Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: US policy in Lebanon risks a wider conflict in the Middle East

US policy in Lebanon risks a wider conflict in the Middle East 
Washington risks a wider conflict  
BBC Correspondent Jim Muir, who has been reporting on the current conflict
from the southern Lebanese port city of Tyre, has covered the upheavals in
Lebanon since the original crisis erupted there in 1975. 
In the second of a two-part series on how this conflict compares with
previous ones, he examines Washington's changing role. 
Previous eruptions of violence that began in a roughly similar manner,
such as the 1996 Grapes of Wrath bombardment, were curtailed at a much
lower level than the current paroxysm. 
Israel says any settlement must be based on the defeat of Hezbollah 
One major difference this time is that Israel enjoys an indulgence from
Washington far beyond anything previous, essentially giving it a free
hand. 
While previous administrations, despite commitment to the strategic
alliance with Israel, kept at least some distance in earlier crises, the
US under George W Bush immediately adopted Israel's primary war aim. 
There could be no ceasefire until the "root problem - Hezbollah is
addressed". Israel would not be under pressure to halt until Hezbollah had
been defeated and destroyed. 
The agony of Lebanon was, like the carnage in Iraq, part of the birth
pains of the New Middle East for the neo-conservative ideologues in
Washington. 
This was Israel's contribution to the war on terror, dealing a blow to a
proxy offspring of those "axis of evil" nations, Syria and Iran. 
Absolutist approach 
This offensive is very different from the Grapes of Wrath in 1996. A
complex diplomatic process involving Lebanon, the US, France, Saudi
Arabia, Iran and Syria delivered an indirect understanding between Israel
and Hezbollah that successfully kept the conflict within bounds, despite
the continuing Israeli occupation of the south and Hezbollah's attacks on
it. 
 
Hezbollah is willing to agree on an immediate ceasefire  
This time, neither Israel nor the US wants to accept Hezbollah as a party
to anything, nor do they want its patrons Syria or Iran to be involved,
except apparently in a capitulation. 
For them, any settlement must be based on the defeat of Hezbollah and the
humiliation of its Syrian and Iranian sponsors. 
If an increasingly isolated US, with anaemic support from Britain,
continues to support or even encourage Israel's absolutist approach, the
consequences could be dire both in Lebanon and in the wider region. 
  There are signs of a rapprochement between radical Sunni and Shia
factions which could rebound massively on the US 
 
Israel would continue with a prolonged campaign of destruction and running
warfare in southern Lebanon, with more destructive raids further north. 
That situation would be unlikely to remain static and confined. 
Already, there are signs of a rapprochement between radical Sunni and Shia
factions which could rebound massively on the US if it gains wider ground. 
The Hezbollah operation of 12 July was apparently launched at least partly
in support of the embattled (Sunni) Hamas in Gaza, perhaps at the
prompting of their mutual supporter Iran. 
So the seeds of co-operation between Sunni and Shia radical groups are
already there, and - encouraged by Iran and Syria - they could start
sprouting elsewhere in the region. 
Iraqi pressure 
If Hezbollah comes under unremitting pressure in a war of attrition in
Lebanon, it would be logical for Tehran to start activating more
dynamically some of its many assets in neighbouring Iraq. 
 
Bombing has destroyed Lebanese reconstruction and confidence 
Iran has very close ties to most of the Shia Islamist groups which now
dominate the Baghdad government, and which are watching the suffering of
their fellow Shias in Lebanon with growing alarm. 
Groups with armed militias, such as the Mehdi Army of radical Shia cleric
Moqtada Sadr and the Iranian-grown Badr Brigade are strongly opposed to
the 120,000-strong US presence in Iraq. 
It is far from inconceivable that, even without co-ordination or contacts
with the Sunni-based insurgency, Iranian-inspired Iraqi Shia factions
could start joining in the pressure on the American forces there. 
Because Israel and the Americans are insisting on victory rather than the
kind of balanced compromise that prevailed in the 1996 Grapes of Wrath
understanding, the confrontation risks mutating into a double existential
battle merging the current regional arenas of conflict. 
On one side, there is the Israeli and American project for the wider
region; on the other, there are the Palestinians and Islamists and their
strategic backers Iran and Syria, with the largely Sunni conservative Arab
states facing increasing pressure from their Shia minorities and Sunni
activists. 
It is a denouement from which both the US and Israel have backed off in
the past, with their respective withdrawals from Lebanon in 1983 and 2000. 
War or diplomacy? 
If the current course continues - and there is no sign of an imminent
turnaround - there is no predicting how far and how fast the flames may
spread, as Israel plunges deeper into open-ended warfare with forces
challenging the very foundations of its existence. 
 
A protracted conflict will weaken the Beirut government 
There is an alternative, favoured by most of the international community
apart from the US and Israel: an immediate ceasefire, followed by
negotiations to address the underlying issues and stabilise the truce. 
Hezbollah itself is willing to agree on an immediate ceasefire and an
exchange of prisoners that would see the two captured Israeli soldiers
return home. 
Other issues would then be on the table, such as the disarming of
Hezbollah or the merger of its forces into the Lebanese Army - a step that
was already under active discussion before the current crisis blew up. 
If the carnage and the overspill beyond Lebanon can be stopped, Hezbollah
will find itself under strong pressure in the Lebanese political arena to
agree to measures for long-term stabilisation, such as allowing the
Lebanese Army to deploy down to the Israeli border. 
The main Sunni, Druze and Christian political forces - Hezbollah's
partners in an uneasy coalition government - were dismayed and infuriated
by the sudden eruption of a war triggered without their knowledge or
involvement. 
The conflict has destroyed much of the country's post-war reconstruction
and the growing confidence painstakingly established since the early
1990s. 
The longer the war now goes on, the weaker and less relevant the Lebanese
government will become, and the less able to exert pressure on Hezbollah
and a Shia community seething with anger at the devastation visited on it. 
Palestinian issue 
For many of those non-Hezbollah, anti-Syrian factions in the Lebanese
government, the key failure in the current crisis has been Washington's:
its inability to keep the Middle East road map alive, and to address the
core Palestinian issue, its total alignment with Israel, and its apparent
willingness to allow Lebanon to be devastated in a proxy war of regional
ambitions. 
President Bush has declared that the root of the problem is Hezbollah, and
that there can be no settlement until that problem is addressed. 
Throughout the region, Arab moderates and radicals, Sunnis and Shias,
would take issue. 
For them, it goes without saying that the root of the problem is Israel's
occupation of what was Palestine, and that there can be no peace until
that problem is addressed, perhaps through a formula such as the
land-for-peace offer endorsed by the Arab nations at their Beirut summit
in March 2002. 
 
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 could start joining in the pressure on the American forces there. 
Probabilmente e' cosi' da interpretare il piccolo rafforzamento del 
contingente americano in Irak, ammesso che serva a qualcosa.
L'articolo e' molto interessante, tuttavia ignora sia le dichiarazioni 
del presidente iraniano sulla cancellazione dello stato di Israele, sia 
il programma nucleare di Teheran. 
Io continuo a pensare che senza questi due dati non ci sarebbe stata la 
sensazione di accerchiamento che ha motivato il sostegno dell'opinione 
di IL all'azione del governo Olmert.
Am.