U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice returned from the Middle East almost empty-handed. The Israeli air strike at Qana village in south Lebanon blasted a hole in the American reputation, and plunged the White House into extreme isolation as during the Iraqi war.
The international community, Muslim countries and the Arab World in particular, has got from this conflict a clearer picture of the U.S. blind favor to Israel. The Bush administration, on the one hand singing out concern and sorrow over civilian death and injury, on the other hand rejected immediate ceasefire and is hastily airlifting more bombs to Israel. Even European allies found it hard to echo or follow the U.S. stance, and originally pro-America Arabian countries had to keep their distance. After the Qana village tragedy, even the U.S.-supported Lebanese Prime Minister refused to meet Rice again.
To shake off international pressure and isolation, Rice is trying to map out an "overall solution", which contains three major points: first, end violent conflict; second, establish political principles for long-term solution; third, build a multi-national stabilization troop. The mission of this troop will be to help with humanitarian aid and facilitate the returning home of refugees. But the most important task will be to help Lebanese government army to march southward, disarm Hezbollah, expand the buffer zone in south Lebanon so as to ensure Israeli security.
What worth attention is that first, this proposal is perhaps only an agreement between Rice and Israel, and view of the Lebanese government is unknown since Rice didn't go to Beirut. Second, these three points are in order as Rice announced, but not the one in resolving the problem, since the U.S. has always insisted on the entry of multi-national troops and the driving away of Hezbollah militants before Israeli ceasefire. Rice's proposal will be submitted to the UN Security Council Wednesday for discussion, but we don't know how long will the discussion last.
Even if the Security Council adopts the proposal this week, it might not be implemented as the U.S. wished.
Primarily, Hezbollah cannot be crushed thoroughly. This is because first, it has seats in the Lebanese congress and ministers in the cabinet; second, it is not only deeply rooted in Lebanese Shiite Muslims but has enjoyed a soaring approval rate nationwide over 80 percent after the Qana tragedy, which made it impossible to remove it completely; third, as a product of Israeli occupation of Lebanon in 1982, Hezbollah has the legal banner of "resistance to occupation" as long as Israeli holds control over the Shebaa farms in south Lebanon. Even the U.S.-supported Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said that Hezbollah is a legal organization of resistance and to disarm it by force would trigger a civil war. How can we expect Hezbollah to lay down weapons willingly to the multi-national troops when the much better equipped Israeli army failed to defeat it? Of course, it is possible to drive it out of southern Lebanon and build a buffer zone there. But as long as Israel is in the farms Hezbollah has the reason for existence.
Secondly, both Bush and Rice declared openly that these are only short-term objectives, while the long-term U.S. goal is to take this "golden opportunity" to wipe out Hezbollah and Hamas by the hand of Israel, and at the same time isolate Syria and Iran, so as to change fundamentally the geo-political pattern in this region and build a pro-America "New Middle East".
However, U.S. recent measures ran against its long-term objectives. Its naked preference for Israel and blatant contempt for Lebanese lives and property have set ablaze the anti-U.S. sentiment among the Arabian public. They also plunged originally pro-America Arabian regimes into embarrassment and made governmental support for U.S. policy impossible due to public anger. What's more, rulers of these regimes of course understand that the U.S. democratic reform also threats their positions. Will the U.S. "Greater Middle East Initiative" succeed with neither Arabian public nor governments supporting it?
This comment by Li Xuejiang, chief correspondent of People's Daily Overseas Edition in the United States, was frontpaged by the newspaper on August 2, and translated by People's Daily Online.
