Usa, Israele, MO Wsws 06-07-21
I veri obiettivi della guerra d’Israele
contro il Libano appoggiata dagli Usa
Editoriale
Tesi Wsws
Israele sta cercando di trasformare il Libano in un suo
protettorato, l’attacco militare si colloca nel del tentativo imperialista di
ristrutturazione geo-politica di MO e Asia Centrale, iniziato con l’invasione
di Afghanistan e Irak, e che ha come obiettivo l’affermazione del predominio
Usa nella regione.
Gli Usa
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stanno
apertamente e pienamente legittimando la guerra, preventivamente sancita, come
strumento di politica estera, secondo la dottrina della “guerra preventiva” e stanno
apertamente coordinando le proprie manovre con gli obiettivi militari e i
calcoli politici d’Israele.
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L’attuale
aperta opposizione americana al cessate il fuoco non ha precedenti storici,
come ricorda il Wsj (il segretario di Stato Warren Christopher, sotto
Clinton, mise in atto una serie di iniziative diplomatiche tra damasco e Gerusalemme,
ottenendo almeno temporaneamente un cessate il fuoco;
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Le forze armate israeliane stanno deliberatamente mirando sulla popolazione civile e distruggendo
interi villaggi per rendere inabitabile il Sud Libano per preparare l’entrata
alle truppe israeliane o
israelo-americane, con contingenti di altri paesi nel quadro ONU. Per
poter ristrutturale politicamente il Libano occorre prima distruggerlo
fisicamente.
I quartieri della borghesia di Beirut sono stati
risparmiati, l’attacco è contro quelli delle classi inferiori.
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Per Israele e
Usa la guerra contro il Libano è un passo fondamentale per la destituzione del
regime baathista e per scatenare la guerra contro l’Iran.
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Giornali
borghesi autorevoli come il Financial Times, il Washington Post e
il Wall Street Journal non si adeguano alla tesi della difesa presentata
dall’amministrazione Bush e da Israele come causa reale della guerra (FT:
c’è molto di più che il salvataggio di due soldati israeliani…; WP, WSJ ed
altri: l’attacco israeliano è stato da tempo progettato).
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Gli eventi
recenti chiariscono meglio il significato dell’assassinio, nel febbraio 2005,
dell’ex primo ministro libanese, multimiliardario, Rafik Hariri, dimessosi per
protestare contro la decisione del presidente filo-siriano Lahoud di estendere
il proprio mandato:
Dietro
l’assassinio c’era la Siria: Hariri appoggiava il piano Usa-israeliano di
cacciarla dal Libano, per poi attaccare il movimento hezbollah; a questo
sarebbe seguita un’offensiva contro il regime baathista di Damasco.
gli loro
alleati anti-siriani in Libano hanno sfruttato l’assassinio per lanciare la
cosiddetta Rivoluzione dei cedri, che ha cacciato le truppe siriane, occupanti dagli
anni 1970.
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La
Rivoluzione dei cedri non ha raggiunto tutti gli obiettivi prefissati da Usa e
Israele; ha ottenuto l’estromissione della Siria, ma ha portato al governo del
Libano il suo alleato hezbollah, grazie alla mobilitazione popolare più imponente
di quella organizzata a Beirut dai cristiani maroniti e da altri partiti libanesi
allineati con Washington.
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Il NYT del 20
luglio la valutazione sulla mancata deludente conclusione della Rivoluzione dei
cedri: il governo libanese rimane costretto nella camicia di forza di un
sistema che spartisce le cariche politiche in base alla religione.
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La guerra in
corso è il tentativo di ribaltare l’esito della guerra civile libanese durata
dal 1975 al 1990; Usa, Israele e Francia hanno avuto un ruolo determinante nel
suo scatenamento e nella sua continuazione, con l’introduzione in Libano di
forze americane e francesi e con l’invasione israeliana nel 1982, seguita da 18
anni di occupazione del Sud.
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Il principale
alleato degli Usa era la falange fascista, una coalizione di forze della destra
schierata contro un’alleanza di Organizzazione per la Liberazione della
Palestina (OLP) e sinistra libanese.
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Il risultato
degli intrighi imperialisti fu la cacciata l’OLP, ma anche il ridimensionamento della Falange e
l’emergere di hezbollah, appoggiato dalla Siria.
