Hizballah Brags About Waging War on America; The U.S. Government Ignores It

By Barry Rubin

Sometimes a big scoop is lying in plain sight and this often happens nowadays because either the mass media does not pick up a big story or the experts don’t properly analyze it. So while what I am about to tell you has been in the public domain for more than three years, it is of tremendous policy importance yet has been totally neglected:

Hizballah, the Shia group that now dominates Lebanon’s new government, is at war with the United States in Iraq.

Consider that this fact—as we will see in a moment—has been known to high-ranking U.S. government officials for years but has had zero impact on policy. The Obama Administration has accepted Hizballah’s political power as well as its Iranian and Syrian sponsorship, with no real opposition. It does not regard Hizballah as an enemy and senior officials favor official contacts with that terrorist group.

Consider this information from the public record and the statements of U.S. officials that was published almost three years ago:

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Investigation Accuses Four Hizballah Officials of Killing Lebanon's Leading Political Figure

By Barry Rubin

Years of waiting--though leaks have been plentiful--have just about ended with the word from the international tribunal that four Hizballah officials, including the group's deputy military commander Mustafa Badreddine were involved in killing Lebanon's former prime minister Rafiq Hariri in February 2005. Yet Hizballah is now the leading force in Lebanon's government while its partner in the killing, the Syrian dictatorship, is Lebanon's foreign patron.


The indictments are setting off a potential crisis in Lebanon

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Lebanon: I Was Wrong! Hizballah (Plus Syria and Iran) Is Even More in Control

By Barry Rubin


I've written that Hizballah will have 60 percent of the seats in Lebanon's new government, with most of the rest in the hands of Syrian-Iranian clients. This is a disaster for Western interests. Lebanon is now in the revolutionary Islamist camp along with Iran, Syria, the Gaza Strip, and the Turkish government.

But I was wrong! There have been some changes and now Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati has announced his cabinet. And guess what? Hizballah has 70 percent of the ministries! Does the Obama Administration have any serious policy reaction to Lebanon being controlled by a radical Islamist terrorist organization that is a client of Iran? You know, those people who killed 242 American soldiers a few years back, kidnapped and at times murdered other Americans, and waged a war against Israel in 2006 after which the United States and UN promised to help disarm them, block their arms' imports, and keep them out of southern Lebanon?

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Who Killed Lebanon's Rafik Harari? Say It Nicely or the Terrorists Will Get Angry!

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By Barry Rubin

We are awaiting the publication of the international tribunal report on who killed former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri  We all know the Syrian government did it but recently there seems to have been more and more evidence that Hizballah was involved as well.

The problem is that if the tribunal says that and not everyone in Lebanon--including Harari's son, Said--says that they are deeply offended, Hizballah is totally innocent and wouldn't hurt a fly (unless it was a Zionist imperialist fly) there's going to be big trouble. Already, Hizballah has brought down the Lebanese government and staged a show of force in Beirut to make that point clear.

This is the latest example of the "do what I want or we will kill you" syndrome which has been so successful around the world. As in: Publish those cartoons and we'll kill you; translate Salman Rushdie's book and we'll kill you; cross the street in Israel and we'll kill you; be a Christian and we'll kill you; and the latest, show this film on Iran's nuclear program and we'll kill you.

Ibrahim Kalin, chief adviser to the Islamist Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan--who is an ally of Iran, Syria, Hizballah, and Hamas--claims that his government has been urging everyone in Lebanon to get along with each other. Perhaps, he suggests, the tribunal report should be delayed, since if--my words here--everyone pretends that the Hizballah terrorists didn't murder the leader of the moderate forces it will be easier for the moderate forces to stay in a coalition government with them.

He added:

"Of course, the truth about the Hariri assassination should come out, but it should come out in a way that will not fracture the Lebanese society. Otherwise, in the name of finding the truth, we create a situation in Lebanon where people start killing each other off. And then what truth are you talking about?"

Right, so if the tribunal tells the truth about who murdered Hariri (and about a dozen other members of parliament, journalists, and others, all from the moderate side), the terrorist killers will then kill more people, and so what good will it be to know that they are terrorist killers?

Still, I believe in doing things constructively so I tried to figure out a way to have the truth come out "in a way that will not fracture the Lebanese society" (by making the killers angry).

I began with the vulgar,  Hizballah and Syria killed Harari,

then went to the more subtle, Hizballah and Syria were happy when someone killed Harari.

But finally I found the solution. Here's what the tribunal should say:

If Harari were driving down the street, and Hizballah and Syria knew there was a bomb that someone had planted in the roadway in order to assassinate him because he was being too pro-Western and actually standing up to the revolutionary Islamists, they would call Hariri up to warn him but wouldn't use their speed dial. Thus, tragically, the warning would be too late and Harari and two dozen bystanders would be killed.

How's that, Mr. Kalin?

Here's a good, brief, background piece on this issue and what might happen next by Professor Bill Harris, a real expert on Lebanon.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.

Hizballah Prepares for War Based on Using Civilians as Shields

By Barry Rubin

The Israeli army has released for the first time sensitive intelligence data on how Hizballah is digging into southern Lebanon. The deliberate strategy is to store weapons and put defense positions right next to civilian houses. In the event of a war, Israel will have to choose between giving Hizballah a tremendous advantage or killing civilians.

Or as a Lebanese person remarked privately, "Hizballah is painting a big fat target on all the Shi'a down there."

This strategy is the fruit of the world reaction to the 2008-2009 war in the Gaza Strip when Hamas was rewarded for using civilians as human shields. Despite the care Israel took to avoid damaging civilian property or endangering civilian lives, there was a strong anti-Israel response. Given that behavior, others will no doubt follow this approach in future, thus leading to more suffering for civilians and stronger radical totalitarian movements, which will also oppress people where they hold power.

Remember this material when Hizballah sets off the next war and the inevitable media and other complaints against Israel begin: These condemnations will be based on--and will, in turn---reinforce a cynical and vicious deliberate effort by terrorist groups.

By the way, remember how the UN promised Israel in 2006 to keep Hizballah out of southern Lebanon with a reinforced UNIFIL force? What a joke. Hizballah does whatever it wants and no one interferes.

In the Strategic World Cup that's Hizballah 1, World 0. It's also a big zero for international guarantees to Israel. Remember that as well when you next hear that Israel "defies" the "international community" and refuses to put its survival into the hands of others who make big promises and then break them.

By making these points I am not suggesting there will be a war between Israel and Hizballah in the near future, certainly not this year. It is quite possible that Iran wants to hold Hizballah in reserve to use only if Israel attacks Iranian nuclear facilities. At any rate, Hizballah is too busy taking over Lebanon to want a war for the next year or possibly two.

You can read about the intelligence data on southern Lebanon here and here. Iran has also named a senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officer named Hossein Mahadavi to be a liaison and perhaps in part commander of Hizballah.

Non-Violent Terrorists? No, Non-Violent Terrorist Sympathizers

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By Barry Rubin

Here we go again with the quarterly (perhaps monthly) article about how Israel's enemies are turning to non-violence. This one, by Charles Levinson in the Wall Street Journal, is far better than most. Indeed, to his credit, it reminds us of one of the attributes of good reporting: it is balanced and honest enough to give the reader sufficient information to question the thesis the author presents.

The article begins:

"Hamas and Hezbollah, groups that have long battled Israel with violent tactics, have begun to embrace civil disobedience, protest marches, lawsuits and boycotts—tactics they once dismissed."

But really this kind of thing has been talked about, but never long practiced, for decades. There were protest marches in the 1960s and the Arab boycott of Israel has gone on even longer. The example that leads to these new musings is, of course, the Gaza flotilla. But as Levinson rightly points out, this gambit succeeded precisely because the militants planned to use violence.

He writes: "But a small cadre of Palestinian activists has long argued that nonviolence, in the tradition of the American civil rights movement, would be far more effective." Yet there are cultural and political reasons why this approach never wins out, in the Middle East at least.

Let's assume that when Israeli soldiers landed on the flagship of the Gaza flotilla, that it surrendered peacefully as the other ships had done. All of the headlines and reactions were based on Jihadists attacking the soldiers, taking them hostage, and Israeli forces killing nine of the violent attackers to rescue their people. No suicide attackers, no international impact. This doesn't indicate a turn toward non-violence but to carefully camouflaged violence.

One Hamas parliamentarian is quoted as saying, "When we use violence, we help Israel win international support. The Gaza flotilla has done more for Gaza than 10,000 rockets."

