Juan Cole Deconstructs SOTU Speech

[AnnieBW]

Juan Cole, the smartest guy on the Middle East who isn't of Middle Eastern descent, has a LOT to say about the foreign policy section of *'s speech last night. Go to http://www.juancole.com/ and scroll down to the "Arguing with Bush" entry.

[papau]

1. An excellent piece by Juan Cole despite his feelings producing an unprovable comment

I really like Juan Cole - but it seems odd that he puts out a great piece that has a part that makes one say "say what?"

<snip>As for the Lebanese Hizbullah, it was formed in 1984 and so was not responsible for the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut. That was carried about by the Islamic Amal faction of Abbas al-Musawi. Elements of the latter may have later joined Hizbullah.<snip>


Last I looked, the Lebanese Hizbullah claimed to be responsible for the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut. It appears Juan Cole is saying it was only the leaders of the Lebanese Hizbullah - not the organization. I'm reading that and thinking "what is the difference"?
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Then he says:

<snip>Hizbullah's energies have not been put into killing Americans during the past two decades, but rather into getting the Israelis back out of their country. In fact, it isn't clear that the Lebanese Hizbullah has done anything to the US for 20 years. It is arguably the Israeli invasion and military occupation of south Lebanon that created Hizbullah in the first place. Prior to that, the southern Lebanese Shiites weren't very political and often were pro-Israel.<snip>

I do not trust information put out for public consumption by our CIA - but that information implies Hizbullah, on the orders of Iran and Syria, has done a few things to the US and its citizens over the last 20 years. How does Juan know that they have not? As for "It is arguably the Israeli invasion and military occupation of south Lebanon that created Hizbullah in the first place", while something I believe to be true at least in part, "arguably" correctly implies there may have been other important reasons it was formed. So why make the statement in an otherwise beautiful post? As to southern Lebanese Shiites "weren't very political and often were pro-Israel", granted that while they joined in the wars against Israel, they did little - but I do not think that makes the country "pro-Israel", or even a group from the area "pro-Israel". On what does Juan base a statement that the Lebanese Shiites were pro-Israel in the past? In 1975, when Sayyed Musa formed Amal, he opposed turning south Lebanon into a surrogate battlefield for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the PLO's harrying and bullying of the population in the area had Amal anti-PLO. Perhaps this is Juan's "pro-Israel Shia" moment? Nabih Berri took over in 1980 and moved Amal closer to Iran, wanting to repeat the Islamic state idea in a Lebanon that was a solid state with solid borders and a strong government that he could eventually take over. To get that strong government he was advocating disarming of all militias in Lebanon, and the deployment of regular Lebanese army troops all the way down south, even if they were "100 percent Maronite" (per BU's Prof. Augustus Richard Norton in 1987) - Perhaps this is Juan's "pro-Israel Shia" moment? I wish I knew what Juan was referring to.