US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in the Middle East today, meeting with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Her job is tough: not just how to end the fighting in Lebanon, but how to defang Hezbollah ("Party of God," in Arabic) and bring a lasting peace to the Israelis and the Lebanese. With little leverage over Hezbollah terrorists or their Syrian and Iranian sponsors, Miss Rice will not visit Damascus, nor meet with Iranian officials.
Many in Europe have called for the U.S. to impose a ceasefire on Israel as the U.N. Security Council takes up the issue. However, Israel is exercising its legitimate right of self defense after an unprovoked attack across an internationally recognized border. The United States should resist calls to impose a cease fire on a friendly nation before Hizballah is militarily defeated, no longer represents a threat to Israel and Lebanon, and is ready fully to disarm.
Israel's struggle is an important front in a global war on terrorism. A fellow democracy, it should not be stopped in its tracks before Hizballah's military capabilities are depleted and the international community can impose disarmament and retreat from the Israeli border.
Furthermore, questions arise as to how a sovereign state declares a ceasefire against a terrorist organization that refuses to recognize its existence. What's more, Iran and Syria are the enemy of democratic Lebanon, disrupting nascent government and lunging the ethnically and religiously divided country back into violence to gain political clout.
Hezbollah is terrorism's "A-Team," says former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who refers to Iran as the A-Team's owner and Syria as its coach. Firing over 1,600 short range missiles into Israel, Hezbollah is a major destabilizing force in the Middle East and the main obstacle to democratization and stability in Lebanon. It is a hindrance to the Bush Administration's policy of expanding democracy in the region. It is also one of the major culprits -- and targets -- in the global war on Islamist terrorism. The majority of the Lebanese, want Hezbollah disarmed and out of southern Lebanon. Israel appeals determined to carry out this mission, and the United States should not hold its ally back.
Iran views Hezbollah as the first line of attack against the U.S. and its ally Israel, a senior Iranian official told Western diplomats in London according to a recent article in London's Arabic newspaper Al Sharq al-Awsat. The Iranian leadership, starting with the late Ayatollah Khomeini, the current "supreme leader" Ayatollah Ali Khamenai, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, publicly have denied Israel's right to exist and called to "wipe Israel off the map."
Iran, Hizballah's founding father since 1982, funds, trains, and equips Hezbollah with Katyusha, Fajar 3 and 4, and Zalzal missiles, while Syria, listed by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist-sponsoring state and a junior partner in the Hezbollah joint venture, facilitates the supply of Hezbollah via Damascus International Airport and across the Syrian border.
The U.S. has multiple interests in the current conflict. First, it needs to send a strong message to Iran that its policy of using terrorist proxies (Hezbollah and Hamas) to derail the multilateral diplomatic process to make the Iranian nuclear program transparent will not work. Second, the U.S. and its allies have an interest in assuring that Hezbollah disarms, disperses, and ceases to exist as a terrorist militia. Third, the U.S. wants to see stability in Lebanon and development of its democratic government. This means preventing foreign actors, such as Iran and Syria, and their proxies, from destabilizing it.
Finally, the U.S. is interested in limiting civilian casualties in Lebanon and Israel. For that to happen, Hezbollah must stop using civilians as human shields for its weapons caches, commanders, and headquarters.
The United States supports the right of countries to defend themselves under international law, especially while fighting the war on terrorism. Israel has such a right. Secretary of State should not impose any deadline that would press Israel to cease fire. The U.S. should work with Israel, France, and moderate Arab states to support those political forces in Lebanon that want to disarm Hezbollah. This challenge is an opportunity to make both Lebanon and Israel more secure and to score a victory in the global war on terrorism.
Ariel Cohen, is Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
Preferrably termination
..., at which point, fire ceases automatically.
I fondly wish the same fate for Hamas, which also richly deserves it.
first eliminate, then cease fire.
...
Good Article
These Islamic Terror groups are hoping the weak & ignorant in this world will pressure Israel into a cease fire before they finish Hezbollah. I don't think the US will anytime soon pressure Israel into some garbage cease fire - which the terrorists would ignore.
A proxy war
It's an interesting take on the idea of diplomacy, to talk only with your friends and those you wish to apply pressure to, but never with your declared enemies. This approach pulls the image of the impartial broker for peace into sharp focus.
As does the resupply of arms to Israel, now taking place even as we pretend to be calming the waters. These laser and satellite guided missiles, of course, will bring only peace to Lebanon. While the suppliers of weapons to Hezbollah are devils beyond imagining.
I wonder what the response would be if Syria, at this juncture, were found to be resupplying weapons to their proxies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/22/world/middleeast/22military.html?ex=1153800000&en;=9734d10a73edd897&ei;=5087%0A
No cease fire this time. Only a decisive victory by the American proxy will be the acceptable outcome.
So what?
Israel should be the ones wiping terrorist arabs off the map.
Stop whining, moaning, and bitching, Roy.
why shouldn't he whine, moan and *****
his team is losing.
terror and Israel
Israel has created both Hizballah and Hamas. If there was no Israel, there would be no Hizbullah and Hamas. Terror creates terror.
