- (August 2006)
Mission Accomplished.
The famous "Mission Accomplished" banner that flew over George W Bush in 2003
as he was celebrating the "triumph" in Iraq has become a joke worldwide
(probably the second single biggest loss of credibility by the USA in its
modern history, second only to Colin Powell's presentation at the United
Nations in which he described in detail Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass
destruction).
Bush loves to entertain the world and expose the USA to ridicule, so he did
it again. He declared that Hezbollah has been defeated by Israel and that,
voila', the Middle East has been liberated one more time. Too bad that every
time the USA or one of its allies liberates a country of the Middle East only
ruins and chaos are left behind.
Hezbollah may not be the winner (as Al Jazeera and its Jihadists scream)
but certainly Israel is not a winner, nor is there any evidence that this
month-long carnage will lead to any stable peace. Israel is viewed by just
about everybody except the White House as the aggressor, that invaded a
country without any respect for international borders. Worse: its invasion
failed to achieve its declared objective of disarming Hezbollah. Therefore
Israel not only looks evil but also weak, possibly for the first time in
the last half century. The USA did not do anything to stop the aggression
and in fact sold high-tech weapons to Israel during the conflict, while
criticizing Iran and Syria for selling low-tech rockets to Hezbollah.
The numbers tell the story of who killed the most civilians: one thousand
Lebanese civilians dead versus one hundred Israeli civilians dead.
Based on simple body count, the Middle East (and probably most of the world)
views the USA guiltier than Iran. Worse: it views Iran as the winner of
this proxy war. From Morocco to Pakistan there is a feeling that Iran is
becoming the new leader of the Islamic world, the only Islamic country that
dares to stand up to the USA and actually gets away with it. Iran's victory
in this proxy war will certainly embolden the Iranian regime and possibly
cause a political earthquake in the Middle East: why bend to Condoleezza Rice's
push for democracy when the USA is weaker than Iran?
The USA, already weakened by the Iraqi quagmire and by countless accusations
of war crimes
(see Why the USA is losing in Iraq),
is now further weakened in the eyes of the Middle East and the world at large.
Chinese and Russian officials make openly fun of the world's superpower that
failed the first time it tried to impose its order on a region outside its
borders. It looked stronger during the Cold War (when it was not the only
superpower) than it does under George W Bush (when it is supposed to be
the only superpower left).
The first signs of what will happen next are already visible in two old hot
spots of the Islamic world. Afghanistan is witnessing a sudden
recrudescence of civil war: the Taliban must have figured that they surrendered
a bit too easily to the army that seems powerless against the Iraqi insurgents.
Somalia is now de facto ruled by Islamists who do not hide their preference for
their brother Osama bin Laden.
Talking of which: wasn't George W Bush the president who promised to catch
Osama bin Laden in a few days and gave him zero chances of escaping?
Bottom line: big mouths may get reelected but they do not win wars.
Bush should take lessons from people such as Osama Bin Laden (the leader of
Al Qaeda) and Hassan Nasrallah (the leader of Hezbollah), who do not promise
the moon but deliver what they promised.
Let us hope that both Hezbollah and Israel lost the war, and that the people
of Lebanon will emerge as the real winners, once the country is rebuilt.
The scary thought, of course, is that
this may turn out to be another USA-led "reconstruction" (i.e., a colossal
case of corruption, incompetence and anarchy). The Lebanese people probably
trust Hezbollah better than George W Bush to protect them and serve them.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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