Andrew Hagen

A strategic analysis of conflict in the Middle East is in order. First, however, a summary.

Last month, an explosion occurred on a Gaza beach. Israel and Palestinian terrorists pointed fingers at each other. (*) An Israeli soldier was kidnapped and taken into Gaza. Israel started to move on Gaza. Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and took them to Lebanon. Israel started to move on Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel. Israel has responded with air strikes on Hezbollah and strategic positions in Lebanon, including the Beiruit airport. Hezbollah fired a UAV missile at an Israeli warship, inflicting damage. Israel has responded with more air strikes and indications it may send ground forces into southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah is entrenched without the approval of the free government of Lebanon. (†) Meanwhile, Iran continues saber rattling against Israel while continuing to delay and obstruct nuclear weapons inspectors and the UN Security Council from acting. Sectarian violence worsens in Iraq between Arab Sunnis and Arab Shias.

Let’s begin the analysis with a sketch of the motivations of the major players:

Hezbollah - Wishes to destroy Israel and dominate Lebanon to impose a Khomeini-style regime. Not incompetent. Frequently termed “the A-team of terrorists.” Possesses several thousand Katushya rockets (unguided) and a few heavier weapons. Has several thousand terrorist fighters in Lebanon who were trained in Iran. Hezbollah takes orders directly from Iran. It is funded and supplied by Iran and Syria.

Lebanon (free government) - Wishes to supplant Hezbollah in Lebanon and establish peace and rule of law in Lebanon. Not friendly with Israel, but Lebanon’s other enemies are bigger threats right now.

Syria - Seeks to restore its influence in Lebanon. Barring that, this regime of a Sunni-dominated country wishes that Israel loses influence in the region and Syria gains. The Syrian regime does not want a direct conflict with Israel because it knows it will lose. The Syrian regime is dependent on Iran for military and economic cooperation, and is heavily influenced by Iran.

Iran - The Khomeini/Khamanei/Ahmadinejad regime seeks to build nuclear bombs and missiles and then to literally destroy Israel with nuclear weapons. Subsequently, Iran will seek greater influence in the Middle East and the world, assuming that Iran has not by then triggered the end of the world as per the Khomeini regime’s religious beliefs by nuking Israel. In the meantime, Iran must delay and block the weapons inspectors and the UN.

In this scenario, Iran wants to create a widespread Middle East war that Iran is not blamed for. Iran will need support from Islamic countries as the Security Council acts on Iran’s nuclear weapons program in the next few weeks. A regional war would serve Iran’s purpoes. It would distract the world’s attention while Iran builds the bomb, and will also serve the purpose of providing a pretext, however thinly disguised, for Iran’s use of nuclear weapons to destroy Israel.

How could this scenario play out?

Hezbollah’s rockets cannot inflict great damage to Israel, but the randomness of the strikes and their increased range will keep the Israeli population in fear. The Israeli air force will not be able to stop the rocket attacks in a short enough time to keep the Israeli people safe because the rockets are mobile. Israel will have to send in ground forces to destroy Hezbollah. The specter of Israel occupying “Arab land” will again be on full display in the media.

The question is why is Hezbollah forcing Israel to invade Lebanon, when Hezbollah realizes that it will be destroyed by the superior Israeli army. The answer might be based on Hezbollah taking orders from Iran and Iran’s motivations.

An Israeli invasion of Lebanon could drag the Lebanese government into the war, either with or against Hezbollah. At this point, Iranian and Syrian forces would seek to re-establish influence over the Lebanese government and force it to side with Hezbollah, Iran’s pawn.

Iran wants an Israeli-Syrian conflict. Once nations become nervous with war occurring nearby, a subterfuge or other sleight-of-hand maneuer can light the match. If Israel does not strike Syria, it is not clear why Syria would want to engage in a war with Israel, however.

Additionally, Iran has a motive to entangle the US and a third country with a war outside of Iraq’s and Afghanistan’s borders. This would further distract the US. One possibility would be an Iranian deal with North Korea, truly an Axis of Evil. It is not impossible that North Korea’s missile tests could be part of a pact that the North Korean regime has with the Iranian regime. The missile tests could also be useful to Iran’s missile technology.

