JBS on Lebanon

Escalating War (by William F. Jasper)by William F. JasperAugust 21, 2006

dilemma of false alternatives -- and why Americans must not let our government entangle us further in the current Mideast mess.

"We are in the early stages of what I would describe as the third world war, and frankly, our bureaucracies aren't responding fast enough," Newt Gingrich declared. "We don't have the right attitude about this.... This is, in fact, World War III." That alarming statement, laden with overtones of approaching Armageddon, came on NBC's Meet the Press with Tim Russert on Sunday, July 16, as Gingrich put the current Lebanon crisis in context by running through a list of terror attacks worldwide.

Mr. Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives and neo-conservative guru, subsequently took up the same theme on CNN's Larry King Live, Fox's Hannity and Colmes, and other programs. But he wasn't merely expressing his opinion that events on the ground have already, de facto, put us squarely in the opening throes of WWIII. No, he was arguing for kicking the process up another notch, pressing for Israel — with U.S. backing — to attack Syria and Iran, the state sponsors of the Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists who have been attacking Israel.

Agitating for the Apocalypse


Gingrich is not the only influential policy wonk to be casting the Lebanon flare-up in apocalyptic terms and rattling the sabers. James Woolsey, a former under secretary of the Navy and President Clinton's CIA director from 1993 to 1995, is even more hawkish, advocating that the United States itself bomb Syria, rather than wait for Israel to do so. "I think we ought to execute some airstrikes against Syria," Woolsey said on Fox News Channel's The Big Story with John Gibson. If we're going to go after Syria, why not also "hit something in Iran?" Gibson asked. Woolsey is not averse to that course of action, but acknowledges that we may be too overextended militarily, at present, to take on another war. "One has to take things to some degree by steps," Woolsey replied, noting that with our troops already committed in one major war in Iraq, a full-tilt war against the Tehran regime may not be practical "at this moment."
Other war hawks, apparently, are unburdened by these concerns. William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard and a leading cheerleader for a global war against Islam, is calling for a U.S. military effort to bring about "regime change in Syria and Iran." In a July 24 editorial entitled, "It's Our War," Kristol advocates that we launch "a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities." Now! "Why wait?" he asks.

Likewise, neo-con propagandist Michael Ledeen, another leading voice in perennial pro-war punditry, sees the Lebanon situation as a mandate for a U.S. military attack on Syria and Iran. In a July 13 National Review Online piece entitled "The Same War," for instance, Ledeen argues: "In this war, there is no meaningful distinction between Iran and Syria, they work in tandem." He insists, "The only way we are going to win this war is to bring down those regimes in Tehran and Damascus." And, he continues, "Only the United States can accomplish it."

Defiance Facade


Opposed to (or rather, seemingly opposed to) these and other voices of the war chorus are the accommodationists, all of whom seem to be pretty much in general agreement that the solution to the Israel-Lebanon-Hamas-Hezbollah-Syria-Iran crisis must be an international one, involving a parley among all of the above-mentioned parties plus the United States, the UN, the EU, Russia, and China. These advocates propose an international peace force for the Israel-Palestine-Lebanon region — most likely under the United Nations and/or NATO auspices — along with generous largesse (from guess who) for humanitarian aid, refugee resettlement, rebuilding of infrastructure destroyed in the recent conflict, etc.

This is the school of thought expounded by, for example, Judith Kipper, adviser for Middle East Programs at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), who urges the Bush administration to "do some meaningful diplomacy" with the terrorists and their state sponsors. In a July 22 New York Times op-ed entitled, "Don't Just Talk to States," Kipper happily reports that "Hamas and Hezbollah, supported by Iran and Syria, have opened a new diplomatic front for the United States." President Bush, she says, "should undertake a robust diplomatic initiative that, directly or through third parties, engages not only states, including even Iran and Syria, but also non-state parties to the conflict, especially Hezbollah and Hamas."

Why negotiate with these murderous thugs? Because, Kipper avers, "both are political parties and social welfare organizations." But she admits that both Hamas and Hezbollah have "lethal military wings" that must be disbanded. However, she is hopeful that this can be accomplished if we agree to "rebuild Lebanon physically and politically" and to "revive the detailed peace plan" known as the Oslo Accords and its follow-up agreements over the past decade and a half. (Ka-ching, ka-ching. No dollar amount is being mentioned now, but rest assured, it would be in the tens of billions, paid mostly by ... guess who?)

Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former national security adviser to President Carter, was proposing a similar approach to Iran several months before the latest ignition of the Israel-Lebanon border wars. Back in April, Brzezinski penned a piece for the Los Angeles Times opining that the "United States should join Britain, France and Germany, as well as perhaps Russia and China (both veto-casting U.N. Security Council members), in direct negotiations with Iran, using the model of the concurrent multilateral talks with North Korea. As it does with North Korea, the U.S. also should simultaneously engage in bilateral talks with Iran about security and financial issues of mutual concern."

On July 18, former national security adviser and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger appeared with "Zbig" (as he chummily refers to Brzezinski) on Jim Lehrer's PBS News Hour to jointly pitch the notion of the need for "international involvement" and serious U.S. dialogue with Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas. Many other voices are hymning the same tune. Such as former Secretary of State George Shultz, for instance, mentor to current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who said recently in Time about his "Plan for Peace": "If you want to create stability, then you have to carry through on U.N. [Security Council] Resolution 1559." This will require, he notes, "an international force."

All of the "experts" quoted above — both the "bomb Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, Syria" and the "talk to Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, Syria" schools of thought — are longtime members of the elite private establishment that has been deciding and running U.S. foreign policy for the past several decades: the Council on Foreign Relations.

It would appear that the "bomb Iran" school, as represented by the Gingrich-Woolsey-Kristol-Ledeen wing of the CFR, is primarily serving as a foil to make the planned "international" approach, as represented by the Kipper-Kissinger-Brzezinski-Shultz wing of the CFR, look more reasonable. Public support for an endless Iraq-Afghanistan war has been crumbling for months; support for expanding this open-ended, undefined, and unfocused "war on terror" to include Lebanon, Gaza, Syria, and Iran is about nil. So, a multinational force that does not require (for now) putting U.S. sons and daughters into that perennially boiling pot may seem much more palatable to American voters.

Incredibly, many of these supposed experts, whose collective wisdom is now being peddled to the American public for the solution to the Lebanon crisis, are the very ones who have, by their previous official actions, put us in the current pickle. But are those the only alternatives open to us: global war or partnering with terrorists (under a UN-led regional mandate that lavishes untold billions on all the parties concerned)?

Is there no other way? Is minding one's own business not an option? George Washington, in his farewell address in 1796, articulated the moral and constitutional foundation for just such a foreign policy. "Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground?" he asked. "The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations," he said, "is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible." John Quincy Adams, our sixth president, endorsed this sensible policy thusly: "America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own."

When it comes to Lebanon and the surrounding vicinity, Americans have a right (nay, a duty) to ask just how many times we are going to allow this same crew of CFR "wise men" (yes, that's actually how they refer to themselves) to drag us into this monster hunt.

Over the past five decades, one CFR-dominated administration after another (Republican and Democrat) has intervened in Lebanese affairs — always with disastrous results for America, Israel, Lebanon, and the entire Middle East.

The age-old tribal, ethnic, political, ideological, and religious enmities that have been the source of so much strife and bloodshed in the region have been exacerbated over the past several decades by Moscow and Beijing, which have been working the Arab and Islamic "street" ever since the founding of Israel in 1948. That has not changed since the apparent demise of the Soviet Union; Russia continues to support the terror states, as does China. If Iran and Syria are the real powers behind Hezbollah and Hamas (and they are), then Russia and China just as certainly are the powers behind Iran and Syria. But the CFR policy cartel would have us believe that Presidents Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintao are our indispensable allies in the region, who will help us make nice with Iran, Syria, and their terror surrogates.

For America to step into the Lebanon-Israel inferno would be utter folly, in even the most favorable circumstances. To do so with our Iraq and Afghanistan occupations already draining our military and economic resources, with our borders unprotected, with the knowledge that Hezbollah will respond by launching terror attacks against (and within) the U.S., and with the "solution" being crafted by those with a track record for stirring up the flames, is utter madness.