Yet this analysis leaves out a huge elephant. The biggest international gains came about as a result of other examples of camouflaged terrorism: two wars set off by the terrorists--2006 in Lebanon; 2008-2009 in the Gaza Strip. Violently attacking Israel, forcing it to respond, and then trying to get as many of your own civilians killed is the strategy that has worked.

That is exactly what also happened with the Gaza flotilla.

To Levinson's credit, he includes the background so often left out of articles:
 
"Hamas and Hezbollah, the Islamist movement in Lebanon that has been fighting Israel since the early 1980s, haven't renounced violence and both groups continue to amass arms. Hamas still abides by a charter that calls for Israel's destruction; Palestinian youths still hurl rocks at Israeli soldiers. And the flotilla incident didn't fall into conventional standards of peaceful protest: While most activists passively resisted Israeli soldiers, some on the boat where protesters were killed attacked commandos as they boarded, according to video footage released by Israel and soldiers' accounts."

Well, he did pull one punch. It isn't just rock-throwing but the murder of Israeli civilians whenever possible. The reason such attacks don't happen more often has nothing to do with Palestinian tactics and everything to do with generally effective Israeli security measures. Otherwise, there would be as many terror attacks on Israeli cities as there are in Iraq.

What has changed, of course, is not Hamas or Hizballah policies but Western reactions. A sharp leftward and anti-Israeli turn in some places, coupled with  radicalism in academia and part of the media, has meant an avid audience for supporting terrorist groups, first and foremost by not classifying them as such and keeping secret what they are saying in Arabic. Indeed, striking against Israel has become the number-one international priority for most left-wing activists for reasons I explained here.

The influence isn't running from West to Middle East (moderation, nonviolence) but in the exact opposite direction. Antisemitism and irrationality flow from radical Middle East groups to radical Western groups, subverting the standards of democracy, journalism, and scholarship. The genteel antisemitism so present in a newspaper like the Guardian soon becomes the antisemitism of the passionately vitriolic hater.

And now theres a new feature. Even when Western supporters of Middle Eastern terrorists become violent, they can expect at times--as seen in one recent British case--to get off scot-free, thus subverting the Western legal system as well. Or what can one say about the German parliament's passing an anti-Israel resolution which is basically a vote of support for Hamas? Those who have spent decades voicing their regret for the Nazi past help the closest variation of Nazism at present, which intends to commit genocide on Jews in the future. Irony, anyone?

"Non-violence" is not being carried out by either Hamas or Hizballah, which haven't changed one bit, but by their Western supporters. During the 1930s, some in the West practiced appeasement toward the fascism of that day; a few became supporters. But the development of an active, enthusiastic mass base for a violent, genocidal foreign movement is a unique attribute of our era. To justify
revolutionary terrorists who are open antisemites on humanitarian grounds is another twenty-first century innovation.

One might suggest that the present line-up is that Western governments support the Palestinian Authority (PA) while the Western left supports Hamas. The attempt is now to turn the governments in that direction as well. Once the anti-Israel forces in the West backed the PLO and, during the 1990s, the PA. Now, however, the domination by Arab nationalist activists have given way to the Islamists, something very evident from the campus debates and demonstrations.

But precisely because the Middle Eastern groups are so extreme, so anti-Western, so repressive, and so viciously violent, they have and will continue to force Western governments to recognize reality.
That's why there is a real gap between policies and propaganda.

U.S. Policy and Debate on the Middle East: Whatever Happened to Adult Supervision?

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By Barry Rubin

If you take any given 24-hour period, it is amazing to see the drumbeat of silliness and misinformation prominently displayed and distributed by (formerly?) prestigious institutions. Let’s take just four examples in the period just finished.

First, Thomas L. Friedman is an expert on the Middle East. Unfortunately, however, he is only an expert on the Middle East as seen by the Washington DC establishment at any particular moment. This fact also requires him to jump around between contradictory positions.

His gimmick this week is, “The Real Palestinian Revolution.” Now one might call the way Hamas threw Fatah and the Palestinian Authority (PA) out of the Gaza Strip and turned that territory into a radical Islamist state is a real Palestinian revolution. Or one might say that a real Palestinian revolution would take place when Fatah, the PA, and Palestinian public opinion really changed toward accepting a two-state solution.

Instead, his “real revolution” is merely a matter of image, as in the following paragraph:

“It is a revolution based on building Palestinian capacity and institutions not just resisting Israeli occupation, on the theory that if the Palestinians can build a real economy, a professional security force and an effective, transparent government bureaucracy it will eventually become impossible for Israel to deny the Palestinians a state in the West Bank and Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem....It is the only hope left, though, for a two-state solution, so it needs to be quietly supported.”

By the way, it isn't clear that anything is really changing at all but rather that the whole big state-building campaign is purely a public relations campaign as this Carnegie report suggests.

It would be a good thing, of course, if the PA did succeed in accomplishing these goals. Yet a number of cogent questions can be raised about Friedman’s model. Let’s suppose the PA failed to do these things. We can check in a year or two from now to assess what has happened. Most likely, nothing much would have changed. Perhaps the PA’s modest progress to date would have collapsed in a new round of extremism and violence.

So what if the PA failed? Would Friedman and the conventional wisdom in Washington switch to saying that Israel had no real alternative for peace and thus U.S. policy should back Israel? Of course not, they would merely find some new gimmick.

Yet what if they succeeded in creating a marvelous stable, prosperous, democratic (does that mean there would be elections that Hamas might win?) entity. Would this mean that a state would result, should result, will result?

Absolutely not. Because the issue is not whether there is more money or less corruption, the issue is whether the Palestinians are ready to make peace with Israel. This means: readiness to end the conflict, teach their people that they must give up their dream to getting all of Israel, provide security guarantees, and be willing to resettle refugees in the state of Palestine.

Why should Israel give up territory and security to a PA merely because it prosecutes corrupt leaders (don’t hold your breath) and is more prosperous? What Israel needs to know is that the conflict won’t continue, there won’t be cross-border raids, Hamas won’t take over, and that Palestine won’t invite in Syrian or Iranian military forces, to cite some examples.

Friedman’s proposition is ridiculous. And note how it is phrased, it will “become impossible for Israel to deny the Palestinians a state.” In other words, Israel won’t be convinced by Palestinian moderation and compromise but, presumably, by international pressure. That won’t happen.

But Friedman’s formula reveals the PA’s strategy: forget about making peace with Israel; just get international support for declaring independence on its own terms.

Friedman recently endorsed this strategy when he used the phrase about friends not letting friends drive drunk to characterize Israel. The idea is that Israelis are too stupid to determine their own welfare so others must step in and do it for them. Yet when one looks at the idiocy of the debate being conducted int his framework, it is quite clear that the would-be dictators to Israel are the ones driving drunk.

And it isn't just me saying this but lots of Arabs, Turks, and Iranians, too. Even Saudi King Abdallah made the point in a way that every Middle Easterner understands but which went over the heads of the "great geniuses" who think they should be running the Middle East.

And one of the main ways they want to do this is to empower the radical forces that want to seize power and set the clock back by centuries.

Second, the New York Times and Los Angeles Times seem to have a policy of running as many op-eds as possible by apologists for terrorism and advocates of engaging terrorist groups. Here’s another one from the former newspaper, trotting out all the misrepresentative arguments by people who never say a word about the specificity of groups like Hamas and Hizballah, their goals, ideology, and personnel.

This latest one is the kind of article that claims since the South African group, the African National Congress (ANC), became moderate why not Hamas or Hizballah? While it is true that the ANC had a military wing and engaged in some terrorism, that violence was very limited. The ANC was always led by a philosophy of peace and conciliation not—as in the case of its Middle Eastern counterparts—totalitarian dictatorship and genocide.

By coincidence, I revisited the terrorism museum in Israel. There were some new features, including the cigarette lighter made in China and sold on the West Bank that shows the World Trade Center on fire when clicked. There is massive documentation on the involvement of Hamas and Hizballah in terrorism, antisemitism, anti-American views, and would-be genocide. One can see videos of kids in the Hamas schools carrying out military exercises. Watch this and then ask whether Hamas is intending to produce a generation of moderates.

Revolutionary Islamism and terrorism, hatred for the United States and the desire to wipe out Israel (and Jews generally) are not some minor side issues for these groups but are absolutely central to their existence. It is amazing to think of these naïve people who think they are going to talk revolutionary Islamists into being moderates, or buy them off with money (there's that idea of prosperity solving all problems again) or concessions.

Third, speaking of naiveté, there has been some stir about members of the official U.S. delegation to Syria making fools of themselves by twittering regarding the good time they were having. Syria is a repressive dictatorship. While these American ninnies were having nice cups of coffee, a few minutes’ away prisoners were being tortured because they had criticized the regime.