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L’offensiva
israeliana in atto ha consentito agli Usa di portare in Libano le sue forze
armate, per la prima volta dopo il loro ritiro nel 1983 in seguito al bombardamento
delle baracche della marina americana a Beirut.
Precedenti tentativi israeliani di trasformare il Libano in
un protettorato:
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Marzo 1978, nel
pieno della guerra civile libanese, con il pretesto di azioni terroristiche
OLP, i soldati israeliani passano la frontiera, provocano 2000 vittime
libanesi; sono costretti a ritirarsi per le pressioni internazionali, Israele
mantiene il controllo su una striscia di 12 miglia a nord del confine appoggiando
una milizia di destra, il South Lebanon Army.
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1982, con
Begin presidente, e Sharon alla Difesa, invasione del Libano operazione
chiamata “Pace per la Galilea”, con nuovo pretesto (assassinio a Londra di un
ambasciatore israeliano, a cui l’OLP venne dimostrata estranea). Bombardata
Beirut, espulsa l’OLP, massacro approvato da Israele di migliaia di rifugiati
palestinesi per opera della falange fascista libanese.
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I marines
Usa, amministrazione Reagan, entrano a Beirut; bombardamento da navi americane
dei sobborghi poveri della capitale, risposta libanese con bombardamenti
suicidi, 250 marines morti, ritiro americano.
Israele cerca di mantenere il controllo del Sud, emerge della resistenza
libanese hezbollah, che alla fine caccia Israele nel 2000.
Wsws 06-07-21
The real aims of the US-backed Israeli war against Lebanon
Statement of
the Editorial Board
As the onslaught against Lebanon enters
its tenth day, Israeli troops are poised for a full-scale invasion that has
been prepared by murderous aerial bombardment and the far-reaching imperialist
aims of the war have become all too clear.
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With the full political, financial and military backing of
the United States, the
Zionist regime is attempting to transform Lebanon into an Israeli
protectorate. This military operation is a continuation and escalation of the
imperialist geo-political restructuring of the Middle East and Central Asia
that began with the invasion of Afghanistan
and Iraq, and whose goal is
the establishment of US
domination of the entire region.
The immediate aim of this war—the
elimination of Hezbollah as a military and political force within Lebanon—is
directed against all mass resistance to Israeli and American domination of the
country.
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The Bush administration and its
allies in Jerusalem see this as an essential step toward: 1) the
removal of the Syrian Baathist regime, and 2) the launching of a full-scale war
against Iran.
While the Israeli government and the
Bush administration endlessly repeat propaganda claims that the attack on Lebanon is an
act of “self defense” prompted by the seizure of two soldiers, this assertion enjoys no credibility
among knowledgeable observers.
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As the Financial Times of London
wrote in its lead editorial of July 17, “Israel’s massive bombardment of
Lebanon by land, sea and air in response to Hezbollah’s cross-border raid last
week is now about a great deal
more than recovering two Israeli soldiers seized by Islamist guerrillas—and it
probably always was.”
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Similar assessments have been published in the Washington
Post and the Wall Street Journal, as well as numerous newspapers
internationally. They simply state what is by now
obvious: the Israeli attack on
Lebanon
is the realization of a long-planned act of aggression.
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Recent events have placed in clearer perspective the significance
of the February, 2005 assassination of the Lebanese multi-billionaire and
former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Hariri was killed by a massive explosion that
destroyed his motorcade in Beirut four months after he resigned his post as prime minister in protest
against the decision of Emile Lahoud, an ally of Syria, to extend his term as
president of Lebanon. The
United States and France,
the country’s former colonial
ruler, immediately blamed Hariri’s death on Damascus. Their anti-Syrian allies within Lebanon, predominantly
based on the more affluent
social layers, seized upon Hariri’s killing to launch the so-called Cedar Revolution, which resulted
last year in the withdrawal of Syrian troops, which had occupied Lebanon since
the 1970s.
If, in fact, the Syrian regime was behind the killing, it carried
it out because it had become convinced that Hariri had lent his support to a
US-Israeli plan to drive Syria
out of Lebanon, in
preparation for an assault on the Hezbollah movement, which enjoys mass support
among the impoverished Shiite population and dominates the south of Lebanon. It was well aware that this would be
followed by an offensive against the Baathist regime in Damascus itself.
It is, on the other hand, eminently
possible that the killing was a provocation organized by Israeli or American
intelligence agencies for the purpose of creating a pretext for carrying
through the same plan.
