Why the Bush Administration Wants to Negotiate Now with Hezbollah

The Israeli Project Has Failed in Lebanon

By FRANKLIN LAMB
CounterPunch

Note: This is the second installment in Franklin Lamb’s extraordinary three-part series, which we are publishing across Thursday, Friday and the weekend. Editors.

"......US allies are urging the Bush administration to open dialogue with Hezbollah and efforts to isolate Hezbollah have failed.

British Defense Secretary Des Browne in a newspaper interview published in the March 30 2008 UK Daily Telegraph agreed with Jonathan Powell, formerly Tony Blair's top adviser, that Hezbollah should be engaged in discussions. The efforts to politically isolate Hezbollah along with Hamas have failed. Just last week the French Embassy in Beirut invited Hezbollah's foreign affairs representative to lunch. President Carter's meetings with Hamas will accelerate the process.

In addition, pro-Hezbollah sentiment is growing in Jordan and Egypt as reflected in legislation introduced in the Jordanian Parliament this week to abrogate the Oct. 26, 1994 Treaty with Israel. While the proposal will not pass this year, the Bush administration is being advised that both Jordan and Egypt will likely abrogate their treaties with Israel following anticipated rebellions against the Abdullah and Mubarak regimes.

Nearly two-thirds of the 27 Countries that make up the European Union are said to believe that it is doubtful whether there really is a viable military option - American, Israeli or combined - for destroying Hezbollah. The Party is too integrated and has support all over Lebanon and the region. Even if there were, the war in Iraq has effectively eliminated it. The American military's strength has been exhausted in Iraq and Afghanistan and it has inadequate force to devote to a particularly dangerous third front......

'Essential' Bush administration/Israeli projects have failed in Lebanon.

Neither the Sunni-Shia conflict, the Kleiaat airbase, the Al Qaeda affiliates, a civil war nor the planned and supported July 2006 destruction of Hezbollah has been realized.

A brief comment on one of its projects. The Bush Administration and their Welch Club allies brought al Qaeda elements from Iraq to Lebanon and Syria, starting in 2005, for two purposes. One was to fight Hezbollah and thus weaken Iranian influence in the region and the second was to ignite another Muslim Brotherhood uprising in Syria like the April 1981 attack on the Alawite village of Hama or overthrow the Bashar Assad government.......

No viable civil war option

Another reason the White House wants to put out 'feelers' to Hezbollah is that it has concluded that it is not likely to be able to ignite a Lebanese Civil war and what was thought by the Welch Club to be perhaps its most promising project, is not going to happen anytime soon......."