Tag Archives: Lebanon

Britain, Government, Israel, Middle East, Politics, Society, United States

Escalating tensions could induce a wider war

MIDDLE EAST

SOME are wondering whether the blizzard of missiles, rockets, and drones blasted from Lebanon into Israel in the early hours of yesterday may have been no more than a preliminary.

The shelling could have been much worse but for a series of earlier Israeli air strikes designed to pre-empt plans by Hezbollah to launch an even bigger wave of rockets.

The Israeli air force struck at thousands of rocket launchers and bunkers housing everything from antiquated Soviet Katyusha systems to modern Iranian missiles.

Many of the missiles fired from Lebanon can do serious damage if they hit a target, but as it happens they are mostly easy for the Israeli air defences to detect and destroy.

Nonetheless, this latest fusillade serves to further deplete Israel’s defensive capability – notably, the Iron Dome system – thereby improving Hezbollah’s chances of hitting major targets with more powerful missiles in the future.

The Islamist leadership is claiming to have damaged buildings deep inside Israel, as far south as the outskirts of Tel Aviv – hitting a military base, and a patrol boat further north.

We cannot be sure of this – Israel has prohibited the publishing of photographs of bomb damage, both on TV and via social media. This prevents Hezbollah making a damage assessment.

A state of emergency has also been declared.

Whatever the case, Hezbollah’s attack has been expected for weeks, as payback for Israel’s double assassination of one of its commanders and the Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, killed in the Iranian capital Tehran in July. The revenge strike was delayed because of the Shi’ite holy festival of Arbaeen, when up to two million pilgrims travelled overland from Lebanon and Iran to Karbala in Iraq.

Now their journey is over, the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard – Hezbollah’s real masters – has warned the war will commence in earnest.

Israel says it is well prepared, but it’s pre-emptive strikes yesterday may not have been enough to deflect the onslaught. It’s estimated that Hezbollah has around 150,000 rockets in its secret cache of hidden arsenals. This escalation also seems certain to have put paid to American efforts at brokering a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Central to this is the release of the surviving hostages seized on October 7.

Both sides say they don’t want all-out war. But neither is willing to be the first to turn the other cheek and stop retaliation – so war is looming. If that does happen, it will be on a scale that dwarfs the unfathomable civilian cost of Israel’s heavy assault in Gaza over the past ten months.

Many observers to this conflict believe that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is relying on a constant state of conflict to keep him in power.

As long as there’s no ceasefire in Gaza, an uneasy truce will continue within Israeli politics. If the fighting stops, Netanyahu will be ousted by his rivals, and will face prosecution and perhaps prison on corruption charges.

America is pledged to support Israel in any war against Iran. The U.S. has already deployed vast naval forces, including three nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, to seas around the Middle East.

With our military bases in Cyprus, a little over 100 miles from the nearest missile launchers in Lebanon, the UK would be drawn into the war, too. Expats and holidaymakers in Cyprus would also be in danger.

And within the last few days, Hamas announced that Israelis in Europe and elsewhere were now regarded as targets for attacks abroad.

Meanwhile, schools in northern Israel are closed and up to 100,000 Israelis have been evacuated from the border with Lebanon.

The threats to peace continue to loom beyond the Middle East. Fears are growing that the vortex of escalating violence could drag us and many others into the conflict.

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Britain, Iraq, Middle East, Military, Society, United States

Iraq and the tinderbox of the Middle East: America weighs up its options…

IRAQ

Intro: Learning the lessons of recent conflicts in the region should provide us with a guide concerning the current situation in Iraq

The paradox of the US and UK cosying up to Iran in light of the chaos in Iraq reconciles well with the age-old adage of ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’ – an example that demonstrates in comfortable fashion just what is implied by this historical idiom. And, yet, the crisis in the region leaves the US and UK with little choice.

Over the last ten days images of ISIS fighters massacring Shi’ite captives, brought to us most graphically through the medium of social media, are brutally barbaric and shocking – but, that has been their intention all along; horror is, after all, a weapon of war. It is being used by ISIS in ways that is totally depraved and inhumane of reasoned thinking.

We should be in no doubt. There will be more such images as the insurgents intensify their activities. And with that will come increasing calls for the UK to accept its responsibility for Iraq’s grim predicament and to help to do something to alleviate it.

We should not be misunderstood, either, when it is asserted that the UK is, in some measure, culpable in bringing about the grisly events that are being played out in Iraq. That can hardly be denied. There are, of course, other factors which have played their part, most notably the wave of sectarian conflict that has swept across the Middle East as part of the Arab Spring and revolution. Ultimately, though, in supporting the 2003 military invasion, Britain helped to light the fuse.

Pressure for the UK to re-engage militarily in Iraq must, however, be firmly resisted. There is no public or political appetite for an intervention again at this level on this occasion. Two things have emerged that should be crystal clear, and learning the lessons of recent conflicts in the region should provide us with a guide concerning the current situation in Iraq.

