The Iranian Connection: What’s wrong in Lebanon
In Lebanon, the Iranian-backed vanguard of terror known as Hezbollah has again drawn its weapons to provoke the worst crisis since it launched a war against Israel in the summer of 2006. The fighting that began last week in Beirut, and then relocated east to the Chouf Mountains and north to Tripoli, is the latest act in the relentless smothering of the Lebanese democratic state.
At best, we might next see an uneasy respite in the killing while the usual players haggle, President Bush trolls the region for that oh-so-elusive Middle-East-peace legacy, Hezbollah further stocks its arsenal and from behind the barrel of a gun consolidates its grip, United Nations peacekeepers get paid to watch — and Lebanon’s hopes for democracy slide ever deeper into the pit.
By now, it ought to be obvious that Lebanon’s agonies will not be solved by parleys in Beirut. Nor will any solution come from elaborately brokered deals tendered by the Arab League, nor by way of American-inked diplomatic road maps, conclaves, and more United Nations resolutions.
Lebanon is a country infested with a terrorist-run movement — Hezbollah — which is backed by muscular, murderous, utterly ruthless and terror-loving state patrons in both neighboring Syria, and Syria’s kissing cousin, Iran. That gives Lebanon very bad odds. Damascus, Tehran, and their Hezbollah brood are not gunning for peace and democracy in Lebanon. Their game right now in that lovely, lively slice of Mediterranean real estate is instability, with its accompanying openings for encroachment, a tightening noose around Israel, and expanded turf and power in the Middle East. “Stability” in their scheme will come only with subjugation, and with Hezbollah’s declared goals of establishing an Islamic state in Lebanon and eliminating Israel.