Britain, Germany and France Push for Designating Lebanese Militant Army as “Terrorist Organization.” Major Strategic and Tactical Mistake—Potential for “Blowback” in EU.
In the mid 1980’s, I had (like many other operatives in the US/Israel national security teams) an opportunity to engage the Iranian sponsored ‘terrorist group’.
At that time, the Israel and the USG was fighting a ‘real’ terrorist group.
I and other counter-terrorist operatives define ‘terrorism’ as a tactic used by the weak against the strong. They use ‘terror’ [not as an ‘act of war’ like 9/11] but as an attempt to weaken their adversary, highlighting it’s vulnerability.
Example: Hezbollah used sophisticated psychological warfare techniques to force Israeli mothers to request that their IDF sons return home. This and other psychological operations under the command of Hezbollah’s brilliant leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has transformed the ‘terrorist’ group into one of the major LEGITIMATE POLITICAL PARTIES PARTICIPATING RESPONSIBLY in running the LEBANESE government.
I worked as an entrepreneur in Southern Lebanon with ‘alleged’ Hezbollah members. Our areas of focus were real estate development and small business growth particularly in the agricultural and social services.
I was impressed with Hezbollah’s achievements and their transformation from ‘terrorism’ to Political/Economic Legitimacy. This impression came to my mind again last year when I was in Bulgaria and five Israeli tourists and one Bulgarian bus driver were allegedly ‘killed’ by Hezbollah. I regarded the incident as an Israeli ‘false flag’ in order to incite world condemnation or justify some ‘hair brained’ IDF/Mossad Operations into Lebanon.
This is a bad strategy and the reasons it won’t work are manifold:
“I don’t know if that makes sense or if you really can say there’s a political wing and a terrorist wing”. This was said by Sylke Tmepel, editor of a journal from the German Council On Foreign Relations. He added more incisively, “They belong together like my left leg and my right leg.”
Presumably, the EU feels that it can curtail the funding activities of about 1000 EU Hezbollah members if they were ‘blacklisted’. Good luck! It has never happened before with any group involved in presumably ‘illicit activities’.
In the past, France and Sweden have opposed placing Hezbollah on the ‘terrorist list’ because IT WOULD DESTABILIZE LEBANON!!! Sidebar: Some of the more strategic minded EU members believe that was a big mistake to list Hamas as a terrorist group because of the important political/economic and psychological leadership role it plays in Gaza and in Palestinian politics. This listing of Hamas prevented constructive, peaceful settlement of the Palestine/Israel conflict.
Lastly, an anonymous ‘senior Israeli official’ reiterated the obvious conundrum- “A half-baked move. It’s like trying to get into the swimming pool and not getting wet.”
The real problem in Syria is that there is a real war between Shiites and Sunnis as reified by Iran vs Saudi Arabia.
My long term bet –the next five years—is that Iran with the help of Russia, China and Syria will dominate the Middle East.
And that Saudi Arabia and UAE are in line, as unfortunate as it may or may not appear, for extinction.
Iran—PERSIA—has been a dominant intellectual civil society in whatever guise it assumes for eons upon eons.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE are the artificial creations of the Post War WWI English/French MORIBUND HEGEMONY.
Like the FRENCH and BRITISH EMPIRE—SAUDI ARABIA and THE UAE –WILL DISAPPEAR ---SOONER THAN LATER.
The Former Famous Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir (born in America) said the following:
“You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.”
“You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.”
Amen!!!
I didn't know that Golda Meir was born in this country. That makes her betrayal of the USA even worse. She threatened this country with nukes pointed at Egypt and Damascus in October 1973--which would start WWIII--and promised to nuke Russia if it came to the aid of Syria unless we sent aid immediately. The Samson Option. She threatened the life and security of everyone in the USA. No one knew because every journalist was sitting dumbstruck by Woodward and Bernstein, green with envy and consumed by Watergate. Her threat was worse than the Bay of Pigs. As Israeli historian, Avner Cohen, wrote, Meir mobilized 13 nuclear weapons to make her point.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that makes me really uncomfortable whenever I'm in a Jew's house is how obcessively clean everything is kept. If I to into the bathroom or the kitchen everything is absolutely spotless as though in a surgical theater or something...it gives me the creeps that every Jewish home I've ever been in is like that. And the food is just terrible, and the furnishings and decor are sometimes expensive but never tasteful.
DeleteWhen I saw Speilberg's "Munich" there is a scene in Golda Meir's house and IT LOOKED EXACTLY LIKE THAT.
I could almost smell the smell of a Jewish house when I saw that scene - the horrible food smels and the disinfectant and soap and so on.....
PC-my bad, GM moved here when she was a tot, she actually was born in Kiev- grew up in U.S.
ReplyDeleteOh. OK. Doesn't absolve her of the rest I wrote about, though. IMO.
DeleteAll right, so this is a job for the penniless and dying American etymologist, just back from 10 days in the hospital.
