Bush no friend of democracy

President Bush wants democracy in the Middle East. His track record at getting democracy underway in the region isn’t good. No need to go into the details of Iraq, the growing menaces that are Iran and Syria. But one of the few democratization success stories in the region had been Lebanon, until a week ago when the country undercame bombardment by Israel following Hezbollah attacks, launched from inside Lebanon. As Israel’s campaign to eradicate Hezbollah has intensified, and ripped the legitimate government of Lebanon apart and killed hundreds of its civilians, Bush has remained quiet. He has supported Israel’s right to defend itself, while ignoring the right of Lebanese democracy to survive. Paraphrasing Bush’s father, Lebanon had become a point of shining light in the Middle East, and possibly one of the few non-coerced American allies in the region. But now Bush is turning a blind eye as Lebanese democracy, which so bravely rejected Syrian occupation last year, is reduced to glowing embers of cedar.

What are Americans to make of a president who claims to be driven by values, yet stands back and allows a budding democracy to be devoured by war, making no actions nor statements in its defense. He allows Lebanese civilians to be the pawns in his war on terror, more of their lives taken than terrorists themselves.

Israel does have a right to defend itself, but not at the price of indiscriminate slaughter of innocent civilians never involved with nor in favor of Hezbollah’s terrorist goals. Bush could reign in Israel, or try to actively negotiate a cease fire. Instead, he has stood back and allowed Lebanese civilians in favor of democracy pay the ultimate price that should be reserved only for Hezbollah terrorists.

Israel throwing out the bath with the water

Israel continues its offensive in Lebanon, bombing the airport in Beirut for the second day in a row. From what I can tell, Israel is doing this to punish the Lebanese government for not disarming Hezbollah, which has launched missiles into Israel during the last week and is believed to have coordinated other attacks with Hamas in Gaza, including the abduction of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Israel’s offensive, disproportionate and indiscriminate, does nothing to further israel’s aim, which is an eventual sustainable peace. The attacks deep into Lebanon do indeed punish the Lebanese government, but it is a government that is largely anti-syrian and anti-hezbollah. It is a government that is fragile, and has not had clear leverage to allow it to disarm Hezbollah without having the slide into chaos. Truth be told, the current Lebanese government is the best Israel could hope for all things considered, but that government is now being punished for an offensive that it did not launch. By destabilizing the government, Israel is playing into the hands of Hezbollah, which would like to see Lebanon dip into anarchy, a situation that would facilitate the efforts of Syria, Hezbollah’s major benefactor, to regain much of the control over the country that it was forced to forfeit a year ago.

As Israel knocks out airports, bridges and power networks, it takes the heat off of Hezbollah, which most people in Lebanon consider an unwanted presence as the country has struggled to rebuild a soverign and stable government after decades of civil war. Now Israel, which has of late shown a disturbing inability to differentiate between military and civilian targets with its bombing and shelling, may be supplanting Hezbollah as the immediate enemy of the Lebanese people, regardless of individual politics.

Which brings up another big problem with the way that Israel is handling the latest crisis. Israel is out to destroy terrorist infrastructure in Gaza and Lebanon. Although I have no military experience whatsoever, I bet that Hezbollah and Hamas aren’t about infrastructure. They are terrorists woven into the larger fabric of the countries they occupy, and they are as resilient as a hydra. Knocking out infrastructure penalizes the whole, and likely does very little to trip up Hezbollah. The price paid will could be total destabilization in Lebanon, which will do nothing to serve israel’s better interests.

Time for Reason

Israel is now for all intents at war in Gaza and Lebanon. Ironically, these are the two locations that Israel has left since the year 2000. Both withdrawls were risky: Israel knew that by leaving southern Lebanon, Hezbollah guerillas would have freer access to the international border and more latitude to send both rockets and human attackers across the border. But too many Israeli soldiers were losing their lives in the war of attrition in southern LEbanon, and a similar situation, combined with hopes that the Palestinian government could be counted on to keep terrorists inside Gaza on a leash, prodded ISrael to leave Gaza last summer.
In both cases, Israel took a clear risk that chaos, rather than increased security, would result from the withdrawls. Under the best of circumstances, Israel knew that there would be attacks against its land and people from time to time. The one development that Israel did not expect, at least so soon, was the rise of Hamas to elected power in Gaza.
Now Israel has entered Gaza and Lebanon anew and, although the immediate provocations starting with the capture of an Israeli soldier are clear, Israel has nonetheless taken a dangerous and unproductive step backward in its quest to live in a Middle East neighborhood that, if never hospitable, will at least be sustainable. The immediate attacks against Gaza infrastructure in order to slow the movement of Hamas captors of the israeli soldier may have been the correct move militarily, I don't have the tactical knowledge to judge this. However, as I said in my last post, the knocking out of half of Gaza's electric supply in the process seems unjustified and pointless, and only serves to increase the suffering of the Palestinian people and make them less inclined to see Hamas as the organizatoin bringing about their misery. Israel was better served by the international political quarantining of Hamas that took place until a few weeks ago. Israel's recent missile attack on a Gaza house where a Hamas leader lived with his wife and children, in which the wife and children were killed but the leader got away, is very disturbing because Israel has shown that it does not have the ability to directly target leaders without taking out bystanders as well. On an even more disturbing level, Israel no longer places value on innocent lives in its drive to kill terrorists.
In this way, Israel has forfeited its moral higher ground: Israel can no longer claim to respect civilian life and in its own way has become a terrorizing machine for the "collateral" residents of Gaza.
In Southern Lebanon, Israel's incursions may if successful buy another period of a peaceful border, they may not. But Israel now has to deal with its own soldiers being captives of Hamas and Hezbollah, on two fronts. No amount of military actions will bring these soldiers back alive, they are being held as bargaining tools for the release of Hamas and Hezbollah members being held in Israeli jails. It they are killed, Israel can respond with even more force. But, what is the end game?
Israel is now in Gaza and Lebanon once again, and some day Israel will have to get out again. When and if those days come, years of occupation and battle will have advanced a mideast solution very little, and the situation may look very similar to today. In that someday, the momentary peace that could allow a redeployment would likely be fragile,and could easily be shattered by another round of cross-border attacks and abductions. Will Israel take a step back and work directly at peace? Will Israel take the higher ground and work toward a workable, if highly imperfect solution, that it is surely capable of doing. It has the character and strength to be the leader in the Middle East, but for the moment it is allowing itself to be lured into a pointless spiral of death, the game that Hamas and Hezbollah want it to play.