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Defeating the Iranian-Syrian axis in Lebanon

By Yaakov Amidror and Dan Diker - posted Tuesday, 1 August 2006


Walid Jumblatt, the Lebanese Druze leader, shares this perspective: "The war is no longer Lebanon's ... it is an Iranian war. Iran is telling the United States: you want to fight me in the Gulf and destroy my nuclear program? I will hit you at home, in Israel."

Hezbollah is not an independent actor. Iran's Revolutionary Guards provide the majority of Hezbollah's weaponry, financing, instruction, and strategic command and control. Most of Hezbollah's terrorist weaponry, particularly short- and medium-range missiles - including the Zalzal missile that can reach as far as Tel Aviv, 150km from Israel's northern border - are manufactured in Iran and exported to Lebanon via the Damascus International Airport. Weaponry and materials are then openly transported by truck convoys to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

According Israeli intelligence, Iranian officers from the Revolutionary Guards are on the ground in Lebanon, playing active roles in supervising terror actions and training Hezbollah operatives to launch rockets against Israel. On July 14, Hezbollah fired an Iranian copy of a Chinese C-802 Kowthar missile at an Israeli warship, killing four crew members. These rockets have been in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' arsenal for four or five years.

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Some of Hezbollah's weaponry is manufactured by Syria and is provided to the terror organisation at the direct order of President Bashar Assad. The rockets in the first barrage that struck the northern city of Haifa on July 16, killing eight Israelis, were manufactured and supplied by Syria. Other medium-range Syrian and Iranian missiles are also in Hezbollah’s stockpile but have yet to be used against Israel.

Dimensions of the conflict

On a macro level, there are three dimensions to the current war against Hezbollah:

The first dimension is Hezbollah's ability as a highly-disciplined terror force with approximately 13,000 rockets that have wreaked havoc on hundreds of thousands of Israelis in northern Israel. Additionally, its ground forces were previously deployed right up to the Israeli-Lebanese border, oftentimes within rifle range of public buildings in Israeli towns and villages. In this regard, it is abundantly clear that Israel cannot allow Hezbollah to return to its former positions in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese army must be deployed to ensure that southern Lebanon remains free of Hezbollah control.

Second, Hezbollah cannot be allowed to be the driving force that decides, whenever it so chooses, together with its Syrian and Iranian patrons, to inflame the Middle East. In this sense, Israel's current war in Lebanon is not punitive; it is strategic. The Israeli air force has struck the main arteries for the transfer of weapons to Hezbollah from Syria and Iran through Beirut International Airport, all Lebanese seaports, and across the Beirut-Damascus highway from the east, which has served as one of Hezbollah's main lines of weapons transport. During the present hostilities, Syria has continued to attempt to resupply Hezbollah in the Bekaa Valley, as well.

In bombing Hezbollah's Daheyh stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Israel is seeking to separate it from Hezbollah forces further south. Thus, Hezbollah is being cut off from Syria and Iran and isolated from the rest of Lebanon. Hezbollah has waged an insurgency against Israel from the mini-state it has created inside of Lebanon. The only way to defeat an insurgency is to first isolate it from external reinforcement. That is what Israel is seeking to do. In a second phase, the insurgency must be disarmed. In this regard, the international community must enforce UN Security Council Resolution 1559 that imposes the obligations of state sovereignty and responsibility on Lebanon to force the Hezbollah to disarm, as even French President Jacques Chirac has demanded.

The third and broader dimension of the escalating conflict is that Hezbollah is nothing less than an extension of Iran's Revolutionary Guards. Iran has taken a strategic decision to activate Hezbollah terror against Israel in order to preclude the United States and its Western allies from stopping Iran's nuclear development program. The uprooting of Hezbollah's military capacity will neutralise one of Iran's most dangerous and valuable deterrent threats against any country that attempts to act against Tehran's nuclear weapons program.

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The stakes for Israel and the West

Israel must carry out its current military operation against Hezbollah until it is fully neutralised, disarmed, and unable to serve as Iran's long "arm" that can bring terror upon Israel and destabilise the Middle East region at will. The current Israeli victims of Hezbollah terror will not have sacrificed their lives in vain if Israel conducts its war to an uncompromising victory. However, if Hezbollah is allowed to remain a military force in Lebanon or even an armed presence in southern Lebanon, Israel will have indeed sacrificed its soldiers and citizens in vain, and will also suffer similar attacks in the future.

Furthermore, it is a primary interest of the international community that Hezbollah be fully neutralised as a military extension of Iran. Only a full victory against Hezbollah will allow the possibility for Lebanon to emerge as a free and democratic country. This is also in line with the Bush Administration's vision of helping the peoples of the Middle East to free themselves of tyrannical and fundamentalist elements and prevent the threat to the region of a nuclear Iran. This underscores the regional and international importance of Israel's current mission.

Any Syrian or Iranian forces or advisors in Lebanon are legitimate targets for Israel. Israel must send a clear message to Bashar Assad that it will not accept any Syrian interference in Lebanon. However, while Israel should not open up a front against Syria at this juncture, if Syrian forces show any type of movement, Israel must be ready to engage them.

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First published in Jerusalem Issue Brief Vol. 6, No. 2 on July 19, 2006.



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About the Authors

Major-General (res.) Yaakov Amidror, Program Director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs, is former commander of the IDF's National Defense College and the IDF Staff and Command College. He is also the former head of the IDF's research and assessment division, with special responsibility for preparing the National Intelligence Assessment. In addition, he served as the military secretary of the Minister of Defense.

Dan Diker is a senior policy analyst at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and heads its Defensible Borders Initiative. He also serves as Knesset correspondent and analyst for the Israel Broadcasting Authority's English News.

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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