[Incidentally, in the kind of misdirection common today, coverage made it sound like only Republicans opposed U.S. engagement with Syria, with the subliminal theme: Oh, they're conservatives so we don't have to pay any attention to them! In fact, Democrats in Congress have also been opposed and increasingly shocked by Obama's Middle East policy.]

When a U.S. official from the delegation says: “We made it clear that we want assurances that technologies sold to Syria won't be… used in ways to harm Syrian citizens," does he have any idea how ridiculous this sounds? Indeed, the more American delegations show up, the more peaceful dissidents get arrested.

Finally, Hamas officials are now claiming that the Obama Administration is secretly contacting their regime. What is probably happening is that the U.S. government thought itself very clever to send some well-connected but not official figures to hang out with Hamas and explore getting along with a group that happens to be revolutionary Islamist, antisemitic, genocidal intentioned, repressive toward women, expelling Christians, waging terrorism, and acting as a client of Iran.

Of course, they should understand that all this does is convince Hamas that the Obama Administration is ready to make a deal so there is no reason for it changing policy. All some Hamas leaders have to do is mumble a few words into the easily deceived Americans’ ears and the fools will rush off to shout how these people are moderates (see the NY Times op-ed mentioned above).

And of course the U.S. government makes itself subject to blackmail from Hamas which only has to reveal whatever conversations have taken place, with some creative additions and distortions. Thus, the title of the article about this issue, “Hamas says asked by US to keep silent on talks,” illustrates that point.

Let’s be clear here. If you deal with Hamas, Hizballah, and Syria, you are dealing with thugs and murderers. Sometimes you do have to deal with thugs and murders but never forgetting that reality. And one thing you have to remember is that such people aren’t going to make deals with you, keep their promises, become moderate, or respect your interests no matter how much you bribe or bow to them.

At the terrorism museum there’s a Hizballah poster that shows people giving money to Islamist charities, that money being turned into bullets, and those bullets being fired at Israel. That’s also an accurate picture of the diplomatic “charity” being given to the enemies not only of the West but also of the Middle Eastern peoples they murder and oppress.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (PalgraveMacmillan). His new edited books include Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict and Crisis; Guide to Islamist Movements; Conflict and Insurgency in the Middle East; The West and the Middle East (four volumes); and The Muslim Brotherhood. To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.

When Israel Trusts Others to Stop Arms Going to Terrorists

By Barry Rubin

It should be mentioned that Israel has tried the method of having others monitor the inflow of supplies to terrorists. Most obviously this has been the situation in Lebanon, where the UN promised Israel in 2006 that it was putting a large force into place to make sure Hizballah didn't fortify southern Lebanon and that arms didn't continue to flow in from Syria.

In three years, these UN forces have not interdicted a single piece of military equipment. Not one. Nor has it taken any action against Hizballah's use of southern Lebanon as a military base. Not one. Hizballah has been rearmed to levels higher than in 2006. And there has been no criticism by the UN (or U.S. policy for that matter) of Syria for sending these arms (often paid for by Iran).

That's the tragedy part, here's the farce. Before Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the EU came up with a grand plan about how it would play a role in reducing tension. It was going to monitor the shipments into the Gaza Strip from Egypt.

So what happened? Two EU officers sitting in folding chairs watching all the material coming into Gaza. Of course, they never did anything whatsoever.

Yes, there is a good reason why Israel undertakes its own self-defense and, where possible, guards what goes on along its borders. If it depended on the West to do so it wouldn't be undertaking that task but would need the services of an undertaker instead.

Why does Israel act unilaterally? Because it cannot depend on the promises of others, that's why.

And here here and here are some good pieces on the incompetence and inconsistency of Western-led efforts to interdict shipments of arms sales generally.

If There's No Project to Engage Hizballah Why Do People Keep Telling Me They Were Contacted About It?

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By Barry Rubin

Recently, I wrote an article about receiving a letter saying the Center for American Progress is running a project to advocate U.S. engagement with Hizballah and that high-ranking officials in the Obama administration were encouraging this as part of their own campaign to start talking with the Lebanese terrorist group that is a client for Iran and Syria in trying to take over Lebanon and destroy Israel.

The head of the project, Cambanis,  a strong supporter of Hizballah, has denied it. Yes, he admitted. That's what my assistant wrote but he lied. The letter began, however, with the assistant saying the director asked him to write me. So one would think the director approved the letter.

Cambanis wrote last year

"The Islamist axis commands real power and is a force to be reckoned with. Israel has never stopped negotiating with Hamas and Hezbollah. European diplomats are quietly talking to Hezbollah officials, and looking for ways to initiate contacts with Hamas without violating European law. American intelligence services and diplomats find they have less and less leverage and understanding from their increasingly isolated stations and embassies; they’ll need to craft new channels through which to speak to groups in the Islamist axis."

For more on his strongly pro-Hizballah views, see here.

That sounds to me like advocating contacts with Hizballah as well as Hamas. The statement about Israel, by the way, isn't true at all, with the very limited exception of freeing Israelis held prisoner, which is not exactly the kind of political talks in which the United States would engage.

The Cable, a publication of Foreign Policy magazine, speaks dismissively of a "conspiracy" proving to be non-existent. In one-sentence, it said the Center for American Progress denied the story: "In a separate interview with The Cable, CAP's Katulis confirmed Cambanis's account and added that he's a `deep skeptic' of the prospects of engaging terrorists...."

Glad to hear it. I wrote in some detail, however, about why this response in the Cable wasn't satisfactory. But why have three different sources told me that they were explicitly contacted, invited to participate, and told that the Center for American Progress was doing this study by different people?

Incidentally, aside from Obama's "counter-"terrorism advisor John Brennan, who favors engaging Hizballah, the other most militant such official in the Obama administration on these issues is Mara Rudman, on the staff of Middle East negotiator George Mitchell. She is a former leading figure at the Center for American Progress.

She is also the most likely candidate as the source for a particularly nasty slur leaked on National Security Council official Dennis Ross, who was said to be more loyal to Israel than to the United States because he didn't think the administration's current confrontation with Israel was a good idea. Ross, by the way, may be the only foreign policy expert so respected that he was appointed to a high position under Presidents Bush, Clinton, and now Obama, that is three of the last four chief executives.

It's peculiar. If someone was running around falsely claiming he was doing a project for your think tank wouldn't you expect that institution to loudly proclaim it isn’t true and to be real angry with Cambanis for saying otherwise? Has the Center for American Progress sent an angry note to Cambanis asking him to stop using their name? Has Cambanis fired his assistant for a great (alleged) ethical abuse?

So I’m getting even more suspicious that the story is true and they are undertaking such a project, albeit somehow making a denial on some technical grounds.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). His new edited books include Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict and Crisis; Guide to Islamist Movements; Conflict and Insurgency in the Middle East; and The Muslim Brotherhood. To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.

Is The Obama Administration Working Toward Engaging Terrorist Groups Hamas and Hizballah or Not?

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By Barry Rubin

The widely read Cable, a publication of Foreign Policy magazine, responded to my article about apparent hints that the Obama Administration and its favorite think tank might be involved in pushing the idea of dealing with Hizballah, a revolutionary Islamist group in Lebanon which is terrorist, genocidally-intended toward Israel, and a client of Iran and Syria.

For my original article, see here.

Despite the fact that I was very careful and responsible, accurately quoting the letter I had received, the article’s headline was entitled, The nonexistent Obama conspiracy to engage Hezbollah,” as if the whole notion was ridiculous. But the only evidence that this isn't happening is a rather unpersuasive, or at least very strange, denial by the project's director.

The author, Josh Rogin, interviewed the head of the project, Thanassis Cambanis, a journalist who is also an adjunct professor (that means he teaches a course) at Columbia University on the story. But guess what? Rogin didn’t interview me. Isn’t that rather unfair, would you say?

According to Rogin, the project's official letter:

“Led Rubin, whose post got wide traction in the blogosphere yesterday, to speculate that `the Center for American Progress is going to issue a report calling for U.S. engagement with Hizballah, and that it has been encouraged to do so by important officials in the Obama Administration.’"

That’s not speculation; that’s what Cambanis’ assistant told me, as Rogin himself admits:

“The Cable reviewed the original email sent from the Columbia student to Rubin. It did state that the project was ‘for’’ the Center for American Progress and `will be presented to senior US policymakers in the administration,’ both of which were incorrect, Cambanis said.”

So let’s get that straight: My article was 100 percent accurate in describing the letter I received but Cambanis said his own assistant simply made up the claims that it was being done for the Center for American Progress and was being presented to Obama Administration officials.

