Egypt: Under Iran’s Influence?

CAIRO –When war broke out in Lebanon several days ago I joked that finally the Arabs couldn’t blame Israel for something. I spoke too soon for it appears the Arabs have rectified that situation.

A well-placed Egyptian source tells me Egypt decided to use its government and its state-sponsored media to back Iran by saying the Syrians:

will continue to use Lebanon as a trump card in the Greater Middle East game of geo-political chicken, escalating the crisis into an open conflict if they feel this to be the only way to attract international attention, particularly that of the United States, to re-launch peace talks with Israel over the occupied Golan Heights.

It’s yet another sad day in Islam when a Egypt, a country that signed a peace treaty with Israel over 30 years ago and still enjoys peace with Israel, would join Israel’s avowed enemies, Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah, and attempt to turn Lebanon’s Civil War, totally an Arab affair, into a lever against Israel.

Will President Bush hop on the bandwagon when he’s in Israel soon and try to make Israel make the same mistake it’s already made twice? Israel gave the Arabs what they wanted by agreeing with Lebanon and the United Nations that if it walked away from the zone it established in southern Lebanon, that it would never be used again to launch further aggression toward Israel. And Israel walked away from Gaza, hoping that by giving the Arabs what they wanted, Gaza would never be used again to launch aggression toward Israel.

The world has seen how both of these spectacular acts of faith turned out. Now, is America going to use its influence over Israel again to convince it to leave the Golan Heights?

Poor George Bush. He had hoped, with Saddam gone, to have Syria’s aggression silenced by now. Instead, more of America’s enemies jumped in to fill the void, and with a newly emboldened Syria, we’re seeing how the Arabs and Persians and redistributing their aggression throughout the region.