The cease fire in Lebanon appears to be holding at this moment, thank God. Just a Goddamned shame it couldn’t have been called a month ago before well over a thousand people were killed in Lebanon (Robert Fisk reports the number at around 1,300 as some of the collapsed buildings hit by the IDF are excavated) and more than 140 in Israel. Did I say “couldn’t”? It’s really more a case of “wouldn’t”. Bush, Cheney, and pals were anxious to see the birth of their “new Middle East,” after all, so many more hundreds of men, women, and children had to die needlessly, many more had to be grievously wounded, lose their homes and livelihoods, etc., before the administration and the Israeli government chose to accept virtually the same terms as they could have had shortly after the conflict began. It looks as though Olmert and Peretz had had enough, realizing that victory does not come easy in southern Lebanon even with vastly superior military technology and a strategy that involves massive civilian casualties and collective punishment. Well, it was gripping while it lasted, eh, fellows?
So what does this new Middle East look like? Well, let’s see. From the wreckage of Lebanon, Hezbollah has emerged as a world-class fighting organization, able to hold off one of the most sophisticated military machines in the world — a feat which has earned them the admiration of virtually the entire Arab world, including sectarian communities in their own country who were their sworn enemies not so long ago. The craven Bush administration, apparently high on the latest round of strategic Kool-Aid being ladled out by the likes of Iran-Contra felon Elliott Abrams, was expecting Christian, Sunni, and Druze Lebanese to turn on the Shi’a community as a result of Israel’s savage attacks on their country. Perhaps they were stoked up by memories of last year’s “Cedar Revolution” and the ejection of Syrian troops from Lebanon. If so, they severely miscalculated… yet again. Hezbollah may receive arms and support from Iran and Syria, but it is an indigenous force with its loyalties fixed firmly in the soil of southern Lebanon. You don’t fight that fiercely for something that isn’t yours. So this entire exercise simply entrenched Hezbollah more deeply in Lebanon’s political and cultural life, enhanced their reputation as a resistance movement, and demonstrated that the concept of mutual assured destruction now applies to local, non-nuclear conflicts between Israel and its immediate neighbors.
This brings us back the the “vision” thing, as pappy Bush used to say. What is Lebanon’s role in America’s grand strategy? Pretty simple. Disarm the one force capable of deterring a neighboring power that has attacked invaded their country half a dozen times in the last 25 years. Let Western capital roll over their economy. And keep their mouths shut. That was the plan for Iraq, as well — in fact, that’s the goal for every nation in what’s referred to as the “developing world”. The model is to have formal democratic institutions in the sense that there will be elections every few years. But all the key decisions regarding the ownership and distribution of national resources, public services, and trade and investment policy, will be made by bankers and investors in the “developed” world. This is what Bush calls “freedom” — for the impoverished majorities in these countries, it means abandoning hope of a better life and resigning oneself to penury in a global consensus built to benefit multinational corporations. It’s the “freedom” you find in Guatemala and Nicaragua.
My guess is, that’s part of what makes people fight so damned hard. They can see where this is headed.
luv u,
jp
