Joseph Farah in WND (thanks to Gabrielle Goldwater) on why it will not be enough for Syria to leave Lebanon:
The untold story of Lebanon's occupation is that Syrian troops represent only the most obvious part of it. For the most part, the Syrian troops wear uniforms – though thousands of intelligence agents, the most insidious and destructive force, do not.But there is another occupying force in Lebanon today – tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of Iranians or Iranian-backed militiamen and civilians who have emigrated with the express purpose of using Lebanon as a base of operations and to establish an Iranian-style Shiite theocracy.
This invasion has been going on for 20 years – slowly but surely changing the demographics of the country.
There were always Shiites in Lebanon. But before the Iranian revolution, they were a peaceful people, easily assimilated into the country's diverse population of Sunnis, Druze and Christians.
All that changed when the Iranians came.
They came with guns, ammunition, some 13,000 rockets and military advisers from Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
They came with the purpose of using Lebanon as a base of terrorist operations against Israel.
They came to stay.
The whole world is calling on Syria to leave Lebanon after 30 years, but Syrians are hardly the only threat to the peace and stability of a future free Lebanon.
In the long term, the Iranians may represent a bigger threat.
It's not sufficient to recognize, as most do, that Hezbollah is backed by Iran. The truth is that Hezbollah is a creation of Iran. And even if Syrian troops and intelligence agents leave Lebanon, it will still be an occupied nation until Hezbollah is dismantled and the Iranians – all of them – go home.
That pro-Syrian Hezbollah rally wasn't just a peaceful show of "popular support" for Damascus. It was a show of force. It was a threat. It was designed to intimidate the Lebanese people who can't trust their own Syrian-created army to protect them.
Even if the Syrians do leave lock, stock and barrel, they leave behind them a bigger, more well-armed contingent of Iranians.
These Iranians already have plans.
They are going to disrupt. They are going to intimidate. They are going to throw their weight around. They are going to establish their own rules. They are going to establish their own government. They are going to rule over any Lebanese people who get in their way. They are going to kill and main and kidnap. They are going to turn Lebanon into a seething cauldron of strife and mayhem.
No different from what they've done everywhere else, is it?
Today’s Extras:
Q&A on Hezbollah:
http://www.nationalreview.com/interrogatory/newman200503110751.asp
A Look Back:
http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson200503110746.asp
Excerpt:
Even former Clinton National Security Council member Nancy Soderberg recently lamented to Jon Stewart, "It's scary for Democrats, I have to say." And then she added, "Well, there's still Iran and North Korea, don't forget. There's still hope for the rest of us....There's always hope that this might not work."
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As was said elsewhere: “It behooves Neither myself nor John Kerry to do anything.”
Yes, Ms. Soderberg makes that clear.
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Jihad on the American Mind:
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17329
Leftist Academia silences another critic of islam:
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17335
What the MSM has NOT been telling us about Iran:
http://www.nationalreview.com/ledeen/ledeen200503110745.asp
Joseph Farah confirms the point I have been making on other threads here: Hezbollah is NOT a purely indigenous project to Lebanon -- homegrown, organic, patriotic -- and therefore a force that needs to be assimilated into the body politic and negotiated with like the Republicans in Northern Ireland. They are a foreign-seeded and foreign-fed entity that can be macerated, compromised, weakened, and ultimately defeated once their sugar daddies in Iran are taken out.
As Caroline Glick entreats, "don't wobble Prez".
I'M GOING TO REWRITE THIS ARTICLE...
(MUSLIM) LEBANESE OUT OF AUSTRALIA TOO!
The untold story of Muslim Lebanese occupation is that social problems in Sydney only represent the most obvious part of it.
At least occupying troops wear uniforms – these thousands of Islamist Lebanese do not.
Tens of thousands, nay, hundreds of thousands, of Lebanese and their Iranian-backed Clerics have emigrated with the express purpose of using Australia as a base of operations and to establish an Iranian-style Shiite theocracy.
This invasion has been going on for 20 years – slowly but surely changing the demographics of the country.
There were always Shiites in Australia. But before the Lebanese civil war, they were a peaceful people, easily assimilated into the country's tiny population of Muslims.
All that changed when the Lebanese came.