In either case, the current Israeli
offensive is the implementation of precisely such an operation.
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The Cedar Revolution itself
produced disappointing results in the eyes of the Israelis and
Americans. Under the terms of a United Nations Security Council resolution
co-sponsored by Washington and Paris, Syria was obliged to withdraw its troops from Lebanon. The
power of its Hezbollah ally, however, remained intact.
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Indeed, at the height of the anti-Syrian agitation, marked by
well-publicized demonstrations in Beirut
organized by Maronite Christian forces and other Lebanese parties aligned with Washington, Hezbollah organized far larger
counter-demonstrations that brought hundreds of thousands into the streets of
the capital.
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With the specter of a new civil
war before it, the government
that emerged from the Cedar Revolution felt obliged to make a settlement which
included the admission of Hezbollah representatives into the cabinet.
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In an article published July
20, the New York Times
reflected the frustration within the Bush administration and American ruling
circles: “Despite the hopes raised by the so-called Cedar Revolution, which
ended nearly three decades of Syrian control, the government remains trapped in
the sectarian straitjacket of a system that apportions political offices by
religion.” (The Times has no similar objections to the “sectarian straitjacket” of Lebanon’s
neighbor to the south, which not only apportions all political power to
representatives of one religion, but defines itself as a “Jewish state”).
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This comment points to the real
purpose of the current onslaught against the Lebanese people. Its aim is a thoroughgoing political
restructuring of the country, in which the fiercely pro-Palestinian and
anti-Israeli sentiments of the Shiite masses are to be crushed and the power of
right-wing, pro-US forces—above all, the Christian Phalange—vastly expanded.
This is an attempt to reverse the outcome of the Lebanese civil
war, which raged from 1975 until 1990.
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The US, Israel and other imperialist powers, notably
France, played a central role in inciting that long and bloody conflict and
keeping it going, including the introduction of
American and French military forces and an Israeli invasion in 1982 that was
followed by an 18-year Israeli occupation of the south. Washington’s chief ally was the fascistic
Phalange, which headed a coalition of right-wing forces arrayed against
an alliance of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Lebanese Left.
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Imperialist intrigue and
intervention succeeded
in driving the Palestinian Liberation
Organization (PLO) from Lebanon, but the eventual settlement curtailed the power of the Phalange, on
the one hand, and saw the rise of the Iranian and Syrian-backed Hezbollah on
the other. This is what Washington
is determined to change.
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Significantly, the current Israeli
offensive has enabled the US
to move its military forces into Lebanon
for the first time since they were withdrawn in the aftermath of the bombing of
the US Marine barracks in Beirut in October of
1983.
The historical background
Israel has a long history of
attempting to transform Lebanon, through a combination of military pressure and political alliances
with right-wing forces in that country, into a virtual protectorate.
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In March 1978, in the midst of the
Lebanese civil war, Israel
forces crossed the border into Lebanon,
justifying its actions as a
response to PLO terrorist activity. Though compelled by international pressure to withdraw
after its military operations had resulted in more than 2,000 Lebanese deaths, Israel maintained control of a
12-mile strip north of the border by sponsoring a right-wing militia, dubbed
the South Lebanon Army, under the proxy
leadership of one Major Saad Haddad.
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Four years later, in 1982, Israeli President
Menachem Begin and his defense minister Ariel Sharon set into motion a far more ambitious plan to take
political control of all Lebanon
and expel the PLO from the country. Once again, a convenient pretext was found when an Israeli
ambassador was wounded in London
by a Palestinian assassin in June 1982. Though intelligence experts
acknowledged that the PLO had nothing to do with this incident, the Begin
government used the event as a pretext to invade Lebanon.
In an operation entitled,
with consummate cynicism, “Peace
for Galilee,” Israeli troops swept north toward the outskirts of Beirut,
which was subjected to protracted
bombing.
The war forced the PLO’s expulsion from Lebanon
and led to the Israeli-sanctioned
slaughter of thousands of Palestinian refugees by Lebanese fascist militiamen.
The United States also became involved in the
subjugation of Lebanon, with
the Reagan administration stationing marines in Beirut. But direct US
participation in attacks on the poorer neighborhoods of Beirut (which were shelled by American naval
vessels) created deep hostility, leading to the suicide bombing in which nearly
250 marines were killed. The Reagan administration decided to cut its losses
and withdraw from Lebanon.
