Truce? Peace? Try Hudnah
What are we to believe. Shimon Peres has called upon Israel's Arab neighbours with whom she has reasonable relations to assist in putting a stop to Iranian aggression. They're listening. They are discomfitted by the obvious desires of Iran to create a Persian empire in the region, by any and all means possible. The minority Shiites controlling the majority Sunni. Not dreadfully likely, even if there is at the moment an unholy alliance in the face of what jihadist public relations has identified as the number one enemy of Islam, Israel's presence in the region as an insult to Allah.Israel, said Mr. Peres, welcomes the UN ceasefire resolution as it saw support from Arab countries, obliquely criticized Hezbollah and agreed with the requirement of an embargo on weapons shipments into Lebanon from Iran via Syria to Hezbollah.
This, as Syrian President Bashar Assad asserted that..."The future generations in the Arab world will find a way to defeat Israel". That's fairly clear. This is a pause, no one expected it to be anything else. The pause before the storm. The pause to enable a resurgence, a fresh determination to assault Israel and, they hope, fatally - once and for all. Israel may have other ideas.
On the light-hearted side, Mr. Assad lambasted those Arab regimes which criticized Hezbollah for starting what the United Nations would not permit Israel to finish. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan stated their opposition to Hezbollah once the conflict was joined. But where are they now? Offering to broker peace, offering to lend their troops to ensure that peace will hold, that Hezbollah will not take up rocketing missiles into Israel again?
Whoops, whatever happened to the resolve of the countries tasked with ensuring the tentative truce in Lebanon will hold? Hezbollah claims it will not permit itself to be disarmed. Lebanon has stated it has no intention of disarming Hezbollah. So what, you might ask, would be the purpose of Lebanon sending its 15,000 hitherto-ineffective troops into southern Lebanon? Stage-managing, that's what.
France, the United States, the United Nations and now Lebanon, although she has been charged to do so, have all refused to accept "responsibility" for the disarming of Hezbollah, to strip the Islamofascists of their weaponry. Nor does Hezbollah intend to vacate southern Lebanon. Whither truce? While the Lebanese cabinet did agree to the UN resolution, they now claim their "job" is not disarmament, but rather to:
"ensure the security of the (Islamic) Resistance and citizens, to protect the victory of the resistance."
Strange doublespeak. Despite agreeing to the conditions set down by the resolution put forward by the United Nations, Lebanon now has decided to "permit" Hezbollah's Islamic Resistance to retain their weapons in the southern border zone - in direct violation of the UN resolution. Haven't we been through this already?
France, for its part, which so strongly condemned Israel's "disproportionate" counter-attacks, and which lobbied so ferociously for a truce, and which promised its soldiers would be front-and-center in ensuring that Hezbollah not receive additional arms, that it not provoke Israel yet again now says they will not deploy their troops until they are guaranteed that Hezbollah has disarmed. Yet no one wants to disarm Hezbollah. We're back in Wonderland again.
Everyone declares it is Lebanon's duty to strip Hezbollah of its weapons. Yet again. Nothing in the past encouraged Lebanon to attempt to do this, and there is no indication for the future that Lebanon will attempt any such thing. Lebanon's own regular army is ill-trained and is, in any event, sympathetic to Hezbollah, having no desire whatever to challenge it for primacy.
It's a waiting game. It is a game, a game for keeps, where one side thinks it has all the winning cards and the background observers believe every feint they make for ascendency regardless of the outcome, while the other side remains determined to observe the niceties of socially-accepted behaviour for fear of earning additional condemnations from the world community.
The aggressors, happily complacent for the moment in their declared victory over the transgressed, will bide their time waiting only just so long as they feel they have once again gained sufficient momentum. The defenders will of necessity be forced to resort to a manner of defence that will ensure their survival and the defeat of those dedicated to their downfall.
The audience of commentators and world leaders will do as they always have, and we can expect no less.
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, August 16, 2006
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