Wouldn’t one expect that Cambanis reviewed the letter before it was sent? And if he did, isn't this a serious misrepresentation on his part? But if his assistant just made stuff up, one should ask if this student is being disciplined or fired. After all that is something pretty serious to make up and send out to mislead people, isn’t it?

Cambanis also rejects the idea that he intends to endorse engaging Hizballah in his report. But everything Cambanis has written shows that he is a strong advocate of the idea. The letter’s writing, as I quoted it, also indicates it. Did the student make that up also?

So we are left with two possibilities: Either the letter was describing a project being done for a research center close to the Obama Administration and it had been arranged to submit it to the U.S. government or Cambanis and his staff made it up.

The Cable seems content to accept Cambanis’ explanation which essentially said: Move along, nothing to see here. Yet that doesn’t satisfy me. Either Cambanis is guilty of a serious misdeed or my “speculation” was close to home. And Cambanis's record makes the idea that he is part of the pro-Hizballah lobby quite persuasive. Which is it?

If Rogin had contacted me, I could have told him some additional things that indicates my conclusions were based on other sources who are aware of this project.

And also, to understand the general framework of the situation, what could be more ironic that the same day this article in the Cable ran, the Wall Street Journal reported:

“Several high-profile former U.S. officials, some with close ties to the Obama administration, met with leaders of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in recent months, raising hope inside the group that its views are being heard at the White House. White House officials and participants in the talks emphasize the meetings weren't sanctioned by Washington. U.S. officials say there has been no change to Washington's insistence that Hamas take a number of steps before official dialogue can begin. Still, the talks have been interpreted by some officials inside Hamas, Israel and the Palestinian Authority” as implying that the Obama Administration was exploring engaging Hamas.

Perhaps their assistants just put it on their schedules without informing them about the meeting? I don’t know if the Obama Administration is going to engage with Hamas—probably not—or Hizballah—more possible. Yet we know there are people lobbying for these moves who are on good terms with the administration or are themselves high-ranking officials. That's not a non-existent "conspiracy."

And, equally important, people in the region believe this is going to happen. What is the effect?

Israel: Can we trust a U.S. government that might be engaging terrorist groups that openly declare they want to destroy us.

Palestinian Authority: Are the Americans going to sell us out? How can we be more moderate? We better stick to a hardline position!

Lebanese moderates: The U.S. government is selling us out. We better cut our own deal with the Syrians and Hizballah!

Hamas, Hizballah, Iran, and Syria: The Americans are surrendering! Full speed ahead! Our strategy is working.

Now, even if the Obama Administration has no intention of such engagement by letting this stuff happen its behavior is having a terrible effect on the region.

Incidentally, you’ve probably forgotten the article I wrote reporting on Brennan’s statements about Hizballah. A left-wing reporter said to him conversationally—but at a public function—that Brennan had told him privtely that he wanted to engage Hizballah. Since Brennan is the advisor to President Barack Obama on terrorism-related issues that seems a matter for real concern.

Or to see this mentality at work, look at the State Department Press Briefing of April 2. Hamas attacks Israel, Israel responds. And the State Department briefer says that the better way to deal with Hamas attacks on Israel is to...negotiate!

"QUESTION: -- there were some Israeli strikes in response to rocket attacks. What’s the U.S. – what is the U.S. communicating to the two sides about this?

"MR. CROWLEY: Well, as we’ve said many times, I don’t know what the predicate was for the Israeli action. The Israelis have a right to self-defense. At the same time, as we have said many times, we don’t ultimately think that there is a military solution to this. It’s why we have been pressing the Palestinians and the Israelis to get into proximity talks that can lead to direct negotiations. But we are always concerned that steps taken by either side, legitimate or otherwise, can be misconstrued, can be twisted, and end up causing turbulence that can be an impediment to progress.

"So our message remains to the Israelis and Palestinians that we need to get the proximity talks going, focus on the substance, move to direct negotiations, and ultimately arrive at a settlement that ends the conflict once and for all."

Even if the Obama administration's goal is to reach a two-state solution real fast, does it make sense to suggest that this is going to solve the problem of Hamas, which continues to be a revolutionary Islamist group backed by Iran and Syria while seeking to commit genocide on Israel? And it also wants to overthrow Fatah and turn the PA into an Iranian-backed Islamist regime engaged in permanent war. Regarding U.S. policy, whatever happened to: PA good; Hamas bad?

So if the administration is thinking of opening contacts with two of the most important revolutionary Islamist and terrorist groups in the Middle East, which are also clients of Iran and Syria, it shouldn't just deny that, it should stop playing with the notion and move toward a much tougher position.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). His new edited books include Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict and Crisis; Guide to Islamist Movements; Conflict and Insurgency in the Middle East; and The Muslim Brotherhood. To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.










http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/04/01/the_non_existent_obama_conspiracy_to_engage_hezbollah

How Naïve Westerners Exaggerate Middle Eastern Moderation: Today’s Example

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By Barry Rubin

How does a leading sponsor of terrorism cease being a sponsor of terrorism? By stopping the encouragement, organization, funding, logistical backing, and even ordering of terrorist attacks? No. By being given a free pass by its would-be victim who doesn’t see what is going on under its own nose—literally.

Consider U.S. Undersecretary of State Robert Burns. He was in Damascus to reestablish U.S. relations with Syria. Syria has paid nothing for its past involvement in terrorism. It is still backing terrorist attacks to kill Americans in Iraq. True, the U.S. government hopes that it will talk Syria out of this behavior. But that won’t happen, especially since it isn’t willing to threaten Syria when such attacks do occur.

Indeed, as Reuters reports, “Washington has muted its criticism of Syria's authoritarian system.” Needless to say, Damascus has not muted its criticism of the United States, and will never do so.

Burns gives a press conference in which he says that he “is under no illusions of the challenges ahead” but that his “meeting with President Assad has made me optimistic."

If you look at the video of the press conference you will see that one microphone on the right side is larger than the others and is placed by the Syrians above them, practically thrust into Burns’ face. It is the microphone of al-Manar, the Hizballah television station, famous for its anti-American diatribes and calls to kill Israelis.

As a close observer of Syria puts it: “I don't think that the al-Manar microphone was placed there by accident. It seems to me that there's a message being sent. The Middle East runs on metaphor, insinuation and symbols.”

Ah, but is Hizballah terrorist? There is a growing campaign to launder its reputation. Of course, Hizballah hasn’t committed any terrorist acts for a while because it doesn’t need to do so and has been at least temporarily intimidated by one intended victim. In Lebanon, though, the terrorist acts have already done their work for the moment, making everyone there fear the Iran- and Syria-backed group. It has not attacked Israel for a while, largely because Israel gave it such a walloping in 2006, but Hizballah is preparing for a next round and openly talking daily about wiping Israel off the map. As for Iraq, it is literally business as usual with some minor cutback.

Yet here is what the Associated Press, the main wire service for the Western English-language media tells us under the byline of Zeina Karam:

“The leader of Lebanon's Shiite movement Hezbollah recently delivered an odd but deeply important political message to his followers: Heed traffic signs and pay your electric bills.

“The call may not seem particularly significant, but it was widely seen as the latest sign that Hezbollah — long considered mainly as Iran's militant arm in Lebanon running its own state-within-a-state — is reinventing itself as a more conventional political movement in Lebanon.”

While the U.S. president’s terrorism advisor says that Hizballah isn’t terrorist because its membership includes lawyers, AP uses its alleged law-abiding urgings to demonstrate the same point

But guess what? Hizballah is now part of the government with cabinet minister and veto power over all decisions. Why shouldn’t the group tell people to pay taxes which in large part go to itself? And if reporters once proclaimed that at least a fascist dictatorship made the trains run on time they can now tell us that terrorist groups tell their supporters to stop at red lights.

For the reasons behind this kind of behavior, see here.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). His new edited books include Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict and Crisis; Guide to Islamist Movements; Conflict and Insurgency in the Middle East; and The Muslim Brotherhood. To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.

Answering Readers' Questions and Updates: Fatah and Turkey

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1. Fatah, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan

Question: You describe Fatah hardliners as seeking a Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. Why don't they want to take over Jordan also? And why is a similar change of mind impossible about a permanent peace with Israel?

Answer: Historically, the PLO and Fatah have not sought to overthrow Jordan and take it over. The exception is when they were overconfident during the 1968-1970 period and even then that was more a PFLP and DFLP idea than a Fatah one. While seeking revenge through the Black September terrorist group from 1970 to 1972, Fatah and the PLO have not worked actively to subvert Jordan, in part remembering the total defeat Jordan gave them in September 1970. Actually, the fact is that Hamas has largely displaced the PLO and many Palestinian Jordanians support the Muslim Brotherhood-related Islamic Action Front today. Jordan does worry about an independent Palestinian state but doesn't see Fatah as a direct threat today.

