Soccer Dad: Clueless ten years on

July 28, 2006

Clueless ten years on

In April 1996, when Hezbollah again launched rocket attacks on Israel's northern border, the Israelis countered with Operation Grapes of Wrath, sending 400,000 Lebanese fleeing from southern Lebanon. Errant Israeli bombs hit a U.N. refugee camp at Cana in southern Lebanon, killing about 100 civilians and bringing the wrath of international public opinion down upon Israel.
This time Shimon Peres, who had become prime minister after the assassination of Rabin, sought our help. In response, we launched an eight-day shuttle to Damascus, Beirut and Jerusalem that produced a written agreement bringing the hostilities to an end. Weeks later, the parties agreed to a border monitoring group consisting of Israel, Syria, Lebanon, France and the United States. Until three weeks ago, that agreement had succeeded for 10 years in preventing a wholesale resumption of hostilities.

If someone didn't know better he wouldn't know that the Hezbollah rocket attacks in 1996 sent tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes in northern Israel. It was, certainly, a sufficient reason for Israel to retaliate against Hezbollah positions.

If someone didn't know better he wouldn't know that the errant shell that hit the UN building was fired in response to a Hezbollah rocket launch within yards of that building.

(While the UN report on the shelling of Qana rejects Israel's claims it contains this nugget:

About 15 minutes before the shelling, they fired between five and eight rounds of 120 millimetre mortar from a location 220 metres south-west of the centre of the compound. The location was identified on the ground. According to witnesses, the mortar was installed there between 1100 and 1200 hours that day, but no action was taken by UNIFIL personnel to remove it. (On 15 April, a Fijian had been shot in the chest as he tried to prevent Hezbollah fighters from firing rockets.)

As far as I know Hezbollah was never condemned for shooting that Fijian.)

And finally, what bugs me about those paragraphs is the last sentence:

Until three weeks ago, that agreement had succeeded for 10 years in preventing a wholesale resumption of hostilities.

Absurd. It prevented nothing. It allowed Hezbollah to re-arm unharrassed (especially after Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon.) It didn't prevent hostitilies. It set the stage for further hostilities. The fruits of which are just starting to be reaped.

The op-ed in question was written by the clueless Warren Christoper who served as Secretary of State during the first Clinton administration. The point of the op-ed is to show how short sighted Sec Rice is for not trying for an agreement that would allow Hezbollah to re-arm and prepare for its next assault on Israel years down the road.

And like David Ignatius and Thomas Friedman, Christopher believes that the road to peace runs through Damascus

Finally, Syria may well be a critical participant in any cease-fire arrangement, just as it was in 1993 and 1996. Although Syria no longer has troops in Lebanon, Hezbollah's supply routes pass through the heart of Syria, and some Hezbollah leaders may reside in Damascus, giving the Syrians more leverage over Hezbollah's actions than any other country save Iran. Syria has invited a direct dialogue with the United States, and although our relations with Syria have seriously deteriorated in recent years (we have not had an ambassador in Damascus for more than a year), we do not have the luxury of continuing to treat it with diplomatic disdain.

Yes let's not forget the Syria option, Mr. Secretary.

The Clinton Administration has pursued Syrian participation in the peace negotiations for some time. Former Secretary of State Warren Christopher's 20 or more visits to Syria were more than he made to any other country. In January 1994, President Clinton met with Assad in Geneva in a summit that accomplished little except to boost Assad's international standing and insulate Syria from charges that it was a rogue state like Iraq, Iran, or Libya.

Tell me, is there any indication that the younger Mr. Assad wil be any more reasonable than his father was?

Because Hezbollah has positioned itself as the "David" in this war, every day that the killing continues burnishes its reputation within the Arab world. Every day that more of the Lebanese infrastructure is turned to dust, Beirut's fragile democracy becomes weaker, both in its ability to function and in the eyes of its people.

Actually op-eds such as this one have the effect of legitimizing a terrorist group. Nice going.

The impact is not limited to Lebanon or Israel. Every day America gives the green light to further Israeli violence, our already tattered reputation sinks even lower. The reluctance of our closest allies in the Middle East even to receive Secretary Rice this week in their capitals attests to this fact.

Charles Krauthammer, writing after the Qana tragedy expressed his admiration for the Clinton administration's defense of Israel against the terrorist group Hezbollah, but he wrote that that was about to change (For Syria's Treachery, The Washington Post, Apr 19, 1996)

Typical for Hezbollah, whose rocket attacks on northern Israel, undertaken under cover of south Lebanese villagers, sparked the current ugly and tragic mini-war in south Lebanon. Hezbollah's strategy is as cunning as it is cruel: Either Israel refrains from responding, in which case it renders itself defenseless; or it responds and runs the risk of causing the kind of terrible civilian harm that occurred yesterday. . . . The usual Middle East script calls for the following: Terrorists fire into Israel. Israel retaliates. The U.N. Security Council protests loudly. The United States exerts pressure for Israel to stop. Isra\el stops.
Up until Qana, the Clinton administration had defied the script. It had not pressured Israel to stop its mini-war with Hezbollah. Instead of the usual invocation of moral equivalence, the ritual deploring of the "cycle of violence," Clinton placed the blame squarely on Hezbollah for starting this savage little war. Instead of immediately calling for "restraint" on all sides, the United States called for an end to Hezbollah terror. As a result, the U.N. Security Council, which usually grows voluble and morally agitated at any sign of Israel rising to its own defense, had been a model of inaction.
. . .
After Qana, however, even Clinton will be forced to sign on to some even-handed U.N. condemnation of the violence on both sides and a call for truce, however unstable.

The one thing sure not to be included in any such pious declaration is condemnation of Syria for its part in this affair. Secretary of State Warren Christopher, now on his way to the Middle East, will carry on the now-universal charade in which Syria is accorded the role of peacemaker in Lebanon.

Ten years ago Christopher went about his job appeasing the dictator of Damascus. It didn't achieve much. Assad the elder went to his grave refusing to make peace even if it meant achieving over 90% of what he sought.

Ten years later, clueless as ever, Christopher still doesn't realize that appeasing tyrants and terrorists doesn't convince them to see thing your way; it convinces them that you're seeing things their way.

UPDATE: (via memeorandum)Christopher's old boss feels the same way. Riehl World View disagrees

If someone breaks into your home wielding a knife and you have a gun, what's more important ... to get him to sit down on the sofa and sheath the knife, or undertaking whatever action is necessary to see that the knife is no longer a threat to you and won't soon be again?

Maryland Conservatarian saves me the trouble of having to smack down another "Peace is through Damascus" moonbat.

Technorati tags: Warren Christopher, Washington Post, Israel, Syria, Lebanon.