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Probelauf für einen Iran-Krieg?

Libanon-Aggression beruht angeblich auf israelisch-amerikanischem Plan

Von Rainer Rupp *

In der US-Presse erschien ein vielbeachteter Bericht (Auszüge: siehe Kasten!), wonach in dem Libanon-Krieg eine Art Probelauf für das Vorgehen gegen Iran zu sehen ist.

In der jüngsten Ausgabe des »New Yorker« legt der US-Enthüllungsjournalist Seymour Hersh unter Berufung auf hochrangige ehemalige und amtierende Mitglieder der Bush-Administration, der israelischen Regierung und der US-Nachrichtendienste glaubhaft dar, dass der Aggressionskrieg gegen Libanon auf einem gemeinsamen israelisch-amerikanischen Plan beruht, auf den sich beide Seiten bereits im Frühjahr geeinigt hatten. Um den Angriff zu rechtfertigen, habe es nur gegolten, einen »passenden Vorwand« abzuwarten, den die Hisbollah mit der Gefangennahme zweier israelischer Soldaten am 12 Juli schließlich lieferte.

Laut Hersh, der bereits das US-Massaker im vietnamesischen My Lay und jüngst die USFolterpraktiken im irakischen Gefängnis Abu Ghoreib aufgedeckt hat, war die israelische Kriegsplanung gegen Libanon bis ins Detail mit der US-Regierung abgestimmt.

Durch das strategische Bombardement Libanons sollte die Hisbollah maßgeblich geschwächt werden, sowohl militärisch als auch politisch. Damit sollte die Gefährdung von Israels Nordgrenze neutralisiert werden, die Iran im Fall einer Bombardierung durch die USA heraufbeschwören könnte. Zugleich sollten mit den israelischen Luftschlägen die möglichen Präventivschläge der USA gegen die Atomanlagen und Infrastruktur Irans geprobt werden. Insbesondere die US-Luftwaffe sollte von der Auswertung der israelischen Schläge gegen Hisbollah-Raketenabschussbasen sowie unterirdische Kommando- und Kontrollzentren lernen, da diese angeblich mit Hilfe iranischer Ingenieure angelegt wurden.

»Die Israelis sagten uns, das würde ein billiger Krieg werden, mit vielen Vorteilen. Warum sollten wir dagegen sein? Es würde ein Lehrstück für Iran sein«, zitierte Hersh einen US-Regierungsberater. Statt zum Lehrstück wurde die israelische Aggression nun jedoch zum abschreckenden Beispiel. Erstens ist der durch das strategische Bombardement Libanons gewünschte politische Erfolg ausgebleiben, denn Christen und Sunniten wurden nicht gegen die Hisbollah mobilisiert, sondern gegen Israel und die USA. Zweitens konnte die israelische Luftwaffe weder die Raketenstellungen der Hisbollah eliminieren noch deren unterirdische Verteidigungsanlagen zerstören. Deshalb sah sich Israel schließlich gezwungen, Bodentruppen nach Südlibanon zu schicken, die dort die verlustreichsten Kämpfe in der israelischen Militärgeschichte führten.

Genau dieser Umstand, so Hersh, habe die Position der Führungsstäbe der US-Armee und der USMarineinfanterie gestärkt, die gegen ein strategisches Bombardement Irans sind, weil – und Libanon habe dies erneut bewiesen – letztendlich doch Bodentruppen ins potenzielle Kampfgebiet geschickt werden müssten. Dennoch befürchtet Hersh, dass das Weiße Haus in seiner Iran-Besessenheit so schnell nicht aufgeben und versuchen werde, Israels Versagen als großen Sieg darzustellen.

* Aus: Neues Deutschland, 16. August 2006


Auszüge aus dem Originalbeitrag "WATCHING LEBANON: Washington's interests in Israel's war" von Seymor M. Hersh **

(...)
According to a Middle East expert with knowledge of the current thinking of both the Israeli and the U.S. governments, Israel had devised a plan for attacking Hezbollah -- and shared it with Bush Administration officials -- well before the July 12th kidnappings. "It's not that the Israelis had a trap that Hezbollah walked into," he said, "but there was a strong feeling in the White House that sooner or later the Israelis were going to do it."