2. Fatah and the Al-Aqsa Brigade

Question The new Fatah charter refers to Al Asifa as its military wing. Is there a reason that Fatah seems to be abandoning Al Aqsa martyrs brigade? Or did Fatah itself use both names?

Answer: Al-Asifa has been the name of the PLO irregularforces (guerrilla/terrorist) since the 1960s. Al-Aqsa is not controlled by the Fatah Central Committee. One might call it a deniable terrorist force which is under the control of the West Bank local Fatah organization. Although the Western news media often falls for the trick, since Fatah has never tried to stop the group or disciplined any member for participating in it, al-Aqsa is clearly a Fatah group but, again, not necessarily one controlled from the top Fatah bureaucracy. Al-Aqsa was created by Marwan Barghouti, who is now a member of the Fatah Central Committee though in an Israeli prison for organizing the bloody second intifada--by his own admission--in 2000.

3. Turkish Regime's Plans to Take Over Army

Following the Turkish regime's attempt to intimidate me and my article about how that Islamist government is slandering the army and intimidating or throwing into jail peaceful critics, the next step in the campaign has been taken. Today's Zaman, the leading organ of the regime, now says the solution is that the armed forces reflect Turkey's diversity by admitting Islamist officers. Eventually, of course, the regime would ensure that the army is ideologically loyal to itself. So this is the plan: keep accusing the army of planning coups and terrorism (including schemes to put bombs in mosques), discredit it with the public, and blackmail it into becoming Islamist-oriented, thus completing the AKP regime's control over all Turkish institutions.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.

Why Can’t Western Policymakers Believe There are Actual Revolutionaries in the World?

By Barry Rubin

A reader sent me an article asking me if it made me feel like laughing or crying. Neither. I just gasped in amazement. Studying the Middle East isn’t really a matter of being a Democrat or Republican; liberal or conservative; “pro-Israel” or “pro-Arab.” It should be based on the simplest possible common sense, along with a basic knowledge of the situation under discussion.

But nowadays it is as if nothing can be too bizarre to say as long as it is based on wishful thinking and mirror-imaging. Often, it seems as if the most elementary rules of human conduct and international affairs are forgotten by those who claim to be experts and, much worse, those who have positions to direct national policies and preserve or put at risk millions of lives.

Consider Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson, “Disarming Hizballah: Advancing Regional Stability,” for Foreign Affairs. These gentlemen have good reputations and are not ideologues. One is at the Council on Foreign Relations, and the other is a professor at the Naval War College. Perhaps the problem is that they are experts on "terrorism" but don't really understand Middle East politics. They do acknowledge that Hizballah is gaining power in Lebanon and is a threat to Israel, but despite these successes they think it is on the verge of becoming moderate. Why? I have no idea and don’t see any evidence presented in the article.

Nevertheless they maintain, “Hezbollah, like the IRA 15 years ago, may be ready to shift more decisively into the political realm.” According to a RAND study, we are told, “Hezbollah was distancing itself from Iranian patronage in order to increase its domestic legitimacy among parties that have viewed it as Tehran's lackey. ....Some of Hezbollah's leaders might see a move toward demilitarization as a new avenue for increasing the group's appeal and bolstering its credibility as a party. Contact with Hezbollah would have to exploit this impulse to be useful.”

Let’s consider what’s being said here. Despite its radical Islamist ideology, despite the fact that it has been advancing steadily in power, despite the fact that it depends on Iran for money and weapons, despite its tight organic links to Tehran, Hizballah is supposedly distancing itself from the Islamic republic.

Why? Because this supposedly will make more voters support them. Hello? This is Lebanon. Hizballah’s supporters are Shia Muslims. They know they won’t win over Christians, Sunnis, and Druze by posing as more independent. The Lebanese non-Shia, who haven’t the benefit of advanced academic degrees, know they can’t trust Hizballah, and Hizballah knows it as well.

Moreover, Hizballah’s leaders know that their political power depends on their militia’s strength. The idea that they believe demilitarization is a good idea because it will bolster the group’s credibility is awesomely ridiculous.

To make matters far worse, the prescription offered is that the Obama administration should start official contacts with Hizballah with the aim of moderating that group. If the U.S. government can succeed in deciding Hizballah to throw away its arms (remember, this is the Middle East we are talking about), the authors say, then everything will be just great. The chance of war with Israel will be lowered, there will be peace within Lebanon, the lion will lay down with the lamb, and by the way I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.

Oh, and as is usual in such cases the bait is for Israel to make more concessions by turning over some territory to Lebanon (the Shabaa Farms) and limiting any responses it makes to attacks on itself.

Another article in Foreign Affairs is introduced with this summary: “Washington's only option is to confront Hezbollah indirectly: by getting its backers, Syria and Iran, to help change its focus from militancy to politics.”

But why should Damascus and Tehran abandon a trusted, successful ally for Western promises? And why should Hizballah change its focus from militancy to politics? Can’t one do both at the same time?

Every day Iran and Syria make statements about their solidarity and tighten their relations through actions overt and covert. Virtually every day Hizballah leaders praise and pledge allegiance to Tehran, receives weapons and money from Iran and Syria, while also deriving benefits in Lebanese politics from its military power. How can dozens of Western analysts simply leave all this out to prefer their own personal interpretations of what these forces “really” want?

These kinds of ideas, produced by well-paid, highly credentialed and honored “experts” are just nuts, showing absolutely no comprehension of the situation. It is even more daunting coming from people who are mainstream foreign policy thinkers one would expect to know better.

And the same kind of thinking is going on in the United States and Western countries about Iran, Syria, the Iraqi insurgents, the Taliban, Afghanistan, Hamas, Venezuela, North Korea, and lots of other issues.

A large part of the problem is a disbelief in the possibility that one would want to remain radical; or that militancy can co-exist with running for office and having a political party. But why is this so hard to understand?

Thank goodness for al-Qaida, giving us at least one group in the world that Western intellectuals and policymakers don’t think they can win over by sympathy, conversation, and concessions.

Lebanese Hizballah to be on UN Security Council

By Barry Rubin

On January 1, Lebanon will become a member of the UN Security Council, having been elected last October by the General Assembly for a two-year term. The Lebanese government now includes a majority of ministers who are nominees of either Hizballah or of President Michael Suleiman, a Syrian and thus Iranian client. Hizballah also has a veto over government decisions.

This means that Hizballah will have a say in resolutions condemning Israel, managing peace-keeping operations in Lebanon, dealing with sanctions against Iran, and so on.

It was bad enough that a Libyan official chairs the General Assembly while Sudan, Algeria, and Iran virtually run the Human Rights Commission.

Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband stated in an interview that his government has concluded that "carefully considered contact with Hezbollah's politicians, including its MPs, will best advance our objective of the group rejecting violence to play a constructive role in Lebanese politics."

What does this “constructive role” mean? To say such a thing he has to ignore:

--Its refusal to disarm the Hizballah militia which is used for terrorism and intimidation within Lebanon.

--Forcing the government to agree that Hizballah can launch a war with Israel whenever it chooses.

--Sabotaging the UN peace-keeping effort in Lebanon through refusal to cooperate, including threatening, and sometimes carrying out, attacks against the UNIFIL troops.

--Kill the international tribunal examining Syrian and Hizballah involvement in terrorism within Lebanon including the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.

--Representing Syrian and Iranian influence in Lebanon which is gradually becoming dominant.

---Blocking peace with Israel and Lebanese cooperation with the West.

--Ignoring the fact that there is no distinction between Hizballah “politicians” and gunmen. They both take orders from the same leaders and themselves deny any difference between the two groups.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.

Terrorism and State Sponsorship: Not Gone but in a Lull and Proving Profitable

By Barry Rubin

Let me start with a true story. In 1984 I founded what was just about the first program on terrorism in the United States, at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) with a small grant from the Ford Foundation. We brought together journalists, officials, and academics to discuss the threat of terrorism to the United States and U.S. policies. I edited three books on terrorist groups.

After the grant ended I went to the Ford Foundation office in New York to discuss renewing it. The grants’ officer had made up his mind before I stepped into his room. “We aren’t going to renew the grant,” he said, “because we don’t believe terrorism will be a problem in the future.”

This experience came into my mind as I was conversing with a leading world expert on terrorism who asked me an interesting question: Has state sponsorship of terrorism declined nowadays? It was a very good question indeed.

