July 21, 2006
As the onslaught against Lebanon enters its tenth day, Israeli
troops are poised for a full-scale invasion that has been prepared
by murderous aerial bombardment, and the far-reaching imperialist
aims of the war have become all too clear.
With the full political, financial and military backing of
the United States, the Zionist regime is attempting to transform
Lebanon into an Israeli protectorate. This military operation
is a continuation and escalation of the imperialist geo-political
restructuring of the Middle East and Central Asia that began with
the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and whose goal is the establishment
of US domination of the entire region.
The immediate aim of this war—the elimination of Hezbollah
as a military and political force within Lebanon—is directed
against all mass resistance to Israeli and American domination
of the country. The Bush administration and its allies in Jerusalem
see this as an essential step toward: 1) the removal of the Syrian
Baathist regime, and 2) the launching of a full-scale war against
Iran.
While the Israeli government and the Bush administration endlessly
repeat propaganda claims that the attack on Lebanon is an act
of "self defense" prompted by the seizure of two soldiers,
this assertion enjoys no credibility among knowledgeable observers.
As the Financial Times of London wrote in its lead editorial
of July 17, "Israel’s massive bombardment of Lebanon
by land, sea and air in response to Hezbollah’s cross-border
raid last week is now about a great deal more than recovering
two Israeli soldiers seized by Islamist guerrillas—and it
probably always was."
Similar assessments have been published in the Washington
Post and the Wall Street Journal, as well as numerous
newspapers internationally. They simply state what is by now obvious:
the Israeli attack on Lebanon is the realization of a long-planned
act of aggression.
Recent events have placed in clearer perspective the significance
of the February, 2005 assassination of the Lebanese multi-billionaire
and former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Hariri was killed by a massive explosion that destroyed his
motorcade in Beirut four months after he resigned his post as
prime minister in protest against the decision of Emile Lahoud,
an ally of Syria, to extend his term as president of Lebanon.
The United States and France, the country’s former colonial
ruler, immediately blamed Hariri’s death on Damascus. Their
anti-Syrian allies within Lebanon, predominantly based on the
more affluent social layers, seized upon Hariri’s killing
to launch the so-called Cedar Revolution, which resulted last
year in the withdrawal of Syrian troops, which had occupied Lebanon
since the 1970s.
If, in fact, the Syrian regime was behind the killing, it carried
it out because it had become convinced that Hariri had lent his
support to a US-Israeli plan to drive Syria out of Lebanon, in
preparation for an assault on the Hezbollah movement, which enjoys
mass support among the impoverished Shiite population and dominates
the south of Lebanon. It was well aware that this would be followed
by an offensive against the Baathist regime in Damascus itself.
It is, on the other hand, eminently possible that the killing
was a provocation organized by Israeli or American intelligence
agencies for the purpose of creating a pretext for carrying through
the same plan.
In either case, the current Israeli offensive is the implementation
of precisely such an operation. The Cedar Revolution itself produced
disappointing results in the eyes of the Israelis and Americans.
Under the terms of a United Nations Security Council resolution
co-sponsored by Washington and Paris, Syria was obliged to withdraw
its troops from Lebanon. The power of its Hezbollah ally, however,
remained intact.
Indeed, at the height of the anti-Syrian agitation, marked
by well-publicized demonstrations in Beirut organized by Maronite
Christian forces and other Lebanese parties aligned with Washington,
Hezbollah organized far larger counter-demonstrations that brought
hundreds of thousands into the streets of the capital. With the
specter of a new civil war before it, the government that emerged
from the Cedar Revolution felt obliged to make a settlement which
included the admission of Hezbollah representatives into the cabinet.
In an article published July 20, the New York Times reflected
the frustration within the Bush administration and American ruling
circles: "Despite the hopes raised by the so-called Cedar
Revolution, which ended nearly three decades of Syrian control,
the government remains trapped in the sectarian straitjacket of
a system that apportions political offices by religion."
(The Times has no similar objections to the "sectarian
straitjacket" of Lebanon’s neighbor to the south, which
not only apportions all political power to representatives of
one religion, but defines itself as a "Jewish state").
This comment points to the real purpose of the current onslaught
against the Lebanese people. Its aim is a thoroughgoing political
restructuring of the country, in which the fiercely pro-Palestinian
and anti-Israeli sentiments of the Shiite masses are to be crushed
and the power of right-wing, pro-US forces—above all, the
Christian Phalange—vastly expanded.
This is an attempt to reverse the outcome of the Lebanese civil
war, which raged from 1975 until 1990. The US, Israel and other
imperialist powers, notably France, played a central role in inciting
that long and bloody conflict and keeping it going, including
the introduction of American and French military forces and an
Israeli invasion in 1982 that was followed by an 18-year Israeli
occupation of the south. Washington’s chief ally was the
fascistic Phalange, which headed a coalition of right-wing forces
arrayed against an alliance of the Palestine Liberation Organization
and the Lebanese Left.
Imperialist intrigue and intervention succeeded in driving
the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) from Lebanon, but
the eventual settlement curtailed the power of the Phalange, on
the one hand, and saw the rise of the Iranian and Syrian-backed
Hezbollah on the other. This is what Washington is determined
to change. Significantly, the current Israeli offensive has enabled
the US to move its military forces into Lebanon for the first
time since they were withdrawn in the aftermath of the bombing
of the US Marine barracks in Beirut in October of 1983.
The historical background
Israel has a long history of attempting to transform Lebanon,
through a combination of military pressure and political alliances
with right-wing forces in that country, into a virtual protectorate.
