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Lebanon, Hezbollah and the Upcoming US-Iran Confrontation

Dr. Joseph Hitti - 4/10/2006

CNN's Wolf Blitzer hosted Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker magazine to discuss Hersh's recent article where he quotes very highly reliable sources in the White House and the Pentagon as saying that the US is contemplating the option of a nuclear attack on Iran's nuclear facilities for two primary reasons:

1 - In 2004, the US had given the European Union 2 years to resolve the Iranian nuclear impasse by diplomacy, on the insistence of the EU who was pontificating about the United States' rush to war in Iraq. The Europeans have now given up on that approach since it met with total failure, with Iran turning down all offers for peaceful alternatives. The international consensus at this time is that Iran is now determined to build a nuclear bomb, and intelligence estimates predict it will get there in 8 - 10 years.

2 - Iran's nuclear facilities are spread out across the country, but the most dangerous one, according to US intelligence, lies 75 feet underground below solid rock. This means that no conventional weapon – not even the most advanced deep-penetration type of missiles - can accomplish the complete destruction of the facility in a reasonable operation. The purpose in this type of operation is usually to maximize the ratio of impact over bomb capacity used, and US military experts know that no conventional bomb in their arsenal can accomplish this mission. Hence the nuclear option.

Seymour Hersh's main point is that the plans for an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities are in their final stages, and only the US President's order is required to launch an execution. However, in recent discussions between the White House and the Pentagon, as the plans were being finalized, the JCS (Joint Chiefs of Staff) requested that the nuclear option be eliminated from the menu of options, but the White House refused and insisted that the nuclear option be kept on the menu.

In recent speeches, both President Bush and Vice-President Cheney have maintained a very hard line against Iran's nuclear program, leaving no doubt that the showdown between Iran and the international community is quickly headed towards the military option. In addition, political observers have been reporting that President Bush, who has close to 2 years in office remaining and without any prospects for re-election, may see this moment of his term as an opportune time to deal a deadly strike against Iran's nuclear program, thus completing his record for history and posterity as the anti-terrorism president par excellence.

If this is the landscape going forward, then where does that leave Lebanon, and in particular Hezbollah? The comfort level for many in the American Lebanese community is getting narrower and narrower, as the future of Hezbollah remains mired in ambiguity in the ongoing national dialogue in Beirut. The support many of us here give to a negotiated arrangement with Hezbollah for putting down its weapons, integrating civil and political life, and severing its ties to Iran is becoming harder and harder to justify to both ourselves and to the American public. This is likely to become a virtually impossible task to do once, and if, a violent confrontation erupts between the US and Iran. The nuclear option makes that discomfort closer to a feeling of severe nausea, and the remedy is for Hezbollah - either as part of the National Dialogue or unilaterally - to declare the severance of its ties with Iran and its re-orienting of its identity to a purely Lebanese platform that leaves everyone in Beirut and in the Lebanese Diaspora worldwide reassured that Lebanon will not be drawn - yet again by Hezbollah - into a maelstrom of regional conflicts, particularly not in a conflict with the United States.

Iran is on a collision course with the United States and the international community, with potentially disastrous consequences for the region. Those of the Lebanese - both at home and abroad - who have supported giving Hezbollah a decent exit strategy, by committing it to a negotiated and honorable mechanism for implementing UN resolution 1559, should now be asking Hezbollah for clearer and unambiguous language regarding distancing itself from Iran and disengaging Lebanon from the Israeli-Arab conflict, both in line with the will of the international community and, more importantly, the will of the Lebanese people who have tired of fighting the wars of others at the expense of their own welfare and the wellbeing of their country.