In foreign media coverage, Sharon and Arafat are often depicted as two aging gang leaders, locked for decades in a personal life-or-death struggle. This picture is a bit simplistic, but one cannot ignore the strong feeling of dij` vu. Once again, Arafat is held at Israeli gunpoint, and the international community is begging Sharon to spare his life. The images are all too familiar: Israeli officers, showing off piles of captured Palestinian weapons and forged Israeli shekels, found at Arafat’s compound. The Palestinian leader, older than in the old pictures, is still recognizable, upbeat under siege and determined to outmaneuver his old rival one more time.

There is one major distinction, however, between the Beirut siege of 1982 and its Ramallah sequel of 2002. This time around, the Palestinians hit back with suicide bombers, who blow themselves up almost daily in Israeli population centers, killing 120 people in the last month and spreading havoc and fear among Israelis, whose Passover holiday has turned into a bloodbath this year. So far, Israel has found no effective response to the human bombs, and its military blows in the Palestinian areas failed to deter the terrorists, who only became more determined and gained stronger support within the Palestinian society.

Right-wing Israeli politicians now call openly for “temporary reoccupation” of the Palestinian enclaves in the West Bank and Gaza, and some military commanders are encouraging them by hinting that reoccupation is their last resort. Is this Sharon’s favored option as well? Does he have an exit strategy at all? These are probably the most asked questions in Israel right now, but nobody seems to know the answers.

Israeli diplomatic sources say that the Bush administration, while supporting Israel so far, has no idea about Sharon’s direction, either. But the Americans have decided to let the prime minister have his way for now. President Bush supported “Israel’s right for self-defense” in strong words at his ranch appearance last Saturday. American envoy Anthony Zinni was told to remain in Jerusalem’s King David hotel and wait for further instructions. With his daily schedule almost empty thanks to the new surge of violence, Zinni met Sharon on Sunday night, but merely echoed the president’s message and listened to the prime minister’s talking points. Neither did Zinni pressure the Israelis to let him visit the besieged Arafat. American officials say that in a few days, Zinni will be asked to renew his cease-fire efforts, but the time is not ripe for that yet.

At the same time, the United States supported U.N. Security Council resolution 1402 last Friday, calling for a cease-fire and Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian areas. The American U.N. delegation managed to delete the word “immediate” before “withdrawal,” thereby giving Israel a “buffer” to conclude its operation. The message to Sharon is clear: The diplomatic hourglass is running, and the U.N. resolution gives Washington an internationally sponsored mandate to pull the plug on the operation whenever it sees fit.

The Passover escalation overshadowed the other major development in the region last week. On Thursday, the Arab summit in Beirut adopted the Saudi peace initiative, offering Israel a package deal: normal relations with Arab countries, in return for full withdrawal to pre-1967 lines and resolving the Palestinian refugee problem. Israeli officials discarded the Beirut declaration as a “non-starter,” saying that its demands for full withdrawal and refugee repatriation are unacceptable.

But this attitude is shortsighted. For the first time, the whole Arab world backed a peace proposal and indicated its readiness to accept the Jewish state in its midst. The move was led by Saudi Arabia, the source of religious legitimacy and oil wealth, while Arafat was pushed to the sidelines. Not only was he forbidden to attend by Sharon, but the host, Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, blocked Arafat’s video speech. The message was clear: The Arab states would take the lead and would not allow the Palestinian leader to shake their stability. Now, with everybody’s attention focused on the Arafat siege and the wave of suicide bombings, the Beirut declaration is all but shelved for future use. But it will clearly serve as the benchmark for any peace process in the time to come.

The trigger for the latest round of escalation was the “Seder massacre,” a suicide attack that killed 21 Israelis as they gathered for the annual Passover rite at a hotel in the beach town of Netanya. This bombing was seen as the “strategic attack,” a turning point in the 18-month war of attrition between Israelis and Palestinians. And duly, the Israeli government ordered the army into Ramallah, declaring Arafat formally an “enemy” who needs to be “isolated for now.”

But while it may appear that Sharon has gotten everything he wants in this latest escalation, in fact he’s been thwarted a bit by his coalition partners, as well as by the United States. The prime minister initially wanted to seize the opportunity to expel the Palestinian leader, as well as to name the whole Palestinian Authority Israel’s “enemy.” But he was rebuffed by a combination of his intelligence chiefs and his coalition partners from the left, Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. They managed to convince their fellow ministers that kicking Arafat out would do more harm than leaving him besieged, and Sharon took back his proposal, saving this ultimate weapon for the next stage of escalation. For the time being, he favors keeping Peres at his side, knowing he needs the Nobel Peace laureate to run Israel’s international propaganda effort. Sharon also listened carefully to Secretary of State Colin Powell, who called in the midst of a seven-hour meeting last Thursday night and expressed the administration’s desire to keep Arafat alive, well and in his place. (In exchange, Powell blamed Palestinian terror for Friday’s incursion into Ramallah, and did not call for Israeli troops to withdraw.)

