The Government of Free Lebanon congratulates Israel for its latest operation against Hamas in Damascus. It is a right step in the right direction of decapitating terrorism in the region. We believe Prime Minister Ariel Sharon should expand this strategy to Lebanon and against specific targets and groups continuously practicing terrorism, as instructed by Iran and Syria.
Israel has demonstrated its ability to understand and respond to Syrian terrorism on Syrian soil in a fashion Syria understands. America hasn't yet done so.
On one hand, America pressures Syria with UN Resolution 1559, but on the other hand, it is trying to win Syrian cooperation and support for US actions in Iraq. This US double standard towards Syria should stop.
Syria today is in Iraq and is repeating the same scenario as in Lebanon in 1983, by reinforcing and assisting the insurgents (Hezbullah and leftist militias) to drive the Multinational Forces out. It succeeded in Lebanon, when Hezbullah bombed the US Marines barracks and the US Embassy in Beirut, and implemented an Iranian-style strategy of terror in kidnapping foreigners.
The Government of Free Lebanon is concerned over this US attitude, because at the end of the day, America will lose the ground it has gained and President George Bush will lose the war.
If America is serious in winning and stabilizing Iraq, it should reverse the course of the "stick and carrot" game played with Syria. America should strike back in at least the same fashion it is attacked in Iraq. For every car bomb that explodes in Baghdad, it should return the favor by three against specific targets in Damascus. For every assassination attempt in Baghdad, America should respond against all military and political figures of the Syrian terrorist regime. Instead, America's answer to Syrian-backed violence in Iraq is appeasing Damascus and giving its regime another opportunity.
Washington's survival in the Middle East will be short indeed should it not initiate a coup and topple the regime in Damascus, as well as reversing the balance of forces in Lebanon by allowing Israel to help its allies in this initiative.
Should this strategy be applied, it will save US lives in a new reality. Washington should support the people of the region in managing their own affairs by letting Israel support a new coalition of forces in the region. A new fait accompli could emerge in Lebanon and change the course of events forever in Syria.
Today, the Lebanese are misreading America's intentions in the Middle East. The Americans are trapped by a dynamic that will lead them nowhere and precipitate America's failure in the Middle East. Washington is listening what Syria says, rather then watching what Syria does.
As of this writing, America is losing the fight for the stabilization of Iraq with every further day of life it gives the Syrian regime, which is practicing state terrorism in the Middle East. Syria today, in a secret understanding with Tehran, is wasting America's time in order to see Bush defeated in the elections and defeat the US strategy in the Middle East.
For its part, Iran is busy building its "peaceful" nuclear bomb.
The Americans are on the wrong course for winning this war. This is certain. The only language of diplomacy Syria and Iran understand is military deterrence.
Ariel Sharon understood this reality by reaching Beirut in 1982 and eliminating PLO terrorism and Yasser Arafat, the famous "man of peace" resurrected by the Left in Israel. The US should have allowed Sharon to continue its offensive at the time, with the blessing of US Secretary of State Alexander Haig. Had that happened, Syria would be weaker today and Lebanon would be pro-Western. This could have saved thousands of friendly casualties and would have spared Israel the Intifada following its fiasco withdrawal from Southern Lebanon. Such a scenario would have left the Middle East in a better situation today.
Ehud Barak could have in no imaginary way "secured" Israel behind the "walls of international legitimacy," as he put it, because the Arab world reacts to its environment in a dynamic of force, not logic or reason. And in the Islamic lexicon, Israel has no place to exist in the Middle East, nor does any other minority. Such an Islamist agenda today is supported by the Iranian military, which uses Syria as a springboard to support Hezbullah and Hamas terrorism against Israel.
Israel was not only retreating in the face of fundamentalism, due to US pressure not to respond, but due to an unfriendly Clinton Administration that was too busy appeasing Damascus for an illusionary political Rose Garden event of peace between Syria and Israel. The Clinton Administration was forgetting the evolution of the strength of Bin Laden and Hezbullah, then-emerging on the Islamic scene. Now comes Iran.
