War in The Middle East

[Armenian]

Re: War in The Middle East

20/20 Vision in Paris

France Praises Iran's 'Stabilizing Role'

By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com International Editor
August 01, 2006

(CNSNews.com) - The French foreign minister, whose government is positioning itself to play a leading part in Mideast peace efforts, has described Iran as a respected country that plays a stabilizing role in the region. Philippe Douste-Blazy told a news conference in Beirut Monday that Iran was "a great country, a great people and a great civilization which is respected and which plays a stabilizing role in the region."

Hours later, the Frenchmen met with his Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr Mottaki, at the Iranian Embassy. Tehran's mission in the Lebanese capital has been a key channel for Iran's support for Hizballah, and last week Iran denied reports that Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah had taken refuge inside the building. The U.S., Israel and several other countries accuse Iran of being the world's leading sponsor of terrorism and the primary backer of Hizballah in Lebanon. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called repeatedly for Israel's annihilation.

Iran also is at odds with the international community over its nuclear programs, with France one of three European countries involved in the standoff. The French minister's praise for the Islamic regime came on the day Hizballah's representative in Iran told a gathering in Tehran that his organization would put into effect the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's call for the "cancerous tumor" (Israel) to be eliminated.

Abol-Hassan Zo'aiter was quoted by the semi-official Fars news agency as saying Hizballah's resistance against Israel in recent weeks was the greatest victory ever of the "Islamic ummah." Zo'aiter's threats are not the only ones to be heard in Iran this week. On Sunday, Fars quoted the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi, as urging his troops "to keep this sacred hatred of the enemies of Islam alive in our hearts until the time of revenge comes."

"Hizballah and Lebanese people are invincible and this cancerous tumor [Israel] should die," said Safavi, calling on leading Islamic clerics to "clarify the duty of Muslims against Israel." The 130,000-strong Revolutionary Guards, or Pasdaran, was designated guardian of the Islamic revolution after 1979, and is accused by the State Department of involvement in planning and supporting terrorism. It has particularly close ties to Hizballah, which it helped to establish in 1982.

According to exiled Iranian opposition groups, 13 out of 21 Iranian cabinet ministers, including Mottaki, have backgrounds in the IGRC. Ahmadinejad, the president, is a former senior Pasdaran officer. Several hundred Revolutionary Guards officers are reported to be advising and fighting alongside Hizballah in the current conflict, although Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told a briefing Sunday Iran had not and would not dispatch forces to Lebanon, and again denying the Tehran arms Hizballah.

Israeli security officials say many of the 2,500 missiles Hizballah has fired into northern Israel since July 12 came from Iran, and that Iran also supplied a C-802 missile that damaged an Israeli Navy vessel two weeks ago, and longer-range Zelzal missiles which have yet to be used, but could possibly bring Tel Aviv within range. The Jerusalem Post reported that Israeli officials were bewildered by Douste-Blazy's remarks about Iran, and quoted one diplomatic source in Jerusalem as asking "what planet is he on?"

Before his departure to Lebanon, the French minister told Le Figaro that there was no need to forbid contacts with the Iranian authorities, although he said President Jacques Chirac had ruled out contacts with the Syrians, Hizballah's other major sponsor. Mottaki's trip to Beirut was the first public visit to Lebanon by a senior Iranian leader since the Israel-Hizballah conflict began.

Apart from his French counterpart, he also met with Lebanese government leaders, including President Emile Lahoud and Foreign Minister Fauzi Salloukh, whom the Iranian Irna news agency reported had voiced appreciation for "the selfless contributions of the Islamic Republic of Iran" to Lebanon. Salloukh, a Shi'ite, is close to Hizballah and has argued against the need for the terrorist group to disband, saying it is a "national resistance movement" and not a militia, and thus not covered by U.N. Security Council resolution 1559's requirement for militias to be dismantled.

France, Lebanon and Hizballah

At the U.N. Security Council, France is playing a leading role in diplomatic efforts to end the conflict. It has drafted a resolution calling for the creation of a multinational force and a buffer zone, but only after the fighting stops. France has strong historical links with Lebanon, a country it administered between 1920 and 1943. After the Iranian revolution, however, its ties with the small Mediterranean nation were severely strained when Hizballah killed 58 French troops in a series of deadly 1983 bombings that also targeted U.S. Marines and the American Embassy.