In that Thursday meeting, the cabinet approved an emergency mobilization of 20,000 reserve troops, upping the stakes in this latest military gamble. Israel cannot keep its reservists on duty for too long, since mobilization has dire consequences for the society and for the national economy, which has suffered a major depression since the outbreak of violence in September 2000. By drafting its reserves now, Israel is signaling its intention to bring a quick end to this escalation.

A well-accepted axiom of the Arab-Israeli conflict is that Israel has a “short strategic breath” due to its greater sensitivity for casualties, and therefore it aims for a quick victory, while the Arabs prefer a strategy of attrition. The spring campaign of 2002 follows those old rules. With its citizens scared to leave home for the shopping mall or the neighborhood cafi, fearing suicide attack, Israel would find it hard to conduct a prolonged war.

Operation “wall of defense,” as the Israeli attack is named, came as no surprise to anyone who watched the gradual escalation of the conflict in the past weeks. Faced with more and more Israeli terror victims, Sharon made no secret of his desire to bring the war into a forceful conclusion, after giving diplomacy one final shot.

By mid-March, his aides were talking about “Arafat’s last chance,” as they prepared for the visit of Vice President Dick Cheney and the return of Anthony Zinni. Sharon agreed to help Zinni broker a cease-fire. He made some concessions, avoiding retaliation for terror attacks and accepting the mediator’s bridging proposal last Tuesday. At the same time, the Israeli prime minister blocked Arafat’s trip to the Arab summit in Beirut, where his fellow leaders discussed and endorsed the Saudi peace initiative. Sharon could ignore American pressure to let Arafat go, because he knew the Palestinian leader had angered the Bush administration by refusing to meet Cheney’s conditions for a meeting, and delaying before he accepted the Zinni proposal.

Last Wednesday, on the eve of Passover, both sides were ready for the showdown. Zinni gave Arafat a de facto ultimatum: Take my proposal as a whole, or leave it and be left alone with Sharon. The Palestinians balked, demanding that political steps, like an Israeli settlement freeze, complement Zinni’s security measures. Meanwhile, that morning two Israeli newspapers published interviews with Sharon. For the first time, the prime minister admitted to having differences of opinion with the Bush administration. Until that point, Sharon had consistently claimed to be in total agreement with Washington.

This time, however, he said he regretted accepting the American demand to keep Arafat intact and avoid his expulsion. Sharon has been under strong pressure within his own Likud party to do away with Arafat, mostly from his contender, former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. But Sharon chose his partnership with Peres and the Americans. Now he appeared to close ranks with Netanyahu and the right wing. Hours later, the suicide attack in Netanya gave him a new pretext for doing so, and triggered the Israeli attack.

The immediate concern, for Israel and foreign governments alike, is where the Israeli operation is going and how long will it take. Sharon told a meeting of news editors that the operation would take “several weeks.” Defense sources briefed reporters on a “rolling operation” that would “clean up” terror hideouts in the Palestinian areas, arresting suspected terrorists and collecting weapons. But this estimate sounds too optimistic, for both domestic and diplomatic reasons.

Domestically, Sharon risks the breakup of national consensus over the war, if he overplays the military card. Less than 48 hours into the operation, critical voices already arose from the left wing and the media. Sharon being Sharon, the critics’ main worry is the lack of a clear political goal for the operation. The memories of 1982, when the army invaded Lebanon to clear a “40 kilometer strip” from PLO rockets and ended up capturing Beirut, are still quite fresh in Israelis’ minds, even 20 years later.

On Sunday, the prime minister gave a televised “address to the nation,” but like most of his previous TV appearances, this one backfired, and certainly did not clear the fog. Sharon cursed Arafat as the “initiator and operator of terror” and pledged to “uproot the terror infrastructure” as a precondition for any cease-fire or political settlement. But he gave no idea of how the operation would bring security back to Israel’s streets, hours after another human bomb killed 14 people in a Haifa restaurant. Nor has the defense establishment given a clearer indication of the mission’s long-term goals. Defense sources say that the current operation has “only military goals, not political ones,” so why was Arafat isolated? “In order to disconnect him from terror,” they say, unconvincingly.

