Columns Opinion|Columns
Published: 07/23/2006 12:00 AM (UAE) Nasrallah is street smart By Duraid Al Baik, Foreign Editor It is too early to judge if the secretary-general of Hezbollah Shaikh Hassan Nasrallah is smart or foolhardy. However, the performance of the party and its leader, in the past 15 years, suggests otherwise. Hezbollah, which has been fighting Israel for the past 24 years and under the leadership of Nasrallah since 1992, has proved to be a very dynamic organisation which succeeded in all of its "adventures" against the Hebrew state. Nasrallah has helped the party to achieve its goals in almost every aspect, including social, political and most importantly military. Hezbollah has so far fought three wars against Israel. It has won two and is faring very well in the third war that has entered its 13th day. On the other hand, since the launch of the third war against Lebanon and Hezbollah, Israel has scaled down its objectives despite its superiority in the air. The Jewish state, which was talking about ending the war in the first week by liberating their two kidnapped soldiers and dismantling Hezbollah, is finding it difficult to retrieve the tanks from the site of the July 12 attack, where the two soldiers were arrested. Three Mircava tanks, said to be the most secure in the world, were destroyed by Hezbollah fighters, in addition to a state-of-the-art gunship that was bombarding Beirut from the sea. The latter incident happened in front of TV cameras that transmitted it live to viewers all over the world. It was a source of great humiliation for the Israeli military. It is worth reminding the few - such as the New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman (Gulf News July 20) - who believe that Nasrallah is not smart enough to fight this war, that even Nasrallah's enemies think otherwise. The man is still holding two Israeli soldiers, whose liberation was behind the start of the current war. The fact that they are still in Hezbollah's custody presents a big challenge to the smartness of the Israeli generals who are leading the war against the party. They have yet again miscalculated the outcome of the conflict, despite their two previous experiences with Hezbollah fighters during the past 10 years. Americans, such as Friedman, who argue that Nasrallah has set back the democracy movement in the Arab world, implicate indirectly that the US administration has been supporting the move to democracy out of its own choice. However, it is worth mentioning that the US move to spread democracy in the Middle East gained momentum only after 9/11. The support to democratic reforms in the Arab world came as a result of internal security and safety needs in the US rather than being dictated by moral or ethical concerns. Nevertheless, Arab masses welcomed the US push for democracy, but failed to digest its letdown in the Egyptian election which was marred by fraud, especially in its third phase when the ruling party was about to lose its majority in the parliament. The same US administration violated its own rules again when it refused to deal with a democratically elected government of Hamas and decided to cut off all lifelines in order to kill it. To blame Nasrallah for any setback in the emergence of democracy in the Arab world is not logical and is a great failure in understanding the realities of the Middle East. Hezbollah has neither waited for the US-sponsored democracy in order to get its 23 seats in the 128-seat Lebanese parliament nor did it beg for a share of the financial aid set aside by US President George W. Bush to promote democracy. Hezbollah's achievements on different fronts have convinced the Lebanese Shiites (almost 40 per cent of the total population) to vote for the party's candidates despite it being on the US list of terrorist organisations. The party won the hearts and the minds of the Lebanese long before the US began to distribute its token gifts of democracy such as the one it has presented to the Egyptians in 2005. Biggest losers The US and the EU will be the biggest losers if they decide to drop their support for democracy in the region. The march towards democratic participation of citizens in their governance is gaining momentum and will eventually come to fruition with, or without, the support of the US. However, the lack of international support to resolve the problems in the region, especially the Palestinian cause, will create more Osama Bin Ladens and Abu Musab Al Zarqawis. Their philosophy is based on fighting the West, which they believe is the only way to uproot injustice in the region. Nasrallah has neither said he wanted to fight the West, nor was he willing to get back his prisoners by killing innocent civilians. From the very beginning, the party he has led has been directing its guns at the true enemy of the Arabs - the Israeli Army. Some Americans, such as Friedman, have the right to believe that Nasrallah is the most foolhardy terrorist leader and Israel must be given the right and the time to finish him off. Failing to recognise the "faulty party" in the region will help nothing but flare terrorism not only in the Middle East, but in the whole world. http://www.gulfnews.com/opinion/columns/region/10054255.html ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Yahoo! Groups gets a make over. 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