http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/blaming-terrorists-terrorism_700340.html?nopager=1
Yesterday the Bulgarian government announced the results of its
investigation into the July 18, 2012 bus bombing that killed 5
Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian bus driver in the city of Burgas.
At least two members of what appears to have been a three-man team
belong to Hezbollah. More specifically, explained Bulgaria’s
interior minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, they were part of
Hezbollah’s “military wing”—a peculiar turn of phrase that hints
at the political implications of the Bulgarian investigation,
which may have a major impact on European Union foreign policy as
well as Hezbollah’s ability to operate on the continent. And yet
the most serious repercussions may be felt inside Lebanon, where
Hezbollah is already feeling the pressure.
Even as late as the night
before the announcement, says Matthew Levitt a former Treasury
Department official and now a fellow at the Washington Institute
for Near East Policy, “U.S. officials didn’t know if Bulgaria
would go ahead and name Hezbollah. The Israelis seemed more
confident, but remained tight-lipped about it.” And the
Bulgarians, Levitt told me, “spoke truth to power. They made it
clear these were Hezbollah operatives, funded by Hezbollah in a
Hezbollah plot.”
It would be hard to overstate the resolve
the Bulgarian government showed in making the announcement.
“Sofia came under enormous pressure from among others the French
and Germans to 'nuance' the report and avoid antagonizing
Hezbollah,” says Omri Ceren, a senior advisor at The Israel Project. “That Bulgarian
officials were willing to let the evidence guide them and expose
who was behind the attack, even at this very delicate time for
the European Union and for Bulgaria's place inside of it, took
genuine political courage.”
There had been some speculation that the
Bulgarians might hint at Hezbollah involvement without naming
the group and likely inviting further attacks from an outfit
that has picked up the pace of its terrorist operations abroad
in the last three years. As Levitt shows in his new study, “Hizballah and the
Qods Force in Iran's Shadow War with the West,” since January
2010 the Lebanese group and its Iranian partners have plotted
numerous attacks throughout Europe and the rest of the world,
targeting Israeli embassies and Jewish communities in, among
other places, Cyprus, Turkey, Thailand, Kenya, India,
Azerbaijan, and Georgia.
The operation at the bus station in Burgas
was one of Hezbollah’s few successes, and Bulgaria’s response
comes in stark contrast to the decision recently taken by the
Argentinean government to form a “truth commission” with the
Islamic Republic of Iran to investigate the 1994 bombing of the
Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. The purpose of the agreement is to
bury the case and whitewash Hezbollah’s role in killing 85
people and wounding hundreds, exactly 18 years to the day before
the Burgas bombing. Bulgaria chose instead to underscore
Hezbollah’s bloody career.
The Obama administration and other U.S.
officials greeted the Sofia report with
enthusiasm. The White House’s counterterrorism adviser John
Brennan commended “its friend and NATO ally.” Obama’s nominee
for CIA director has in the past indicated he’s somewhat confused
about Hezbollah, recommending for instance that Washington
should seek to empower the terror group’s so-called “moderates.”
But regarding the Burgas bombing, Brennan was clear-eyed.
“Bulgaria’s investigation exposes Hizballah for what it is,”
Brennan said in a released statement,
“a terrorist group that is willing to recklessly attack innocent
men, women, and children, and that poses a real and growing
threat not only to Europe, but to the rest of the world.”
New Secretary of State John Kerry also weighed in, urging “other
governments around the world – and particularly our partners in
Europe – to take immediate action to crack down on Hizballah. We
need to send an unequivocal message to this terrorist group that
it can no longer engage in despicable actions with impunity.”
Kerry is referring to the ongoing debate
within the European Union whether or not to designate Hezbollah
as a terrorist organization. France and Germany are against
listing Lebanon’s Islamic resistance, and led an aggressive
campaign to convince the Bulgarians not to name Hezbollah as the
culprit. The Netherlands, on the other hand, has been pushing
for designation and has blacklisted Hezbollah separately from
any EU actions. The UK meanwhile has designated Hezbollah’s
“military wing,” an action taken largely because of Hezbollah
fighters that squared off against UK troops in Iraq, and
intended to distinguish it from the outfit’s “political wing,” a
distinction that the Bulgarian report made implicitly.
