The Road to Beirut Leads Straight to Damascus
By YOUSSEF IBRAHIM
July 14, 2006
Suddenly, war is upon us in the Greater Middle East. A coalition of Arabian Muslim jihadists has set the trap.
Using Israeli soldiers as hostages, the Iranian, Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood, and Syrian jihadists are enveloping the region, opening a two-front war with Israel, delivering Lebanon into Hezbollah's grip, checkmating vital American interests, and bringing Iraq to the brink of civil war.
The crucial test is whether they can bag Prime Minister Olmert and his dovish defense minister, Amir Peretz, thereby eliminating the only players left who can make a difference.
Though it is hard to believe, to many Arabs Israel has emerged as a white knight that may save the day. Hobbled by fifth columns of Muslim fundamentalists within, the Arabs themselves cannot take on Syria or Iran. Neither, it seems, will the politically correct Europeans, who show more deference to their Muslim fundamentalist communities than to their liberal value system, as witnessed by the Danish cartoons incident.
America, too, has chosen eclipse, removing itself from robust policy-making in one of the world's most strategic regions, even though it has direct bearing on American energy interests. Where is the administration that once promised to stand behind democratic reforms and those seeking freedom in the Middle East? And what is it going to do about this fierce assault from the jihadists' coalition?
On Wednesday, the Washington Post quoted the White House as saying it was holding Iran and Syria responsible for the flare-up, which was "deliberately timed to exacerbate already high tensions in the region and sow further violence." Duh!
Any 10-year-old on a Beirut street could have told us that. There was no need for such a statement from the White House.
Thus, the burden now falls to Israel — for its own sake, as well as that of the Arabs. As the Israeli military analyst Zeev Schiff warned on Wednesday, if Israel fails to act now, it may in time face a third front, made up of Syria and Iran. So far, the indications have been anemic but not hopeless.
Yesterday, Israel targeted the wrong address in its retaliation for Hezbollah and company's unprovoked assaults, bombing Beirut's airport and placing Lebanon under lockdown. Targeting Lebanon may be necessary to isolate Hezbollah further from the Lebanese population, but it cannot be the last stop.
The right address for Israel's wrath was and remains Damascus. The right targets are Syria's civilian and military airports, Syria's missile system — as well as Hezbollah's missile network, supplied by Syria and Iran over the past six years — Syria's limp air force, and the summer and winter palaces of President Assad, for good measure.
Hitting Lebanon and stopping there is like beating the Lebanese messenger for a package put together by Iran and sent from Syria, with Mr. Assad as facilitator.
"Here you have actors who are basically pariahs who are trying to find their way back in. They're doing it the way they know best — brinksmanship," the director of the International Crisis Group's Middle East program, Robert Malley, told the Washington Post yesterday. "They want to change the rules of the game."
And they shouldn't be allowed. Indeed, the Syrian and Iranian moves are an error that only makes them and their Muslim fundamentalist allies vulnerable. Opportunities like this are rare.
Iran is under world pressure over its nuclear ambitions. Its Syrian tentacle, while roaming freely, has virtually no support from a Sunni Arab world concerned with Shiite activism across the board.
If Israel goes for this Syrian jugular, Iraq will get a break from the unending stream of insurgents from the Syrian border, and Lebanon could stand up to Hezbollah.
These are times when some of us miss the real men of decisions in that Greater Middle East — men like Ariel Sharon, Israel's bulldozer; or Anwar Sadat, who rescued Egypt from enslavement to an idiotic "Palestinian cause" and the myth of Arab nationalism; or Yitzhak Rabin, a no-nonsense war general who could turn on a dime to seize the moment for a grand bargain — men who could identify a historical moment for what it was and act on it. We are there.
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