Hizballah - and by extension Iran - subsequently carried out terrorist attacks against French targets including the French Embassy in Kuwait and the Marseilles railway station. Late that year, France expelled half a dozen Iranians attached to the embassy in Paris, accusing them of links to terror. lmost two decades later, Chirac endorsed the presence of Nasrallah at a Francophone summit in Beirut in Oct. 2002. Nasrallah sat in the front row, among religious leaders, and his participation was hailed in Lebanese media as evidence that for France and the fifty-plus other full and observer members of the bloc, Hizballah was not a terrorist organization.

(The Hizballah leader was invited by the Lebanese president Lahoud, but the country's Al-Safir newspaper pointed out that invitations went through the organizing committee of the French-speaking grouping. There was no record of Chirac - who spoke during the opening session about the need to fight terrorism - protesting his presence. Canada's then prime minister, Jean Chretien, was later criticized at home for giving a speech while Nasrallah sit a few feet away, but pleaded ignorance. Under pressure, Chretien's government outlawed Hizballah two months later.)

France has led opposition within the European Union to moves for the 25-nation bloc to outlaw Hizballah and cut off its European sources of funding, as requested by Israel and the U.S.

Link: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/viewstor...20060801a.html

[Armenian]

Re: War in The Middle East

Israeli Commandos Raid Hezbollah Hideout in Baalbek Hospital

BOURJ AL-MULOUK, Lebanon — Israel launched its deepest ground attack into Lebanon with Israeli commandos raiding a Hezbollah-run hospital in the eastern city of Baalbek on Wednesday.

The Israeli army would not comment on the operation in the ancient city, which was once a Syrian army headquarters some 130 kilometers north of Israel. The Web site of the Israeli daily Haaretz reported that "helicopters put down IDF (military) commandos near Baalbek," without adding details. Hezbollah's chief spokesman, Hussein Rahal, told The Associated Press that Israeli troops landed near Dar al-Hikma Hospital and that fierce fighting ranged for more than one hour.

"A group of Israeli commandos was brought to the hospital by a helicopter. They entered the hospital." He said Hezbollah guerrillas fought the commandos inside the hospital. Hezbollah was using automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, and Israeli jets were attacking the surrounding guerrilla force with rockets, Rahal said.

Link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,206627,00.html

[Armenian]

Re: War in The Middle East

Islamic Resistance destroys five Israeli tanks, 2 bulldozers and an armored military vehicle

31/07/2006

The Islamic Resistance said in a statement that its fighters have destroyed five Israeli tanks, two bulldozers and an armored vehicle Monday afternoon, on the Kafarkila-Odaiseh-Taybeh front, killing and injurig their crews. Earlier, Israeli Maarif daily said that 11 Israeli soldiers were injured in ongoing confrontations between resistance fighters and Israeli forces in the region of "Taybeh." The Islamic Resistance said that after the Israeli defeat in Maroun el-Ras, Bint Jbeil and Taybeh, resistance fighters targeted an infiltrating B-9 bulldozer between the town of Kafakila anf Odaiseh, to open a road for tanks. The tank was destroyed and its crew were killed and injured. And on Monday morning, a convoy of tanks tried to advance between the two Lebanese towns and they were confronted by Islamic Resistance fighters who destroyed two of them while a third one flipped over and crashed on a road in occupied Palestine. The crews of the three tanks were killed and injured.

Link: http://www.almanar.com.lb/NewsSite/N...00&language=en

Hizbollah field reports seem to be more accurate than Israeli ones.

(TOP LEFT) July 31: Israeli tanks stop next to an overturned vehicle that was carrying supplies when it went off the road in Lebanon. (TOP RIGHT) July 31: Israeli soldiers take positions next to a rocket-damaged tank in Lebanon (BOTTOM LEFT) July 31: Israeli soldiers run across the border after Hezbollah guerrillas attacked troops. (BOTTOM RIGHT) July 31: Smoke rises after Israeli missiles struck the Lebanese village of Kila during fights between Israelis and Hezbollah

[skhara]

Re: War in The Middle East

I have a hard time believing that Iran initiated this especially since now I am wholly convinced that those soldiers were grabbed in an ambush on the Lebanese side of the border:

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/israeli_solders.html

Moreover, I just heard a military annalyst on CNN, retired US army general, without hesitation said that the Israeli soldiers were captured in Ayta ash Shab.

