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Hezbollah refuses to renounce terrorist actions:
BEIRUT, Lebanon—Hezbollah’s leader on Wednesday rejected a suggestion by President Bush that his militants disarm and enter the political mainstream, saying the group will never leave Lebanon defenseless.
Sheik Hassan Nasrallah criticized Bush for not responding to Lebanese demands that Israeli warplanes stop flying over Lebanon, and for not calling on Israel to release its Lebanese detainees.
...“We are ready to remain until the end of time a terrorist organization in Bush’s view, but we are not ready to give up protection of our country, our people, their blood and their honor,” Nasrallah said.
So they’re confirming an intention to continue to kill civilians. Hopefully this will make it even easier for us to go after them.
At NRO, Michael Ledeen comments on the U.S. strategy of offering a respectable way out to Hezbollah:
It seems that our current tactic is to set a series of traps for the Europeans and the terror masters. The Europeans are told that we will support their nuclear negotiations with the Iranian regime for the time being, but they must join with us in strong action if the talks fail. The Syrians are invited to leave Lebanon, and Hezbollah is invited to abandon terrorism, and are warned of harsh consequences if they do not. The president quite clearly doesn’t expect the negotiations to succeed, doesn’t expect Syria to accept a free Lebanon, and doesn’t for a minute think that Hezbollah can renounce its terrorist essence. In each case, we have convinced ourselves that, by taking a sweet and reasonable position today, we will be in a stronger position for tough action tomorrow. It will make it easier for at least some of the Europeans to join with us, whereas they would oppose tough action right away.
All that may well be true, but even so, it is the wrong thing to do. First of all, it enables the terrorists and their masters to buy time, and this is a moment of enormous risk for them. Every day they remain in power encourages them, and discourages the forces of freedom in their countries. When the people of Shiraz ask President Bush “why don’t you act?” they are reflecting this reality. Carpe Diem, Mister President.
But above all, the clever stratagem adopted by the administration ignores Machiavelli’s greatest lesson: Leadership is all about winning and losing, not about elegance and deep thinking. If we win the Europeans and lose the Middle East, we will have lost. But if we win the Middle East, the Europeans will hail us, as we see from their grudging tributes to Bush’s successful liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq. “If you are victorious,” Machiavelli says in his uncompromising way, “people will always judge the means you used to have been appropriate.”
Syria and Iran are tottering, and if they fall, the terror network will break into relatively impotent shards that we will be able to destroy. Forget about diplomacy, this is war. Every day we hear about plans to attack the United States directly, and every day more Americans die in Iraq. Is it not too clever by half to resort to cunning diplomacy at such a time? Is it not immoral to leave American fighting men and women in harm’s way an hour longer than is absolutely necessary?
The fires of freedom are burning all over Iran, Syria, and Lebanon. Don’t stand back and admire the flames. Push the dictators in, and then cheer as free societies emerge.
Faster, confound it.
We may not be getting there fast enough—but we do appear to be getting there; freedom is spreading in the Mid-East at a rate that was unimaginable only a few months ago.
