Lebanon's War of Words

Prime Minister Fuad Saniora denounced Hezbollah and its leader on Friday in an unusually personal attack, a day after the guerrilla group's chief renewed his pledge to bring down the U.S.-backed government.

The prime minister and Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah had traded barbs in the past, mostly through aides or supporters, but their recent remarks descended into direct attacks for the first time. The escalation of rhetoric marked a sharp turn in Lebanon's political crisis and further stoked the tensions between the two sides that threatens to tear the country apart.

"What we've seen yesterday was an unnecessary fit of anger and rudeness that we don't accept," Saniora told hundreds of supporters at his heavily fortified office complex where he has been holed up since the opposition launched street protests on Dec. 1 to bring down his government.

In a rousing speech delivered Thursday night on huge screens in central Beirut, Nasrallah accused Saniora of conniving with Israel during its monthlong war with Hezbollah last summer. He claimed Saniora ordered the Lebanese army to confiscate Hezbollah's supplies of weapons — his sharpest attack on the prime minister since the August cease-fire that ended the fighting.

If only that last part were true. Hizbullah has not been disarmed, despite the clear requirement for it to lay down its arms under UN SCR 1701, 1559, 425, and 426. No militias are supposed to exist within the borders of Lebanon, and yet Hizbullah is not only well armed, but continues to receive arms shipments from Syria and Iran. Nasrallah sees a conspiracy between Israel and Siniora to eliminate Hizbullah, but what does he expect when his Hizbullah forces launch a war against Israel from Lebanese territory without the consent of the Lebanese government and Israel has every right to defend itself from such attacks.

Time Magazine notes that Hizbullah is gearing up for a renewed conflict, and Israel is preparing for such an eventuality.

Since their last bout ended in August, both Israel and Hizballah have been gearing up for a possible Round 2. Israeli, Arab and Lebanese sources hostile to Hizballah told TIME that the organization has been busy restocking its arsenal with help from Iran and Syria. Hizballah has taken delivery of Syrian-made Katyusha missiles with a range of almost 60 miles, able to strike the Israeli port of Haifa and maybe the northern outskirts of Tel Aviv. The Israeli military estimates that Hizballah's arsenal now has over 20,000 short-range missiles and hundreds of medium-range ones. This arms pipeline starts in Iran, where shipments are usually loaded onto trains as disguised cargo, and wend their way across Turkey to Syria. From there, they are taken over the mountain passes to Lebanon by trucks, often smuggled under loads of vegetables. Iranian Revolutionary Guard officers, working from a military base near Damascus, direct this arms flow, these sources claim.

Note the sources - Israeli, Arab, and Lebanese sources. The consensus view is that Syria and Iran are engaging in rearmament of Hizbullah in direct violation of UN SCR 1701.

The UN reaction? Not much, although they did confirm that the Syrians were behind a plot to kill 36 leading Lebanese figures.

Abu Kais notes that Nasrallah's speech is designed to inflame the passions of the anti-Israel Shi'ites, and clearly seeks to further destabilize the legitimate government in Beirut. Hizbullah is increasingly brazen in its ongoing efforts to wrest control of power in Lebanon from the duly elected government by all means at its disposal.

The Time article also points out that Israel failed in its stated aims to deal with Hizbullah and that a resumption of hostilities might prove to be even more disastrous. I'd argue that Israel's leadership must be decisive and unleash the full military power against Hizbullah. Israel must refrain from such niceties as telegraphing where and when Israeli forces would strike by dropping leaflets that only enabled Hizbullah to shift forces away from targeted areas to preserve their strength and/or maximize civilian casualties by purposefully surrounding their terror minions with civilians or operating from within heavily populated areas. Such steps only made Israel's job more difficult and reduced the likelihood of success.

UPDATE:
Nasrallah warns Siniora to take his deal before he's no longer in a position to accept anything. Gee, sounds pretty threatening to me.

The leader of Hizbullah vowed Thursday to press on with the rally for a unity government, but he also made a solemn oath that Lebanon's Shiites would not be "dragged" into a sectarian war with Sunnis. "If anyone thought that we would be frightened away and just surrender and go back home, they are gravely mistaken and are living in illusions, illusions, illusions!" Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah declared in live television address.

Nasrallah isn't going to be dragged into a war; he's going to be the one igniting it - just as he did when starting a war with Israel. Hizbullah dismisses the reports that it continues to smuggle weapons into Lebanon. Of course they dismiss the reports. It isn't in their interest to admit that they're preparing for yet more war with Israel and the Lebanese people.

Technorati: terrorism, nasrallah, fatah, gilad shalit, siniora, nasrallah, Olmert, Abbas, Regev, Goldwasser, PRC, Hamas, Gaza, palestinian, Israel, hizbullah, hezbullah, hezbollah, lebanon, syria.