ISRAEL’S WAR ON LEBANON'S CIVILIANS: THE (UN-INTENDED) CONSEQUENCES.

Revised and Updated Rough Draft--7/16/06.

OR: HEZBOLLAH (EASILY) OUT-MANEUVERS THE IDIOTS.


7/16/06--UPDATE--LEBANON: ISRAEL'S SLAUGHTERHOUSE

First Hezbollah attacks Israeli soldiers; Israel retaliates by murdering Lebanese civililans, wholesale; now Hezbollah in turn is retaliating by murdering Israeli civilians, also wholesale. (NOTE: Disproportionate: Israel has targeted the civilians.) All of this is nursed along by the refusal by the idiots to do politics.

Note the illogic of the Israeli government's policy: That by murdering Lebanese civilians, it can force Lebanon to rein in Hezbollah. It doesn't make sense. Israel's disproportinate retaliation has instead weakened the Lebanese government. This government now is facing total paralysis, and only Hezbollah, the Lebanese Arab Shiites, and the Iran-Syria alliance will be able to bring it out of this paralysis--to fully dominate the little country!

In other words, the fighting and cargo-acquiring (from oil-rich Iran) skills of Hezbollah have set the idiots back years. The longer the murder of Lebanon's and Israel's civilians, the more illogical Mr. Olmert's plan.

The Israeli strategy had been tried and had failed. In the 1970s, the American-sponsored, Jordan-influenced, Lebanese Army intelligence service would explode car bombs in Muslim neighborhoods to place pressure on the Muslims to call for the expulsion of the PLO. Not only did that policy not work; it led to thirty years of misery for the Lebanese--civil war, occupation, economic devastation. This Israeli policy of Let's-massacre-civilians-so-that-they-will-beg-for-us should fail, as it did when the Army Intelligence did it. (See below for the un-intended consequences.)

(The Israelis and their Arab allies, doing the bid for the idiots, don't realize that the idiots now nauseate the American public. Every signal indicates that that public doesn't want anything to do with the Middle East. Too, the American elite is mobilizing to gut the Israel lobby of its huge influence. The next imperial grab, my dears, will have an Arabist cover, not a Jewish extremist one.)

HERE'S WHAT TO EXPECT:

1. AN ENGINEERED RISE IN OIL PRICES

In response to Israel's retaliatory war on Lebanon's civilians, Iran probably is thinking about a version of the following: to reduce the production of its oil by a small amount, with lots of media fanfare to surround the event, as to create yet more oil price speculation. The rise in prices should make up for Iran’s aid to Lebanon.

NOTE: How a crisis helps an oil-producing country:

I'm adding this after discussing this article with my very conservative dad: Let's consider that Iran produces about 3 million barrels per day (bpd)of oil. Let us say that a crisis--short of a moronic and disastrous Iraq-like invasion--raises the price of a barrel by a modest $3. Of this, the producing country pockets $2, let us say. At three million bpds, Iran would pocket an extra $6 million per day, which would add up to around $180 million per month, to over two billion dollars per year. One can conclude therefore that a crisis is beneficial to some oil-producing countries.

Hezballoh's cost, I suspect, is significantly less than $2 billion per year. (The rumored figures are all less than $200 million.) Even taking on projects in Lebanon--to re-build the infrastructure, now that (Arab) Saudi Arabia is washing its hands off Lebanon's defenseless Arab civilians--should keep the Islamic Republic relatively in the black.

With this in mind, one can justifiably wonder whether the Islamic Republic, through Hezbollah's daring attack on Israel's mililtary, is sending Mr. Bush and his pathetic foreign policy circle a message: That bombing Iran, or even placing more sanctions against it, would cost the world economy dearly and plunge the United States--almost certainly--into a deep recession.

Moreover, one wonders whether the Islamic Republic would repeat a like crisis on the eve of our presidential elections. Finally, one wonders whether this "war" had sent yet another message: that Iranian missile/drones can hit ships miles away: Think the Strait of Hormuz.


2. IRAQIS COULD RENEW ATTACKS AGAINST OIL INSTALLATIONS

In response to Israel's war on Lebanon's defenseless civilians, some elements in Iraq could renew the war on oil installations to wreak further havoc in oil prices and place pressure on Israel's sponsor.