[Anonymouse]

Re: War in The Middle East

I have a hard time believing that Iran initiated this especially since now I am wholly convinced that those soldiers were grabbed in an ambush on the Lebanese side of the border:

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/israeli_solders.html

Moreover, I just heard a military annalyst on CNN, retired US army general, without hesitation said that the Israeli soldiers were captured in Ayta ash Shab.

This is also an interesting link.

http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_22592.shtml

[Armenian]

Re: War in The Middle East

I have a hard time believing that Iran initiated this especially since now I am wholly convinced that those soldiers were grabbed in an ambush on the Lebanese side of the border:

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/israeli_solders.html

Moreover, I just heard a military annalyst on CNN, retired US army general, without hesitation said that the Israeli soldiers were captured in Ayta ash Shab.

Its a bit more complicated that that Skhara.

Now that I can look back at the events, I feel as if Hizbollah and Israel both miscalculated. I dont know happened on that border thee weeks ago. Hizbollah had done similar operations before and Israel has entered Lebanon before. So no one knows for sure.

However, I still believe that Syria and Iran wanted some kind of a political distraction and a means to bring Syrian influence back into Lebanon. Damascus and Tehran want the Hizbollah to keep Tel Aviv and Washington preoccupied. However, I feel as if they did not expect this strong reaction from the Israelis and Americans. I believe they should have. It is a bit obvious that Israel and America have been trying to gain power within Beirut ever since the exit of the Syrian forces last year. Most probably, Syria and Iran thought that with America bogged down in Iraq and Israel bogged down in Gaza, they would have the freedom to do as they please in Lebanon.

Nonetheless, they way Israel has been executing this war suggests that they were NOT prepared for this mess. If they planned this war in advance I believe that they would have better prepared themselves. The military and the politicians are still fighting about what to do with the whole situation. The ground forces seems confused - they go into Lebanon sustain losses they run back out. Some in their government want a four KM wide buffer zone others want to go all the way to the Litani river. Its possible that with American encouragment Israel used Hizbollah's action as a pretext to retaliate. After they did they realized that the foe was tougher than expected.

I still believe that in this whole mess Iran is riding high. So wether or not Tehran planned this, the end result is still the same: Israel and America are drawn into a political/military trap in Lebanon. The status of Iran is sky high as we speak. All the negative attention Tehran was getting over its nuclear agenda is abated.

In short, this is quite a complicated geopolitical matter. Perhaps, we will know what really happend a few years from now.

[ARK]

Re: War in The Middle East

Iranian volunteers set off for Lebanon By BRIAN MURPHY, Associated Press Writer
Wed Jul 26, 4:59 PM ET



TEHRAN, Iran - Surrounded by yellow Hezbollah flags, more than 60 Iranian volunteers set off Wednesday to join what they called a holy war against Israeli forces in Lebanon.

The group — ranging from teenagers to grandfathers — plans to join about 200 other volunteers on the way to the Turkish border, which they hope to cross Thursday. They plan to reach Lebanon via Syria over the weekend.

Iran says it will not send regular forces to aid Hezbollah, but apparently it will not attempt to stop volunteer guerrillas. Iran and Syria are Hezbollah's main sponsors.

Organizers said the volunteers were not carrying weapons, and it was not clear whether Turkey would let them pass.

A Turkish Foreign Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, would not say Wednesday if they would be allowed to cross. Iranians, however, can enter Turkey without a visa and stay for three months.

"We are just the first wave of Islamic warriors from Iran," said Amir Jalilinejad, chairman of the Student Justice Movement, a nongovernment group that helped recruit the fighters. "More will come from here and other Muslim nations around the world. Hezbollah needs our help."

Military service is mandatory in Iran and nearly every man has at least some basic training. Some hard-liners have more extensive drills as members of the Basiji corps, a paramilitary network linked to the powerful Revolutionary Guard.

Other volunteers, such as 72-year-old Hasan Honavi, have combat experience from the 1980-88 war with Iraq.

"God made this decision for me," said Honavi, a grandfather and one of the oldest volunteers. "I still have fight left in me for a holy war."

The group, chanting and marching in military-style formation, assembled Wednesday in a part of Tehran's main cemetery that is reserved for war dead and other "martyrs."

They prayed on Persian carpets and linked hands, with their shoes and bags piled alongside. Few had any battle-type gear and some arrived in dress shoes or plastic sandals.