In a statement following the report, Israeli
prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu argued against this idea,saying that “there is only one
Hezbollah, it is one organization with one leadership.” As it
turns out, Netanyahu’s interpretation is backed by Hezbollah
itself. "All political, social and jihad work is tied to the
decisions of this leadership," senior Hezbollah official Naim
Qassem told the Los Angeles Times in 2009. "The
same leadership that directs the parliamentary and government
work also leads jihad actions in the struggle against Israel."
The distinction between the two “wings” is
simply a convenient fiction invented by European policymakers.
No one is fooled against his will, and the reality is that the
Europeans aren’t even fooling themselves with their
hairsplitting. The effect of separating the two “wings” is to
give Hezbollah some wiggle room. If only the “military” side is
listed then the “political” group can still raise money on the
continent. The purpose of the distinction is to give European
diplomats an advantage over their American counterparts. Because
U.S. officials are not allowed to deal with a designated foreign
terrorist organization like Hezbollah, the Europeans are able to
step in and fill the gap. But if Hezbollah is designated as a
whole, and not simply its “military” wing, then the Europeans
will lose one of the few cards they have to play in their Middle
East policy.
Spilling blood on European soil should make
it much more difficult for the French and others to avoid
designating Hezbollah, but “we’re not at a place yet where
designation is certain, there’s a lot left to be done. There is
no longer a debate over the facts,” according to Levitt. “The
debate now is over policy—is it a smart move to list them?
Indeed, the Europeans were already pushing
back even before the report. EU counterterrorism official Gilles
de Kerchove argued the day before the
announcement that there “is no automatic listing just because
you have been behind a terrorist attack… It's not only the legal
requirement that you have to take into consideration, it's also
a political assessment of the context and the timing."
If de Kerchove seems to be making room for
some sort of justification that Hezbollah might offer for the
attack, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton was even more
mealy mouthed. "The EU and Member States will discuss the
appropriate response based on all elements identified by the
investigators," saidAshton, noting “the need
for a reflection over the outcome of the investigation.”
The Europeans are primarily worried about
losing their diplomatic prerogative, but are also,
understandably, concerned about winding up in Hezbollah’s
crosshairs. Hezbollah and Iran were effectively at war with
France in the 80s, often in Paris itself, and with French troops
and civilians filling the UNIFIL ranks in southern Lebanon,
they’d prefer to avoid shaking the hornets’ nest. However, the
fact is that Hezbollah has already targeted French UNIFIL
troops, and those of other EU members, including Spain and
Italy.
Finally the Europeans reason that
designating Hezbollah might destabilize the Lebanese government.
This is a particularly odd rationale given that Hezbollah
controls the government and destabilizing it, or forcing
Lebanese parties to abandon their alliance with the party of
God, would serve the interests of Beirut’s pro-Western parties.
Already the announcement seems to be having an effect inside
Lebanon.
“It will be hard for Hezbollah’s allies to
back it when Europe turns against it,” says NOW Lebanon’s
managing editor Hanin Ghaddar. “Yesterday, Prime Minister Mikati
said he condemns Bulgaria bombing, and the Lebanese government
is ready to cooperate.” Mikati is not affiliated with the
pro-democracy March 14 forces but was handpicked for the
premiership by Hezbollah. “If you support them on the bombing
then you’ll have problems in Europe,” says Ghaddar. “Mikati has
business in Europe so he’s going to be very careful with this.”
According to Ghaddar, the Bulgaria report is
as significant as the special tribunal for Lebanon thatnamed four Hezbollah members
guilty for the assassination of former prime minister Rafik
Hariri. “Nasrallah has a speech in ten days,” says Ghaddar, “and
everyone is saying that Hezbollah will have no comment before
that, but I think they don’t know what to say. Again Hezbollah
is in big trouble.”
It seems that the party of God is fighting
on every conceivable front, and not faring well on any of them.
In Syria, it’s sided with Bashar al-Assad’s besieged regime,
sending forces to take on a Sunni-majority rebellion that will
in time inevitably take its revenge on the Shiite militia. Its
terrorist operations around the world are proving failures,
except for the one in Bulgaria, which may in time turn Europe as
well as its Lebanese allies against it.
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