The first is that, like all modern warfare, aerial superiority is the key to victory. This was demonstrated through the use of UK/US air support in the overthrow of Colonel Gaddafi in Libya, and, as it happens, in the way the absence of this support for rebels in Syria has allowed president Bashar al-Assad to continue his onslaught and by surviving as the country’s brutal dictator.

But the second is that air supremacy on its own cannot conclusively defeat an insurgency. Boots on the ground are required – although, crucially, those boots do not need to be US or UK boots. Arguably, those boots can be Iraqi boots. Once the Baghdad military forces regroup following the recent embarrassing defections that ceded so much ground and territory to ISIS, Iraq’s own security personnel should be in a position to claim back much of the lost ground.

For the Iraqi government to regain control, it does look as if US air support will be needed. But such assistance carries significant risks.

With Sunni-Shia tensions already high in the region, how would others in close proximity to events in Iraq react to the US effectively becoming an instrument of Shia might and strength? Middle East conflagrations do have a habit of converging, no more so than in the tinderbox that is Lebanon. US air strikes in Iraq would not auger well for those neighbouring countries that have allegiances with each other.

President Barack Obama continues to weigh up his options. Mr Obama has already approved 300 extra troops to secure the US embassy and Baghdad airport, and calls are mounting in America – notably in Republican quarters – for a more strategic military deployment to help repel the rebels and by restoring order.

In all likelihood the US President will win domestic support for drone strikes. Given what has gone in recent conflicts an air of caution seems certain to be placed over the use of direct air strikes. The use of drones carries risks, too, as innocents caught up in the crossfire, for example, will always consider defecting to the other side for protection. On a calculation of minimising collateral damage to achieve its objectives the use of aerial drones is an option America has at its disposal.

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Britain, Foreign Affairs, Government, Syria, United Nations

Syrian refugees in need of much better support…

Intro: With Syria’s troubled neighbours being forced to cope with unprecedented levels of refugees crossing their borders, the time has come for the West to do more

The sheer scale and numbers of people fleeing Syria’s civil war is an exodus that requires repeating.

Estimates of refugee movements vary, perhaps for obvious reasons, but many more than two million people have left the country since the conflict began.

Many in the West often assume that it is our countries that routinely absorb the largest numbers of refugees, but a glimpse of the facts reveals a far different reality. Undoubtedly, it is Syria’s closet neighbours that have borne the greatest burden – countries that, politically, already have enough problems to deal with.

Consider Lebanon, for example. It has taken more than 800,000 refugees displaced as a result of the civil war, a figure that is almost a fifth of its entire population. In relative terms, that’s the equivalent of the UK experiencing 12 million starving and impoverished people – men, women and children – flowing across its borders. Jordan, Turkey, Egypt and Iraq (including the autonomous Kurdish region in the north) have taken substantial numbers, too. To date, the most generous destination for Syrian expatriates has been Sweden, with more than 15,000 given safe haven.

The UN’s plea that the West accommodates an additional 30,000 has to be seen in the context of this vast and escalating humanitarian catastrophe. Anyone who has read the first-hand accounts, or seen media pictures of these desperately beleaguered people seeking to find shelter, and the basic necessities of life, will come to understand the scale of the tragedy that has affected so many families and individuals.

Estimated refugee movements in Syria.

Estimated refugee movements in Syria.

Aid agencies and charities working in the field have written to the British Government asking that the UK accept a proportion of the refugees. The plea clearly has a moral underpinning that is overwhelming. Though families in the UK may well be feeling the effects of austerity, most would find the suffering that many of these innocent civilians have undergone difficult to comprehend. Taking in our fair share would only amount to a small proportion of the total. More important, however, has to be the provision of fuel, food, water, shelter and sanitation to those tens of thousands struggling to survive in camps across the near east.

As we have come to realise there are many arguments, both for and against, about international aid. In the recent past, for example, there has been the issue over the Indian space programme and the substantial amount of British taxpayers’ money that goes towards it. Resisting that has been the vocal minority of Conservative MPs who would like to see aid given to that project drastically cut. Yet, both the Prime Minister and Chancellor have resolutely stood firm against the instincts of those on the Tory backbenches.

But we have an opportunity now for them to once again to show moral leadership by impressing on the country and international community. By demonstrating magnanimity of outlook and common humanity, the British Government should be forthcoming and welcome a fair quota of Syrian refugees who are in desperate need of help and assistance. It should also consider allocating more funds for the requisitioning of necessities for the refugee camps, as part of a co-ordinated international effort.

As peace talks over Syria will be held this week in Geneva, the Western partners at these talks should surely be able to collaborate and agree on such a plan of action. It is unlikely the war being waged by Bashar al-Assad on his own people will end anytime soon.

Like the conflict that prevailed in Lebanon, the bloodshed in Syria could drag on for many more years. The desperate plight of many Syrians needs to be supported for as long as it takes.

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