ENABLING HEZBOLLAH The Foolish Feckless West (Ralph Peters)

The New York Post ^ | May 14. 2008 | Ralph Peters

[beckaz]

May 14, 2008 -- AS Hezbollah's terror army dismantles Lebanon, the world whistles "Ain't That a Shame."

With its heavily funded proxies marching through an Arab democracy's ruins, Iran has arrived on the Mediterranean, outflanking Israel.

Syria's surrogates punish Beirut. Lebanon's crippled government cringes at the whims of Hassan Nasrullah, Hezbollah's strongman. Terror rules.

And not one civilized country lifts a finger.

This doesn't mean that war will be avoided at the "negligible" cost of Lebanese lives and freedom. It just means that the inevitable showdown with Hezbollah will be a bloodier mess when it finally comes.

[beckaz]

Follisg, feckless West subtitle says it all.

[wastoute]

Take good notes because Lebanon is what Iraq will look like wihtin weeks of our pulling out, which we are told will be weeks after Obama takes office. (Not really, he will find some reason to stay...)

[livius]

Good article! We’re sitting here calmly watching a modern anschluss and nobody even comments on it. The fighting has died down because Hezbollah has now effectively installed itself throughout Lebanon and doesn’t need to do anything more except wait until the time is right to take over. That’s the same reason that Mookie was offering a “truce” in Iraq; his people are in place, and it has dawned on the Iranians that they don’t really have to take over official control of these countries quite yet. The important thing is to place their people and then when something does ignite the serious fighting, they’ll be ready. And we won’t be.

[Uncle Chip]

They will lay low now in expectation of an Obama Presidency.

[Rummyfan]

It just means that the inevitable showdown with Hezbollah will be a bloodier mess when it finally comes.

Amen. But who's gonna stop it? We should have taken out Assad's Syria in 2003 when he was cringing. But we can't do everything. A bloody reckoning is coming.

[ought-six]

FTA: “Not only are we reluctant to kill those bent on killing us - we don’t even want to offend them.”

That’s the whole ballgame in a nutshell. Political correctness is the cyanide capsule of Western Civilization. And the ironic thing about it is that the left, who created political correctness in the first place as a means of attacking the West, will have their collective head sliced off with all rest of the West by the muzz when the muzz gain control.

[section9]

You're entirely too pessimistic. Remember something: this is a civilization essentially made up of people who subscribe to 9th Century savagery. They have no earthly idea what thermonuclear weapons can do to them.

We do nothing about Lebanon because Lebanon is not important to us. If the Franjiehs, Jumblattis, and the Gemayels will not stand up and fight the HA, why the heck should we? Lebanon is not our problem, it is the responsibility of the Lebanese. And believe me, the Lebanese know how to take care of business when they are properly armed. I strongly suspect that the Saudis, the Israelis, and we will be arming the March 14th Crowd, if only to bleed HA.

Peters' alarmism is misplaced. Remember, the Iranians and the Hez clients are fascists, and the fascists just got a good hiding in Iraq. We just hammered the Sadrists in Basra and Baghdad, so now the Iranians are flexing muscle in Beirut. The Lebanese will take care of their own business; that is to say, the civil war is only beginning. Nibraz Kazimi does an excellent takedown of Iran's new, and somewhat desperate strategy in his column in the New York Sun. Remember the larger game: the stronger Iraq gets, the weaker Iran gets relative to it, and the more Iraq can serve as a shield against Persian expansionism.

The last thing we need to do is to intervene in this affair ourselves. Let the Lebanese handle it. Give them the guns; let them do the work.

[castlebrew]

The best thing that the Left-weenies can is to keep talking to them while I reload...

[ought-six]

“You're entirely too pessimistic.”

I'm entirely too much a realist. The Lebanese people are not going to do anything to stop Hezbollah; hell, much of the Lebanese military is in cahoots with Hezbollah! Lebanon is being turned into a dagger at Israel's northern throat; that is Lebanon's sole purpose according to its puppeteers (Iran and Syria). Egypt is becoming more and more islamist, and the secular rule of Mubarak is under tremendous pressure. Once Mubarak is gone, and an islamist takes up the reins (which is not only likely, but probable), then Israel will have three aggressively hostile neighbors on its borders, and maybe four if Jordan goes the way of Egypt (which leaves the only other neighbor being Saudi Arabia, which, at its extreme northwest tip, is separated from Israel only by a very narrow Gulf of Aqaba; Saudi Arabia would like very much to see Israel fall). Israel is in a very precarious position.

[Fishrrman]

“Take good notes because Lebanon is what Iraq will look like wihtin weeks of our pulling out, which we are told will be weeks after Obama takes office”

Great analogy. Someone ought to slip that to McCain to use in the debates against Obama, when the subject comes up - as it will.

- John