“In focusing on Israel, New Delhi is missing the point.” India isn’t alone. While many nations are at least agreeing that Hezbollah should be destroyed even if they aren’t openly siding with Israel, many others are essentially yelling for the war to stop so Hezbollah can re-arm again, by yelling at Israel to stop. Very much missing the point. Israel is under attack and can’t stop.

Something surprising that’s come out of all this are the revelations about the size and strength of Hezbollah. I spend hours each day looking at all sorts of news and info sources and had no idea and probably very few of us did. Even the Israelis are surprised, and that says a lot.

This war, while a tragedy for both Israel and Lebanon, does have a use in separating other nations and the power players within those nations into three basic camps. There are those who are glad Israel is being stuck with the dirty work that would otherwise fall to them and who also are openly supportive of Israel; those who want to see Shiite power greatly reduced while not supporting Isreal or else are openly hostile toward Israel; and those who want Hezbollah and Hamas to win and the Shiites to dominate and destroy Israel.

Virtually every nation with any involvement or interest in Mid-East affairs is now declaring itself one way or the other. The fence-sitters are getting off their fences. To me, this portends the coming allying of nations as the next step. War in the Mid-East is going to unify nations into sides in a way nothing else could because of the oil issue. One oil-producing nation, Iraq, is already involved and 3 more, Iran, Syria and Russia, are on the brink of either being at war or manipulating oil prices or both.

This is what the US diplomacy is currently all about over Hezbollah and Israel. Israel is going to continue to battle Hezbollah until that militia is rendered powerless, and Lebanese infrastructure and civilians will continue to suffer for it, but by preaching “cease fire” “Oil price eases as Rice calls for Mideast ceasefire” the oil price remains stable and the dissenters are held at bay so Israel can continue to do what it must. If Israel is successful, a huge source of world terrorism will be greatly reduced. Temporarily. There can be no permanent end to Islamic terrorism without achieving regime change in Syria and secular regime change in Iran and Saudi Arabia. Lebanon must be restored to a secular government empowered against extremist groups. The sectarian violence in Iraq would greatly diminish with an Iranian regime change.

It’s going to be a long road and many battles ahead before this is all over.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 24th, 2006 at 5:05 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.