First crippling, then ceasefire
How can you Americans reconcile the destruction of Lebanon, the murder of innocent women and children, and UN ambulances, the starvation and blockade of Gaza, and call Hizbollah the terrorists? What have you accomplished in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan. Why are your friends the Saudis and your enemies Lebanese christians?
You will reap what you sow.
Israel does not use terror.
Your are marginally correct when you state that Israel created H and H. The mere fact that Jews exist is enough to cause many muslims to seek to kill those Jews. If those pesky Israeli's would just agree to die, instead of defending themselves, then this whole problem would go away, and the good muslims could go back to what they do best. Raping pre-pubescent girls.
reconcilliation
There is no destruction of Lebanon. Parts of it, those parts controlled by Hezbollah have been destroyed, but that is far short of all Lebanon.
The murder of innocents, what there has been, is the fault of Hezbollah. They are the ones who have been firing on Israel, and then hiding behind the innocents.
The arabs are the ones with a history of using ambulances to carry military supplies.
If Hamas would stop firing rockets into Israel and stop kidnapping and killing Israeli civilians and soldiers, Israel wouldn't have to defend itself.
What have we accomplished in Iraq and Afghanistan. The freeing of 40 million people for a start. The creating of new democracies for another.
Great left-wingnut, bigotted response
That's the answer, kill the Jews!
Why don't you grab a rocket launcher and go join your buddies in Lebanon; Hezbollah needs another sacrifice to mighty Islam!
Killing the civilians is not terror!
When Hezbollah and Hamas militants kill the Jewes, it is terror. When the Israely soldiers kill the civillans including children, it is war on terrorism. It is rediculus.
kill the Jews?
No. The answer is to stop Israel killing the people of Palastine and Libanon. Muslims are defending their land against racists, invaders, occupairs, oppressors and baby killers.
targetting civilians is terror
Hezbollah targets civilians.
Israel targets Hezbollah.
It's funny how those defending their land, have always been the first to strike.
Israelis are not racist. There are more arabs living in the small state of Israel, then live in all the arab lands.
Those arabs in Israel have full rights of citizenship. Something which no non-arab has in any arab controlled country.
The Israelis are not invaders.
The Israelis are not occupiers, oppressers, and certainly not baby killers.
However, all of those epithets apply in spades to the arabs.
first the crippling, then the killing
crippling just slows them down, so that they make easier targets.
Really!?
Since you are so well versed in the talking points, do you mind telling us which group you belong to? Is it Hamas or Hezbollah? From your posts I would guess Hamas.
The Muslim Arabs are the only racists, oppressive baby-killers in the region. They are the ones purposly targeting civilians. In fact, I'm really surprised that the Hezbollah and Hamas cowards had the guts to take on armed IDF soldiers in the events that precipitated the present Israeli response.
Let's never forget that the present "Palestinians" aren't some race or seperate group, they are disenfranchised Jordanians. For the most part, they were not "chased off their land" by the Israelis, but buy their Arab brothers, largely in 1948 and 1967, when they tried to destroy Israel. They truely made themselves homeless refugees in the early 70s when they tried to take over Jordan.
But go ahead, blame the Jews you bigot.
racist Zionists
I am neither Hamas nor Hezbollah. But it seems you are racist or Zionist. If you do not change your racist mindset there will be no peace in the Middle east.
I wish I could believe you
I wish I could belive you. But your denial does not change the reality. Almost everyday I wacth on tv the pictures of children killed by the Israeli army.
targetting civilians is terror
So, those bomb blasts we see every night are 40 million citizens celebrating the arrival of democracy? Why do you not go there on holiday?
Israel does not target civilians? It does, even picking off the best ones most likely to create outrage, such as Tom Hurndall, or the UN station, or the ambulances that rush to where they have bombed. To show absolute contempt for peacemakers and charity workers! Blowing up ambulance carrying those injured in a prior blast! And babies and women. Or the collective punishment of Lebanon after it had got back on its feet. Or the starvation, blockading and bombing of Gaza and West Bank. No fishing since Late June! No food! Nos of those killed are always multiples of the jews yet still its seen as Okay...
These events are UNFORGIVABLE!
They are causing growing outrage!
They are doing a terrible service to zionist public relations, and probably creating whole new generations of refugees and radicals that hate Israel.
Can you not see this?
Aren't we witty
The only racist mindset is one that says a people must accept being bombed and killed in the name of peace. And, if they do react, they must not harm a single individual not proven to be an enemy; even though that enemy hides among the civilian population and fires weapons from civilian neighborhoods.
No my friend, I do not accept this mindset. The lebanese government must take responsibility for not disarming Hezbollah and the Lebanese people in these neighborhoods must accept responsibility for not trying to get Hezbollah out of their homes or moving.
You may not be a member of Hezbollah or Hamas, but you are a supporter.
okey then continue killing babies!
I have no answer for you. Keep killing babies.