They came with guns, ammunition, some 13,000 rockets and military advisers from Iran's Revolutionary Guards. [Well OK, I admit that bit isn't true, although it sometimes seems like it.]
They came with the purpose of using Australia.
They came to stay.
Here's another slant for you. Iran is less Persian than it used to be. There has been lots of Arab immigration over the last decades. I had a run in with an Iranian here who looked like a darker Arab. You could not tell the difference.
I was able to confirm by court records that he was definitely from Iran.
Found the Glick article:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1110424787209&p=1006953079897
Generated by the USA’s robust geopolitical initiatives since September 11, 2001, progress towards peace - through democratization - in the Middle East and in its environs is deemed to look more promising, at this juncture, than it has for a long time.
But the high hopes being heard today are based on a handful of dramatic changes there, whose repercussions are hardly IRREVERSIBLE. In the Mideast’s shifting sands, the contemporary Western aspirations could easily turn out to be PREMATURE, if not merely a MIRAGE.
Libya’s abandoned its nuclear armaments program; the nefarious atomic weapons proliferation enterprises of Pakistan’s Dr A. Q. Khan’ve been exposed and he’s no longer trading.
Arafat’s death’s directly caused the “Palestinians” to palpably reduce their terrorism against Israel, as talks re-open with a new, freshly-elected, PA leadership. Despite sustained Islamo-fascist violence, democratic balloting has taken place in Iraq (as in Afghanistan, previously).
UN Resolution #1559 (co-sponsored by America, and France), the assassination of former PM Lebanese Rafiq Hariri and then the large protests in Beirut, following it, have pushed Syria (after thirty years’ occupation) to begin redeploying its roughly 15,000 regular troops in Lebanon, into that country’s Beqaa Valley, presumably in transit, for home, by May.
From Cairo, the “Pharoah”, Hosni Mubarak, has now ventured that he’ll allow the next Presidential vote in Egypt to be CONTESTED (not simply a plebiscite), while the House of Saud’s floated that it may permit FEMALE suffrage in their next municipal polls -whenever these might be held there again: the recent ones were the first in fifty years.
However, Colonel Gadafi’s RENOWNED for his “mercurial” personality and though Professor Khan himself’s gone out of business, his damage HAS ALREADY been wrought: both Iran and North Korea are now rapidly attaining their desire, a “nuclear war fighting ability”.
Further - specially with Hamas standing (and likely at least to replicate its strong performance of the local elections in Gaza last month) in the voting for the PA Parliament later this year - peace between Israel and “Palestine”’s hardly liable to be lying round the corner, as imagined. - Indeed, with reports of frictions mounting steadily between Hamas and el-Fatah, instead of a democracy, the “Palestinians” are prone to be engulfed in murderous chaos and general civil strife!
In Lebanon, Hezbollah (backed by Iran, which maintains thousands of Revolutionary Guard, “Pasdaran”, commandos and cadres in the country) and the Shi’ites, estimated at nearly half the population, are now starting to stridently oppose ANY Syrian withdrawal from their soil, warning ominously of another civil war there if external pressures bid to drive Syria out.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, to date the assorted insurrectionists remain far from crushed. The fancies voiced by Mr Mubarak and the Sauds for even such minimal political reform are FICKLE - the slightest perceived danger and they could evaporate in a heart-beat.
But if they DO each proceed, in Egypt, the next President - the candidate with the most popular support - could well be the nominee of the fundamentalist Moslem Brotherhood (el-Ikhwan el-Muslimin), vowing to implement Koranic law across nation, forthwith.
Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia, it’s very probable that - as in the last ballot’s result - a majority of radical Islamists’ll be seated in all the local councils, pledged to impose a MORE STRINGENT version of Sharia rule in the Kingdom, somewhat harsher than the severe rendition that afflicts it today - and, potentially, less averse to el-Qaeda and to Jihadi terrorism.
Below the surface, the utter FRAGILITY of the events in the Middle East doesn’t objectively warrant the lofty degree of optimism that’s being vested in them. Undeniably, it’s good to hope that everything goes positively in the region - but not to blithely TRUST that it will; it’s good, on top, to work in earnest for peace there, but additionally, it’d be extremely wise for the US to retain a hefty element of caution, plus a sound contingency plan, in case circumstances go badly sour.