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THE MIDEAST CONFLICT: Grim calculus of victories begins

ANALYSIS: Democracy at risk in shattered country as Iran and Syria stand to benefit

PAUL KORING
POSTED ON 17/07/06

WASHINGTON -- Iran and Syria, both fingered as rogue, terrorist-backing regimes by most Western governments, may emerge from the current spiral of violence with their reputations enhanced in the Muslim world.

As Israeli bombs and Hezbollah missiles rain death in the Middle East, a grim calculus of winners and losers is being calculated from Tehran to Washington, and casualties are mounting.

Hezbollah's brazen cross-border military strike to snatch a pair of Israeli soldiers has set off such bitter and far-reaching echoes because it signalled a sudden end to a whole series of grinding, interlocking confrontations. Lebanon's fragile democracy has been grievously, perhaps mortally wounded. Western efforts to cobble together a united front to confront Iran over its nuclear program have suffered a setback. Fading hopes for a Palestinian-Israeli peace have all but been eclipsed by the smoke of battle and recriminations.

With the renewed violence, so-called moderate Arab and Muslim governments, especially those who have backed the Mideast peace process, now appear impotent -- they were too weak to wage war against Israel themselves, yet incapable of nurturing a embryonic Palestinian state. But embattled Syrian President Hafez Assad can suddenly cover last year's humiliating retreat from Lebanon with a façade of tough talk and offers of refuge for those fleeing the conflict, while Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is basking in the reflected Arab admiration for Hezbollah's boldness, and threatening to wage war if Syria is attacked by Israel.

Hezbollah -- which is both a political party, the champion of Lebanon's Shia underclass, and a powerful militant group holding sway over southern Lebanon -- was presented with a stark choice when Syria left Lebanon last year. If it opted for a solely domestic political role, laying down arms and ending its core struggle against Israel, it would have alienated its vital sponsors in Tehran and Damascus. With one ally, Hamas, embroiled in open conflict with Israel and another, Iran, facing pressure over its nuclear program, the militants opted to strike.

Whether the cross-border strike had an explicit green light from Tehran may never be known.

But Iran builds and supplies the longer-range, modified Soviet-era missiles that Hezbollah has fired deep into Israel, and few believe the escalation could have taken place without a nod from Iran's ruling mullahs.

"The true motives of the Iranian regime are very hard to ascertain, but it is clear that the international community was united coming into this G8 summit [in St. Petersburg, Russia], and sending a very clear signal to the Iranian regime to give up its nuclear ambitions," a senior U.S. official said yesterday, stopping just short of accusing Tehran of staging the crisis as a diversionary manoeuvre.

The losers in this fight are clear. Lebanon, still scarred by civil war, is once again a battleground for the region's powers to fight their proxy wars. The nascent democracy in Beirut, a bold experiment in multi-faith government, may not survive Hezbollah's return to the sword.

Israel's ruthless response will reinforce the widespread Arab view that only Hamas, Hezbollah and their backers are the true champions of the Palestinian cause -- especially when compared with the Washington-friendly regimes in Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

U.S. President George W. Bush's administration, which is struggling to impose peace and extricate itself from Iraq, has reminded the region that its overarching priority is its unalloyed backing of Israel.

In Iraq, Gaza and now southern Lebanon, the superior killing and destructive power of the U.S. and Israeli militaries is strikingly evident. And the willingness to wield that mailed fist rankles hundreds of millions of Muslims, whether or not they back Hezbollah's militant orthodoxy.

© Copyright 2006 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060717.MEANALYSIS17/TPStory/TPInternational/Afric...

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