Diplomatically, Sharon will eventually have to convince the U.S. that he has an endgame. At some point, as always, the U.S. will have to intervene diplomatically to reduce the current violence. When the U.S. reaches that point will depend on the volume of demands by America’s Arab allies to stop Sharon (Egypt and Jordan already threatened Israel with diplomatic sanctions), on the Israeli army’s performance on the ground and its care in treating civilians, and on the level of terror attacks within Israel.

It still remains to be seen if the Bush administration will try to broker a serious cease-fire and resume peace negotiations, or simply try to defuse the current escalation and “manage the conflict” as it has attempted, and failed, to do time and again over the past 14 months. Former U.S. Ambassador Martin Indyk, now in Israel for a lecture tour, told Israeli TV that Bush should be more involved, but the current administration cares more about toppling Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and establishing regional stability. Its involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian arena depends on its need for Arab support against Iraq — support that does not appear to be forthcoming — more than anything else.

Still, history might offer a glimmer of hope. In the past 30 years, peace moves between Arabs and Israelis were preceded by bursts of bloodshed and fighting. The Madrid peace conference of 1991 and the Oslo agreements came only after the Gulf War, which exposed the weaknesses of both sides. This round might follow the same pattern. After all, despite its backing for Sharon’s latest operation, Washington is preparing quietly for its end. Sharon himself has said the U.S. is mostly concerned with “the day after” the operations, and what mechanisms will be created to restore stability. The Bush administration broke with tradition and supported two U.N. resolutions in March, calling for a cease-fire and embracing Palestinian statehood. It endorsed the Saudi initiative as a blueprint for the future. It went little noticed when Secretary Powell mentioned, in his Friday press conference, two calls he made to Amre Moussa, the secretary general of the Arab League. The league, long seen as a symbol of Arab rejectionism, suddenly got a new lease on life as the guardian of the Saudi initiative.

Does all this indicate covert planning by the State Department for a major move, perhaps even another regional peace conference, based on the Saudi initiative? That’s still not clear. But while Sharon tries to buy time and ask for personal proposals from the Arab leaders, the Israeli labor party decided on Monday to accept the Saudi initiative as a possible platform for future negotiations.

So two possible scenarios emerge out of the current mess in Israel and the West Bank. The rosy scenario would involve a new deal between Washington and Riyadh, in which both would cooperate in “finishing the job” on the two troublesome regional fronts, Iraq and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Bush wants badly to fulfill his father’s legacy and get rid of Saddam; it’s conceivable that he might trade support for the Saudi peace proposal in order to get Saudi backing for his Iraq agenda.

But the bleak scenario envisions more of the same: steady violent escalation, with alternating periods of bloodshed and relative calm. It is hard to believe that the status quo can persist much longer without American intervention, but it has been hard to believe much of what has gone on in this ugly Sharon-Arafat rematch.

Many governments struggling with dissent appear to be using a double-barreled strategy to fight back against the so-called Facebook revolutions: classic repression and by promoting their own views using the very same platforms.

“The thought police already have a presence online in these countries,” said Mohamed Abdel Dayem, the Middle East and North Africa program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists. “And they have a very heavy presence on Twitter, Facebook and other social media networks. They go out there and intimidate people. And they accuse people of being heathens. And call for their heads.”

Jeffrey Ghannam, a media lawyer and analyst in Washington, thinks the propaganda strategy will win out over subjugation.

“It’s my sense that Arab governments will focus less on control, filtering and blocking — though those efforts will not completely disappear — and begin to assert their own views in the Arab cyberspace,” he said.

“Consider the cases of so-called Bahraini twitter trolls and the Syrian cyber attacks that go after critics of these respective Arab regimes. The official Arab government view is increasingly in the mix,” he said. “Another example is the way the SCAF (Egypt’s Supreme Council of Armed Forces) uses Facebook and Twitter. It may not be beautifully done, and it does draw tens of thousands of critical remarks online that are viewable, but the SCAF is contributing its views. These are all significant developments and point to increasing government engagement in the Arab cyberspace.”

Some of the official efforts smack of classic public relations techniques.

In Bahrain, the government launched an online campaign called “We Are All Hamad,” asking supporters to post pictures of Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, Bahrain’s ruler, on their Facebook and Twitter pages.

In Tunisia, government officials, including President Moncef Marzouki (@Moncef_Marzouki) have joined Twitter. The royal family in Jordan, as well as the mayor of Amman, Jordan’s capital, also use Facebook and Twitter to speak directly to constituents.

These regimes, however, have a long history of using heavy-handed tactics and are apparently not about to give up on old habits. Many, in fact, have learned that social media can help identify potential targets of their crackdown.

