Smart power not looking so smart about now: Speaking of the Obama attitude towards Israel, which was apparently, “Do as I say or I’ll hold my breath ’til I turn blue over settlements!” is now—over. Never mind. Forget the settlement freeze. What-EVER. I have more important things to concentrate on, like being really pissy in press conferences. (Really, it was on during the soap I DVR, and I could not get over how pissy the President of the United States was. It was like watching an SNL parody of a presidential press conference.)

The really smart power: So, you know what kind of smart power works? The kind that comes with high explosives dropped from the air.

Syria refused to fight on Iran’s side in case of a military stand-off between Tehran and Israel following an attack on its nuclear facilities, an American document published by WikiLeaks revealed on Wednesday.

The strong horse wins in Arabia, Barry.

Wikileaks implicate Hezbollah, again: I’m starting to think that Israel is the only state in the world that’s actually benefiting from Wikileaks. No wonder Iran is accusing Israel of being behind them. This time, we have proof of Hezbollah’s involvement in a Jordanian terror attack on Israelis.

Nice peacekeeping unit you have there. Shame if anything should happen to it: If war breaks out in Lebanon, the first ones to go will be the UN peacekeepers says—Hezbollah. I anxiously await the statements of condemnation from an outraged UN General Assembly. (No, of course I don’t. Israeli Double Standard Time rule is in effect.)

No, not really.

There were a bare handful of news articles. Apparently, news that will bear out Hezbollah’s violation of UNSCR 1701 is, well, not news.

The AP spun the story around so much that you can barely tell what it’s about. Two days ago, it released an article that actually described the event. But subsequent updates watered it down so much you can’t even tell what the story is about.

Note the headline: “Israel says images show Hezbollah’s intentions.” This was doubtless taken from one of the sentences in the article, but where does it indicate that Hezbollah is building up weapons and infrastructure in civilian areas? Certainly not in the headline. In fact, nowhere in the entire AP article will you find a word mentioning the fact that the weapons are in civilian areas.

The Israeli military says aerial photographs of alleged Hezbollah weapons depots in southern Lebanon demonstrate the threat from the group, but officials say imminent military action against the Islamist militants is unlikely.

[..] Israeli security officials said another round of violence between Israel and Hezbollah did not appear imminent. Rather, Israel made the material public to warn Hezbollah to get rid of the munitions or face consequences.

The entire story is only four paragraphs long, and the omitted grafs don’t mention the civilian angle, either. So you have the AP releasing an article about IDF photos of Hezbollah weapons caches in civilian areas without a single mention of civilian areas. Because that’s what the AP is all about, passing along Hezbollah propaganda. I mean, news. What, you think I’m making this up? Well, the AP also passed along the information that Hezbollah was really ticked that CNN fired its Middle East editor after she tweeted her praise of Hezbolla’s spiritual leader. They whitewashed the anti-Israel (and pro-Hezbollah) background of the man behind the Lebanese flotilla that was heading for Gaza. Instead of writing the words “UN Security Council Resolution 1701,” AP refers to “A U.N. deal to end the 2006 war between Israel and the Shiite militants required Hezbollah to disarm.” A binding UN resolution becomes a deal. Non-binding General Assembly resolutions? Well, of course, Israel is in “violation” of those. (But I digress.)

But honestly passing along the news that Hezbollah is hiding weapons caches in civilian areas? Forget about it. That one’s gone. And it will stay gone, if Israel has to go into those villages and civilians die. Wait for it.

Note to Israeli media: ALL of Obama promises have expiration dates. Just because Axelrod said Jerusalem isn’t going to be an early topic at the proximity talks doesn’t mean it won’t. Here’s a list of most of the broken promises. Meryl’s prediction: Jerusalem moves front and center, quickly.

Anti-Semites of the world, just die already: And soon. Nothing in particular brought this on; just a feeling I have at the moment.