At some point, Iran would want to have the blame for a wider war shifted to Israel and/or the United States. It is not clear how that might occur, although with Israel and the US winning few world popularity contests right now, it is not inconceivable either.

In this scenario, Iran distracts the world long enough, and pins enough blame on Israel and the US, that Iran is able to become a nuclear power, nuke Israel with impunity, dominate the Middle East, and gain great global influence.

This scenario would counsel that immediate attention be applied to Iran’s nuclear weapons program. It must be put on the top of the world’s agenda by the United States. The US must not allow what happens in Lebanon to sidetrack the process. Furthermore, the UN Security Council should act immediately, not any later. Finally, the US should consider a offering single UN Security Council resolution with two purposes to irrevocably link what is occurring in Lebanon with Iran’s nuclear weapons program. For example, the same chapter 7 resolution could call for Hezbollah to lay down its arms and for Iran to open fully to inspectors within 12 hours or face war. Everyone knows Iran controls Hezbollah. A dual resolution would force Iran to either accept the resolution or oppose it utterly, with no wiggle room and no finessing the issue.

On top of that, the US should introduce a UN Security Council Chapter 7 resolution stating that Iran, North Korea, and Syria must immediately publicly divulge all secret treaties, including mutual defense pacts, that they have entered into, especially with one another. These secret treaties were made illegal by the UN Charter because secret treaties have historically helped cause many wars, including World War I.

Of course, what is likely occurring here is that in Iran’s Islamofascist regime, we have another Nazi totalitarian government hell-bent on dragging the world into another world war. With this in mind we have to realize that the only rationality to the actions and words of Iran’s regime might be, by hook or by crook, to spark all-out global war. This fits generally with the known radical Islamic scenario of destroying the United States as a stepping stone to establishing global radical Islamic supremacy.

Through it all, it should be kept in mind that nothing that the Iranian regime says should be accepted as true unless it can be independently verified.

(Note: “Hezbollah” means “Party of Allah” in Arabic. In Arabic, “Allah” of course means God. Thus, when Western reporters, commentators, and statesmen say things like “Hezbollah is a terrorist group,” or “Hezbollah needs to surrender,” it must sound suspicious when translated into Arabic for Arab-speaking people. We should refer to Hezbollah as “the group calling itself Hezbollah,” or “the group supposedly known as Hezbollah.”)

Glenn Reynolds and other prominent voices in the web log community again display their ignorance, this time by concocting a fallacious argument with great bluster in support of a position not very different from the one they are attacking. In so doing, they blind their readers to an essential aspect of the war.

Reynolds seizes upon (*) a Winds of Change quickie (†) that raises the alarm over an Israelly Cool hand-wringer (‡) based on a mischaracterized MEMRI translation (§) of radio and television broadcasts of some Palestinian Arabs speaking in mosques. This is quintuple hearsay.

According to MEMRI, some Palestinian Arabs speaking in mosques call for an assault on the United States and on generally everything considered good here in the Western world. This, combined with their status as “employees” of the Palestinian Authority, in MEMRI’s description, gives rise to the net blather.

Take a deep breath. Think about it. Why would the Palestinian Authority hire someone to give a public speech in which he is to call for an attack on the United States? Would that not be a declaration of war on a country with which the Palestinian Authority is supposedly working on the Roadmap to Peace? I don’t see any major news media outlet reporting the outbreak of war.

When we apply our Western cultural assumptions to the rest of the world without admitting our incomplete level of wisdom, we are often confused and sometimes angered.

The Islamic political structure is different from the West’s. In Muslim-dominated countries, it is the case that the government gives money to the mosques. This reduces the need of mosques to rely on individual donations. These government donations are the norm in Islamic countries.

Furthermore, the government does not tell the religious leaders in the mosques what to say. The government cannot shut the mosques. Still, parameters may be defined. Criticism of the government may be limited. The government would not demand a statement such as one calling for the destruction of the world’s superpower, however. For if it did it would signal the commencement of hostilities.

An extraordinary claim that the Palestinian Authority (PA) is really calling through its agents for attacks on the United States should be substantiated. MEMRI said the people were “employees” of the Palestinian Arabs. No evidence was provided that the PA exerts control over what they say. Most likely, MEMRI mischaracterized their status. They are not employees. They would be better characterized as recipients of government funding, similar to artists that get NEA grants in the US.