A superficial examination would say that the answer is “Yes.” But a more careful look suggests that this is illusory in two respects. First, the state sponsorship that is continuing is largely overlooked. Second, terrorism has gone big-time and mainstream.

In the old days, a wide range of countries systematically supported terrorism internationally. These particularly included Cuba, the Soviet bloc, Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan and North Korea. Iran and Afghanistan entered the field after Islamist revolutions there. Several of these countries were Communist, and with the fall of the Soviet empire in 1991 their involvement declined. With the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iraq dropped out. The same U.S. invasion of Iraq that brought down Saddam also intimidated Libya, that most wild-eyed of dictatorships, into caution.

Then, too, there arose Usama bin Ladin and the many radical Islamist groups that formed part of his organization. The word was that terrorism had been privatized, backed by the bin Ladin family wealth rather than the treasury of any specific country. Moreover, the PLO largely transformed itself into the Palestinian Authority, which negotiated with Israel and looked to the United States as its main aid-giver. State sponsorship, it appears, has gone out of fashion.

Under intensive pressure from Turkey, Syria expelled the Kurdish terrorist PKK. Bin Ladin voluntarily left Sudan, while he and his Taliban sponsors were on the run after the post-9/11 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Cuba and North Korea quieted down, in part because they felt so much on the offensive and overt sponsorship of major terrorist attacks seemed too risky with the United States waging a War on Terrorism.

And yet while there has been a decline in state sponsorship in many ways, appearances are also deceiving and even that lull may be partly illusory. Three countries stand out today as especially energetic: Iran, Syria, and Pakistan. While stating that as a fact is not so surprising, the consequences of this sponsorship has been strongly downplayed by the media and Western governments for strategic or diplomatic reasons. After all, to admit and define a problem is to create pressure for doing something about it. In addition, the idea that al-Qaida is without state sponsorship has become a dogma which resists evidence to the contrary.

Let’s examine the issue in detail starting with Pakistan. There is a huge amount of evidence that Pakistan sponsors the Taliban and other terrorist groups in Afghanistan as well as those attacking India. The organizations which carried out the bloody Mumbai attack in 2008 and much terrorism in disputed Indian Kashmir, for example, operate freely in Pakistan and it is hard to believe that Pakistani military intelligence is not well appraised of each detail of their plans. Indeed, it funds and protects them.

Why, then, is not this seen globally as a major instance of state sponsorship of terrorism? Because Pakistan is needed by the United States to conduct operations in and near Afghanistan. Thus, Pakistan is regarded as a U.S. ally, receives massive funding, and little criticism. The Indian government cannot retaliate no matter how great is the provocation since it lacks international support and Pakistan is a nuclear power. Thus, Pakistan has become a state sponsorship of terrorism which is immune to pressure or punishment.

As for Syria, it is an active state sponsor of terrorism on several fronts. In recent years, it was deeply involved in terrorist attacks in Lebanon against moderates who advocated the expulsion of Syrian influence and a more independent policy for their own country. In conjunction with Iran and Hizballah, assassinations were carried out that included the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. An international tribunal was set up to investigate this responsibility but despite leaks that it found involvement by the highest elements in the Syrian government, the West has not pushed for the culmination of the tribunal and Lebanon has been intimidated out of doing so.

At the same time, Syria and Iran backed two major terrorist groups, Hamas and Hizballah, in attacking Israel. They are headquartered in Damascus and while in no way purely puppets or instruments of their two sponsors certainly pay close attention to their wishes. Their weapons and budget are largely supplied from Tehran and Damascus. Yet for a variety of reasons, ranging from Israeli policy to U.S. engagement efforts, Syria does not pay much of a penalty for its behavior.

Perhaps more shocking is the fact that Syria is waging a war of terrorism against America in Iraq and the group it is sponsoring there is al-Qaida. Thus, it is an open secret that Syria is now allied with al-Qaida, the group that carried out the September 11 attacks on America, yet pointing out the logical bottom line seems to many people as some far-out or silly notion. Moreover, terrorists trained, armed, financed, and given safe haven in Syria are killing American soldiers and civilians in Iraq. Yet the U.S. government won’t even back Iraqi complaints and demands for action on this issue.

Lip service is given to Iran’s being the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism but many argue that this activity has declined in recent years. To do so, however, they must leave out Iranian operations in regard to Hamas, Hizballah, and insurgents in Iraq, which include direct attacks (often through Iranian-made roadside bombs) against U.S. troops.

The current defense minister of Iran is a wanted terrorist for his involvement in the bloody attack on the Jewish center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, while he and his predecessor, then stationed in Lebanon, were involved in the attack on the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1984 which killed 241 Americans. This last point has not even been mentioned by any U.S. official. Few Americans know that a U.S. court found Iranian involvement in the terrorist attack on American military personnel in the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia.

Since the emphasis now is on conciliation rather than confrontation, Western governments find it convenient to forget past and ignore present-day state sponsorship of terrorism.

All of this leads to the second point: the mainstreaming of terrorism. Hamas now rules the Gaza Strip; Hizballah has ministers in the Lebanese government. Both have run in elections. There are many in the West who argues—though this has nothing to do with reality—that these groups each have a military wing (bad) and a political wing (good). There is tremendous pressure in Europe, especially Britain, to engage with the “good” Hizballah.

Indeed, the advisor to President Barack Obama on terrorism stated that Hizballah couldn’t be a terrorist organization because its membership included lawyers. Further afield, the Sri Lankan terrorist group, the Tamil Tigers, has attained respectability, notably in Canada. The Tigers’ representative in the United States, V. Rudrakumaran, is himself a lawyer. In Europe, the PKK runs a television station, while Hizballah’s al-Manar television is shown by many cable networks—though barred from others—around the world. With the Goldstone Commission report, the UN has been transformed into a propaganda organ for Hamas, despite the report’s minor criticisms of that group which did not appear in the General Assembly’s resolution bashing Israel.

Thus, state sponsorship has been airbrushed out for political reasons, while terrorist groups have reinvented themselves as political parties without abandoning their ideology or terrorism. Since terrorism has proven to be so profitable and sponsorship so low cost, it is reasonable to worry that both phenomena will increase in future and that the current period will prove to be a lull and not an end. Unfortunately, it is a lull during which the West is helping to show that these are low-risk, high-yield policies for radical regimes.

White House on Beirut Marine Barracks Bombing--Can't Remember Who Murdered 241 Americans

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By Barry Rubin

The White House has just released a very routine but still quite disturbing declaration by President Barack Obama. And it goes like this:

"On the anniversary of the attack on the U.S. Marine Barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, we remember today the 241 American Marines, soldiers, and sailors who lost their lives 26 years ago as the result of a horrific terrorist attack that destroyed the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. The military personnel serving in Beirut were there to bring peace and stability to Lebanon after years of internal strife and conflict. The murder of our soldiers, sailors, and Marines on this day on 1983 remains a senseless tragedy....In remembering this terrible day of loss, we are at the same time hopeful that a new government in Lebanon will soon be formed. We look forward to working with a Lebanese government that works actively to promote stability in the region and prosperity for its people."

The problem is not so much the wording of the declaration but the context in which it's issued. After all, the president of the United States has access to U.S. intelligence. And U.S. intelligence knows:

--That the bombing was carried out by cadre of Hizballah under the guidance of Syria and Iran.

--Today, attacks are being carried out against U.S. military personnel in Iraq under the guidance of Syria and Iran, and

--Iran is trying to stage such attacks in Afghanistan.

--The current and previous Iranian defense minister were involved in the attack: Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar (defense minister,  2005-2009) was head of the  Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps force in Lebanon and in charge of carrying out the attack while his successor, General Ahmad Vahidi, was involved in planning the attack.

--Hizballah was involved in other attacks on U.S. citizens and servicemen in Lebanon.

--It is also the anniversary of the killing of three U.S. security agents by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who the Palestinian Authority never punished and Hamas is now protecting. There is no apparent effort by the U.S. government to bring these killers to justice or to press the Palestinian Authority and Hamas to cooperate in doing so or to punish them for not doing so.

All of these forces, however, are left anonymous. No one is named for involvement in that "horrific terrorist attack." And, of course the attack was not "senseless" but part of an Iranian-Syrian-Hizballah campaign to take over Lebanon and drive U.S. influence out of the region. In fact, it was counted as a great victory for these forces since it showed America's vulnerability to being hit by terrorism--an inspiration for September 11?--and did succeed in paralyzing the U.S. effort in Lebanon. Ultimately, this led to the withdrawal of the peace-keeping forces altogether, paving the way for Syria's turning Lebanon into a satellite state for two decades at a great financial and strategic profit. .