Hizballah scuds? A drop in the ocean. Oh, this is comforting. The head of Israel’s military intelligence says that there is a constant, organized, massive influx of missiles to Hizballah, and that the terrorist group is now far better armed with missiles that reach longer and deeper into Israel than ever before. Where are the missiles coming from? Syria. Say, Obama, that outreach is working just fine. Smart power! Say, UN, good job keeping southern Lebanon free of weapons! Smart power!

I’m so happy that UN is concentrating on the important things, like a day of mourning for the Palestinians to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the UN partition of the British Mandate. It’s great that Nobel Peace Prize winners are calling for the expulsion of Israel from the UN, but not a nation that has taken an armed terrorist group, responsible for the deaths of Americans and Israelis the world over, into their government and made them legitimate—even as they regularly threaten to use their weapons to destroy Israel.

Now we learn that Hezbollah is actually better armed than many countries! (via memeorandum)

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday that Hezbollah has more missiles than most governments in the world, during a joint press conference with Defense Minister Ehud Barak in Washington.

“Syria and Iran are providing Hezbollah with so many rockets that they are at a point where they have more missiles than most governments in the world,” said Gates.

Barak told reporters that Syria was transferring weapons systems to Hezbollah and that Israel is closely watching the developments, though he assured Israel did not plan to provoke a conflict.

That rapproachment really has gotten Syria and Iran to rein in their client hasn’t it? I wonder what level of arms Hezbollah is shooting for next?

Crossposted on Yourish.

Harb, Moussa Ali Hamdan of Brooklyn and Hasan Antar Karaki of Beirut were also charged with seeking to funnel to Hezbollah counterfeit money and stolen cash generated by the sale of phony passports, with Hamdan acting as a U.S.-based conduit to a confidential government witness based in Philadelphia.

Hodroj was identified in court documents as a member of Hezbollah’s political council and has been identified in news reports as spokesman and head of its Palestinian issues portfolio. None of the four is in U.S. custody and all are believed to be overseas, said Patricia Hartman, spokeswoman for Levy.

So he’s a member of Hezbollah’s “political council” and he was smuggling arms to Hezbollah. So that would mean that there’s not much difference between the “military” and “political” wings of Hezbollah. Wouldn’t it?

Can you find the error? Ok, I’ll tell you: the words “military wing of Hezbollah.” This is a gimmick used by Hizballah [my transliteration] and Hamas, too, to fool people in the West. It is used by advocates of engagement with these radical Islamist terrorist groups in places like Britain.

Sure, they say, there is a military wing and a political wing. The latter is moderate or becoming so and thus you can negotiate with them separately. This is rubbish. There is no such differentiation except for normal administrative purposes. The same leadership and doctrine runs both.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Chavez cause-and-effect: Gee, let’s think. A nation’s president blames Jews and demonizes Israel on a constant basis. He pals around with Hezbullah, which is now said to be setting up camp there. His countrymen then perform more acts of anti-Semitism (including government-sponsored raids on Jewish centers). Somehow, I can’t figure out why that’s happening. How about you?

Oh, look: More Arab civilian deaths ignored by the world. Yemen is bombing marketplaces, but HRW isn’t getting its panties in a bunch over it. Why? Say it with me, folks: Because it isn’t Israel.

The AP notices that townhall protesters are average citizens: Oh, they push the “organized opposition” line in the first few paragraphs, but overall, they’re starting to notice that the anger is real, and that Americans don’t want socialized medicine. The media narrative is being broken. Except, of course, by the denizens of the New York Times op-ed page. This is a great thing. That healthcare bill is dead in the water.

Palate cleanser: Molly Ringwald’s tribute to John Hughes. It will make you go, “Awwwww.”

According to the sources, the aircraft was carrying a large number of modern fuses composed of 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of explosives and electrical instrumentation.

The report is in line with testimonies on explosion sounds heard before the crash. According to the sources, the plane was meant to transfer the fuses from Iran to Armenia, and from there to Syria through Turkey, and then on the ground to Lebanon. This route was chosen, according to exiled opposition sources, so as not to draw attention.