Yet, Reynolds goes further. He takes note that a few Palestinian Arabs are trying to help the insurgency in Iraq; considers the hateful sermons; and then reckons the Palestinian Authority is engaged in active armed hostilities, war, with America. That is fallacious. Imagine if you heard about a Canadian citizen that murdered an American citizen; you would not then fear that the Canadian government was dedicated to blowing up the USA.

It is common in Islamic countries for mosque and state to diverge in their political outlooks. (**) That is possibly the case here.

Reynolds’s conclusion may be right, but it does not follow from his reasoning.

The web log community suffers from a scarce supply of carefully considered thought. Development of such thought takes time. The concepts of time and patience are not ones that could appeal to an instapundit. This lack of time leads, furthermore, to intellectual in-breeding. There is no time for anything but copying. The quintuple hearsay is a crystal clear example. If you track the statements as they get passed along, it resembles the child’s game of telephone. There is a link to the MEMRI article, but as the link is passed, the previous analysis of the MEMRI article is not questioned, and additional specious reasoning of it is added. Eventually, what is left is valueless.

The Palestinian Arab preachers are a proper object of concern, but not because they represent the official view of the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority is a proper object of concern, but not because it supports Islamic holy men. The concern is that they support terrorism and militant holy war, not that they have a politico-religious structure that appears strange to Western eyes. (††)

The PA is rightly considered with suspicion. It has done little to break up cells of terrorist Islamist militants. The PA and its leader, Yasser Arafat, have plenty of money and resources. The problem is that they do not use them to fight terror with a persuasive level of vigor.

I do not support the creation of a Palestinian Arab state unless the PA were to truly crack down on terrorist groups in such a way that the State of Israel is provided security. That has not happened. I do not see it happening in the near term, unfortunately. If the PA were made into a sovereign government, it would earn suspicion that it was a terrorism-supporting dictatorship from the moment it came into being. Having expended blood and treasure to rid the world of two of these in recent years, it would not behoove the US to subsequently foster the birth of a new one.

Nevertheless, in the Roadmap to Peace, a condition of Palestinian Arab statehood is the Palestinian Arab crackdown on Palestinian Arab terrorist groups. The difference between the positions of the Bush Administration and my own are a matter of degree. I would be stricter with the PA than is Bush. Yet, our positions coincide on the basic goal. The Roadmap is dead, I believe. President Bush should not respect it as if it were alive until the PA proves him wrong. Reynolds would have him not respect it at all. Reynolds would deny any possibility that some Palestinian Arabs do want to fight terror and eventually will.

On one side of the war are the militant Islamist terrorist groups, from Al Qaeda to Hamas. On the other side are moderate Muslims, moderate Muslim states, Israel, the United States, and, to a highly varying degree, the rest of the world. Reynolds would tell moderate Muslim Palestinian Arabs who sought to fight terrorism to go to hell. In contrast, I would welcome them to our side of the conflict. We are fighting Islamofascism, not Islam.

Update: 5 January 2004. I’m honored to be linked by a very thoughtful post on the subject by Warble Augur. (††)

Recently Israeli citizens met with some Palestinian citizens in Geneva, Switzerland. This was supposed to be a landmark peace conference, despite the groups of citizens having no authorization from either Israel or the Palestinian Authority. A number of foreign dignitaries showed up, including Jimmy Carter. Some kind of peace deal was signed. It looked kind of like Oslo. This made a lot of noise in the world media. Finally, peace is at hand.

Unfortunately, that is not the case. One of the Palestinian negotiators has now said that, contrary to the beliefs of the Israeli negotiators, the so-called right of return was not given up. (*)

When will the world see that Geneva was just a charade? It is only a theater performance played between the Palestinians, who will say anything to get an advantage, and the Israeli pacifists, who will give up anything for a Palestinian promise of security.

Update: 8 December 2003. A Palestinian official says Geneva’s goal was to politically isolate Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister. (†) The Palestinian Authority appears to be unworthy of trust.