The Middle East expert said that the Administration had several reasons for supporting the Israeli bombing campaign. Within the State Department, it was seen as a way to strengthen the Lebanese government so that it could assert its authority over the south of the country, much of which is controlled by Hezbollah. He went on, "The White House was more focussed on stripping Hezbollah of its missiles, because, if there was to be a military option against Iran's nuclear facilities, it had to get rid of the weapons that Hezbollah could use in a potential retaliation at Israel. Bush wanted both. Bush was going after Iran, as part of the Axis of Evil, and its nuclear sites, and he was interested in going after Hezbollah as part of his interest in democratization, with Lebanon as one of the crown jewels of Middle East democracy."
(...)
The United States and Israel have shared intelligence and enjoyed close military cooperation for decades, but early this spring, according to a former senior intelligence official, high-level planners from the U.S. Air Force -- under pressure from the White House to develop a war plan for a decisive strike against Iran's nuclear facilities -- began consulting with their counterparts in the Israeli Air Force.

"The big question for our Air Force was how to hit a series of hard targets in Iran successfully," the former senior intelligence official said. 'Who is the closest ally of the U.S. Air Force in its planning? It's not Congo -- it's Israel. Everybody knows that Iranian engineers have been advising Hezbollah on tunnels and underground gun emplacements. And so the Air Force went to the Israelis with some new tactics and said to them, "Let's concentrate on the bombing and share what we have on Iran and what you have on Lebanon.'" The discussions reached the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, he said.

"The Israelis told us it would be a cheap war with many benefits," a U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel said. "Why oppose it? We'll be able to hunt down and bomb missiles, tunnels, and bunkers from the air. It would be a demo for Iran."

A Pentagon consultant said that the Bush White House "has been agitating for some time to find a reason for a preemptive blow against Hezbollah." He added, "It was our intent to have Hezbollah diminished, and now we have someone else doing it." (As this article went to press, the United Nations Security Council passed a ceasefire resolution, although it was unclear if it would change the situation on the ground.)
(...)
Several current and former officials involved in the Middle East told me that Israel viewed the soldiers' kidnapping as the opportune moment to begin its planned military campaign against Hezbollah. "Hezbollah, like clockwork, was instigating something small every month or two," the U.S. government consultant with ties to Israel said. Two weeks earlier, in late June, members of Hamas, the Palestinian group, had tunnelled under the barrier separating southern Gaza from Israel and captured an Israeli soldier. Hamas also had lobbed a series of rockets at Israeli towns near the border with Gaza. In response, Israel had initiated an extensive bombing campaign and reoccupied parts of Gaza.

The Pentagon consultant noted that there had also been cross-border incidents involving Israel and Hezbollah, in both directions, for some time. "They've been sniping at each other," he said. "Either side could have pointed to some incident and said "We have to go to war with these guys' -- because they were already at war."

David Siegel, the spokesman at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, said that the Israeli Air Force had not been seeking a reason to attack Hezbollah. "We did not plan the campaign. That decision was forced on us." There were ongoing alerts that Hezbollah "was pressing to go on the attack," Siegel said. "Hezbollah attacks every two or three months," but the kidnapping of the soldiers raised the stakes.
(...)
The U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel told me, however, that, from Israel's perspective, the decision to take strong action had become inevitable weeks earlier, after the Israeli Army's signals intelligence group, known as Unit 8200, picked up bellicose intercepts in late spring and early summer, involving Hamas, Hezbollah, and Khaled Meshal, the Hamas leader now living in Damascus.

One intercept was of a meeting in late May of the Hamas political and military leadership, with Meshal participating by telephone. "Hamas believed the call from Damascus was scrambled, but Israel had broken the code," the consultant said. For almost a year before its victory in the Palestinian elections in January, Hamas had curtailed its terrorist activities. In the late May intercepted conversation, the consultant told me, the Hamas leadership said that "they got no benefit from it, and were losing standing among the Palestinian population." The conclusion, he said, was " ‘Let's go back into the terror business and then try and wrestle concessions from the Israeli government.' " The consultant told me that the U.S. and Israel agreed that if the Hamas leadership did so, and if Nasrallah backed them up, there should be "a full-scale response." In the next several weeks, when Hamas began digging the tunnel into Israel, the consultant said, Unit 8200 "picked up signals intelligence involving Hamas, Syria, and Hezbollah, saying, in essence, that they wanted Hezbollah to 'warm up' the north." In one intercept, the consultant said, Nasrallah referred to Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz "as seeming to be weak," in comparison with the former Prime Ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Barak, who had extensive military experience, and said "he thought Israel would respond in a small-scale, local way, as they had in the past."
(...)

* For the rest of this story, go to www.newyorker.com




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