None of these attacks were perpetrated by al-Qaida, the only group that remains a target of this administration's version of a war on terrorism, a phrase which is no longer used.

It is bad enough the administration doesn't say any of this. Is it aware of these factors at all?

Indeed, the president's advisor on terrorism is on record as saying that Hizballah is no longer a terrorist group, which opens the door for U.S. contacts in future.

This raises the question of the declaration's final sentence. Let's repeat it:

"We look forward to working with a Lebanese government that works actively to promote stability in the region and prosperity for its people."

While negotiations are complex and ongoing, the government being discussed for Lebanon would include a large contingent of Hizballah cabinet ministers and would give Hizballah veto power over government decisions.

Now it could be argued that this would not constitute, in U.S. eyes, a goverment promoting stability and prosperity. But who knows? Without even naming Hizballah as an adversary, however, the implication is that the United States does not oppose a government including Hizballah, which is one more step toward having such a government.

Consider just one such additional case. Colonel William Richard Higgins, kidnapped by Hizballah men while serving with UN peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon in 1988, horribly tortured, turned over to the Iranians and murdered. Does the White House remember him?

So 241 U.S. servicemen died 26 years ago. Who killed them? Will the murders be punished in any way or will the groups and states that stood behind the attack be rewarded? On this, the declaration is silent.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.

How Reuters Rewrites an Israeli Intelligence Analysis to Ignore its Conclusions and Use it Against Israel

By Barry Rubin

The pervasive media slant on Middle East issues is so obvious that it’s funny, and also transgresses the proper rules of journalism.

Here’s a headline on a Reuters dispatch today:

“Israeli official doubts Syria's clout on Hezbollah.”

So, you’d think, Syria isn’t that responsible for what the Lebanese Islamist organization does. In fact, the purpose is shown in the lead:

“Syria may not be able to curb Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas, a senior Israeli official said on Tuesday, casting doubt on the feasibility of a long-standing Israeli condition for a peace deal with Damascus.”

Get it? So Israel cannot ask Syria to stop providing Hezbollah (I prefer Hizballah but I’ll stick with Reuters transliteration here) with advanced arms or not urge it periodically to attack Israel. The poor Syrians are just innocent little lambs.

But what was Amos Gilad, former military intelligence chief and today an advisor to Israel’s defense minister actually saying?

He was saying first that Syria has less influence because Iran is the main sponsor of Hezbollah; second that Hezbollah practically controls Lebanon; and third that Hezbollah can start a war when it chooses and drag in Lebanon, as happened in 2006.

So the headline and lead might have been:

Israeli official says Hezbollah is an arm of Iran.

Or

Israeli official says Hezbollah now dominates Lebanon.

After all, at almost this exact moment, Hezbollah and its allies were naming ten cabinet ministers of thirty in the new Lebanese government. The group--and through its blog also the Iranian and Syrian governments--now have veto power over every decision taken by the Lebanese state.

These are both bigger stories than the headline chosen.

Oh, yes, and there was a third theme to Gilad’s talk that was also very important but which isn’t mentioned in the article. I wonder why? He said that Israel’s military operation in the Gaza Strip was so effective that Hamas has been intimidated into reducing its attacks on Israel to a minimum. In other words, the war achieved its objective. This runs counter to the view, of course, that force is useless for defeating terrorists (or for any other purpose for that matter).

He also said, and this is barely mentioned in the article, that if Iran gets nuclear weapons the threat from Hezbollah will be worse, that it is more likely to seize real control over Lebanon or to attack Israel.

In short, Reuters tells us the political point it wants to be derived from Gilad’s talk rather than what he actually said.

Israel: A Country Where The Army Commander and An Arab (Terrorist Agent) Work Out at the Same Gym

By Barry Rubin

An ounce of reality is worth a ton of propaganda. Every day we are deluged with material about how horrible Israel is. For example, a petition to a Canadian film festival—signed by Alice Walker, Jane Fonda, and Danny Glover—oppose including films on Tel Aviv because Israel is allegedly an “apartheid” state.

The director of the festival rejected their demand but agreed that Tel Aviv was “contested ground.”

So now it is becoming acceptable in polite Western cultural circles not only to agree with the Palestinian demand for a West Bank-Gaza State with its capital in east Jerusalem but also to consider that maybe all of Israel should be wiped off the map.

I don’t know what films about Tel Aviv are being shown but I’ll bet one of them is a recent production about a homosexual love affair between a Palestinian and an Israel in which the Palestinians are portrayed quite sympathetically.

Now David Hornik points out this amazing detail. Recently, an Israeli Arab plotted as an agent of Hizballah to assassinate the Israeli military’s chief of staff, the highest-ranking officer.

But how did the would-be assassin stake out the general? Simple. They belong to the same health club where they both work out! Imagine any other country where the head of a military does his exercise at a public gym, much less one that isn't so elite that anyone can join . And so much for that "apartheid" nonsense.

Oh, and isn’t Hizballah that group which President Barack Obama’s terrorism advisor says isn’t a terrorist group, and the one the British government is starting to engage with as a normal political party?

Here are the references for the gym story, kindly supplied by David Hornik:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1111504.html
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1251145167282&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1251145167245&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3769627,00.html

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.

Why A Hizballah Attack on Israel is Unlikely

By Barry Rubin

Guy Bechor is a very smart analyst of Arab politics and society. Especially interesting was his recent Haaretz article providing ten reasons why Hizballah is not going to attack Israef.

Briefly, his persuasive argument goes like this, though the list is influenced by my own views on the matter:

--Hizballah knows that its innovative methods worked relatively well in 2006 but now Israel knows how to counter them on the battlefield. In case of war, Hizballah would be even more badly defeated.

--Israel’s military has made big advances, especially tanks equipped with reliable systems to destroy even the most sophisticated rockets fired at them and even more effective laser-guided guns.

--Hizballah would face even more opposition to a war in Lebanon and faces a delicate political situation there. A war would ruin his chances of getting a large share of government power now and even more control in future.

--It remembers, though doesn’t admit, the heavy losses it suffered in 2006. And he knows, despite his bragging, that Hizballah was defeated then.

--Iran wants to keep things quiet since it needs to consolidate the post-election regime and to manage heightened sanctions while going full-speed ahead toward nuclear weapons. It also prefers to keep Hizballah in reserve to deter Israel from attacking.

-- Arab regimes are more willing to denounce Hizballah as an agent of Iran. This is especially true for Egypt since Nasrallah himself called for the overthrow of its government.

--The rhetoric used by Hizbullah and Nasrallah has lost its efficacy.

--Nasrallah saw what happened to Hamas in Gaza.

--The presence of a large UN force that’s in the way poses an additional problem for Hizballah.

For its part, Israel doesn't war with Hizballah but if attacked will not hesitate to respond quickly, fully, and powerfully.

Brennan on Hizballah: They Can’t Be Terrorists! After All, Some of Them Are Lawyers!

By Barry Rubin

It wasn’t enough that President Obama’s counterterrorism advisor, John Brennan gave a speech which—possibly for the first time in U.S. history—gave a government definition of a religious practice, endorsing Jihad as a noble pursuit. No, he also gave a basic endorsement to a terrorist group which has murdered several hundred Americans.

Please understand, Brennan is not engaging in appeasement. It's much worse. He thinks he's a brilliant strategist who is going to manipulate Hizballah into being pro-American without knowing very much about the Middle East, Lebanon, Iran, Islamism, or even his supposed subject of expertise, terrorism.

Sound like an exaggeration? Keep reading.

Brennan made clear his views on Hizballah before being appointed by the president, which means he shouldn’t have been appointed. The problem isn't just that his view is politically unpalatable and strategically disastrous, it is also enormously ignorant.

Here’s what Brennan wrote in an article for ANNALS, AAPSS, 618, July 2008. What it says on Iran is equally bad. But let’s focus today on Hizballah:

“It would not be foolhardy, however, for the United States to tolerate, and even to encourage, greater assimilation of Hezbollah into Lebanon's political system, a process that is subject to Iranian influence. Hezbollah is already represented in the Lebanese parliament and its members have previously served in the
Lebanese cabinet, reflections of Hezbollah's interest in shaping Lebanon's political future from within government institutions. This political involvement is a far cry from Hezbollah's genesis as solely a terrorist organization dedicated to murder, kidnapping, and violence. Not coincidentally, the evolution of Hezballah into a fully vested player in the Lebanese political system has been accompanied by a marked reduction in terrorist attacks carried out by the organization. The best hope for maintaining this trend and for reducing the influence of violent extremists within the organization—as well as the influence of extremist Iranian officials who view Hezbollah primarily as a pawn of Tehran—is to increase Hezbollah’s stake in Lebanon’s struggling democratic processes”

This kind of thinking would do far more than bury Lebanon. It would bury U.S. interests and influence in the Middle East. And so it is only appropriate to quote William Shakespeare’s lines for another funeral oration: “If you have tears, prepare to shed them now!”

