Sunday, July 23, 2006

Why Israel now?

Hot Air » Blog Archive » Why Hezbollah attacked when it did: "attacking Israel now may be the shot the mullahs have to take, before Iraq is self-sufficient and before democracy takes root in Lebanon and spreads further. Using Lebanon as a forward base makes sense from a logistics point of view and from a political one. The Lebanese government, an infant democracy, is not yet strong enough to resist Hezbollah (assuming it even wants to) and isn’t fully rid of Syrian influence. Destabilizing it makes sense from both an Iranian and Syrian point of view–as a relatively cosmopolitan if weak democracy, its existence is a threat. Handing it to Hezbollah by inflaming rage against Israel and highlighting the impotence of Lebanon’s democratic government hands Iran a little piece of empire right on Israel’s doorstep, and weakens nascent faith in democracy. And if it succeeds, Israel is weakened and America takes a proxy defeat. Seen this way, Hezbollah’s rocket strikes opened up an Iranian/Syrian counterattack against the US and its broad plans to re-shape the Middle East."

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Assuming that either the US or Israel goes with the program. I also wonder how good an idea destroying the hope for democracy is. The next step is to just obliterate the regimes. In other words, democracy is the next to last resort, I am not so sure the folks in the region will like the last resort any better.

chuck said...

I wonder, though, how much this comes down to Nazrullah himself and his own ambitions. I read somewhere, long time ago in internet years, that Nazrullah was beginning to act as if he had religious authority in competition with the traditional Shiite religious centers in Qom and Najaf, Qom being the Iranian version of this religious competition. Occam's razor would say Nazrullah's personal will to power is the primary motivator here, Iran and Syria are just enablers and a means to an end.

buddy larsen said...

Puts Iran on Israel's doorstep only if Hez survives.

buddy larsen said...

...mercy--that Steyn essay is a punch in the breadbasket.