This nascent trend, however, has not led authorities in these countries and elsewhere to give up old habits. Many have continued to opt for the more traditional and heavy-handed response.

Last month, for instance, Moroccan authorities arrested 18-year-old college student Walid Bahomane on charges of “defaming Morocco’s sacred values” by posting unflattering pictures and videos on Facebook that poked fun at King Mohammed VI. Authorities also convicted another student, Abdelsamad Haydour, 24, earlier in the month for criticizing the ruler in a video posted on YouTube.

These developments have taken place in a country largely praised for its response to citizen discontent over the past year. In November, Morocco held peaceful parliamentary elections as part of a governmental reform process initiated by the king that also included a new constitution.

In Saudi Arabia, 23-year-old journalist Hamza Kashgari faces charges of blasphemy, an offence that carries the death sentence, for tweeting an imaginary conversation he was having with the Prophet Muhammad. The uproar over Kashgari’s comments prompted the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdul-Azeez ibn Abdullaah Aal ash-Shaikh, to issue a fatwa against Twitter, which he told “real Muslims” to avoid as a “platform for trading accusations and for promoting lies,” according to an article in The National.

And in Jordan, a masked assailant on Feb. 20 stabbed university student Enass Musallam after he published a blog post that criticized a member of the Jordanian royal family.

Authorities in the region are now also turning to old laws — such as emergency laws, anti-terrorism laws and press laws — to justify the arrest, fines and incarceration of individuals for online expression.

“When the internet and social media blogs were just starting to become popular, press laws were only applied to the mainstream media. But that’s no longer the case as these media platforms continue to converge,” said Courtney Radsch, program manager for the Global Freedom of Expression Campaign at Freedom House in New York.

Earlier this month, for instance, authorities in the United Arab Emirates arrested pro-democracy activist Saleh al-Dhufairi for tweets criticizing the UAE’s decision to deport Syrian expatriates who demonstrated outside their consulate in Dubai without a permit.

“Saleh al-Dhufairi has been arrested on accusation of spreading ideas by speech, writing and any other means that provoke strife, hurt national unity, and social peace,” a spokesman for Dubai police said in a statement.

Al-Dhufairi’s arrest is a scare tactic by a government that is itself scared of any significant dissent, CPJ’s Abdel Dayem.

“Events are occurring that are of monumental political weight and have very far reaching implications. So what happens in Tunisia matters in the Gulf and what happens in Syria matters in the Gulf,” Abdel Dayem said. “These are obviously separate political entities and separate states but there is a Pan-Arab media consumed across borders, so journalists, bloggers, regular citizens and everyone else is exploring these new found venues for expression.”

“They are testing government tolerance for criticism, not just in Libya, Egypt and Yemen where there was an actual change in the political arrangement, but also in countries where there hasn’t been change.”

And these governments in turn are testing their responses, said popular UAE commentator Sultan Al Qassemi, who has more than 100,000 followers on Twitter.

“What we are seeing today is part of the teething process of accepting social media as an avenue of communication and criticism of society and government in the Gulf,” Qassemi said. “As the adoption of social media tools grows in the Gulf there will naturally be a larger output of opinions, some less agreeable to the authorities than others.”

Citizen journalists, bloggers and average citizens who run afoul of the law for expressing their opinions online must also contend with inadequate legal representation.

“This is a new realm for many lawyers in these countries. It requires training and requires a level of experience with the technology and that’s lacking in many countries if not all,” Radsch said. “Certainly, in the U.S. where you’ve had a longer history with internet-based content you have some more sophistication there.

But in many of these countries, blogging really just got going in 2004 and 2005.”

“With the advent of TV, you saw fewer cases against broadcasters at the beginning because it was still new and they were figuring things out, but you’re going to continue to see this battle between governments and citizens play out,” she said.

This time, however, the very nature of the internet and social networking might be enough to break the cycle.

“One thing is different,” Radsch said. “There are a lot more stakeholders and users of social media. The mainstream media is owned by a few and provides jobs for a few more but the vested interest across the broad swath of the public using social media could mean far more stakeholders could fight for the right to keep this space open.”

In the past few weeks, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey and National Security Advisor Tom Donilon have all held high level meetings in Jerusalem. Barak is scheduled to meet with Panetta and with Vice President Joe Biden. Peres will meet with President Barack Obama, as will Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will fly to Washington for a much anticipated meeting on March 5.

