WASHINGTON — It seems to me that the Islamofascists of
Hezbollah have made a parlous mistake. They have demonstrated that
they have missiles that can cause dreadful localized carnage and
that they are continuing to improve those missiles. Someday these
weapons will be able to cause widespread carnage. Hezbollah’s
killers have demonstrated that they will infiltrate their brutes
into civilian neighborhoods and use suicide bombers. They have
refused to abide by United Nations resolutions. They have revealed
that they have powerful supporters in Syria and Iran. Actually the
Syrians and Iranians have not been coy about showing their support
for Hezbollah’s brutal asymmetrical warfare, and here they too have
made a mistake. In their unconscionable bellicosity Hezbollah’s
guerrillas, the Syrians, and the Iranians have all donned
bull’s-eyes. They have made themselves targets.
That is the only rational deduction. Quite obviously rational
deduction does not have a place in the mentality of Hezbollah’s
leader, the Rev. Hassan Nasrallah, in the mentality of the Iranian
leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who raves on about how Israel must be
destroyed and the misery he is going to cause America. Rational
deduction does play a role in the mentality of the Israelis and the
Americans. Both are now aware of how dangerous Hezbollah, Syria,
and Iran are. And the clock is ticking, for as the distinguished
scholar of the Middle Eastern affairs, Bernard Lewis, noted in the
Wall Street Journal the other day, “It seems increasingly
likely that the Iranians either have or very soon will have nuclear
weapons at their disposal.”
So what is the rational deduction we are to make regarding
brutal irrational opponents who are on their way to controlling
nuclear weapons? Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani stated it in an
interview with Fox News host Bill O’Reilly when he said that in
dealing with Iran and its nuclear program, “I don’t think you can
take the military option off the table.” Surely this does not mean
sending an army into Iran. Our forces, mainly the superb soldiers
of the English-speaking countries, are stretched; and one would not
expect support from NATO’s mainly ceremonial armies. They do well
in military parades and occasionally even in military maneuvers,
but they avoid war zones. As I say, their armies are mainly
ceremonial, and if they have any plans to upgrade them it might be
best if they contained their refitting to sartorial matters.
Perhaps they might adopt colorful sashes and plumed helmets after
the manner of the uniforms they wore in the 19th century, what for
them constituted the “good old days.”
So how might we adopt Giuliani’s suggestion? First, let us take
up the Syrians. Writing in the New York Sun, the veteran
Middle Eastern reporter Youssef Ibrahim suggests that the Israeli
air force “stop bombing Lebanon and start bombing Hezbollah’s
primary enabler, Syria, with crippling blows to its leadership, air
force, infrastructure, and, yes, oil industry.” He adds: “A 21-day
bombing campaign will shift the balance of power and encourage many
friendly Lebanese to come out of hiding.”
Then there is Iran. Its nuclear menace will be far graver than
the nuclear match-up of the Cold War. The prospect of “mutual
assured destruction” (MAD) restrained both sides from initiating a
nuclear attack on the other during the Cold War. Such rationality,
however, will not restrain the Iranians, driven as they are by
dreams of martyrdom. In 1981 an Israeli aerial attack on Saddam
Hussein’s Osirak reactor eliminated his nuclear threat for the
foreseeable future. It is argued that with the Iranians’ nuclear
facilities spread out among as many as 100 sites, most of them
hardened, a similar attack is impossible.
Edward Luttwak, a respected student of warfare modern and
ancient, argued in the Wall Street Journal last February
that “the odds are rather good” that our vastly superior aircraft
and bunker-busting bombs could “demolish a few critical
installations to delay [Iran’s nuclear] program for years — and
perhaps longer because it would become harder or impossible for
Iran to buy the materials it bought when its efforts [to build
nuclear weapons] were still secret.” Luttwak believes that we need
only destroy a handful of the Iranians’ nuclear sites because the
route to nuclear weaponry devised by the Iranians “requires a
number of different plants operating in series.” They may be
hardened, but he believes the Iranians have “not kept up with the
performance of the latest penetration bombs.”
Thus the rational response to the nihilists in Hezbollah and
Iran is clear. The popular term is to “defang” them. That will mean
hitting Syria and Iran, and in the case of Iran the aerial attacks
do not have to be very bloody. But Islamofascists with nukes is
unthinkable.
