic cause beyond any sectarian differences. But let me tell you that does not mean that we like takfiris [those militantly intolerant of "infidels"] like al-Qaeda. We hate them because they kill innocent people and destroy sacred places.

ATol: Hamas and Islamic Jihad also believe in Salafi Islam, like al-Qaeda. Yet Hezbollah is close with them.

Bilal: We have one thing in common, and that is Islam. And because of that we support them. And another aspect is the liberation of Palestine, which is central to all Muslims. We do not care whether they are Salafis or not. We are committed to the Palestinian cause, and for that we can go to any lengths.

You want to know what this war is all about? We understood that after the abduction of Israeli soldiers in Gaza, Israel was ready to raze Gaza. And then we came into the picture and diverted all their attention to us [by abducting Israeli soldiers]. This forced Israel to disengage from taking on the weak Palestinians and engage our forces.

ATol: Do Hezbollah's designs go beyond Lebanon?

Bilal: Hezbollah is only for Lebanon. We do not have any designs beyond Lebanon or Palestine.

Syed Saleem Shahzadis Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com

Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Asia Times:
A fight to the finish

By Dahr Jamail

DAMASCUS - "I care about my people, my country and defending them from the Zionist aggression," said a Hezbollah fighter after I'd asked him why he joined the group. I found myself in downtown Beirut sitting in the back seat of his car in the liquid heat of a Lebanese summer. Sweat rolled down my nose and dripped on my notepad as I jotted furiously.

"My home in Dahaya is now pulverized," he said while the concussions of Israeli bombs landing in his nearby neighborhood echoed across the buildings around us. "Everything in my life is destroyed now, so I will fight them. I am a shaheed [martyr]."

He asked to remain anonymous, and that I refer to him only as Ahmed.

The late-afternoon sun was behind him as he told me just how hard his life had been. When he was 11 years old he and his youngest brother had been taken from their home by Israeli soldiers and put in prison for two years. I asked him what happened to him there, but that was a subject he wouldn't discuss. One of his brothers was later killed by Israeli soldiers.

After his release from an Israeli prison Ahmed was spending his teenage years in southern Lebanon when he was caught in crossfire between Hezbollah fighters and Israeli soldiers near his home. He was shot three times. Many years before, his father had been killed by an Israeli air strike on a refugee camp in south Beirut.

"What are we left with?" he asked, while the angle of the sun through the windshield highlighted tears welling in his eyes. "I know I will die fighting them, then I will go to my god. But I will go to my god fighting like a lion. I will not be slaughtered like a lamb."

A widely misunderstood group
Leaving on this trip to Syria, I never intended to go to Lebanon. When my plane took off from San Francisco, Lebanon was still a peaceful land; by the time my plane touched down in Damascus, however, everything had changed. That very day, I learned on landing, Hezbollah had taken two Israeli soldiers captive and killed eight others. While the mainstream media have taken it as fact that the Hezbollah raid occurred inside Israel, many Arab outlets claim the Israelis actually entered Lebanon before being attacked. The exact location of the clash remains in dispute.

Clearer, however, are the effects of the subsequent Israeli attack on Lebanon. Physically, Lebanon has been bombed if not yet back to the Stone Age, then at least to a point where much of the country now looks as it did in the worst periods of its brutal civil war, which lasted from 1975 until 1990.

According to statistics provided by the Lebanese government on July 24, there had already been well over US$2.1 billion of damage to the civilian infrastructure of Lebanon - all three of its airports and all four of its seaports had by then been bombed, and in the weeks to follow it was only to get worse.

By estimates that go quickly out of date as the bombing campaign continues, there has already been nearly $1 billion of damage done to civilian residences and businesses, with more than 22 gasoline stations as well as fuel depots bombed and the major highways along which fuel resupply would take place badly damaged. Scores of factories, worth more than $180 million, have also been damaged or destroyed.

Red Cross ambulances, governmental emergency centers, United Nations peacekeeping forces and observers, media outlets and mobile-phone towers have all been bombed, each a violation of international law. Mosques and churches have been hit; illegal weapons such as cluster bombs and white phosphorus used; and, as far as can be told at this early point, more than 90% of the victims killed have been civilians.

As of this writing, the Lebanese government had already announced at least 900 deaths, and that number is now certainly well over 1,000. At least 60 Israelis are also dead from Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israel and fierce fighting inside Lebanon.

Tom Engelhardt recently wrote (Air war, barbarity and the Middle East, August 1):

As air wars go, the one in Lebanon may seem strikingly directed against the civilian infrastructure and against society; in that, however, it is historically anything but unique. It might even be said that war from the air, since first launched in Europe's colonies early in the last century, has always been essentially directed against civilians. As in World War II, air power - no matter its stated targets - almost invariably turns out to be worst for civilians and, in the end, to be aimed at society itself. In that way, its damage is anything but "collateral", never truly "surgical", and never in its overall effect "precise". Even when it doesn't start that way, the frustration of not working as planned, of not breaking the "will", invariably leads, as with the Israelis, to ever wider, ever fiercer versions of the same, which, if allowed to proceed to their logical conclusion, will bring down not society's will, but society itself.

