[Please see the original article, which can be found below this response]
The main thesis is frighteningly divisive: It purports to argue that last summer’s war in “Lebanon was a proxy” fight, and Hizbollah “represents a sectarian and Iranian program for us …”
The argument is alarming for it seeks to indirectly “justify” the sectarian flavor espoused by Bernard Lewis and his neo-conservative coterie, to cultivate nascent differences during Islam’s rise. It is also dreadfully misleading for its portrayal of the decisive victory as “appear[ing] to have defeated the US planned invasion…”. It forced the U.S. to "alter" its existing plans of announcing the formation and reliance on the "moderate Arab States," to openly confront the resistance forces. This "proxy" method is no longer beneficial to imperialism.
It fails to point out that the U.S. strategic goals and “interests” in our region are virtually always conducted through the least powerful concentric circle. In other words, the U.S. would not directly target Iraq during the national regime’s reign and elected to draw it down with fictitious and sideline confrontations by other Gulf satellites. Likewise, it aims at “draining” Syria’s real power by forcing its hemorrhage in Lebanon, and encouraging its isolation with other Gulf satellites. The war with Hizbollah was planned and executed by the U.S. and its Zionist client, par excellence. Seymour Hersh’s belated revelation to that effect only solidified Nasrallah’s claim that indeed a plan of strategic proportions was already in place to commence within a few weeks.
The thesis also seeks to simplify the objective conditions of the war in question, and to ignore the dynamics in Lebanon as a hotbed of diametrically opposed camps, so that the Iranian dimension can be relied on to replace the primary contradiction with U.S. imperialism. The thesis is correct; however, to propose that at every major and imminent defeat in Iraq, the U.S. seeks to exploit other peripheral territories. Faluja I battle was a clear signal, and again Faluja II as well. It deflected media attention, for a while, to the ongoing scandal at Abu Ghreib and the “Isr” invasion into Jenin camp.
To view the invasion of Lebanon as a “proxy” war is unimaginative and oversimplification of the prevailing objective conditions: an enemy bent on territorial expansion and subjugation of the land and its resources. It makes the argument less credible to state that such invasion “was a showdown between Iran and the United States …”. While it may be argued that it is one of those dimensions, it is not the most prevalent. Otherwise, why was Syria not lumped into that obtuse equation.
To force the argument that Hizbollah is a “sectarian” entity, while it can be true, is politically callous at a time when the West, in general, is defining the struggle in sectarian terms. Hizbollah has not presented itself as a Pan-Arab movement, and that is precisely its blunder. Yet, one cannot ignore the fact that it is in confrontation with the U.S. and its regional “allies.” For the same reason, it would be sadistically fatal to talk about Hizbollah’s earlier adventures of targeting leftists and non-sectarian thinkers – the likes of Hussein Mroue and Mahdi ‘Amel.
While the thesis makes a compelling argument that the resistance movement in Iraq deserves everyone’s unyielding support, one must be extremely cautious not to fall prey to the “sectarian” card. Lebanon, of the 1970’s, is actively being resurrected. We just witnessed a “sideline” show at Nahr El-Bared camp for the parties to draw the necessary conclusions and prepare for the “next” phase. We ought to make it abundantly clear that we stand with all the forces fighting U.S. imperialism and its extended allies. Iran’s role to “ethnically cleanse” Iraq of the Arab character is condemned in the strongest terms; "Shiite Arabs" are also targeted! But our fight is non-sectarian, form or objective.
Jafar Jafari
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