You have no answer because you are intellectually bankrupt
That was obvious right from the start. Grow up and quit thinking it is cool to hang out with your drug dealing terrorist friends.
I admire your intellectual !
Do you know anything other than killing?
Do you care about all the death and destruction?
If you did you would be on the side of destroying Hezbollah.
You are not destroying Hezbollah but strengthing
You are strengthening Hezbollah while destroying Lebonan.
Not if the U.N. and the world stepped aside
Hezbollah would lose that support in a hurry if Israel was left an open road to do as the will. Then there might be a chance for a stable democracy in Lebanon.
To defeat Hezbollah
To defeat Hezbollah, you have to kill all the people living in Lebonan. Will you do this?
Why Not Kill Them All, If Need Be?
Look man,
Here's the deal: it seems to me that you're only upset at Israel killing Arab babies because that does not leave enough Arab babies behind to grow up to commit suicide while murdering Jews and their babies.
Stop whining, you shrill-voiced coward.
Hizbollah has all the blood of your people on ITS hands. Terrorists such as they are deliberately and strategically use civilians (many of whom are not "innocent" at all) as sheilds for their evil activities, calculating that as soon as one Israeli military manoeuvre in defense of itself puts a bleeding child on the nightly news, the spineless West will rush to pull Israel's leash (and look--the idiotic EU is already doing just that). Free, the Arab terrorists will then just do it all over again. And again. And again. And again. Because Arab terrorists are nothing but animals.
Hizbollah has only ONE purpose in the world, and that is to murderously annihilate all Jews, or at the very least annihilate the nation-state of Israel. And the Israelis are supposed to just sit back and take it, eh?
I hope they pound Tyre to ashes and kill every Lebanese person that stands in their way of any age or gender in order to crush Hizbollah. Hizbollah has just threatened the use of biological weapons. If they try it, then that would give Israel a perfectly good reason to use nuclear weapons. And in such a scenario, I hope they use them.
Ever heard of the *****, dingbat? Yeah, those guys from Germany who were in power during the 1930s and all through WWII until they were forced to surrender? Well, you want to know how that wicked ideological group was crushed? By the allies bombing the s**t out of their cities, among other destructice military activities. Countless German "innocent civilians" died. And so what? Germany was not being imperialistically invaded--it was being stopped from invading and infesting the rest of the world. The Nazi party was the responsible party for all of the German citizens' spilled blood. The allies firebombed Dresden so bad that Nazi Minister of Architecture Albert Spier said after the war that if the allies had done that just one more time to one more German city, Germany would have surrendered even earlier. Too bad the allies didn't know that at the time--they could have saved thousands upon thousands of lives. Not German lives, but that was not the allies' responsibility.
The responsibility of the IFD is to protect ISRAELI lives. The Lebanese government is responsible for protecting Lebanese lives and babies. By allowing Hizobollah to flourish, it is failing to live up to its responsibilities.
Groups like the ***** and Hizbollah need to use their pea brains and THINK about what is going to be done against them if they carry forth with their nefarious activities. THEY hold their people's lives in their hands. THEY get their people killed. They don't give a flying ****, either. Hizbollah couldn't care less about the citizens of Lebanon. For if it did, then it would not do what it does.
Oh, and one more thing, dingbat: the Israelis do not occupy one iota of land that does not belong to them by all rights. Israel ceded Palestine to the Arabs in 1947. Israel took some of it back in 1967 as the spoils of war--a war that five Muslim nations started against them and a war that the Israelis totally won. The Jews were extremely generous in giving back the taken Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, but it was not mandatory.
If you attack another country with warfare, and you lose land, um, guess what? TOO BAD, SO SAD, LOSER.
Stop whining, you terrorist-supporting slug.
I have no idea why
the word "*****" is coming up *****, but ***** says "*****"
N A Z I S
knock off the ******* stars! N A Z I S is the word!
Why not kill them all?
There are some subtleties being lost here. Even if you kill all the people in Lebanon, the muslims elsewhere will take up the mantle. Have you seen the respective birth rates?
Secondly, when has Israel tried to be a good neighbour? Apart from the malnutrition in the Gaza Strip, which is one of the poorest places on earth by design, and the 72 hour notice required for aid to go into Lebanon during the 48 hour "ceasefire", even in normal times there are roads for only jews, sprinklers water gardens next to refugee camps that have no water, Pregnant women in difficulties are stopped from reaching hospital, traders from reaching markets, fishermen from using the sea. This used to be known as Apartheid. Terror only begets more terror and the more merciless the invasion, the longer this war will last, and the deeper the doo-doo we will all be in here in the UK and USA becuase of our encouragement of the Israeli Defence Forces flattening of Lebanon and our lack of interest in the Palestinians.
Nothing is being lost
You are still trapped in the rather dumb mentality that what the fanatical Muslim terrorists provoke Israel into doing makes what Israel does "terror" or "racism".
Israel is doing nothing wrong, and it's time that people like you woke up to that fact.
You need a doctor
You are a terrorist. I am not supporting you.
Israel is always innocent like an angel !
Israel always does the right thing. Because they are superior race.