The Israelis are using “disproportionate” force. Hizbullah, a non-state terrorist organization, accumulated huge weapons stockpiles now raining down on Israel using the Lebanese infrastructure. Command and control centered in South Beirut, with logistics routes through the Beirut airport and arteries from Syria. It installed weapons in the midst of civilian populations not only in rural South Lebanon but in such cities as Tyre within rocket range of Israel. Like all armies – but especially Israel with its peculiar history and universal military service – seeks to limit its losses. The Lebanese state, always constructed confessionally, has not been willing nor able to confront Hizbullah’s growing power, armed and supported by Syria and Iran, and probably tactically as well as strategically, commanded by Tehran and Damascus. While the Israelis pursue strategic goals, however costly to Lebanese noncompatants, Hizbullah sacrifices its own civilian supporters – in its pathological cult of death and martyrdom And it specifically aims at civilian targets.

There must be an immediate ceasefire. Aggression against Israel from Lebanon is an affair of decades, first by Palestinians and more recently by Hizbullah. Unless the problem is addressed through a cauterization of the border, any attempt to halt the warfare now will only reward Hizbullah for its initial aggression, embolden the Iranians and the Syrians for further adventures bringing on renewed warfare, threatening regional and worldwide conflict Only a solution such as was reached on Israel’s southern border with Egypt or even on the West Bank with Jordan would be effective. Its preparation must precede the cessation of hostilities as President Bush has insisted.

We must negotiate directly and immediately with Syria/Iran. The assumption is Washington and Damascus and Tehran do not communicate unless U.S. representatives are in immediate contact. It was, after all, Syrian and Iranian creation and provisioning of Hizbullah on a vast scale – if not Tehran’s direct intervention f to distract world from its efforts to achieve nuclear weapons – which began this violence. Syria has had opportunity after opportunity to doff its role as a central communications point for terrorism. Whatever assistance it is alleged to have given American intelligence in the aftermath of 9/11, its role in the present crisis is overwhelming culpable. The media report continued assistance to Hizbullah as the conflict continues. Any negotiated settlement with Damascus and Tehran which does not culminate in disarming Hizbullah and extension of Lebanon’s authority to all its territory, would strengthen Tehran/Damscus and the terrorists’ following in the rest of the Arab and Moslem world, not the least in Iraq where the U.S. is engaged in n effort to create a stable and democratic society.

The present crisis is the result of Bush’s foreign policy – or lack thereof. If the Bush Administration bears responsibility, it lies with the refusal to face up to the six-year buildup of Hizbullah and the acceptance at face value of Syria’s “withdrawal” from Lebanon. Of course, many balls have been in the air, not a few of them are either the legacy of eight years of the Clinton Administration’s refusal to deal with issues or with inadequate strategies aggravating problems it too had inherited [North Korea, for one].

The world – despite our consumer society others are now imitating – is still a dangerous place. And as 9/11 proved, it can at any moment impinge quickly on the American homeland.

Sol W. Sanders, (solsanders@cox.net), is an Asian specialist with more than 25 years in the region, and a former correspondent for Business Week, U.S. News & World Report and United Press International. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com and East-Asia-Intel.com.