3. IRAN'S STAR TO RISE IN LEBANON AS SAUDI ARABIA CHOOSES TO IGNORE THE WAR AGAINST DEFENSELESS LEBANESE ARAB CIVILIANS.


Iran should lend Lebanon a hand in rebuilding its infrastructure, further embedding itself in that country. It’s hard to say no to cargo, especially when (Arab) Saudi Arabia washes its hands off the death of Lebanese civilians and the devastation of Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure.

NOTE: Why the Saudi callousness towards the deadly assault on Lebanon's civilians.

The Saudi government probably is praying that Israel succeed in eradicating Hezbollah, as a way of making obedient the Arab Shiites. It's thinking about the Saudi Arab Shiites, a majority in the Eastern Province, where most of the Kingdom's oil is found. It's miscalculating, of course. (I'm confident of this.) It would do better to stop listening to the idiots who brought the the sectarian genie out of the bottle. Instead, it should highlight that Sunnis and Shiites are all Arab. And act accordingly. Blame Hezbollah if you want; but don't ignore the disproportionate Israeli retaliation (against defenseless fellow Arab civilians!)


4. NEW TRAINED RECRUITS TO FLOOD HEZBOLLAH AS THE LEBANESE GOVERNMENT WEAKENS

Without generous outside support, and plenty of callousness and mediocrity on the part of the United States and Europe, the Lebanese government could begin to trim the ranks of its armed forces, to save money, and unload this military welfare program onto private institutions. Chiefly: The majority of those “riffed” would be Shiite and should be expected to join the Iran-financed Hezbollah military structure to supplement their meager pension. (Call it privatization--call it another Afghanistan.)


5. A GOAL OF SYRIA AND IRAN: USE LEBANON TO FORM A WORKING SUNNI-SHIITE FRONT IN IRAQ

Arab Shiites and Sunnis should draw closer in Iraq, the longer the bombing of Lebanon continues.

NOTE: Iran and Syria retaliate in Lebanon

This, I suspect, was one of the goals of Hezbollah’s recent operation against the Israeli military. The message is meant for the United States and allied Arab intelligence services, Jordan's in particular. The message: If you think you can play the Sunni-Shiite sectarian card ("A Shiite Crescent is evolving"), think again. We can on our end play the Muslim world-Israel card. Better yet: We can keep you so preoccupied in Lebanon that Iraq would look like a promenade in comparison.


6. THE NEED FOR A LESS IDIOTIC FRANCE

France will activate its foreign policy machine to supplement European financial aid to Lebanon to avoid the bankruptcy of the Lebanese government and the concomitant sinking of Lebanon further into the Iranian-Syrian axis. (The Bush people don’t have the smarts to see this. They're harmful idiots.) Nor did the French. But these now have a tad more freedom from Empire's moronic edicts, now that Empire has seen the light in Iraq.


7. HEZBOLLAH TO BUTTRESS ITS RANKS AND POPULARITY: THE CARGO WAR.

As a consequence of the weakening of the current Lebanese government, expect Hezbollah to become more popular, and the Bush/Israel pillars (Jumblatt, Hariri, Gemayyel, and Geagea) to become marginal, especially if this confrontation extends into weeks and months. Not only would the general population eventually see that Hezbollah originally had attacked the Israeli military (and not the Israeli civilians); too, they would see that Israel retaliated against the Lebanese civilians, purposely and murderously.

Expect Hezbollah to widen the provision of services to Lebanese other than Shiites. Popular in fighting; and popular in cargo-acquisition and distribution.

In short, Hezbollah (and Iran and Syria) have scored a huge success since Israel’s disproportionate retaliation against defenseless civilians (one that I’m confident Hezbollah had aimed for) should scuttle the inroads made by the Bush-Israel axis in Lebanon and among the extremist elements of the diasporas in the United States. (The latter: Hilarious if it weren't pathetic.) Such inroads had been meant to clip Hezbollah's wings. Bye bye clipping.

For the record:

My father doesn't agree with this conclusion; he thinks this confrontation will put an end to Hezbollah. His wishful thinking never ceases to amaze me.

Problem: My conservative father has been thinking like this through three decades of near-homelessness, as he had dodged the various phases of Lebanon's wars, always believing that his Christian leaders--assets of the idiots--will defend him and his family. His house had received two missiles; he counted a dozen escapes from Beirut, sleeping at friends' homes in various villages in Mount Lebanon, renting houses when he could find them; waging campaigns to find a kidnapped relative. Still, the man continues to believe in the idiots, even though these have wrecked over one third of his life--and more of mine.