Some bowed before a memorial to Hezbollah-linked suicide bombers who carried out the 1983 blast at Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 U.S. servicemen. An almost simultaneous bombing killed 56 French peacekeepers.

Speakers praised Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah and laid scorn on Muslim leaders — including their own government — for not sending battlefield assistance to Hezbollah since the fighting erupted two weeks ago.

Even if the volunteers fail to reach Lebanon, their mobilization is an example of how Iranians are rallying to Hezbollah through organizations outside official circles.

In Iraq, dozens of volunteers helped enlist Iraqis willing to fight along Hezbollah guerillas in Lebanon at a Shiite party headquarters in the southern city of Basra. The party's Secretary General Yousif al Mousawi said about 200 people signed up within two hours on Wednesday night.

Iran insists it is not directly involved in the conflict on the military side, but it remains the group's key pipeline for funds. Iran has dismissed Israel's claims that Hezbollah has been supplied with upgraded Iranian missiles that have reached Haifa and other points across northern Israel.

"We cannot stand by and watch out Hezbollah brothers fight alone," said Komeil Baradaran, a 21-year-old Basiji member. "If we are to die in Lebanon, then we will go to heaven. It is our duty as Muslims to fight."

[ARK]

Re: War in The Middle East

Nonetheless, they way Israel has been executing this war suggests that they were NOT prepared for this mess. If they planned this war in advance I believe that they would have better prepared themselves. The military and the politicians are still fighting about what to do with the whole situation. The ground forces seems confused - they go into Lebanon sustain losses they run back out.know what really happend a few years from now.

I guess they were organized and prepared for that but I believe this was a dirty strategy (to pretend to be confused) from israelis to prove to the world that we were not prepared for a war and secondly if they had launched violent attacks against Lebanon from the beginning of the war to finish everything in a short period of time , it would have appeared too harsh and would have raised a lot of criticism. I don’t know maybe I’m wrong.

[Armenian]

Re: War in The Middle East

A military perspective from Israel.

Israel’s Surprise Raid of Baalbek Is No Panacea for Tactical Ills

Israel’s audacious commando raid of a Hizballah stronghold near Baalbek more than 100 km north of the border recalled the old panache associated with Israeli military feats in the past. However the 22 days of the Lebanon war have shown an army hampered and slowed down by tactical and intelligence deficiencies which showed up in the costly Maroun er-Ras and Bin Jubeil operations in South Lebanon – and again this week in the Ayta a-Chaab battle. Those three engagements have claimed 17 lives. Between six and eight thousand troops and reservists are now deployed in South Lebanon fighting in Hizballah village-strongholds and positions along the Israeli border and plunging deeper for the mission assigned this week to push Hizballah out of the south as far as the Litani River. More such battles therefore lie ahead.

It is therefore important to heed the senior Israeli officers who tell DEBKAfile that a single successful commando raid is not going to cure the deficiencies hampering its 22-day Lebanon campaign.

The officers direct most of their criticism at the Northern Command’s handling of the war, arguing that the IDF should have kicked off the entire campaign with a series of audacious assaults like Tuesday’s Baalbek operation so as to catch Hizballah off-balance. Without these tactics, the three battles against a tough enemy which refuses to break under sustained battering were bound to end as they did.

On July 28, DEBKA-Net-Weekly 263 cited its military analysts on the IDF’s six principal failings in the Lebanon war:

1. Israeli elected leaders, Olmert and defense minister Peretz, lack military experience and the skills required for managing a war.

2. The military leadership qualities of chief of staff Lt.-General Halutz, former commander of the air force where he grew up, are questionable.

3. Olmert’s predecessor left him with a flawed legacy. During his six and-a- half years as premier, Ariel Sharon shook up the top levels of the IDF’s general command, military intelligence and the Mossad (although not the Shin Bet) and stuffed them with appointees who subscribed to his political philosophy.

Israel’s top military and security echelons have never before been picked for their political outlook. Sharon’s axe created a monolithic establishment lacking in the motivation burning in their predecessors for developing brilliantly innovative methods of warfare.

4. In six years of counter-terror warfare against the Palestinians, the IDF focused on perfecting small-time tactics for keeping local terror fires under control, but failed to produce methods applicable to a transition from fighting terrorists to waging war. Hizballah has foisted this transition on the Israeli military.

5. Israeli war planners, like the US army in Iraq, came to rely too heavily on air power, firepower and hi-tech weaponry for combating terror. They neglected to draw the lessons of the three-year Iraq war.

