WarSclerotic

Israel Hayom | A murderous alliance unravels.

Elliott Abrams is a senior fellow for Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. This piece is reprinted with permission and can be found on Abrams’ blog “Pressure Points” here.

“Hamas rules out military support for Iran in any war with Israel,” read one headline in the British newspaper the Guardian recently.

The statements made by Hamas leaders indicating that they “would not get involved” and are “not part of military alliances in the region” are significant. They show that Hamas wants to be on the winning side and has concluded that the Syria-Iran-Hezbollah axis is no longer on the rise. Only two weeks ago, Hamas started backing the Syrian opposition against the Assad regime, which has hosted Hamas’ leadership in Damascus for many years.

In past years, the general assumption was that if Israel hit Iran’s nuclear facilities, retaliation would come not only from Iran but from Hamas and Hezbollah as well. These remarks and actions from Hamas raise the question of whether Hezbollah will also give this one a pass. After all, Hezbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah knows full well that Israel’s retaliation, should Hezbollah start a war, would be even greater than it was in 2006 (when Hezbollah’s capture and killing of several Israeli soldiers sparked the Second Lebanon War).

After that war, Nasrallah stated that “we did not think, even one percent, that the capture would lead to a war at this time and of this magnitude. You ask me, if I had known on July 11 … that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely no.”

Nasrallah must realize that if he fires missiles into Israel’s cities, as he did in 2006, the reaction this time would hurt Hezbollah more because one of the lessons Israel learned from that war in 2006 is that it must hit harder and quicker. And this time around, the Assad regime may not be around to help rebuild Hezbollah. A weakened Hezbollah would then face a furious Lebanese public, once again dragged into a conflict they did not want and that did not involve their country and its interests.

Hezbollah must also take note of growing Lebanese protests against the slaughter in Syria. Walid Jumblatt, the Lebanese Druze leader who has changed sides often over the decades, always trying to align himself with the winning side, has denounced Bashar al-Assad in strong terms and even urged the Syrian Druze population not to fight for the regime. He has described the events in Syria as “genocide.”

Now Saad Hariri, leader of Lebanon’s Sunni community and son of the slain former prime minister Rafik Hariri, has flat out called Assad a murderer. In a recent speech, Hariri said “There is a murderer called Bashar al-Assad’s regime, who commits daily, red-handed, dozens of killings, documented in video and audio all over Syria.” In an obvious reference to Hezbollah, he added “What kind of religion, ethics and Constitution allows all these crimes? Where is the interest of Lebanon in betting on a regime drowning in the death fields that it created? This is an unethical bet and justification, and no Lebanese is honored to have among his leaders someone involved in covering the slaughtering of the Syrian people.”

The murderous alliance between Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah, one that has brought war and death to Syria and Lebanon, is coming apart. The only thing that could stop this is an Assad victory in Syria – a complete crushing of the opposition. So far, the “international community” is standing on the sidelines and watching Syrians getting killed by the thousands by Assad loyalists, month after month after month. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently said “world opinion is not going to stand idly by” but “world opinion” is not going to defeat Assad’s tanks. If we want Assad to fall, if we want to see the further demise of what has truly been an axis of evil, the United States will have to do more than provide speeches.

From “Pressure Points” by Elliott Abrams. Reprinted with permission from the Council on Foreign Relations

This entry was posted on March 9, 2012 at 8:32 AM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.