US Homeland Security will fail in its mission should America prevent Israel from defeating its local Islamic faction of terrorism.
[Part 1 of 2]
Israel has demonstrated its ability to understand and respond to Syrian terrorism on Syrian soil in a fashion Syria understands. America hasn't yet done so.
On one hand, America pressures Syria with UN Resolution 1559, but on the other hand, it is trying to win Syrian cooperation and support for US actions in Iraq. This US double standard towards Syria should stop.
Syria today is in Iraq and is repeating the same scenario as in Lebanon in 1983, by reinforcing and assisting the insurgents (Hezbullah and leftist militias) to drive the Multinational Forces out. It succeeded in Lebanon, when Hezbullah bombed the US Marines barracks and the US Embassy in Beirut, and implemented an Iranian-style strategy of terror in kidnapping foreigners.
The Government of Free Lebanon is concerned over this US attitude, because at the end of the day, America will lose the ground it has gained and President George Bush will lose the war.
If America is serious in winning and stabilizing Iraq, it should reverse the course of the "stick and carrot" game played with Syria. America should strike back in at least the same fashion it is attacked in Iraq. For every car bomb that explodes in Baghdad, it should return the favor by three against specific targets in Damascus. For every assassination attempt in Baghdad, America should respond against all military and political figures of the Syrian terrorist regime. Instead, America's answer to Syrian-backed violence in Iraq is appeasing Damascus and giving its regime another opportunity.
Washington's survival in the Middle East will be short indeed should it not initiate a coup and topple the regime in Damascus, as well as reversing the balance of forces in Lebanon by allowing Israel to help its allies in this initiative.
Should this strategy be applied, it will save US lives in a new reality. Washington should support the people of the region in managing their own affairs by letting Israel support a new coalition of forces in the region. A new fait accompli could emerge in Lebanon and change the course of events forever in Syria.
Today, the Lebanese are misreading America's intentions in the Middle East. The Americans are trapped by a dynamic that will lead them nowhere and precipitate America's failure in the Middle East. Washington is listening what Syria says, rather then watching what Syria does.
As of this writing, America is losing the fight for the stabilization of Iraq with every further day of life it gives the Syrian regime, which is practicing state terrorism in the Middle East. Syria today, in a secret understanding with Tehran, is wasting America's time in order to see Bush defeated in the elections and defeat the US strategy in the Middle East.
For its part, Iran is busy building its "peaceful" nuclear bomb.
The Americans are on the wrong course for winning this war. This is certain. The only language of diplomacy Syria and Iran understand is military deterrence.
Ariel Sharon understood this reality by reaching Beirut in 1982 and eliminating PLO terrorism and Yasser Arafat, the famous "man of peace" resurrected by the Left in Israel. The US should have allowed Sharon to continue its offensive at the time, with the blessing of US Secretary of State Alexander Haig. Had that happened, Syria would be weaker today and Lebanon would be pro-Western. This could have saved thousands of friendly casualties and would have spared Israel the Intifada following its fiasco withdrawal from Southern Lebanon. Such a scenario would have left the Middle East in a better situation today.
Ehud Barak could have in no imaginary way "secured" Israel behind the "walls of international legitimacy," as he put it, because the Arab world reacts to its environment in a dynamic of force, not logic or reason. And in the Islamic lexicon, Israel has no place to exist in the Middle East, nor does any other minority. Such an Islamist agenda today is supported by the Iranian military, which uses Syria as a springboard to support Hezbullah and Hamas terrorism against Israel.
Israel was not only retreating in the face of fundamentalism, due to US pressure not to respond, but due to an unfriendly Clinton Administration that was too busy appeasing Damascus for an illusionary political Rose Garden event of peace between Syria and Israel. The Clinton Administration was forgetting the evolution of the strength of Bin Laden and Hezbullah, then-emerging on the Islamic scene. Now comes Iran.
US Homeland Security will fail in its mission should America prevent Israel from defeating its local Islamic faction of terrorism.
[Part 1 of 2]