Drumbeats of War - Iran War Conference
Beirut, Lebanon.
Where, in 1983, two truck bombs killed 299 American and French soldiers.
The trucks were courtesy of Islamic Jihad, which is now part of Hizballah.
Beirut is the site of the war conference that is being hurriedly finalized as the new US sanctions against Iran, spun off the milder UN sanctions, prove to be much deeper and more effective than expected. Particularly damaging is the announcement by Lloyds of London, the worlds primary insurer of ships, that they will no longer insure ships taking gasoline to Iran.
The conference takes place as the Israeli general responsible for the area in northern Israel shows photographic proof to the world that 20,000 Hizballah armed men have set up more than 160 military camps between the Litani River in Lebanon, and the Israeli border… all within the 18-mile deep buffer zone created by UN Resolution 1701 at the end of the 2006 Lebanon-Israel war. Many more Hizballah strongholds have blossomed throughout Lebanon, with fearsome numbers of high-tech, long-range weapons of war.
Israeli Defense Forces have moved tanks and armored divisions to the border, only a few hundred yards away from where Hizballah has dug in. The Israeli air force flies reconnaissance missions over Lebanon almost daily.
The commander of the 5,000 or so UN forces tasked for peacekeeping in the zone (UNIFIL), Major General Cuevas of Spain, told the Jerusalem Post that his forces had not come across any guerilla fighters anywhere… although a number of media report his soldiers being harassed and beaten, especially the French contingent because of French support for the sanctions. And there are reports of at least one Hizballah arms depot destroyed by a huge explosion within the buffer zone. Nevertheless, Cuevas says there is “no sign of war with Hizbullah soon.”
Israeli sources say the conference’s main piece of business is to finish plans for a crisis event between Israel and Lebanon. The same sources say that the date of the crisis had been planned for September or October, to give Iran time to see how much damage the sanctions were doing to their economy.
Personally, I think Iran already can see how damaging the sanctions are going to be. Why would they wait until their petroleum reserves are depleted before they act? Will there be a decision during the war conference that the date should be moved substantially forward?
The time for the meeting is not firmly set yet, but Israeli sources guess it will be during the last part of July or the first part of August. A prime Lebanese source agrees, reporting that “Ahmadinejad will visit Beirut before the start of the holy month of Ramadan on August 11.”
Serendipitously, perhaps, that is the exact timeframe Israeli sources guess that one or two more US carrier strike groups will join the three already in or around the Persian Gulf.
Ramadan is the month in which Muslims fast during the day.
I’ll let you connect the dots.
Hosting the conference is Lebanese President Michel Suleiman.
Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah is slated to be in the welcoming party for the foreign heads of state. Even in Lebanon, public appearances by Nasrallah are very rare. He is at or near the apex of the kill list for both Israel and the US, and probably the rest of the West.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is at the apex of the invited participants. FARS, the Iranian government’s news agency, has confirmed that Ahmadinejad will “lead a 70-member delegation to Lebanon in the near future.”
Syrian President Bashar Assad is the other possible major participant. Various sources outside of Lebanon currently say he is going. News from inside Lebanon used to say he was going, but now they say he is not going, at least not now, but maybe later. Whether he will show up is uncertain. I kinda lean toward thinking he will. Unless everyone concerned thinks having all three of these leaders with targets painted on their backs in one place at the same time is a bad idea.
War conference attendees may include Qatari potentate Shiekh Hamad Bin Khalif Al Thani, who will very probably join the throng.
Ruler of Qatar, he stepped into the Lebanese crisis fomented by Hizballah against the government of Lebanon in 2009, and helped broker the solution to the conflict without much bloodshed. But the decisive play was by Michel Suleiman, who was at the time Commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces. Suleiman decided not to confront the forces of Hizballah. The government had no real option after that. Suleiman is now President. He is hosting this war conference. And Hizballah is ascendant in Lebanon.
Less likely to attend:
King of Bahrain Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifa, and current President of the United Arab Emirates, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi.
Both rulers have visits to Lebanon scheduled in the upcoming weeks, but it may not be politic for them to sit at the war conference table. Bahrain is home to U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and the United States Fifth Fleet. The UAE has recently come down hard against Iran, rigidly enforcing the UN sanctions along the same lines as the supercharged US sanctions.
But things change so quickly in the Middle East. There may be some surprises. No… there will be some surprises. I suppose we’ll find out together, when they happen.