The subject at hand is nuclear Iran — not the movie version, and not even the proxy war version, which has seen the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, the attempted assassinations of Israeli diplomats, and genial computer viruses attack Iranian nuclear installations, making centrifuges spiral out of control, as in Hollywood’s imagination.

On the eve of the Israelis’ Washington visits, there is a divergence of opinion between the United States and Israel regarding the utility of the recently hardened sanctions on Iran, and a growing apprehension on both sides about what the other may be prepared to accept from the Islamic Republic’s leadership.

Eytan Gilboa, an expert on U.S.-Israel bilateral relations who holds posts at Bar Ilan University and at the University of Southern California, said the situation is stark and in some ways unprecedented.

“The Obama administration has little trust in Netanyahu and vice versa. The new sanctions that have been imposed have produced economic hardship in Tehran, but this does not mean they are working. To work, they have to change the Iranian government’s policy toward nuclear development, and this has not yet happened.”

“The UN Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has just announced that Iran has substantially increased enrichment, which seems to contradict American statements that have appeared in all the media suggesting that Iran has not yet made the decision whether to develop nuclear weapons.”

Two points of dispute stand out in creating what Sen. John McCain, also on a visit to Israel last week, called the “daylight” between the two countries regarding Iran’s nuclear plan.

The first is the question of what constitutes unacceptable progress toward the manufacture of an armed nuclear device, or, in Barak’s words, Iran’s entry into a “zone of immunity.” The other is the extent of uranium enrichment at a nuclear site near the holy city of Qum, which was highlighted by the IAEA report.

The United States and Israel agree that the secret underground structure is better protected from a possible military strike than other known Iranian facilities. But from that point of agreement, different conclusions are drawn.

Israeli analysts believe Iran is moving fast toward a nuclear military option, and taking advantage of the pressure of sanctions and the time granted by European offers to negotiate in order to assemble all the parts necessary to build a bomb. The United States, which is in the midst of an election year, meanwhile, thinks sanctions may yet bring Iran — “if it is behaving as a rational actor,” in Gilboa’s words — to negotiate.

“The process is preparing everything for the building of bombs, with the aim of creating all the parts and then needing only a very short period of time to assemble a weapon. So it is just playing with words if we say that we don’t know whether they have made a decision. If you produce all the parts, it is obvious that means you intend to produce a bomb,” Gilboa said.

“I think that what Obama wants from Netanyahu next week is a commitment not to strike Iran at least until the American election, to give heavier sanctions a chance and not to surprise the United States.”

Gilboa does not believe Israel would attack Iranian nuclear installations without notifying the Americans beforehand.

Still, he points out, “The current situation is unprecedented. The U.S. has never before asked Israel to refrain from military action, and Israel has never before asked the U.S. for permission. This is all new ground.”

The 1981 Israel Air Force attack on Osirak, Saddam Hussein’s French-built nuclear reactor is now ancient history. In that campaign however, only eight jets were involved.

The New York Times estimated that at least 100 Israeli fighter planes would be needed today for a crippling attack on Iran. At the time of the Osirak strike, the United States angrily condemned Israel. But in 2005, former President Bill Clinton said, “Everybody talks about what the Israelis did at Osirak in 1981, which I think, in retrospect, was a really good thing.”

The current disagreement between Israel and the United States seem not to be on the substance of Iran’s nuclear program, or even on the possibility of a necessary, last-resort, military strike, but on the timetable and method of response to the threat.

Many Israeli analysts believe the Obama administration and Europe are not convinced that the full effect of sanctions has yet been felt. Israelis are concerned that by the time they are felt, possibly by next summer, when Europe’s oil embargo on Iran is scheduled to go into effect, it might be too late.

“What Obama would like is to put the crippling sanctions to the test. He thinks that the sanctions being used this time, alongside the oil embargo, will actually have an impact,” said Tel Aviv University professor Uzi Rabi, the director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies.

“He is in effect saying to Israel, don’t surprise us. We want to be updated from A to Z. The second thing, I think Israel is being asked is to play down the shadow war and really just let sanctions work. If the sanctions are going to be fully implemented it could inflict a lethal blow on the Iranian regime, and since what we are talking about is the survival of the regime itself, this could be very effective.”

As to Israel, Rabi says, “It would like to make sure everybody knows that from its point of view, a nuclear Iran is unbearable. This combination of ayatollahs and power is something that poses an existential threat to Israel, and it is something Israel is really afraid of. What Israel thinks is the right thing to do is to make sure the military option is not only on the table, but actually feasible.”

Not many in Israel think that Iran, even with a nuclear weapon in hand, would attack Tel Aviv.