6. Hizballah’s tacticians and their Iranian Revolutionary Guards mentors studied every Israeli move in its 2002 Defensive Wall Operation against the Palestinian terrorist stronghold of Jenin, which ended in all the towns of the West Bank falling to the Israeli military. Taking this battle as their master plan, they invented a new war doctrine to fit a Hizballah offensive against an Israeli army which had not revised its doctrines of war in the intervening four years.

The battle fought in Jenin’s refugee camp on April 14, 2002, was the only engagement in the entire Israel-Palestinian conflict in which Hizballah and al Qaeda terrorists fought Israeli forces face to face.

The Palestinians fielded a small number of fighters. The Israeli army won the day but paid dearly in casualties. Drawing on the Jenin lesson, Iranian and Hizballah war planners are hammering at the xxxish state’s most vulnerable point - military losses and loss of life in general. By maximizing Israeli casualties, they believe that Hizballah does not have to win the war; it will turn the tables sufficiently to achieve parity with the Israeli army. For a small militia dependent on two outside governments, Iran and Syria, for heavy weapons and permission to use them, this would be no mean feat – better in fact that any Arab army has ever achieved in the past.

Nasrallah is fond of boasting that he has surprised Israel and will again. But it must be said that, going back to the Yom Kippur shock, the Israeli army did in fact recover from its early setbacks and turned the tide. It is still early days, and Israel may have surprises of its own up its sleeve. The pressure of war on the country’s borders and their homes under attack has always goaded Israel’s army into flights of improvisation and stimulated its generals into using the war arena as a testing ground for ingenious new ideas. But much depends on Olmert, Peretz and General Halutz, giving them enough rein to succeed while restraining their own pointless and often damaging statements.

Link: http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1195

[Illuminator]

Re: War in The Middle East

The War on Lebanon and the Battle for Oil


By Michel Chossudovsky

July 26, 2006


Is there a relationship between the bombing of Lebanon and the inauguration of the World's largest strategic pipeline, which will channel more than a million barrels of oil a day to Western markets?

Virtually unnoticed, the inauguration of the Ceyhan-Tblisi-Baku (BTC) oil pipeline, which links the Caspian sea to the Eastern Mediterranean, took place on the 13th of July, at the very outset of the Israeli sponsored bombings of Lebanon.

One day before the Israeli air strikes, the main partners and shareholders of the BTC pipeline project, including several heads of State and oil company executives were in attendance at the port of Ceyhan. They were then rushed off for an inauguration reception in Istanbul, hosted by Turkey's President Ahmet Necdet Sezer in the plush surroundings of the Зэraрan Palace.

Also in attendance was British Petroleum's (BP) CEO, Lord Browne together with senior government officials from Britain, the US and Israel. BP leads the BTC pipeline consortium. Other major Western shareholders include Chevron, Conoco-Phillips, France's Total and Italy's ENI. (see Annex)

Israel's Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Binyamin Ben-Eliezer was present at the venue together with a delegation of top Israeli oil officials.

The BTC pipeline totally bypasses the territory of the Russian Federation. It transits through the former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Georgia, both of which have become US "protectorates", firmly integrated into a military alliance with the US and NATO. Moreover, both Azerbaijan and Georgia have longstanding military cooperation agreements with Israel. In 2005, Georgian companies received some $24 million in military contracts funded out of U.S. military assistance to Israel under the so-called "Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program".

http://www.xxxishvirtuallibrary.org.../states/GA.html

Israel has a stake in the Azeri oil fields, from which it imports some twenty percent of its oil. The opening of the pipeline will substantially enhance Israeli oil imports from the Caspian sea basin.

But there is another dimension which directly relates to the war on Lebanon. Whereas Russia has been weakened, Israel is slated to play a major strategic role in "protecting" the Eastern Mediterranean transport and pipeline corridors out of Ceyhan.

Militarization of the Eastern Mediterranean

The bombing of Lebanon is part of a carefully planned and coordinated military road map. The extension of the war into Syria and Iran has already been contemplated by US and Israeli military planners. This broader military agenda is intimately related to strategic oil and oil pipelines. It is supported by the Western oil giants which control the pipeline corridors. In the context of the war on Lebanon, it seeks Israeli territorial control over the East Mediterranean coastline.