In March 1978, in the midst of the Lebanese civil war, Israel
sent military forces across the border into Lebanon, justifying
its actions as a response to PLO terrorist activity. Though compelled
by international pressure to withdraw after its military operations
had resulted in more than 2,000 Lebanese deaths, Israel maintained
control of a 12-mile strip north of the border by sponsoring a
right-wing militia, dubbed the South Lebanon Army, under the proxy
leadership of one Major Saad Haddad.
Four years later, in 1982, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem
Begin and his defense minister, Ariel Sharon, set into motion
a far more ambitious plan to take political control of all Lebanon
and expel the PLO from the country. Once again, a convenient pretext
was found when an Israeli ambassador was wounded in London by
a Palestinian assassin in June 1982. Though intelligence experts
acknowledged that the PLO had nothing to do with this incident,
the Begin government used the event as a pretext to invade Lebanon.
In an operation entitled, with consummate cynicism, "Peace
for Galilee," Israeli troops swept north toward the outskirts
of Beirut, which was subjected to protracted bombing.
The war forced the PLO’s expulsion from Lebanon and led
to the Israeli-sanctioned slaughter of thousands of Palestinian
refugees by Lebanese fascist militiamen.
The United States also became involved in the subjugation of
Lebanon, with the Reagan administration stationing Marines in
Beirut. But direct US participation in attacks on the poorer neighborhoods
of Beirut (which were shelled by American naval vessels) created
deep hostility, leading to the suicide bombing in which nearly
250 Marines were killed. The Reagan administration decided to
cut its losses and withdraw from Lebanon.
The Israeli regime, however, sought to maintain control over
substantial portions of south Lebanon. It was out of the popular
resistance to the occupation that Hezbollah emerged as a powerful
military and political force. The guerrilla war conducted by Hezbollah
eventually forced Israel to withdraw its forces in 2000.
Israeli military tactics
The current war is not only about wiping out Hezbollah, but
destroying any resistance within Lebanon to US and Israeli domination.
This desired end goes a long way in explaining the means that
are being employed. Israel is carrying out an indiscriminate bombardment
of the south, the home of the poor Shiite population and the main
base of support for Hezbollah. The Israeli military is deliberately
targeting the entire civilian population, destroying whole villages
and making the entire region uninhabitable.
The Washington Post reported Thursday that Israel has
ordered all Lebanese living in the southern sector below the Litani
River to evacuate the region within 24 hours.
The goal is to turn south Lebanon into a no man’s land
so as to prepare the ground for the entry of either Israeli troops
or a combination of Israeli and American forces, with perhaps
other national contingents operating as an "international
peace keeping force" with the imprimatur of the United Nations.
The Israeli offensive is above all a war against the Lebanese
poor. The more affluent residential neighborhoods of Beirut and
other parts of the country have been largely spared. This is in
keeping with US and Israeli policy during the civil war, when
they were allied with the Phalange against the Shiite masses and
the Palestinian refugee population.
The unleashing of death and destruction against southern Lebanon
is combined with a bombing campaign aimed at the Shiite southern
suburbs of Beirut and against airports, ports, roads, bridges
and power stations in the rest of the country. The objective is
to wreck the country’s infrastructure. In order to remake
Lebanon politically, it first must be gutted physically. This
gives some idea of what US imperialism and its junior partner,
Israel, have in store for the people of Syria, Iran and beyond.
Nor is there any reason to believe Israel’s disavowals
of plans for a full-scale ground invasion. The more Israeli leaders
discount such a move, the more likely it becomes. While the scale
of the bombing in south Lebanon is sufficient to kill many thousands
of people, it will not achieve Israel’s aims of destroying
Hezbollah as a military and political force, and converting Lebanon
into a Zionist protectorate.
Citing the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, NBC’s evening
news program reported Thursday that several thousand Israeli troops
have begun crossing the border into southern Lebanon.
The role of the United States
The United States is playing a decisive role in the war. It
sanctioned the war in advance and is working in the closest collaboration
with the Israeli military’s US-made and American-financed
war machine to carry it out.
On the diplomatic level, the Bush administration is openly
aligning its moves with the military objectives and political
calculations of the Israeli government. Washington is coordinating
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s impending visit
to the region with Israel to give the Israeli military all the
time it wants to inflict maximum possible destruction in south
Lebanon. As the New York Times reported on July 19, "American
officials signaled that Ms. Rice was waiting at least a few more
days before wading into the conflict, in part to give Israel more
time to weaken Hezbollah forces."
There is no precedent for the US government’s open opposition
to a ceasefire. The Wall Street Journal, in a fairly frank
assessment of US policy published July 19, began by recalling
Washington’s diplomatic role when the last major conflict
erupted between Israel and Hezbollah:
"Ten years ago, when Hezbollah and Israeli forces engaged
in a multiweek bloodbath, President Clinton sent Secretary of
State Warren Christopher to the region for six days of intensive
shuttle diplomacy between Damascus and Jerusalem. In the end,
he won a cease-fire deal that ended the fighting, at least temporarily.
"Today, the Bush administration has a starkly different
approach."
The US is fully and openly legitimizing war as an instrument
of foreign policy. This is a continuation of its military aggression
in Iraq, and an anticipation of future aggression against Syria,
Iran, and other countries. It is bound up with the Bush doctrine
of "preemptive war," which has been embraced by the
entire American political establishment and both parties of American
imperialism—the Democrats as well as the Republicans.
Washington’s determined effort to allow Israel to continue
the slaughter in Lebanon underscores that the current war is part
of US imperialism’s drive, by any and all means, to establish
American supremacy throughout the Middle East.
Whether this reckless and criminal military adventure will,
in the short term, further this objective or lead Washington into
an even deeper debacle in the region remains to be seen.
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