From Jane's Intelligence Digest [subscription required]
21 January 2004, via DefenseTech.org
U.S. Mulling Hizbullah Strikes

US secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld is considering plans to expand the global war on terrorism with multi-pronged attacks against suspected militant bases in countries such as Lebanon and Somalia...

Sending US troops into lawless Somalia would not be new, nor is it likely to cause serious diplomatic waves. Covert US forces have periodically infiltrated the country over the past two years in order to conduct surveillance and even snatch [Al Qaeda] suspects...

However, sending US special forces into Lebanon - and in particular an area like the Bekaa Valley (which is virtually Syrian territory) and where the bulk of Damascus' military forces in Lebanon are deployed - would be an entirely different matter. Deployment of US forces in the area would almost certainly involve a confrontation with Syrian troops.

That may well prove to be the objective, since the Bush administration is currently stepping up pressure on the Damascus regime in a bid to force it to cut off all support for radical Palestinian groups which have been targeting Israel during the three-year-old intifada. Washington also wants Syria to abandon its weapons of mass destruction and to withdraw all its forces from Lebanon, a virtual satellite since Syria moved in with tacit US support in 1990 as part of a strategy to end Lebanon's civil war.

The US administration has long considered Damascus as a prime candidate for 'regime-change' (along with Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and possibly even Saudi Arabia). Syria, once a powerhouse of Arab radicalism that could not be ignored, has been seriously weakened, both militarily and politically. Washington may feel that the time is coming to oust Bashir Al-Assad and the ruling generals. Targeting Syria via Lebanon, the only concrete political influence Damascus has to show following decades of radical diplomacy, could prove to be a means to that end...

Moreover, since the 11 September 2001 attacks, Washington has been keen to prove that Hizbullah has a global reach, and is thus a legitimate target for its war on terrorism. Thus far, US intelligence services have been unable to produce compelling evidence supporting this claim. So instead of launching military strikes, the Bush administration has sought to weaken Hizbullah by putting pressure on Iran, the movement's ideological mentor, and on Syria, which has used the Shia militants as what amounts to a proxy force against Israel over the last 20 years...

Washington's own focus on Hizbullah has intensified amid claims that the movement has links with Al-Qaeda (even though Hizbullah is staunchly Shia, while Al-Qaeda's religious ideology stems from the puritanical Wahhabite sect of Sunni Islam). Whether there is any actual operational alliance between Hizbullah and Al-Qaeda remains highly questionable.

5 days, then 76 to go

Asia Times

Helsinki Times

Truthdig

Mark Ganzer

Lebanon: historical context

from Juan Cole, Universty of Michigan History Dept

1 March 2005

excerpt:

The Christian-dominated system of Lebanon fell apart for a number of reasons. The Israelis expelled 100,000 or so Palestinians north to Lebanon in 1948. The Christians of Lebanon refused to give the Palestinians Lebanese citizenship, since the Palestinians were 80 to 85 percent Muslim and their becoming Lebanese would have endangered Christian dominance. Over time the stateless Palestinians living in wretched camps grew to 300,000. (In contrast, the Maronite elite gave the Armenians who immigrated citizenship so fast it would make your head spin.)

In the second half of the 20th century, the Lebanese Shiites grew much faster, being poor tobacco farmers with large families, than did the increasingly urban and middle class Maronites. Maronites emigrated on a large scale (it is said that there are 6 million Lebanese outside Lebanon and only 3 million inside), to North America (think Danny Thomas and Salma Hayek) and to South America (think Carlos Saul Menem of Argentina and Shakira of Colombia).

By 1975 the Maronites were no longer the dominant force in Lebanon. Of a 3 million population, the Shiites had grown to be 35 percent (and may now be 40 percent), and the Maronites had shrunk to a quarter, and are probably now 20 percent. The Shiites were mobilizing both politically and militarily. So, too, were the Palestinians.

The Maronite elite found the newly assertive Muslims of the south intolerable, and a war broke out between the Maronite party-militia, the Phalange (modeled on Franco's and Mussolini's Brown Shirts) and the PLO. The war raged through 1975 and into 1976 (I saw some of it with my own eyes). The PLO was supported by the Druze and the Sunnis. They began winning against the Maronites.

The prospect of a PLO-dominated Lebanon scared the Syrians. Yasser Arafat would have been able to provoke battles with Israel at will, into which Syria might be drawn. Hafez al-Asad determined to intervene to stop it. First he sought a green light from the Israelis through Kissinger. He got it.

In spring of 1976 the Syrians sent 40,000 troops into Lebanon and massacred the Palestinian fighters, saving the Maronites, with Israeli and US approval. Since the Baathists in Syria should theoretically have been allies of the Palestinians, it was the damnedest thing. But it was just Realpolitik on al-Asad's part. Syria felt that its national interests were threatened by developments in Lebanon and that it was in mortal danger if it did not occupy its neighbor.

The Druze never forgave the Syrians for the intervention, or for killing their leader, Kamal Jumblatt. Although the Palestinians were sullen and crushed, they declined as a factor in Lebanese politics once they were largely disarmed, since they still lack citizenship and face employment and other restrictions. The UN statistics show almost 400,000 Palestinians in Lebanon, half of them in squalid camps. But some social scientists believe that because of massive out-migration to Europe, there are actually less than 200,000 in the country now.

In 1982 the Israelis mounted an unprovoked invasion of Lebanon as Ariel Sharon sought to destroy the remnants of the weakened PLO in Beirut. He failed, but the war killed nearly 20,000 persons, about half of them innocent civilians. Ziad Jarrah had a long-term grudge about that. The Israelis militarily occupied southern Lebanon, refusing to relinquish sovereign Lebanese territory.