Yes, it would be foolhardy for the United States to encourage growing influence and power for a radical Islamist terrorist group that is a client of Syria and reasonably close to being an agent of Iran. Brennan seems to give no evidence of any serious knowledge about the Middle East.

Hizballah isn't being "assimilated" into Lebanon's political system, it is trying to take over Lebanon to the greatest extent possible. Just like when the Bolsheviks and Nazis ran candidates that wasn't proof that they were being "assimilated" into the Russian and German systems. (Imagine if a British minister had proposed back then a policy of encouraging Communist or Nazi participation in government on the grounds that this would moderate them.)

But why can’t a terrorist or Islamist revolutionary group engage in normal politics? Yes, it might not kill people for a bit, mainly because it plans to do so when that's necessary to advance its cause or--even better---when it takes power.

 Hizballah’s maximum goal is to seize state power in Lebanon and to drive out all Western influence, while wiping Israel off the map and extending Islamist rule over the entire region. But that doesn’t mean it can’t have interim goals. It’s minimum goal (already accomplished) is to become the strongest single force in the country, to build up a powerful, highly trained militia, to attack Israel whenever it desires, and to gain full control of all Shi’a areas in the country especially in south Lebanon.

How does involvement in electoral politics prove—and the same applies to Hamas—that it doesn’t remain a revolutionary Islamist group promoting Iranian and Syrian influence which will indulge in terrorism when it feels that tactic to be useful?

And how could anyone be so dumb not to understand this?

By the way, he knows nothing about how Hizballah has behaved in politics. What have been its efforts? To gain control of the government or at least veto power, to prevent any attempt to disarm its militia or limit its arms’ smuggling (Syrian arms paid for with Iranian money).

And why did Hizballah walk out of the government the first time? Over its demand to kill the international investigation of the murder of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and a dozen other terrorist acts.

In other words, the “moderate parliamentary” Hizballah left the government in order to protect previous terrorist attacks from being punished. Doesn’t this show their continued involvement in…terrorism?

Yet even this nonsense is dimmed by what Brennan says next. It just so happens that Hizballah stopped doing terrorism because it was entering politics? Has Brennan forgotten the attacks on Israel which triggered a massive war, so destructive for Lebanon, just two years earlier? Hizballah claimed victory but suffered material defeat.

Note the inability of administration officials—this isn’t the first time—to discount totally the fact that force sometimes has a deterrent effect. Contemplate the meaning of that for America’s future foreign policy.

But that’s what he said before taking office. After his Jihad-endorsing speech, Brennan answered questions. Only one newspaper in the world published the transcript, as far as I can discover, the Seoul Times in South Korea. But Brennan’s statement can be found online in a sound recording.

Let me point out that he was answering a question from Bob Dreyfuss of the far-left The Nation magazine, who is not exactly a flaming American patriot. Dreyfuss mentioned that he has had personal discussions with Brennan in which the latter, “suggested that it might be possible to have a dialogue with Hamas and Hezbollah.”

[Dreyfuss is determined to "out" Brennan as he tries to pull him further to the left. On his blog, Dreyfuss writes: "In fact, as I alluded to in my question, Brennan had told me (before taking a job in the Obama administration, but while serving as Obama's top adviser on intelligence issues) that talking to Hamas and Hezbollah is the right thing to do."]


Brennan didn’t deny it but did say he thought Hamas was still a terrorist group. [This might just be for public consumption. Privately, if what he says about Hizballah is true--once a movement runs candidates that must mean to him that it is a candidate for being an American ally.]

But here’s what he said about Hizballah:

“Hezbollah started out as purely a terrorist organization back in the early 1980s and has evolved significantly over time. And now it has members of parliament, in the cabinet; there are lawyers, doctors, others who are part of the Hezbollah organization.

“However, within Hezbollah, there’s still a terrorist core. And hopefully those elements within the Shia community in Lebanon and within Hezbollah at large – they’re going to continue to look at that extremist terrorist core as being something that is anathema to what, in fact, they’re trying to accomplish in terms of their aspirations about being part of the political process in Lebanon. And so, quite frankly, I’m pleased to see that a lot of Hezbollah individuals are in fact renouncing that type of terrorism and violence and are trying to participate in the political process in a very legitimate fashion.”

So in other words it cannot be terrorist because it has parliamentarians, doctors, and even lawyers. Sticking with doctors for the moment, I can think of terrorist doctors who led some of the most terrorist PLO and Palestinian groups, the number-two leader of al-Qaida, and several of Hamas’s top leaders. And by the way, doesn’t Hamas have parliamentarians and cabinet members?

You see, friends, that’s why I use the word “stupid” here even though, forgive me, it isn’t a proper academic or analytical term. The following is my satire, not an actual quote:

Brennan: Hizballah can’t be terrorist because they have cabinet members, lawyers, and doctors but Hamas is terrorist.

Reporter: But doesn’t Hamas have cabinet members, lawyers, and doctors, too?

Brennan: Um, er, uh....

You don’t make a statement so easily reduced to rubble if you really understand your topic.

As for “terrorist core,” what are we talking about, some small marginal group? In Arabic, Hizballah leaders are constantly explaining there is no such thing as a “military” and a “civilian” wing. They speak freely of their devotion to Iran’s regime and the parliamentarians talk about their devout loyalty to the same leaders who give orders to the militia and for terrorist operations.

And who are “a lot of Hezbollah individuals” renouncing terrorism and violence? Don’t you get it, Brennan, that Hezbollah never ever had to renounce terrorism and violence to enter politics? (Neither did Hamas for that matter.)

Here are just two examples among many regarding things the president's terrorism advisor is unaware.

Nawaf Musawi, head of Hizballah's "political wing" says:

"Fundamentally, our role in the party is Jihad work. Without it, there's no value or role for Lebanon. If I had the opportunity to go back, I would have chosen the path of military jihad, because the position of a true warrior (muhajid) is more important than that of a member of parliament."

And here is Hizballah second-in-command Naim Qassem:

"All political, social and jihad work is tied to the decisions of this leadership. The same leadership that directs the parliamentary and government work also leads jihad actions in the struggle against Israel."

Moreover, is Brennan unaware of the fact that:

--Hizballah's arms are paid for by Iran and supplied by Syria, Is the United States going to compete with their influence when Hizballah leaders admit the organization was formed and ran for parliament only with approval from Tehran?

--Does Brennan know the name of Hizballah's political party?

--Has he any clue that Hizballah buys influence with Iranian money?

--Is he aware that Hizballah has been repeatedly threatening to wage terror attacks on UNIFIL if it tries to fulfill its UN mandate of keeping the group out of the south?

--Does he recall that Hizballah launched an invasion of the Christian and Druze areas, being stopped only because of ferocious fighting by the Druze militia?

--Has he ever read any of the antisemitic, anti-American speeches made by Hizballah leaders?

--Is he aware at all of Hizballah involvement in terrorist acts against Americans, including kidnappings, murders, and the assault on the Marine barracks to name a few examples? (Leaving aside a long list of attacks on Israel and the terrorist bombing of the Jewish center in Argentina with great loss of life?)

--Incidentally, shouldn't someone in his position be talking about punishing, not rewarding, terrorists with so much American blood on their hands? Shouldn't he be setting some tough preconditions--turn over those responsible, apologize and formally reject terrorism--before talking about U.S. support for Hizballah?

--Extra credit question: How do you think Lebanese opponents of Hizballah--which include the majority of Christians, Sunni Muslims, and Druze, along with a Shia minority--feel about having the world's leading democracy endorse those who want to turn their country into a nightmare dictatorship? How do you think Hizballah leaders and Iran's regime feels in reading stuff like Brennan's speech? Compare and contrast.

I’ll stop here but there’s a lot more one can say. This man is dangerously ignorant and holds very scary policy views. There is something seriously wrong with an administration who would have such a man as its counterterrorist advisor.

Frankly, Brennan should be pressed into resigning or at least subjected to some serious and detailed questioning about his views, statements, and alleged knowledge. "It seems," as one Syrian dissident put it, "that instead of peeling Syria away from Iran, Obama administration's strategy is peeling America away from the West."