For many years I thought the Palestinian Arabs should just take up the tactics of Gandhi. Since then, however, my opinion has been revised. Now, Paul Wolfowitz, a Defense Department undersecretary, is quoted by the Jerusalem Post as saying:

If the Palestinians would adopt the ways of Gandhi, I think they could, in fact, make enormous changes very, very quickly. I believe in the power of individuals demonstrating peacefully.

(*) The problem is that the Palestinian Arabs have no cultural tradition of peaceful demonstrations. Wolfowitz is asking the Palestinian Arabs to throw out their cultural heritage and take up the cultural trappings of a Hindu (Gandhi) or an American (Thoreau (†) or Martin Luther King). The Palestinian Arab uprising and its twin brother, militant Islamism, are dedicated to a rejection of all things non-Muslim, starting with things Hindu, American, and Jewish.

The Palestinian Arabs will never, under any circumstances, adopt the ways of Gandhi.

Daniel Pipes gives insight into the UN bureaucracies that handle refugee problems. (*) The UN High Commission for Refugees handles most refugee problems around the world, and defines refugees as those who have left their homes under duress to the exclusion of their genetic descendants. On the other hand, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), is specially dedicated to Palestinian refugees, who are defined as anyone genetically descended from an actual Palestinian refugee. Pipes correctly notes that this privileges Palestinian refugees above all others, and aptly calls for investigation into why 40% of UNRWA’s funding comes from the United States.

Since May, numerous successful terrorist attacks have been perpetrated on Israel. It has been one of the worst outbreaks of violence in the past few years. After the wave of murder, President Bush confirmed the “roadmap to peace” and urged Sharon to make large concessions to the Palestinian Arabs. Though the Arabs refused to implement any part of the roadmap, minimal as their requirements were, Israel was forced by the US to comply with its requirements by releasing terrorist murderers from prison and releasing monies to the Palestinian Authority. Since the summit a few days ago, over 10 Palestinian Arab suicide bombers have been arrested. Recently, several Palestinian Arab terrorist groups staged an unprecedented coordinated attack on the Israeli army, the IDF, killing several. Israel responded with a failed assassination attempt on Rantisi, a leader of the terrorist group Hamas. (*) (†) Hamas then issued a statement that they have declared war on Israel.

Today, a Hamas murderer got on a bus in Jerusalem and blew it up, killing at least 16 and injuring over 90. according to MSNBC. Clearly, the roadmap is dead. Regime change in Iraq was not enough to bring about peace, as I had earlier thought it might. (‡) The next big step will be to address another state sponsor of terrorism, such as Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, or other country, and effect regime change there. The matter at hand, though, is how to defend Israel against the many Palestinian Arab terrorist groups.

Every Palestinian Arab terrorist group refuses to recognize the legitimacy of the State of Israel. To them, every Jewish Israeli citizen, even a baby, is a legitimate target for military action, because each one is supposedly part of the “occuption,” which refers, in Arab terminology, to Israel herself. The terrorists’ stated goal has always been to drive Israel into the sea. The Palestinian Authority has never recognized Israel’s right to exist, even though such recognition was required of them in the Oslo agreement a decade ago. The terrorist war fought against Israel enjoys wide support among ordinary Palestinian Arabs.

As Louis Rene Beres has noted, the idea that a two-state solution will lead to peace must now be questioned. (§) David Warren also has a firm grasp of reality. (**) Ron Rosenbaum’s column of April 2002 where he concluded that the Jewish people are on the verge of facing a “second Holocaust” is looking more and more prescient. (††)

Israel must recognize the reality that no roadmap is going to work until the enemy is defeated. The conflict is far past the point of solving diplomatically. Whether Israel chooses to fight this war sooner or later should be a strategic decision.

Unfortunately, the world is awash in a fresh wave of anti-Semitism. Notably, the antiglobalist, anticapitalist Left has stated its support for the Palestinian Arab terrorists and attacked world finance as a tool of “Jewish bankers,” dredging up old anti-Semitic stereotypes. The right-wing has their issues, too. Finally, as a result of the madly brilliant propaganda campaign waged by the Arab terrorists and their supporters, Israel is painted as an enemy and terrorist suicide murderers are depicted as romantic heroes.

