JEDDAH, 21 August 2006 — Now that the 34-day war on Lebanon is perhaps over, it is imperative to decide who won. In my view, the Israeli war on Iran and Syria which took place on Lebanese soil had a completely different agenda and objectives. Yes, on one hand, we can applaud Hezbollah for destroying a dozen Israeli tanks and killing a few soldiers and we can congratulate them for winning the war based on tactical and basic assessments. Or we can see it differently based on the true Israeli objectives.
Unless we see things accurately, we can never have true and clear objectives and plant a good vision. I believe that Israel’s real objectives were to test Hezbollah’s weaponry and army strength for future plans, push Hezbollah off the blue line as far as possible and replace it with a Lebanese and international army to take responsibility, hurt Hezbollah’s fighters and damage its image in the eyes of its followers by killing and uprooting them as much as possible and most importantly take away the negotiation card (Hezbollah) that Syria and Iran have for bargaining with the US; Syria for the investigation of the Rafik Hariri assassination, as well as controlling Lebanon again because it provided very well for the Syrian regime; and Iran for nuclear reasons and Shiite prominence in the region.
I think Israel made the Arab world “illusively believe” that Hezbollah won this war for a very vital reason, to make all Arabs and especially Muslims feel proud. Yes, feel proud so that they exhaust all their frustration and think less and less of any possible immediate revenge, especially after wiping out more than 1,100 civilians from the south and uproot more than 500,000, all supporters of Hezbollah.
This feeling will be even greater when Ehud Olmert is out of the Israeli government, making the Arabs feel they won even further. In a nutshell, Israel created an “illusive” feeling that Hezbollah won the war, making the Arabs focus on the wrong objectives, while the planners of this war are triumphing behind curtains for meeting their true objectives.
The same illusive plan will take place with US President George W. Bush, since it is his last year in the presidency. I believe that we will start seeing the UK distancing itself from the US in order to clean its hands from the latest Iraqi and Lebanese wars, while Bush will be “a burning card” to make the Arabs feel they won again, creating the “illusive win” after they have achieved their main and real objectives in Iraq, which are to control Iraqi oil, and create a civil war so that Muslims eliminate each other, keeping in mind that it has always been a population race between the Muslims and the rest of the prominent religions.
