[Dean's World] Michael J. Totten: The Beirut Branch of the Mossad

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Posted by Michael J. Totten:
The Beirut Branch of the Mossad
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1170702447.shtml


   BEIRUT â Hezbollah has killed more Americans than any terrorist
   organization in the world after Al Qaeda. In 1983 a suicide-bomber
   drove a truck into a U.S. Marine barracks south of Beirut and killed
   241 Americans with a single gigantic blast.

   [Beirutbarr.jpg]

   President Ronald Reagan then withdrew American forces from Lebanon
   which had been sent as a peacekeeping force during the civil war. The
   U.S. wonât likely ever return. Hezbollah has calmed down, somewhat,
   and no longer poses a serious threat â military, terrorist, or
   otherwise â to the United States.

   More Lebanese than you probably think want Americans to return, even
   so. Not the majority, to be sure, but a sizeable minority, perhaps no
   smaller than the those who wish to be ruled once more by the Syrians,
   or by the Iranians. You will meet these people if you go to Beirut,
   and you will meet lots of them.

   One prominent Lebanese who wants to see the U.S. come back is Toni
   Nissi. He heads up the Lebanese Committee for UNSCR 1559, an NGO which
   advises and lobbies the Lebanese government and the international
   community for the disarmament of illegal militias in Lebanon as
   required by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559.
   Hezbollah, of course, is at the top of that list.

   Hezbollahâs Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah has ramped up his
   criticism of Toni and his NGO lately by bullying journalists into
   putting him on a blacklist and by denouncing him on television as âthe
   Beirut branch of the Mossad.â Pay Nasrallahâs slander no mind. He
   also, hysterically, says Lebanonâs Sunni Prime Minister Fouad Seniora
   is a âZionist handâ for slowly, with baby steps, moving toward
   Hezbollahâs disarmament.

   If there were an appetite in the United States for more military
   action in the Middle East, Iran and Syria would be far more likely
   candidates than little Lebanon. The worst of Lebanonâs problems would
   largely disappear with the Syrian and Iranian regimes anyway if it
   comes down to that. An adventure in Lebanon would require effort more
   productively spent somewhere else.

   Lebanonâs pro-American interventionists are worth listening to, even
   so. They have their reasons for wanting the superpower back in.
   Seeking foreign patronage is an old habit in that country. Many say
   itâs Lebanon curse, and theyâre probably right. Either way it is, for
   good or for ill, typically Lebanese. Every major religious group in
   Lebanon â Christians, Sunni Muslims, and Shia Muslims â are a
   minority. All have, or recently had, foreign sponsors. Those who donât
   play along suffer relative to the others.

   I met Toni Nissi in his office in Beirut. No Israeli flag hung on the
   walls, nor did portraits of Ariel Sharon or even George W. Bush. My
   American colleague Noah Pollak from [1]Azure magazine joined us.

   [2]read the rest at michaeltotten.com

References

   1. http://www.azure.org.il/
   2. http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/001379.html