In this context, the BTC pipeline dominated by British Petroleum, has dramatically changed the geopolitics of the Eastern Mediterranean, which is now linked , through an energy corridor, to the Caspian sea basin:

"[The BTC pipeline] considerably changes the status of the region's countries and cements a new pro-West alliance. Having taken the pipeline to the Mediterranean, Washington has practically set up a new bloc with Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and Israel, " (Komerzant, Moscow, 14 July 2006)

Israel is now part of the Anglo-American military axis, which serves the interests of the Western oil giants in the Middle East and Central Asia.

While the official reports state that the BTC pipeline will "channel oil to Western markets", what is rarely acknowledged is that part of the oil from the Caspian sea would be directly channeled towards Israel. In this regard, an underwater Israeli-Turkish pipeline project has been envisaged which would link Ceyhan to the Israeli port of Ashkelon and from there through Israel's main pipeline system, to the Red Sea.

The objective of Israel is not only to acquire Caspian sea oil for its own consumption needs but also to play a key role in re-exporting Caspian sea oil back to the Asian markets through the Red Sea port of Eilat. The strategic implications of this re-routing of Caspian sea oil are farreaching.

In April 2006, Israel and Turkey announced plans for four underwater pipelines, which would bypass Syrian and Lebanese territory.

"Turkey and Israel are negotiating the construction of a multi-million-dollar energy and water project that will transport water, electricity, natural gas and oil by pipelines to Israel, with the oil to be sent onward from Israel to the Far East,

The new Turkish-Israeli proposal under discussion would see the transfer of water, electricity, natural gas and oil to Israel via four underwater pipelines.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satell...icle%2FShowFull

“Baku oil can be transported to Ashkelon via this new pipeline and to India and the Far East.[via the Red sea]"

"Ceyhan and the Mediterranean port of Ashkelon are situated only 400 km apart. Oil can be transported to the city in tankers or via specially constructed under-water pipeline. From Ashkelon the oil can be pumped through already existing pipeline to the port of Eilat at the Red Sea; and from there it can be transported to India and other Asian countries in tankers. (REGNUM )

Water for Israel

Also involved in this project is a pipeline to bring water to Israel, pumping water from upstream resources of the Tigris and Euphrates river system in Anatolia. This has been a long-run strategic objective of Israel to the detriment of Syria and Iraq. Israel's agenda with regard to water is supported by the military cooperation agreement between Tel Aviv and Ankara.

The Re-routing of Central Asian Oil

Diverting Central Asian oil and gas to the Eastern Mediterranean (under Israeli military protection), for re-export to Asia, serves to undermine the inter-Asian energy market, which is based on the development of direct pipeline corridors linking Central Asia and Russia to South Asia, China and the Far East.

Ultimately, this design is intended to weaken Russia's role in Central Asia and cut off China from Central Asian oil resources. It is also intended to isolate Iran.

Meanwhile, Israel has emerged as a new powerful player in the global energy market.

War and Oil Pipelines

Prior to the bombing of Lebanon, Israel and Turkey had announced the underwater pipeline routes, which bypassed Syria and Lebanon. These underwater pipeline routes did not overtly encroach on the territorial sovereignty of Lebanon and Syria.

On the other hand, the development of alternative land based corridors (for oil and water) through Lebanon and Syria would require Israeli-Turkish territorial control over the Eastern Mediterranean coastline through Lebanon and Syria.

The implementation of this project requires the militarisation of the East Mediterranean coastline, sea ways and land routes, extending from the port of Ceyhan across Syria and Lebanon to the Lebanese-Israeli border.

Is this not one of the hidden objectives of the war on Lebanon? Open up a space which enables Israel to control a vast territory extending from the Lebanese border through Syria to Turkey.

"The Long War"

Israeli Prime minister Ehud Olmert has stated that the Israeli offensive against Lebanon would "last a very long time". Meanwhile, the US has speeded up weapons shipments to Israel.

There are strategic objectives underlying the "Long War" which are tied to oil and oil pipelines.

The air campaign against Lebanon is inextricably related to US-Israeli strategic objectives in the broader Middle East including Syria and Iran. In recent developments, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice stated that the main purpose of her mission to the Middle East was not to push for a ceasefire in Lebanon, but rather to isolate Syria and Iran. (Daily Telegraph, 22 July 2006)

At this particular juncture, the replenishing of Israeli stockpiles of US produced WMDs points to an escalation of the war both within and beyond the borders of Lebanon.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index....&articleId=2824