The government of Israel stated at the outset that the goal of its massive air campaign, leveled directly at the infrastructure of Lebanese society and at its economy, was in essence psychological - meant to increase popular pressure against Hezbollah; but, as might easily have been predicted, exactly the opposite has occurred.

"I never supported Hezbollah before," a young student at the American University of Beirut told me shortly after I arrived in the capital city. "But now they are defending us against Israel." His view of Hezbollah is quickly becoming the norm for hundreds of thousands of previously unsympathetic Lebanese as US-made Israeli bombs and missiles continue to rain down on the country.

During my time in Lebanon I drove to Qana. On the way there, I passed one small hilltop village after another, all of them resembling bombed-out ghost towns. Chunks of buildings littered the roads, which our car had to negotiate carefully. Powdered rock from shattered homes seemed to cover everything like a thin film. No one was walking the deserted streets, even in the middle of the day. The few who remained, mostly the elderly and children, hid in basements. For whole stretches, only occasional stray cats and dogs were seen, along with a flock of goats whose herder had long since fled.

Irregular thumping of bomb explosions continued in the distance. The roar of Israeli F-16s overhead was a constant reminder that no place in the south of this country was safe. After witnessing this level of destruction, the literal tearing apart of a society, it was clear to me why so many more people were supporting Hezbollah.

Enter Nasrallah
To grasp the unfolding events in Lebanon, you have to begin with an uncomfortable fact. Hezbollah, widely known throughout much of the West as a "terrorist organization", is seen as anything but in Lebanon. This was obviously true of most Shi'ites, especially in south Lebanon, before this round of war began. Now, even many in the conservative Christian population in parts of northern Lebanon and west Beirut have come to hold its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in high regard. With seats in the Lebanese parliament, Hezbollah is seen as a legitimate political group.

Hezbollah first came into existence as a result of the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon, which began on June 6, 1982. The group draws most of its popular support from southern Beirut and southern Lebanon, where the majority of the country's Shi'ite population lives. Downtrodden, impoverished, and largely overlooked by a government in Beirut in which they had inadequate representation, the Shi'ites were primed for a leader who would promise them a better future.

The group was officially founded on February 16, 1985, when Sheik Ibrahim al-Amin proclaimed its manifesto. Nasrallah would only come to power after the Israeli military assassinated Amin. A charismatic leader, he promptly solidified his base and swelled Hezbollah's ranks by working to satisfy the most essential needs of his followers. Hezbollah soon started providing the basic social-service infrastructure in the neglected Shi'ite areas of the country - hospitals, schools, construction projects, welfare programs and, above all, a well-trained, highly disciplined militia for protection.

After years of brutal guerrilla war against the Israeli military, which had occupied part of south Lebanon, Hezbollah succeeded in doing what neither the Lebanese government nor its impotent army could possibly have done. Its fighters wore down the Israeli military and finally forced it out of the country in 2000. This, not surprisingly, lent it even greater popularity.

While the coming years also brought it more significant political representation and respect, the Druze and Christian populations continued to distance themselves from or oppose the group.

Now, the staggeringly disproportionate Israeli response to the detention of two of its soldiers and the killing of others in mid-July has changed even this. In a sense, the Israelis are accomplishing the previously inconceivable - uniting the otherwise hostile power centers of the country behind Hezbollah.

Last week, the Israelis actually began bombing key bridges in the Christian part of the country for the first time - a clear statement that no Lebanese are to be spared their attentions. Most of the Druze and Christian leadership have by now condemned the Israeli response. Many have even gone so far as to state that they believe Hezbollah is working to defend the country's sovereignty.

Thus the Israeli response has played a huge role in strengthening the already strong hand of Nasrallah.

The view from Damascus
Hezbollah enjoys massive popular and political support in Syria. Everywhere in the ancient city of Damascus the yellow-and-green flags of the group hang from storefronts, flutter in the wind from television antennas, and fly from the radio antennas of cars. Portraits and photos of Nasrallah are taped to the back windows of Mercedes and BMWs. Key chains of his bearded, smiling face, along with iconic T-shirts in which he is portrayed between the Syrian flag and that of Hezbollah, are now selling like hotcakes.

"We know the Americans are trying to smash our dignity," a man named Faez told me in the coastal Syrian city of Latakia. Inside a heavily air-conditioned European-style coffee shop, while sipping espresso, the businessman did what so many Syrians do nowadays – he used "America" and "Israel" interchangeably.

The head of the Syrian Union of Engineers, Hassan Majid, was no less frank as we sat in his plush office in downtown Damascus. "Hezbollah has our greatest respect now," he said softly.

Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese refugees have flooded the capital. You can see them inhabiting schools and crowded into various offices for Middle East Airlines, Lebanon's air carrier. They are always to be found at Syrian Red Crescent shelters hoping to acquire lodging, food, or other assistance.