Thus, no matter how or if Israel defends herself in the current environment, she will be criticized harshly. Terrorists will receive only a light rapping of the knuckles from leaders like George W. Bush, while Israel receives heavy pressure and leaning to act against her interests. Nevertheless, the defense of Israel is just. Those who value justice want Israel to be protected, and will offer to help protect her. Ultimately, it is Israel’s land by right, and no act of violence or hateful propaganda can ever change that.

Regardless of President Bush’s selective condemnation of terrorists—those who attack the US are evil, while those who attack Israel are only harming the “peace process” and are never referred to as “evil”—Israel’s war against terrorism is in fact part of the larger War on Terrorism. This is a war waged by the world’s democracies and free nations against Islamic radicals who resort to terrorism.

In addition to striking Hamas, Israel should focus some of its immediate attention on the Palestinian Authority, which has refused to recognize the legitimacy of the State of Israel, and has refused to take any action against Palestinian Arab terrorists.

Israel should publicly and directly give the Palestinian Authority a new ultimatum, and back it up with action. An example would be: within 24 hours, the Palestinian Authority must formally recognize the State of Israel’s right to exist within a rough approximation of its pre–1967 borders, or Israel will withdraw from the roadmap permanently and withdraw its recognition of the Palestinian Authority. This would not prevent a larger war, but it would score Israel a desperately needed PR victory by reminding the world, including the US and Europe, that Israel has recognized the legitimacy of Palestinian Arab institutions, while Palestinian Arab institutions refuse to recognize the legitimacy of Israel. It would put the Palestinian Arabs in a position where they must stop equivocating and publicly support either the peace process or terrorism.

President Bush should either abandon or seriously reform the roadmap. President Bush should not support the creation of another dictatorship, as he is doing in his support of the Palestinian Arab state. The US just fought a war at great cost to our bravest men in order to overturn the dictatorship in Iraq. Now President Bush is in the process of overseeing the installation of a new dictatorship just a few miles to the west. Today, President Bush’s Middle East policy is deeply flawed and hypocritical.

The policy of the United States should be to never negotiate with terrorists, and to never require our friends to negotiate with them either. The only way to deal with terrorists is to kill them. The sad news from today is that another large group of innocent people have been murdered and maimed because of the world’s unwillingness to treat Palestinian Arab terrorism for what it is: an act of evil, an act of war.

Update: 12 June 2003: David Horowitz gets it exactly right. I especially like his point about how the Palestinian Authority is not reformable. (‡‡) Steven Plaut argues strongly against the roadmap, (§§) but he does not say why the Arabs want the roadmap. My reading is that they want it because its effect is to undermine the existence of the State of Israel. Frank Gaffney notes that the roadmap does not fulfill President Bush’s vision of Middle East peace as outlined in June of 2002, and he calls on the president to rework the roadmap. (***) One of President Bush’s greatest assets is his ability evaluate his positions and rethink them when necessary. That is exactly what he should do with the roadmap. Finally, David Warren has another good essay. (†††)

In simultaneous attacks, terrorists set off a car bomb in a hotel lobby in Kenya, murdering at least 7 civilians and injuring many more, and fired two surface to air missiles at an Israeli passenger jet. (*) The missiles both streaked past the plane and missed. It appears to have been a lucky break. The passengers suffered no casualties and the jet landed safely in Israel under fighter escort. The car bomb attack hit the Paradise Hotel in Kikambala, near Mombasa. The missile attack took place as the plane took off from Moi International Airport (MBA) in Mombasa. (†) CNN has reported that the missiles were SA-7 Strelas. They are relatively widely available in the arms market. Jerusalem Post has further coverage of the horror. (‡)

Additionally, a small plane is reported to have dropped three packages on the same hotel, which appeared to be bombs. There are no reports of injuries stemming from this particular thrust. (§)

I believe that these terrorist crimes were perpetrated by Al Qaeda. The coordinated nature of the attacks is the best indication of that. It would be the first time that Al Qaeda has attacked Israeli targets directly, though it is no surprise that they have done so. Like their other attacks, it is nothing more than savage barbarity. Al Qaeda must be hunted down and killed without mercy.