An opening to disarm Hezbollah and isolate Iran.
Monday, July 24, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT
After some initial uncertainty, and mixed messages from the State Department, the Bush Administration now seems properly focused on exploiting the clash between Hezbollah and Israel as a strategic opening. The opportunity is to degrade Hezbollah and further isolate its enablers in Syria and Iran.
One of the most notable reactions to the fighting has been the absence of the usual solidarity from leading Arab countries. Governments in Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the smaller Gulf states understand the hegemonic ambitions of Hezbollah's patron, Iran, and they know this is a foretaste of Iranian trouble if the mullahs ever get a nuclear bomb. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave every indication in her press conference Friday that she intends to exploit that anxiety during this week's trip to Europe and the Middle East.
For starters, she was having none of the calls for a quick cease-fire. "I have no interest in diplomacy for the sake of returning Lebanon and Israel to the status quo ante," she said. Such a cease-fire, she added, would allow "terrorists to launch attacks at the time and terms of their choosing and to threaten innocent people--Arab and Israeli--throughout the region. That would be a guarantee of future violence. Instead we must be more effective and more ambitious than that."
This means, as a first order of business, giving Israel enough time and support to diminish what we now know is a more substantial Hezbollah threat than even Israeli intelligence appreciated. Given six years since Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah has dug in and amassed far more dangerous weapons. As a matter of pure self-defense, Israel has to re-establish a credible deterrent and show that Hezbollah's leadership is not immune from counter-attack.
Word is that Ms. Rice's more ambitious plans include the creation of an international stabilization force for southern Lebanon. And properly conceived, this might be a genuine help. We're not talking about the kind of "peacekeeping" mission U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan envisions, whose purpose would be to keep the "warring parties" apart. That would only hand Hezbollah and Iran a victory by showing they can attack with impunity and the international community will ride to the rescue.
An international force inserted after Israel finishes cutting Hezbollah down to size could serve a very different purpose. Its mission could be to see that Hezbollah and the mullahs never regain a military foothold in Lebanon or hold the threat of violence over that country's fledgling democracy. It could also work to strengthen the official Lebanese Army, facilitate its deployment in the south of the country, and otherwise help implement U.N. Resolution 1559--under whose terms Hezbollah should already have disarmed. Israel is talking about a robust NATO force, which makes some sense. But if the "moderate" Arab states are really concerned with stability, they could also contribute troops--as could Turkey.
We're happy to note the absence of Damascus from Ms. Rice's itinerary, despite pleas from the likes of former acting CIA chief John McLaughlin that the U.S. talk directly to dictator Bashar Assad. (Why is it that, every time one of these former CIA officials comes in from the cold, he favors accommodating some Mideast dictator?) To go hat in hand to Damascus now would only be interpreted as weakness.
"The Syrians have to make a choice," Ms. Rice said Friday. "Do they really wish to be associated with the circumstances that help extremism grow in the region, or are they going to be a part of what is clearly a consensus of the major Arab states in the region that extremism is one of the problems here?" These are fine sentiments, but that choice has been put to Mr. Assad many times since the fall of Saddam Hussein and he has always chosen extremism. Yet he has never paid any price for that choice. More U.S. canoodling via Saudi Arabia or Jordan won't turn him in the right direction without a credible stick if the Syrian strongman stays allied with Iran.
As the Syrian problem shows, there are plenty of obstacles to Ms. Rice's diplomatic success. But if she is able to exploit the "consensus" she's described, she has an opportunity to contribute to near-term peace in Lebanon, as well as to broker a new alliance of Arab countries that could help contain the much larger threat of an Iranian nuclear bomb down the road.
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