----- Original Message ----- From: "mike larkin" <mike_larkin2001 at yahoo.com> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Saturday, July 29, 2006 1:13 AM Subject: [lbo-talk] Welcome to my parlor,says the Hezbollah spider to the Israeli fly.
> http://www.antiwar.com/lind/?articleid=9435
>
>
> Welcome to my parlor, says the Hezbollah spider to the
> Israeli fly. The Israeli high command continues to
> express its faith in the foxfire of air power to
> destroy Hezbollah, but, as always, it's not working.
> Lebanon is taking a pounding, to be sure, but Lebanon
> is not Hezbollah. Slowly, reluctantly, Israel is
> edging toward a ground invasion of Lebanon, for which
> Hezbollah devoutly prays. When air power fails, what
> other choice will Israel have?
>
> A story in the July 24 Cleveland Plain Dealer gives a
> good idea of what awaits the IDF once it crosses the
> border in earnest. Israeli ground forces have been
> fighting for days to take Maroun al-Ras, a small
> village less than 500 yards into Lebanon. The battle
> has not gone well. Israel has lost five or six troops
> dead, with undoubtedly more wounded. It still does not
> control the whole village. According to the Plain
> Dealer piece by Benjamin Harvey of AP, officers at the
> scene confirmed there was still fighting to do.
>
> "'They're not fighting like we thought they would,'
> one soldier said. 'They're fighting harder. They're
> good on their own ground..'
>
> "'It will take the summer to beat them,' said [Israeli
> soldier] Michael Sidorenko..
>
> "'They're guerrillas. They're very smart.'"
>
> "Guerrillas" may not be exactly the right term here.
> As best I can determine from the wilds of Cleveland,
> Ohio, Hezbollah thus far seems to be waging a
> conventional light infantry fight for Maroun al-Ras.
> The line between guerrilla and light infantry tactics
> is thin, but Hezbollah seems to be putting up a
> determined fight for a piece of terrain, which
> guerrillas usually don't do, because they can't. The
> fact that Hezbollah can points to how far this 4GW
> entity has evolved.
>
> Operationally, Hezbollah's rocket attacks on Israel
> are the matador's cape. That too is working. What of
> the strategic level? The Arab street is cheering for
> Hezbollah, often across the Sunni-Shi'ite divide,
> while the governments of states such as Egypt hide
> under the bed. The goal of Islamic fourth generation
> forces is the destruction of most, if not all, Arab
> state governments, so Hezbollah is winning
> strategically as well. One can almost watch the
> legitimacy drain away from the region's decrepit
> states, with incalculable consequences for American
> interests.
>
> Not that Washington is doing anything to protect those
> interests. On the contrary, it has rushed more bombs
> and aviation fuel to Israel, lest there be any
> unwelcome letup in the destruction of Lebanon. In no
> previous Israeli-Arab war has the United States
> revealed itself so nakedly as a de facto political
> satellite of Israel. Perhaps the neocons have
> convinced President Bush that Israeli olive oil can
> substitute for Arab petroleum as fuel for America's
> SUVs.
>
> An interesting theoretical speculation is whether, if
> Hezbollah's 4GW success continues, some Middle Eastern
> governments might try adopting fourth generation
> techniques themselves. Lebanon's fictional government
> has suggested the Lebanese army may join Hezbollah in
> defending southern Lebanon from an Israeli invasion.
> Militarily, such an action would be meaningless, and
> it probably reflects a desperate desire to keep the
> Lebanese Army (which is 40 percent Shi'ite) from
> fracturing, along with Lebanon itself. But what if
> instead the government called for a million marchers,
> mostly women and children, to head toward the
> Lebanese-Israeli frontier, waving palm branches and
> singing songs? That's how Morocco took the Spanish
> Sahara, and it would present Israel with a sticky
> wicket indeed.
>
> Similarly, the Iraqi puppet government, whose
> impotence is now almost total, may call for a complete
> domestic cease-fire so it could order the "New Iraqi
> Army" to Lebanon. Even al-Qaeda would have trouble
> saying no. The U.S. would howl bloody murder, but such
> an open breach with the Americans is exactly what the
> Green Zone regime needs if it is to gain even a shred
> of legitimacy. The possibility is far-fetched, but an
> emerging Hezbollah victory over Israel will make many
> far-fetched possibilities real.
>
> A Hezbollah success against the hated Israelis will
> give governments throughout the Islamic world a stark
> choice. They can either snuggle up as close to
> Hezbollah and other Islamic 4GW entities as they can
> get, hoping to catch some reflected legitimacy, or
> they can become Vichy to their own peoples. Since the
> first rule of politics is to survive, I think we can
> look forward to a great deal of the former.
>
>>From that perspective, the Tea Lady, AKA U.S.
> Secretary of State Condi Rice, may just have uttered
> the most significant words of her remarkably empty
> career. Departing on her meaningless "shuttle
> diplomacy," meaningless because we will only talk to
> one side, she said current events mark "the birth
> pangs of a new Middle East, and whatever we do, we
> have to be certain that we are pushing forward to the
> new Middle East, not going back to the old one." Don't
> worry; we are, we are.
>
>
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