ReplyDelete"You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist” was said by Indira Gandhi in 1971, regarding peace with Pakistan. However, the saying had been cited in American newspapers in the 1950s and 1960s and was possibly used by the Chinese in the 1930s. See the new entry on my website:
"You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist"
We all plagiarise! But there is always somewhere with a big nose who knows!!!!!
ReplyDeleteDr.P I think it's an exaggeration to conclude that Iran will dominate the region.
ReplyDeleteIt's true that Iran has previously been intellectually/economically/militarily superior to the Arabs, however that's history.
The Iranians are concerned with their own security, and that means influence over their immediate sphere and some minor forays regarding Lebanon...but that's all.
The Iranians have no messianic or hegamonic designs on the region.
As for the Saudis and other Emirs collapsing I'm not holding my breath either.
The populations of those countries just don't have the motivation to rebel. They don't see any point to it. What would they gain? Remember in Tunsia the rebellion started because of POVERTY AND LACK OF ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY. The same conditions existed in Egypt and in Syria. But in the Gulf [except for Bahrain] there isn't any dire poverty to motivate people to rebel. Remember a year or so ago the Saudis gave every citizen a handful of cash right after the uprising in Bahrain?
As for Hezbollah I agree that naming them terrorists is absurd, and only illustrates how hypocritical and hollow the government use of that term usually is....
ReplyDeleteHezbollah fills a vacume in Lebanon for a civil/security institution because the Lebanese government is a joke.
And of course the first security need of Lebanon is to counter the Israeli threat, which Hezbollah is effective in doing through irregular techniques.
It's hard for US intel old-timers though to see past what Hezbollah did to the US personnel though in the eightees. If I'm not mistaken among their various crimes against Americans was the slow, agonizing torture death of the CIA Station Chief William Buckely. It's impossible to put an atrocity like that behind you.
His name was William Buckley, and his torturers made a video tape of him as they took a hammer and broke every bone in his body.
DeleteThe British Empire has not fallen but has reincarnated as the American Empire. The British are still pulling the strings from the back seat, and the United States is once again a British colony. Saudi Arabia, Qatar etc. are imperial protectorates. They could not last a week without imperial backing. There is no real Sunni-
ReplyDeleteShia war, only an artificial one concocted by the
Empire. It is the age-old divide and conquer policy. The oil protectorates will fall when the Empire falls.
Friend you are so wrong.
DeleteThe US government isn't influenced by the British.
Even if the British had to means to influence, much less control, what Americans do the Brits could never agree on what to do.
Frankly I'm shocked you could live in the UK and have so little understanding of your own elites.
The English elites are terribly divided on major things.
For example, well into the second world war they couldn't agree on what to do about Germany.
Many English aristocrats and businessmen wanted to support Hitler so as to defeat the USSR.
Others wanted to merely appease Hilter, and these were the strongest force until the failure of the Norway campaign.
And in the minority until Norway were the few like Churchill who hated the Germans because of WWI and wanted to destroy it regardless of who their government was.
The only thing the English elites had in common was that no one among them saw any particular issue with the Nazi government as opposed to any other.
It's only after the war that they claimed to be anti-Nazi.
how come on a question and debate about politics in the ME 2013 you come back with all that crap re WW2 and what the aristocrats UK thought about Hitlers? never mind them. they no longer exist ...turned all the lot into jews pal. as has every royal in the world, it seems. which is what will destroy the ME. the war is jews viciously stirring up goi to harm each other. the islamics saw it long ago...and now the commons of the west are seeing the same. nobody in their right mind even listens to the lord and lady hoggs opinions about anything. get real mister.
DeleteThis is smart commentary by Dr. P, BTW.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Dr. P, very insightful commentary.... anyone who doesn't think the British elites (and their counterparties worldwide) still control the western, worldwide imperium and the American political class, specifically, is gravely mistaken. Who do you think controls Wall Street and the Federal Reserve Bank? The Committee of 300 never disappeared, nor did the British Empire ever consider the Americans as more than a pesky rogue territory, to be brought back under the boot by financial means in time. Ever read the Treaty of Paris at the American rebellion's close? The British king remained the "Prince of America" and all English assets remained in tact or were compensated for. The "City of London" owns Wall Street, after wars in 1812, the 1830's, and British 'divide et impera' machinations under the surface of the !860's U.S. Civil War, they finally slipped the knot at the installation of the Federal Reserve in 1913 under the English (Morgan) stooge Wilson. Tell me the English oligarch's don't have any influence on America when you explain to me how the entire sum of America's combined Federal Income taxes are collected by the I.R.S. (a private corporation) and sent to the I.M.F. (another private corporation domiciled in Puerto Rico) each year as partial interest debt service on monies loaned by the Federal Reserve (another private corporation owned by the same owners as the private corporation Bank of England) to the U.S.A. government corporation....?
ReplyDelete