Lebanon and the Baker Hamilton Report

It has been quite some time since my last update. It seems to me that nothing has changed sufficiently enough to write about. Iran still holds to its right for nukes while the West waits, Iraqis sadly enough, are still slaughtering each other and so on and so on. However two recent events have occurred which require a special attention: Lebanon, and the Baker-Hamilton report on the Middle East. I will begin with the latter.

The Baker-Hamilton report, as commented by many Middle East experts, is dangerously naive from many angles; however it is particularly naive when it comes to Israel and the solution to the Middle East. There are many risks concerning following this line of thinking when it comes to the West.

Israel is the US (and the West's) manna from heaven and has been for years when it came to protecting it from radical elements in the Middle East. It has also been Arab rulers' favorite destraction for the people from their crewl regimes. Therefore whoever advocates any solution to the Middle East that will go too far in attempting to please Arab crowds (or think he does), better be damn certain that Israel is the cause. Because once Arab despots manage to weaken Israel enough to the point of pleasing their crowds, they run the risk of weakening it too much to allow radical Islamic elements to overtake it and use this new victory to overrun the despots themselves. It does not take a genious to understand what would Israel's collapse mean to the rule of Arab despots in the Middle and to the safety of the Western world. Once the buffer is gone there will be no turning back. So, again, one must be absolutly sure in Washington that they do not need the buffer zone before getting rid of it. It takes a special kind of naivette to think that Falahs (farmers) in Iraq and Egypt know anything about Israel to hate it. Israel's bif with the Palestinians have no bearing on civil strife in Iraq. At most it has a bearing on the international feud between Sunni and Shia countries in their control over the region. And it is here that Lebanon comes in.

Allowing Hezbollah as the radical Shia organization it is to take over Lebanon, would mean a shift in the balance of power in the Middle East that will send the entire region into a war of proportions unheard of. As mentioned here before, Israel is only a prestige prize between these two fighting camps. In fact, allowing Hezbollah to control will boost Shia popularity to such a degree that will allow Iran to pursue its nuclear program undisturbed. This prospect is one that not only the West and Israel fear, but also the entire Sunni Islamic world.

I guess the conclusions I want everybody to understand are as follows: First that I fear collapsing Israel to please angry Middle Eastern mobs (who probably do not bring Israel into consideration in their Islamic civil war) might turn out to be a mistake of collosal proportions to Israel the West and the Islamic world. A mistake none would be able to recooperate from. Second, that abandoning the progressive Lebanese democracy (who unlike many others in the Middle East actually works) in its hour of need simply to cut Western immediate losses and run, might turn out to be the tip of the balance that will bring this entire house of cards called the Middle East down.