“Based on rational thinking, which is not one of the strongest characteristics of the Middle East, if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, it would be tantamount to suicide were they to use them. Iran would be wiped out by Israel’s second strike capability and by American nukes,” Gilboa said.

“I think they want them in order to acquire hegemony in the Middle East. By becoming a nuclear power they can threaten anybody. The power of threat is much more than the power of destruction.”

Gilboa predicts that next week Netanyahu will ask Obama how he plans to ensure Iran’s non-nuclear status in the event sanctions fail to cripple the nuclear program, and that Obama “will evade the answers.”

Rabi says “Israel is afraid to be left alone. I don’t think Iran would attack Israel. But their actions provide a source of inspiration for lunatic radical movements like Hamas and Hezbollah, and the fact that they are attacking Israelis in Baku, Delhi and Tbilisi, though ineffective for now, show that this is a state that could act in accordance with the modus operandi of a terrorist group. This has very negative implications for the stability of the Middle East.”

Not all Israeli experts see in the commotion of transatlantic visits and consultations evidence of tension between the United States and Israel. Shlomo Shpiro, vice chair of the Department of Politics at Bar Ilan University, believes those claims to be overstated.

“I think there anxiety among some in the U.S. administration who fear that a powerful Israeli military action against Iran could have an impact on the election in November. I don’t think there is tension. A whole range of senior American officials have been visiting Israel almost on a weekly basis.”

“I think the threat assessment is very similar in Washington and in Jerusalem,” he adds. “I think Obama is very concerned about the possibility of Iran getting nuclear weapons. Both are very worried, and both countries agree the process is moving quickly. The disagreement is only about how to prevent or delay it.”

Any Israeli military option, Shpiro says, would be a “last resort.”

“But if it comes to a last resort, I think Israel’s leadership will not hesitate. It all depends on the progress of Iran’s nuclear program and on information that the U.S. and Israel obtain about that program.”

For now, the war of nerves will play on, with Israel pressuring the U.S. and Europe to fully implement severe sanctions as soon as possible, and demanding assurances, perhaps impossible to give, about what the West will do if sanctions do not deter Iran.

The psychological warfare, many say, may lead Iran to believe it can “safely assume it can continue with its plan to build nuclear weapons without much interference,” Gilboa said. “There is a possibility the Iranians are laughing at everybody. For example, why announce sanctions and then say you’ll impose them only in six months?”

“The Iranians are the only ones producing consistent statements, and this is our problem. Too many of the statements coming from the West are confusing and could be interpreted in any number of ways.”

Hezbollah has enjoyed enormous popularity across the entire region, perceived by many as the champions of the Arab world, successfully standing up to the bully in the playground, Israel. There was a time when the portrait of Hassan Nasrallah hung on the walls of homes and cafes from Baghdad to Casablanca. Yet, following a relatively cool reception of Nasrallah’s speech on the 16^th of February , one got the distinct impression that the Lebanese resistance leader may not enjoy the same popularity he once did with the Arab masses.

A simple explanation might be Hezbollah’s unequivocal support for Bashar el-Assad’s regime in Syria.  In a speech broadcast by al-Manar on May 25^th 2011, Nasrallah declared his group’s strong support for the Assad regime. He hailed Syria for its support of the Resistance movement in Lebanon and Palestine. Many have been unable to comprehend why the former champions of the resistance would side with the regime against the people, especially considering Hezbollah’s unreserved support for the uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain. This has eroded the party’s popularity not only among Sunnis in Syria, who dominate the opposition, but also in the Arab world at large as regional tensions intensify between Shi’ite Iran and the predominantly Sunni Arab states.

Ironically, the very cause which won Hezbollah respect from thousands across the region, also, lost them the support of their own people. Throughout the 1990s, the Lebanese, regardless of sect, were united by Hezbollah’s resistance to the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon and again in 2006 when Israel threatened reinvasion. However, critics point to Hezbollah’s reluctance to disarm as the main source of national instability. Lebanese political leader Samir Geagea asserting that “The ones who are involving Lebanon [in crises] are those wielding power outside the Lebanese state” and demanding that Hezbollah put down its arms and integrate itself with the official Lebanese army and government.

In a similar vein, Hezbollah has alienated many followers by becoming embroiled in a petty tit-for-tat exchange with the March 14 coalition over the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, investigating the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq el-Hariri.  Many, regardless of their politics, had respected Nasrallah for his commitment to his cause and ability to avoid entanglement in party politics.