Chalk another one up to our terrorist buddies in Lebanon and Syria. And it’s just lovely that the Turks are complicit in this terror track as well. Why on earth shouldn’t we trust them to negotiate between Israel and Syria?

When this war is over and Israel’s troops are gone from Lebanon, and when the rage at Israel begins to subside, it will be Nasrallah’s turn – like Nasser’s four decades ago – to answer to fellow Arabs for his actions.

I was dismissive, as it appeared that Hezbollah had no intention of keeping its side of the deal – and it didn’t. I was also dismissive because Thomas Friedman had made a very similar point in “The morning after the morning after.”

On the morning after the morning after, Lebanese war refugees, who had real jobs and homes, will start streaming back by the hundreds of thousands, many of them Shiites. Tragically, they will find their homes or businesses badly damaged or obliterated. Yes, they will curse Israel. But they and other Arabs will also start asking Nasrallah publicly what many are already asking privately:

“What was this war all about? What did we get from this and at what price? Israel has some roofs to repair and some dead to bury. But its economy and state are fully intact, and it will recover quickly. We Lebanese have been set back by a decade. Our economy and our democracy lie in ruins, like our homes. For what? For a one-week boost in ‘Arab honor?’ So that Iran could distract the world’s attention from its nuclear program? You did all this to us for another country?”

(Not a surprising sentiment since Hezbollah wasn’t founded to fight Israel as much as it was to create an Islamic state in Lebanon.)

Frankly, I thought that Friedman was trying to be too cute, but he seems to be somewhat on target in this case. As the Washington Post reported the other day.

But the events of the past few years, voters said, made the campaign a broad referendum on Hezbollah. The group’s militia in 2008 briefly seized control of downtown Beirut in a bid to boost Hezbollah’s political power, a move reminiscent of the country’s 15-year civil war. And Hezbollah’s 2006 war with Israel was cited by some voters as showing the danger of allowing the group to keep its arms stockpiles.

What are some of the other factors leading to Hezbollah’s defeat? Now, Thomas Friedman even gives some credit to ex-President Bush.

While the Lebanese deserve 95 percent of the credit for this election, 5 percent goes to two U.S. presidents. As more than one Lebanese whispered to me: Without George Bush standing up to the Syrians in 2005 — and forcing them to get out of Lebanon after the Hariri killing — this free election would not have happened. Mr. Bush helped create the space. Power matters. Mr. Obama helped stir the hope. Words also matter.

“People in this region have become so jaded by the ability of their states to dominate everything and hold sham elections,” said Paul Salem, analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “And mostly the world never cared. And then here came this man [Obama], who came to them with respect, speaking these deep values about their identity and dignity and economic progress and education, and this person indicated that this little prison that people are living in here was not the whole world. That change was possible.”

As I mentioned before I wonder if President Obama’s speech spurred Christians to vote in greater numbers, realizing that he was reaching out too much to the likes of Hezbollah. (I was happy to see that Michael Ledeen feels the same way.

My thinking is more along the lines of the editors of the Wall Street Journal:

This being Lebanon, talks on building a governing coalition are bound to be difficult. But in the bigger picture, this election marks a step forward since the 2005 Cedar Revolution ended the Syrian occupation. And it’s a vindication of America’s policy of democracy promotion. In Pakistan, Turkey, Iraq and now Lebanon, extremist Muslim parties didn’t fare as well as feared at reasonably free polls, and often lost ground. The outcome in Lebanon is another good reason for the Obama Administration to make democracy a priority of its so-called new relationship with the Muslim world — even if George W. Bush also happened to think it was a good idea.

Democracy promotion was decidedly not a part of President Obama’s Cairo speech.

The usually frivolous Dion Nissenbaum recalls another incident that may have hurt Hezbollah.

At the end of the day, in the battle between the pro-Western March 14 coalition and the Iran-backed March 8 rivals, the date that may have mattered more was May 7th.

That was the day last year when Hezbollah fighters easily stormed through West Beirut in a military takeover that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah later called “a glorious day.”

