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Lebanon and the Neo-Con EndgameBy Sarkis Pogossian
The Ceder Revolution and Israel's war
There have been signs over the past three years, as the debacle in Iraq has gone from bad to worse, that the so-called “neo-cons”—the Pentagon-connected policy wonks with traditional ties to the Israeli right and ultra-ambitious schemes to remake the entire order of the Middle East—have been taken down a peg. With the U.S. actually in danger of losing control of Iraq, the notion of attacking Iran, or even plotting against supposed allies like Saudi Arabia, is starting to look more dangerous than attractive to Washington pragmatists.
The turning point would seem to have been in March 2003, when U.S. troops were still advancing on Baghdad. At this decisive moment, Pentagon official Richard Perle resigned as chairman of the Defense Policy Board, a high-level group that advises Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on policy issues. On March 27, the same day he resigned, Perle told BBC: “This will be the short war I and others predicted… I don’t believe it will be months. I believed all along that it will be a quick war, and I continue to believe that.”
Stepping down as chair, Perle would remain on the board until 2004. Also serving on the Defense Policy Board at this time were former CIA director James Woolsey, former Vice President Dan Quayle, and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
Perle had become increasingly identified with a maximalist agenda to go beyond mere “regime change” in Iraq to topple regimes and even redraw borders throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds. On Oct. 1, 2002, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported on a recent meeting in which Perle told Pentagon officials that Iraq was just a tactical goal, while Saudi Arabia was the strategic goal and Egypt was the great prize. Other ideas he reportedly put forth included permanent Israeli annexation of the Palestinian territories, a Palestinian state in Jordan, and a restored Hashemite monarchy in Iraq.
Many analysts say the strategy for U.S. domination of Iraq originated in a plan drafted in 1997, when the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) sent a letter to then-President Clinton urging him to take action to oust Saddam Hussein. The group also called for the “democratization” of Syria and Iran. Among the 40 neo-conservatives in the think-tank, 10 would go on to become members of the Bush administration – including Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Perle.
With Perle’s optimistic prediction about Iraq now proven so horribly wrong, the administration pragmatists (mostly in the State Department) seemed poised to seize the initiative and start bringing U.S. policy back towards the center.
Then, on July 12, 2006, the Lebanese Shi’ite militia Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid, and Israel responded with massive air-strikes on Lebanon – ostensibly aimed at crushing Hezbollah, but actually widely targeting the country’s infrastructure. Hezbollah has been striking back with missile attacks on Israel, but has no capacity to inflict anywhere near equivalent damage. Some 600 are believed dead in Lebanon (compared to 50 in Israel), at least some 500,000 have been displaced, and there is no end in sight. A week into the campaign, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution (unanimously in the Senate) endorsing Israel’s aggression.
Lebanon was actually something of a showcase for the neo-cons, a model for their vision of pro-Western revolutionary change in the region. Following the February 2005 car-bomb assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a longtime opponent of the Syrian presence in the country, a wave of protest was unleashed. In what would become known as the “Cedar Revolution,” a new government was elected and Syrian troops, which had occupied the eastern part of the country since 1976, were finally called home.
But the victory was incomplete. Power was still uneasily divided between the West-backed Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and the pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud. And Hezbollah, backed by Syria and Iran, was allowed to maintain a virtual army within Lebanon’s borders.
Israel has been quick to portray the Lebanon campaign as a proxy war in which Syria and Iran are the real enemies. “This is about Iran as much as it is about Hezbollah or Lebanon‚” Lt. Col. Amos Guiora, the former commander of the Israeli Defense Forces’ School of Military Law and currently a law professor at Western Reserve University, told New York’s Jewish weekly The Forward July 14.
Such statements imply that Lebanon’s Cedar Revolution cannot be successfully consolidated unless there is a general re-shaping of the Middle East political order. And the American neo-cons who share this agenda have once again been on the offensive since Israel’s new war on Lebanon.
Complete article...
www.gnn.tv/articles/2514/Lebanon_and_the_Neo_Con_Endgame