The support they receive is of a far better kind than is available to the tens of thousands of internal refugees who have fled no further than Beirut, where they sleep in the dirt in city parks or, if they are lucky, on thin foam mats in still-empty schools; yet their accounts of suffering and loss are no less heart-wrenching. These stories ripple across Syria daily, broadcast far and wide by state television.

At the headquarters of the Syrian Red Crescent, you can still see a plaque from the Red Cross thanking the Syrian group for its efforts assisting Hurricane Katrina victims. When I asked about it, one of the volunteers told me Syria had donated medical supplies to aid the desperate residents of New Orleans.

An old man named Hassan Hamdan had just arrived from south Lebanon and was waiting for volunteers to find him somewhere to sleep. He caught the spirit of the moment when he took my very first open-ended questions as an opportunity to vent his rage.

In a sense, it never felt as if he was talking to me at all. As he began, he promptly stood up. His voice rose instantly into the shouting range and he quite literally yelled, "The Israelis are attacking and killing everything which moves!" I involuntarily took a step back, fearing he was so angry he might actually assault me. "It's total destruction! They just shredded our city!" For a moment he calmed slightly and explained that he'd just left his village near the south Lebanese city of Bint Jbail. Immediately, his voice rose and he was off again: "Everyone is now with Hezbollah! Even Jesus is with Hezbollah! Insha'Allah [God willing], Hezbollah will smash the Israelis and kick them from Lebanon once and for all!"

I've seen similar rantings broadcast on Syrian state television as people crowd around to watch inside sweaty restaurants and I automatically dismissed it as so much state propaganda. But here that "propaganda" was alive and unbelievably vociferous, with not a screen in sight.

In fact, it hardly matters any more what anyone says or does. Sometimes you can feel a tidal pull in events - in this case, a strong one flowing in a single powerful direction. When one Israeli general recently aimed some pointed barbs at Syria for supporting Hezbollah, and President Bashar al-Assad promptly put the Syrian military on high alert, popular support for Hezbollah, further galvanized, only grew accordingly. It's no longer hard to imagine a whole region in which the shouting might reach previously inconceivable decibels and nobody will be listening.

Drastic measures
After visiting a hospital in Beirut where I saw dozens of horribly wounded children, women and the elderly, their skin burned, often from the flames of their own devastated homes, their bodies shredded, possibly by the cluster bombs the Israelis have reportedly been using, I walked outside and wept.

Shortly after, I met with Ahmed again and briefly described the experience while, once again, tearing up. "This is what I've been seeing my entire life," he replied, staring into my eyes. "Nothing but pain and suffering."

Now, this is also what so many Lebanese, sheltered these past years of reconstruction from life experiences like Ahmed's, are seeing first-hand, and this is why Hezbollah is viewed by almost all Lebanese as a legitimate resistance movement, not a "terrorist organization". This is what the Israelis have actually done to the Lebanese, other than dismantling their society and turning them into refugees in their own land.

When you are in Syria or, I suspect, in most Arab states today and utter the words "terrorist organization", it doesn't even occur to people that Hezbollah might be the topic of conversation. They take it for granted that you're referring either to Israel or the United States.

As Israeli pilots continue to drop US-made precision-guided bombs from F-16s and Hezbollah launches barrages of rockets ever deeper into Israel, the radicalization of both populations - and of the region - only intensifies amid the spreading devastation.

When this war finally ends, the societal, economic and environmental destruction will undoubtedly be staggering - it already is - as well as long-lasting; but it will pale in comparison to the psychological damage that has already been done. Rather than sowing the seeds of a future peace, it's painfully clear to an observer that the seeds of everlasting bloodshed, resentment and resistance are now sprouting amid the ruins.

Arab leaders continue to earn the scorn of their populations for not putting their all into stopping the Israeli campaign against Lebanon. Meanwhile, Hezbollah appears committed to doing so until the very end - and, based on what I saw in my days in Lebanon, that "end" of mutual destruction seems all that is left on the minds of those involved.

The Israelis, overvaluing the technology of war and, in particular, of air power (as so many have done before them), began their campaign against Lebanon by using perfectly real bombs and missiles to achieve largely psychological ends - the humiliation of Hezbollah in the eyes of the Lebanese population. As it turns out, they have indeed changed the psychology of Lebanon - and possibly of the region. Just not in ways they ever imagined.

As Tarad Hamade, the Lebanese minister of labor and official representative of Hezbollah, told me in Beirut recently, "We might not be as powerful as the Israeli army, but we will fight until we die."

Dahr Jamail is an independent journalist from Anchorage, Alaska, who spent eight months reporting from occupied Iraq. He regularly reports for Inter Press Service, and contributes to Asia Times Online, The Independent, the Sunday Herald, as well as Tomdispatch.com. He maintains a website at www.dahrjamailiraq.com.

(Copyright 2006 Dahr Jamail.)

(Used by permission Tomdispatch )

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