Though not Hezbollah’s fault, as such, the persisting devastation of the socio-economic condition and infrastructure of southern Lebanon has also served as a harsh reminder, to the organisation’s critics, of the consequences of war with Israel

In the Asia Times, Sami Moubayed, points out Hassan Nasrallah’s total withdrawal from public life in Lebanon in recent years; choosing to address his supporters on live television rather than the massive public rallies for which he has been famed. His disappearance has been due to security fears. However, this has made it difficult for followers to connect with him. It is, also, now harder to draw in new supporters from across the Arab and Islamic worlds.

Despite their somewhat dented popularity, Hezbollah is still massively important on a strategic level, with regard to predicting the outcome of unrest in Syria.

In a speech broadcast by al-Manar on the 25^th August 2011, Nasrallah named Syria as a very important ally in the region “The Syrian support has been crucial. A great part of the Iranian support comes through Syria. If it had not been for the will of Syria, even the Iranian support would have been blocked”.  So, it is reasonable to assume that the fall of the Assad regime would serve a tremendous blow to Hezbollah, but also, act as catalyst to a power struggle within the country. A regime in Syria based on the Sunni Muslim majority would most likely be more friendly to Hezbollah’s local rivals in the March 14 coalition. Such a regime would also have good relations with regional powers that have severe disagreements with the Hezbollah movement over sectarian and political issues.

Prof. Joseph Bahout at Sciences Po in Paris notes that, in such a situation, Hezbollah would be faced with two alternatives, if faced with waning support from Syria “will Hizballah gradually become more flexible in terms of Lebanonization and civilianization? Or, on the contrary, will it increasingly pursue a radical position and bitterly defend its share of the Lebanese system while echoing Tehran’s dictum that Assad’s rule in Syria is a red line?” Judging by Hezbollah’s stern rhetoric over the past few months, the leadership has already decided on the latter and will continue to stand by the Assad regime.

Perhaps, most dangerously, Hezbollah also play an extremely important strategic role in what has been suggested as an imminent conflict between Israel and Iran. Would Israel be capable of conducting an aerial battle with Iran at the same time as defending itself against Hezbollah, closer to home?

Ha’aretz commentator Yoel Marcus thinks not, saying that a strike on Iran would be out of Israel’s league and points to cautions issued by former Mossad chief Meir Dagan against attacking Iran, amidst concerns that such a move would drag Israel into a regional war, which would involve Hezbollah, Hamas and possibly Syria.

Tensions have been escalating between Israel and Iran for some time, recently, heightened following attacks on Israeli embassies in India, Thailand and Georgia. An official for the Israeli counter terrorism bureau, quoted in Ha’aretz warned Israelis of further attacks and noted that Nasrallah’s threats of revenge for the 2008 assassination of Hezbollah commander Imad Mughaniyeh were being taken into account.  Nasrallah categorically denied any involvement in the explosions in his speech on February 16^th.

But what would such a conflict mean for the Arab world at large? It seems unlikely that Egyptians, Jordanians or, the Palestinians, all not so embroiled in the sectarian debate, would support Israel in any conflict against Muslims whether they be in Lebanon or, in Iran. However, countries in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) might have more to gain from a weakened Iran.

The GCC have been concerned about Iran’s capabilities, behavior and intentions for a long time, but it takes on an additional importance in light of the Arab Spring. This has certainly been the case in Egypt and Bahrain, in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, possibly in Yemen, and now in Syria.

GCC countries have repeatedly accused Tehran of attempting to destabilise their internal security, and attempting to instigate sectarian strife. Iran has rejected these accusations, and pointed to the GCC’s appalling treatment of Shi’ite citizens. Particularly, concerning the brutal suppression of the largely Shi’ite uprising in Bahrain against the Sunni al-Khalifa monarchy, a struggle which was obviously covered up by Gulf sponsored media such as al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya.

Tensions have also been rising over Iran’s ability to developing nuclear weapons, something that is already of great concern to the GCC. Without a nuclear advantage, the Gulf far outguns Iran in terms of military capability, although, Iran is not reluctant to use its geopolitical position and has threatened to close off the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of the world’s oil passes, if pressured.

When placed in the context of a larger regional conflict between Israel and Iran, Hezbollah plays an absolutely crucial part as an ally of Iran, especially in the absence of Syria. Yet, when the financial might of the GCC is also turned against Iran, Hezbollah, which is ultimately a financially dependent arm of Iran, becomes inconsequential.

It is possible that Hezbollah may look to find solutions to its waning popularity, and a possible run in with the GCC, by pre-emptively launching a strike against Israel. In his speech on Feburary 16^th, Nasrallah ambiguously claimed that “We have arms and they are increasing [in number]. We have well-known weapons and there are others which are hidden and unknown. We are hiding them because we need to protect our country and prepare surprises for the Israelis.” Whilst this may be an empty threat, a Hezbollah spokesman has said that the organisation would be willing to go to war with Israel, should Syria be attacked. It seems likely that the same logic would apply if an attack were to be staged against Iran.