The Shiites of the south were radicalized by the Israeli occupation and threw up the Hizbullah party-militia, which pioneered suicide bombs and roadside bombs, and forced the Israeli occupiers out in 2000.

One foreign occupation had been ended, but the Syrians retained about 14,000 troops in the Biqa Valley. The Israeli withdrawal weakened the Syrians in Lebanon, since many Lebanese had seen the Syrians as a bulwark against Israeli expansionism, but now Damascus appeared less needed.

Over time the Maronites came to feel that the Syrians had outstayed their welcome. So both they and the Druze wanted a complete Syrian withdrawal by the early zeroes.

In the meantime, Syria gradually had gained a new client in Lebanon, the Shiites, and especially Hizbullah. Likewise many Sunnis supported the Syrians.

The Syrians made a big mistake in growing attached to Gen. Emile Lahoud, their favorite Lebanese president. When his 6-year term was about to expire last fall, the Syrians intervened to have the Lebanese constitution amended to allow him to remain for another 3 years. Across the board, the Lebanese public was angered and appalled at this foreign tinkering with their constitution.

Rafiq al-Hariri resigned over the constitutional change. He was replaced as prime minister by another Sunni, Omar Karami of Tripoli in northern Lebanon.

The assassination of Rafiq al-Hariri, the popular multi-billionnaire Sunni prime minister (1992-1998 and 2000-2004), angered a broad swathe of the Sunni community, convincing them it was time for the Syrians to go. Despite the lack of any real evidence for the identity of the assassin, the Lebanese public fixed on the Syrians as the most likely culprit. The Sunnis, the Druze and the Maronites have seldom agreed in history. The last time they all did, it was about the need to end the French Mandate, which they made happen in 1943. This cross-confessional unity helps explain how the crowds managed to precipitate the downfall of the government of PM Omar Karami.

If Lebanese people power can force a Syrian withdrawal, the public relations implications may be ambiguous for Tel Aviv. After the US withdrawal from Iraq, Israeli dominance of the West Bank and Gaza will be the last military occupation of major territory in the Middle East. People in the region, in Europe, and in the US itself may begin asking why, if Syria had to leave Lebanon, Israel should not have to leave the West Bank and Gaza.

read the whole post

Operation "Syrian Freedom"

Uri Avnery, 16 April 2003, Gush Shalom

And here it comes. The shooting in Baghdad had not yet ended, while the first steps towards the attack on Syria were already being taken. Again the same outcry: 'They have chemical weapons!' (And so have the United States, Russia, Egypt, Israel, Britain, France and many others. Every military machine develops these weapons, even for defensive purposes.) 'There is a brutal dictator out there!' 'He supports terrorism!' In a few days, we shall hear: 'He butchered his own people as Saddam did with his Kurds!' (His father sure did. Assad Sr. shelled the town of Hama while bloodily putting down an Islamist rebellion.) 'We must liberate the poor Syrian people from the tyrant!'

And from there: 'Regime change!' It will begin with slogans, 'warnings,' speeches in the UN and sanctions. The most expert professionals will prepare public opinion. The American and world media (with the Israelis to the fore) will eagerly cooperate. And then the war will become 'inevitable.' It already has a name: 'Operation Syrian Freedom.'

There is one important difference between 'Iraqi Freedom' and 'Syrian Freedom.' The American attack on Iraq had many objectives: control of the oil, creation of a permanent American base in the heart of the Arab world, revenge for the failure of the father. Furthering Sharon's interests was only one objective, and as long as Sharon kept quiet, it wasn't too obvious. The coming American attack on Syria is quite different. It does not serve any major American interest, but it does serve (and how!) the interests of Sharon.

For those who have forgotten the developments, here is a brief reminder:

In 1967, after Syrian-Egyptian threats, the Israeli army attacked Syria (after Egypt and Jordan) and conquered the Golan Heights, which until that time were known in Israel as 'the Syrian Heights.' Their 160,000 inhabitants fled (they vegetate to this day as refugees in Syria.) Their land was taken over by Israeli settlers. The Likud government has officially annexed the Heights (but not the West Bank and Gaza Strip) to Israel.

From that time, the liberation of the Golan has become a central aim for Syria. According to international law, this is occupied Syrian territory. Two Israeli Prime Ministers, Yitzhaq Rabin and Ehud Barak, as much as admitted this when they agreed to return all the Golan to Syria. The negotiations broke down in each case because of an argument about a few hundred meters. Neither Rabin nor Barak was ready to allow the Assads to 'wet their feet in the sea of Tiberias.'

The two lions (In Arabic, Assad means lion) acted very cautiously. After the father failed to dislodge the Israeli army in the October 1973 war, they did not use their own military again. They found a way to fight by proxy: the Lebanese Hizbullah militia has harassed the Israeli army with pinpricks. Both Assads hoped that this would help them to get the Golan back in the end. Also, some of the Palestinian pro-Syrian (i.e. anti-Arafat) organizations are based in Damascus.

Now along comes the Bush administration, under the influence of Wolfowitz, Perle & Co., and issues an ultimatum to the Syrians: give up your chemical weapons, eliminate Hizbullah, get rid of the 'terrorists.' For the Syrians this means, in effect, to give up any hope of ever getting the Golan Heights back. It also means American recognition of their annexation by Israel, in contravention of all the UN resolutions and the position of every US president up to now.

Without Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, the threat of 'the Eastern front' that has been haunting the Israeli military for decades will disappear. Egypt and Jordan have already signed peace treaties. Sharon will be able to concentrate all his might against the Palestinians, who will remain alone.

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