What Nasrallah touted as a great day many Lebanese voters saw as a betrayal.

While Sunday’s election doesn’t signal an end to the Hezbollah threat, it is a welcome development.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

This balance of power will now be transferred to the battle over the cabinet formation. M14 has a clear victory, and so will pick the Prime Minister. The battle, however, will be over the heresy of the “veto third” — which has no existence in the constitution or the Taef Accord. Hariri has been consistently rejecting its continuation in the future cabinet, and he got support today from Jumblat as well, who called it a “fallacy.” M14 will agree to a national unity government, though its principled position now is that it rejects the “veto third” formula. They are making plenty of noise about giving a boost to Suleiman, and how that will materialize remains to be seen. M8 is almost certainly going to reject it and will cite the relatively weak performance of the so-called independents/centrists as support for their position.

via Barry Rubin who writes:

Whatever the result, Hizballah and its allies, including Iran and Syria, will keep up the pressure on the moderate regime, and this could mean crises ahead. One result could be that an attack on Israel from Lebanon is less likely, at least over the next year, as Hizballah and its allies don’t want to disrupt their efforts to bring Lebanon closer to their control. I hate to say this but political assassination–or at least attempts–and other terrorism could continue to be a method of intimidation.

The West is going to be challenged to provide support for the March 14 coalition government.

Legal Insurrection posts some pictures (via Instapundit).

The New York Times reports:

The tentative victory may have been aided by nearly unprecedented turnout. The preliminary results showed that about 55 percent of the 3.26 million registered voters cast ballots. Lebanese television reported that the March 14 coalition, a predominantly Sunni, Christian and Druze alliance, held at least 67 seats out of 128 in Parliament.

The Washington Post reports:

Heavy turnout in Christian districts returned to power a Western-backed coalition in the Lebanese parliament on Sunday, thwarting a bid by the Islamist Hezbollah party to increase its influence.

and

But the events of the past few years, voters said, made the campaign a broad referendum on Hezbollah. The group’s militia in 2008 briefly seized control of downtown Beirut in a bid to boost Hezbollah’s political power, a move reminiscent of the country’s 15-year civil war. And Hezbollah’s 2006 war with Israel was cited by some voters as showing the danger of allowing the group to keep its arms stockpiles.

In a statement to Agence France-Presse, Hezbollah member of parliament Hassan Fadlallah did not acknowledge the group’s defeat, but said it was important that Lebanon “turn a new page, one based on partnership, cooperation and understanding.”

I noted the emphasis on the heavy voting by Christians and wonder if it’s possible that President Obama’s Cairo speech had anything to do with the result. President Obama made it clear that he was reaching out to the Muslim/Arab world; did Lebanese Christians worry more about their future after that and thus vote in greater numbers than projected?

While this victory is good, in that it’s a setback for Iran and Syria, Hezbollah still remains a force.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

More seriously, Amir Taheri considers the possibility of a Hezbollah victory:

If Lebanon comes under Iranian control it could become one arm of a pincer — the other being Hamas-controlled Gaza — designed to subject Israel to low-intensity warfare that would, in time, sap its will to resist. With the completion of the Israeli security fence along the West Bank within the next few months, suicide attacks would become increasingly difficult to organize. The fight, therefore, would shift to the skies with “an endless storm of rockets and missiles raining on Israel from Lebanon and Gaza,” as Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in an election campaign message last month.

With its clients in control of Lebanon, Iran would build a naval presence in the Mediterranean for the first time since the seventh century. Experts from the Revolutionary Guards have visited the port of Beirut and prepared plans for a visit by an Iranian flotilla before the end of the summer. Six Iranian warships are already on their way to the Red Sea, ostensibly to help combat pirates operating from the Somali coast. In Tehran, there is also talk of helping Hezbollah to develop its own naval units for “resistance operations” against Israel.

And that’s not even considering how Iran would act if it would develop nuclear weapons that President Obama is anxious to convince them not to build with lots of nice words.

Crossposted on Yourish.