The Israeli regime, however, sought to maintain control over substantial portions
of South Lebanon. It was out of the popular resistance
to the occupation that Hezbollah emerged as a powerful military and political
force. The guerrilla war conducted by Hezbollah eventually forced Israel to withdraw its forces in
2000.
Israeli military tactics
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The current war is not only about wiping out Hezbollah, but
destroying any resistance within Lebanon to US and Israeli
domination. This desired end goes a long way in
explaining the means that are being employed. Israel is carrying out an
indiscriminate bombardment of the south, the home of the poor Shiite population
and the main base of support for Hezbollah. The Israeli military is
deliberately targeting the entire civilian population, destroying whole villages
and making the entire region uninhabitable.
The Washington Post reported Thursday that Israel has ordered all Lebanese living in
the southern sector below the Litani
River to evacuate the
region within 24 hours.
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The goal is to turn south
Lebanon into a no man’s land so as to prepare the ground for the entry of
either Israeli troops or a combination of Israeli and American forces, with
perhaps other national contingents operating as an “international peace keeping
force” with the imprimatur of the United Nations.
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The Israeli offensive is above all a war against the
Lebanese poor. The more affluent residential neighborhoods of Beirut and other parts of the country have
been largely spared. This is in keeping with US and
Israeli policy during the civil war, when they were allied with the Phalange
against the Shiite masses and the Palestinian refugee population.
The unleashing of death and destruction
against southern Lebanon is
combined with a bombing campaign aimed at the Shiite southern suburbs of Beirut and against
airports, ports, roads, bridges and power stations in the rest of the country.
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The objective is to wreck the country’s infrastructure. In
order to remake Lebanon
politically, it first must be gutted physically. This
gives some idea of what US
imperialism and its junior partner, Israel,
have in store for the people of Syria,
Iran
and beyond.
Nor is there any reason to believe Israel’s
disavowals of plans for a full-scale ground invasion. The more Israeli leaders
discount such a move, the more likely it becomes. While the scale of the
bombing in south Lebanon is
sufficient to kill many thousands of people, it will not achieve Israel’s aims of destroying Hezbollah as a
military and political force, and converting Lebanon into a Zionist protectorate.
Citing the Israeli newspaper Haaretz,
NBC’s evening news program reported Thursday that several thousand Israeli troops have begun crossing the
border into southern Lebanon.
The role of the United States
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The United States
is playing a decisive role in the war. It sanctioned the war in advance and is working in the closest
collaboration with the Israeli military’s US-made and American-financed war
machine to carry it out.
On the diplomatic level, the Bush administration is openly
coordinating its moves with the military objectives and political calculations
of the Israeli government. Washington is coordinating US Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice’s impending visit to the region with Tel Aviv to give
the Israeli military all the time it wants to inflict maximum possible
destruction in south Lebanon. As the New York Times reported on July 19,
“American officials signaled that Ms. Rice was waiting at least a few more days
before wading into the conflict, in part to give Israel more time to weaken
Hezbollah forces.”
There is no precedent for the US government’s open opposition to
a ceasefire. The Wall Street Journal,
in a fairly frank assessment of US
policy published July 19, began by recalling Washington’s
diplomatic role when the last major conflict erupted between Israel and
Hezbollah:
“Ten years ago, when Hezbollah and
Israeli forces engaged in a multiweek bloodbath, President Clinton sent
Secretary of State Warren Christopher to the region for six days of intensive
shuttle diplomacy between Damascus and Jerusalem. In the end, he
won a cease-fire deal that ended the fighting, at least temporarily.
“Today, the Bush administration has a starkly different approach.”
The US
is fully and openly legitimizing war as an instrument of foreign policy. This is a continuation of its military aggression in Iraq, and an anticipation of future aggression
against Syria, Iran, and other
countries. It is bound up with the Bush doctrine of “preemptive war,” which
has been embraced by the entire American political establishment and both
parties of American imperialism—the Democrats as well as the Republicans.
Washington’s determined effort to allow Israel
to continue the slaughter in Lebanon
underscores that the current war is part of US
imperialism’s drive, by any and all means, to establish American supremacy throughout the Middle East.
Whether this reckless and
criminal military adventure will, in the short term, further this objective or
lead Washington
into an even deeper debacle in the region remains to be seen.