The Bigger the Lie, the More People Buy It

It is an old, well-known scenario, which first came onto the scene in 2003 in Iraq. This is when the United States stubbornly created the story and maintained that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and that the country was the “fourth” military power in the world.

After the fall of Saddam Hussein, it appeared that there was indeed nothing at all, but the USA had arrived at their objective nonetheless. It appears that the bigger the lie, the better the chance it’ll be believed — just look at the overwhelming support it had at the time — by the international community.

Why, then, deprive ourselves of our Sword of Damocles? It worked well with regard to Iraq and seems to be working well now, without a doubt, in the case of Iran, suspected by the Western world of wanting to construct a nuclear weapon. So, a country for which the military budget has been estimated to be over $600 million as of 2009 — representing half of the entire world’s military expenses — has no problem, despite the ridiculousness, pointing the finger at a movement (Hezbollah) Washington considers a “terrorist organization.”

At a conference with his Israeli counterpart, Ehud Barak, American Secretary of Defense Robert Gates confirmed the following on Tuesday evening. “We’re at a point now, where Hezbollah has far more rockets and missiles than most governments in the world. And this is obviously destabilizing for the whole region, and so we’re watching it very carefully.”

“Far more rockets and missiles than most governments in the world…” Is he serious? Especially when said in the presence of a representative from the country that constitutes a potential danger due to its undeclared nuclear arsenal, and the fact that it possesses the most powerful army in the world after the United States, Russia and France? It is truly frightening.

Thus, the bigger the lie, the better the chance that it will convince an incredulous world, which has been pummeled for months, as it were, with the possibility of Iran building an atomic bomb — a supposition that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is considering very cautiously — to conveniently forget the debate on Israeli nuclear power, a country that adheres neither to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) nor the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (CNTB).

It seems that it was the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, who directed the attention of Washington to the “weapons” of Hezbollah, which caused Robert Gates to accuse Iran and Syria of providing the resistance movement with missiles and rockets “of ever-increasing capability.”

As it is, Lebanon has a quasi-symbolic army, and has no way of defending itself against Israel’s power. Weakness compensates the Lebanese resistance, which is one of Israel’s rare defeats in its wars against the Arab world. What’s more, the Hebrew state hadn’t managed to break Hezbollah in 2006 with its “Summer Rain” operation against the Lebanese movement.

The United States never ceases to remind us that Israel “has a right to defend itself,” and without a doubt, Israel knows that it counts on America to deal with its unarmed neighboring countries. A military state (it’s obligatory for every Israeli, both men and women, to serve in the military for 2 to 3 years), Israel is also the only country in this region to yield a professional army that counts on millions of reserves at all times. What reaction would the United States have had if, instead of Hezbollah, it was little Lebanon that had the same military potential as Israel, and who decided to stand up to its powerful Jewish neighbor? In fact, in encouraging Israel in its annexation, the United States actually closes the door to all negotiations and solutions, unless it’s the total submission of Arabs to the Israeli state. And that? That is never going to happen. We’re at an impasse! With all the dangers that implies…