Slå Hezb viktig i kampen mot terror

men har Israel evne og vilje?

Den skarpskodde og konservative kommentator Charles Krauthammer skriver i Washington Post i dag at USA forventer at Israel elminerer Hezbollah.

Israel's war with Hezbollah is a war to secure its northern border, to defeat a
terrorist militia bent on Israel's destruction, to restore Israeli deterrence in
the age of the missile. But even more is at stake. Israel's leaders do not seem
to understand how ruinous a military failure in Lebanon would be to its
relationship with America, Israel's most vital lifeline

USA ser Shia -islamismen som en stadig større trussel, kanskje større enn al- Qaeda som taper terreng. Atom-hungeren i Teheran koblet til effektive militser i Irak og Libanon er nå en større trussel lokalt og regionalt.

America finds itself at war with radical Islam, a two-churched monster: Sunni
al-Qaeda is now being challenged by Shiite Iran for primacy in its epic
confrontation with the infidel West. With al-Qaeda in decline, Iran is on the
march. It is intervening through proxies throughout the Arab world -- Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army in Iraq -- to
subvert modernizing, Western-oriented Arab governments and bring these
territories under Iranian hegemony. Its nuclear ambitions would secure these
advances and give it an overwhelming preponderance of power over the Arabs and an absolute deterrent against serious counteractions by the United States,
Israel or any other rival.

Israel må derfor, som partner i krigen mot terror levere. Kostnaden ved å stå bak Israel er stor, om de samtidig ikke klarer å ta Hezbollah frykter Krauthammer at de vil miste noe av sin betydning i USA.

Dette forstod de moderate arabiske lederne og gav derfor en visss støtte til kampen mot H. Mister Iran H, vil dette være et alvorlig tap for Irans evne til å destabilisere og hevde innflytelse utenfor sine grenser.

Men Krauthammer er ikke optimist. Han mener Israel har somlet og mangler handlekraft. Særlig statsminister Olmert får gjennomgå.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has provided unsteady and uncertain leadership.
Foolishly relying on air power alone, he denied his generals the ground
offensive they wanted, only to reverse himself later. He has allowed his war
cabinet meetings to become fully public through the kind of leaks no serious
wartime leadership would ever countenance. Divisive cabinet debates are
broadcast to the world, as was Olmert's own complaint that "I'm tired. I didn't sleep at all last night" (Haaretz, July 28). Hardly the stuff to instill Churchillian confidence