I was contacted by a Lebanese reader during my discussions of the fighting in Lebanon. He has provided some great insights into a confusing situation. He has been kind enough to share his thoughts directly with my readers.
Hezbollah’s timing.
Since the start of the war between Israel and Hezbollah, the organic links of the Party of God and Iran have been well documented. Any rational person knows that Iran spent years investing and training this party for a reason: to be its proxy army on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. Moreover after the forced pull out of the Syrian army from Lebanon, Hezbollah became the proxy army of Syria in this country. Both countries benefited from him to protect their interests and advance their agendas.
The Iranian nuclear file: On July 3rd , in Vienna, the group of six countries dealing with the Iranian nuclear file gave Iran a deadline for her reply on their offer. Their offer aimed to let Iran stop its nuclear enrichment (in return of incentives) or else the issue will be taken to the Security Council. The deadline ended on July 12th. On the same day Ali Larijani (in charge of the Iranian nuclear file) met in Brussels with Javier Solana (in charge of the Foreign Affairs in the European Union) but the result of the meeting was negative.
The kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers took place at 9:30 AM (Beirut time, 2:30 AM ET) on July 12th. The Iranian reply came from Southern Lebanon. The operation was well planned in advance and more than a hundred Hezbollah fighters were involved. It makes sense that the planning and training were done in advance and all what was needed was a go ahead and a date.
Moreover, the planned G8 Summit in St-Petersburg was supposed to deal with the Iranian non-reply. Instead it was rarely mentioned and the explosive situation in Lebanon was dominant.
May be Hezbollah and his Iranian and Syrian backers did not expect the violent Israeli reply but they sure did their best to benefit from it, or so they thought.
The war exposed Hezbollah’s extensive military ties to Iran and the weaponry which was mentioned in intelligence reports came out in the open. While some in the “Arab street” were delighted to see Israel bombed, the Arab governments (and many ordinary Arabs) were alarmed to see the shadow of the Persians in the heart of their Middle East. In the comments section of on line Arab journals it is very common to read anti-Hezbollah comments especially after its leader Nasrallah said that if he knew that Israel would respond so violently he would not have kidnapped the soldiers.
The Iranian nuclear file will be discussed again in the Security Council at the end of September.
The destabilization of Lebanon: Syria was forced to pull its army out of Lebanon in April 2005. It left behind two things: Politicians and government officials from all religions that still do their best to undermine the pro-American/European Siniora government and its intelligence personnel who were “hosted” in the Hezbollah controlled areas of Beirut and the Bekaa valley. Those areas are “no go” areas for the Lebanese Army and are run like a state within a state. .
Hezbollah does also his share in undermining the Siniora government. Lebanon’s Independence Day is on the 22nd of November. The 22nd of November 2005 was expected to be a great day. It would be the first time that Lebanon would celebrate this day without a foreign soldier on his soil. Western ambassadors were ready to benefit from this special date to openly support the Siniora government. Early on that day Hezbollah made an attempt to kidnap Israeli soldiers posted on the border. The attempt failed, 3-4 fighters were killed and some localized bombing followed. If everything went according to his plan, Hezbollah would have emerged as the main power broker in Lebanon on the same day that the international community was doing its best to prop up the Siniora government. Envoys would have started flocking to meet Nasrallah to try to arrange a prisoner swap while the official government would look helpless.
On July 12th Nasrallah thought that he could succeed once again in being the main power broker.
The Syrian government is under immense pressure from the international community because of its role in the assassination of ex-prime minister Hariri (February 2005).
Syria hoped that the Israeli response would force the Siniora government to resign and a pro-Syrian government would replace it. The new government would call for a Lebanese-Syrian investigation, which would lead to nowhere.
During the war, all the files of the UN investigation were moved from Lebanon to Cyprus. There were worries that in the ensuing chaos Syria and its proxies could mount an operation aiming to destroy all the files. Moreover, an attempt to free four high ranking Lebanese officials (pro-Syrian) held in a prison, as suspects in the assassination, was foiled.
There are many reports saying that on the 15th of September, the chief UN investigator will accuse the Syrian president Bachar Assad of being a suspect in the assassination of Hariri.
The destabilization of the Palestinian Authority: As in Lebanon the Palestinian Authority Chairman (Mahmoud Abbas) is undermined by Hamas who gets full financial and technical support from Hezbollah/Syria/Iran. After the Israeli soldier Gilead Shalit was kidnapped on June 25th Israel started attacking the Hamas government in Gaza. Negotiations were on a frenzy to get to a deal involving prisoner swaps and saving the Palestinian government. On the second week of July an agreement was close and Egypt was heavily involved in negotiating with Hamas. Then suddenly everything went to pieces and on the 11th of July Abbas accused Syria of negatively interfering to prevent any deal. On the 12th of July the “Ahram” Egyptian newspaper published a statement by the Egyptian president Mubarak saying that a deal was almost reached with Hamas but “foreign parties” (hinting at Syria) prevented this. Maybe Mubarak was hoping to put pressure on Syria by showing that Syria is responsible for the destruction of Gaza. On that same day Southern Lebanon became the “breaking” news story.
Once more Hezbollah’s timing and what followed kept the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian people caught between the Israeli Army and Hamas’ foreign allegiance.
As always Iran and Syria can only benefit from added tension between Israel and the Palestinians. They fight their common enemy through the blood and pain of others.
Those three approaches to the events show that setting a date is rarely a matter of coincidence and Hezbollah has again proven that behind his patriotic rhetoric (and “social services”, so dear to the New York Times) he is just a part of the geopolitical assets of Iran on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. Iran’s aim was and still is to have a regional role in the Middle East. There are two ways to accomplish this: a nuclear program to blackmail everybody or fanning flames from Iraq to Lebanon to Yemen to Somalia as another means of blackmailing the region.
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