Prof. Juan Cole has said that, in the case of a conflict with Iran, Hezbollah would almost certainly launch a rocket attack, which would threaten up to a quarter of the Israeli population. The casualties might be even worse if Hezbollah is able to target toxic gas storage in Haifa or nuclear reactors in Dimona and Nahal Sorek. Already Israel has been taking steps to shut down these facilities, in the event of an attack.

This seems to be a departure from Nasrallah’s statement in 2006, shortly after the 34 day war between Hezbollah and Israel, when he told Lebanon’s NTV that had he would not have ordered the capture of two Israeli soldiers, had he known that this would lead to such devastation. However, six years on, the situation between Iran and Israel has escalated, and for Hezbollah this has become a battle for existence. In an earlier speech, February 7^th, Nasrallah admitted that the organisation has been completely dependent on Iran for “moral, political and financial support” since 1982.

Hezbollah has found itself in the unenviable position of choosing between its Iranian financial backer and its Arab popular support base. Ironically, Hezbollah’s only hope may be an Israelis attack on Iran, thus gaining it some support, once more, as the champion of resistance against the Zionist aggressor. But should the pressure on Iran be laid on by the Gulf states, Hezbollah will be left with no alternative but to cut its ties with Iran or, face complete irrelevance within the Arab world.

On the surface, the criteria that Obama outlined in his Libya speech are present in Syria: impending and ongoing massacres; a multilateral coalition led by America’s traditional allies; and an opportunity to side with the people in a crucial state in the Arab spring. For this reason, many liberal writers have called on the U.S. to intervene. Paul Berman has signed onto a conservative-led letter to the president asking him to intervene in Syria. The New Republic has an entire symposium with intellectuals (mostly) asking Obama to side militarily with the Syrian resistance. “Lead again from behind!” Leon Wieseltier exhorts. Especially powerful is a heartfelt plea for American help from a Syrian activist in Washington:

Pressure is building in Congress. Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who both serve on the Armed Services Committee, have argued for arming the Syrian rebels. Obama’s former State Department policy planning head Anne-Marie Slaughter was among the first to call for intervention. In late January, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said it’s only “a question of time” before President Bashar al Assad falls. In December, the State Department pointman said Syria’s leader was a “dead man walking.” More recently, White House press secretary said on Tuesday that “additional measures” such as rebel-arming may need to be taken if the international community keeps dithering.

There are two significant reasons the administration has not pushed for military intervention, however. First, the international consensus that existed on Libya is not present in Syria. Russia and China vetoed a Western- and Arab-sponsored U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the Syrian government. Imagining that they would agree to a military intervention is simply fanciful.

What hasn’t been much discussed is why China and Russia vetoed the resolution. And here we circle back to Libya. The resolution authorizing military action in Libya was limited to protecting civilians in Benghazi and other areas. NATO and its allies quickly went beyond the scope of this mandate, using airpower to assist the rebels in defeating Col. Gadhafi and his forces. Such actions may have been morally justified, but they didn’t go unnoticed by the Chinese and Russians, who are extremely sensitive to infringements on state sovereignty (lest they be targeted one day). Tellingly, foes of the proposed Syria resolution explained their decision in terms of national sovereignty. Russia’s foreign minister said that “the Security Council by definition does not engage in domestic affairs of member states.” Russia’s U.N. envoy faulted the resolution for aiming at “regime change,” even though the wording of the text notably did not call for it and the Arab states explicitly rejected Western military intervention.

The second reason Libya isn’t acting as a template for Syria is one of logistics. As Middle East expert Marc Lynch has explained, “Military intervention in Syria has little prospect of success, a high risk of disastrous failure, and a near-certainty of escalation which should make the experience of Iraq weigh extremely heavily on anyone contemplating such an intervention.” The Syrian opposition, impressive and courageous as they have been, is divided, weak and controls no territory. Air power of the sort the West can provide would not be effective in preventing civilian deaths, and the fighting is taking place in densely populated cities. For these reasons and more, a Libya-style no-fly zone simply won’t fly.

Eventually, the Syrian government’s efforts to suppress the rebellion may be so bloody that the Obama administration feels compelled to intervene. But so far, the conditions that were present in Libya are not present in Syria. It may be a double standard, and one that liberal hawks are not comfortable with, but it is one with good reason.