http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14555.htm
Olmert's war and the next one
By Patrick J. Buchanan
08/15/06 "WND" -- -- When Israel answered the
Hezbollah raid that captured two soldiers with air
strikes on Lebanon's airport, runways, gas stations,
lighthouses, bridges, buses, apartment houses and
power plants, we who questioned the wisdom and
morality of what Israel was doing were denounced as
anti-Israel or anti-Semitic.
Turns out we were right. In private, even Israeli army
generals were raging that Israel was fighting a
stupid, losing war.
Ehud Olmert, who gave Chief of Staff Dan Halutz the
green light to launch the shock-and-awe air campaign,
cannot survive the moral, political and strategic
disaster his country has suffered.
While the Israeli Air Force was hammering Lebanon,
Hezbollah rained down 3,000 rockets on Israel and
fought off pinprick raids. When the Israeli army,
after a month, moved in force against the real enemy,
Hezbollah, Israel had already suffered irreparable
damage to its reputation as a fighting nation and a
moral country.
As the war began, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and
Bahrain all condemned Hezbollah, as did the Beirut
government, for inciting the war. But with Hezbollah's
defiant resistance, as Israel smashed up Lebanon, the
Arab street rallied to Nasrallah. Arab regimes
followed.
The losers?
Lebanon, which suffered 800 dead, thousands injured
and 1 million made refugees, saw its infrastructure
destroyed and nation set back 20 years. If the
government falls or Lebanon becomes a failed state, it
will be an even greater calamity for the Lebanese, and
for Israel and the Middle East. For the mightiest
political and military force in Lebanon, and likely
heir apparent to power slipping away from Prime
Minister Siniora, is now Hezbollah and Hassan
Nasrallah.
Says Walid Jumblatt, savage critic of Hezbollah and
its Syrian alliance, "Hassan Nasrallah has won
militarily and politically, and has become a new
leader like Nasser."
Another loser is Israel, and Olmert, who seized on the
border skirmish to launch his Lebanon war. Writes Ari
Shavit of Haaretz:
"Chutzpah has its limits. You cannot lead an entire
nation to war promising victory, produce humiliating
defeats and remain in power. You cannot bury 120
Israelis in cemeteries, keep a million Israelis in
shelters for a month, wear down deterrent power, bring
the next war very close and then say, oops, I made a
mistake."
Olmert and Halutz are history. The Kadima Party regime
will fall. Left and right are already tearing at its
flanks.
What does this mean? The Sharon-Olmert policy of
unilateral withdrawal from the territories is dead.
The Hamas-led Palestinian authority, the creation of
the freest and fairest elections ever held in
Palestine, is on a death watch, after Israel's
starvation blockade and ravaging of the Gaza Strip,
which has left 150 Palestinians dead.
A new Israeli regime will not withdraw from any more
land, nor shut down any more settlements, nor vacate
any part of Jerusalem, nor negotiate with a
Palestinian Authority led by Hamas or by a PLO that is
unable to disarm Hamas. We are at dead end, as George
W. Bush will not push the Israelis to do anything, nor
will Congress.
America is another loser.
The United States knew in advance Israel planned to
attack and, if possible, destroy Hezbollah. And
America approved.
But when Olmert launched an air war on Lebanon,
instead, Bush cheered him on, refused to rein in
attacks on civilian targets, sent smart bombs and used
U.S. influence at the United Nations to block an early
cease-fire. Bush-Cheney are thus morally and
politically culpable for what was done to Lebanon and
the democratic government there that was born of a
"Cedar Revolution" George Bush himself had championed.
Congress poodled alone with Bush, so Bush will not be
called to account, as he would be were any other
nation but Israel involved. From Morocco to the Gulf,
there is probably not a country today that would
welcome Bush, or where he would be safe on a state
visit.
Where does this leave us? With Israel's failure to
achieve its strategic objectives in Lebanon and
America having failed to attain its strategic
objectives in Iraq, Nasrallah emerges triumphant, and
Syria and Iran emerge unscathed and gloating.
What comes next? That is obvious.
With our War Party discredited by the failed policies
it cheered on in Lebanon and Iraq, there will come a
clamor that Bush must "go to the source" of all our
difficultly Iran. Only thus can the War Party redeem
itself for having pushed us and Israel into two
unnecessary and ruinous wars. And the drumbeat for war
on Iran has already begun.
"(T)he dangers continue to mount abroad," wails the
Weekly Standard in its lead editorial. "How Bush deals
with Ahmadinejad's terror-supporting and
nuclear-weapons pursuing Iran will be the test" of his
administration. Yes, the supreme test.
Bush is on notice from the neocons and War Party that
have all but destroyed his presidency: Either you take
down Iran, Mr. Bush, or you are a failed president.
If the president is still listening to these people,
Lord help the republic.
Pat Buchanan was twice a candidate for the Republican
presidential nomination and the Reform Partys
candidate in 2000. He is also a founder and editor of
The American Conservative. Now a political analyst for
MSNBC and a syndicated columnist, he served three
presidents in the White House, was a founding panelist
of three national TV shows, and is the author of seven
books.
Copyright 1997-2006
All Rights Reserved. WorldNetDaily.com Inc.
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