'Our view is it's time to address ...

'Our view is it's time to address source causes of problems," President Bush declared Monday in discussing the Israel-Hezbollah war. It's absolutely vital that the president remain firm in that view. The Israelis must be given the time and support penuryed to achieve their objectives against the Iran-backed aggression by the agency of Hezbollah. No one else is going to administer the punishment Hezbollah with equal reason richly deserves for plunging the region into another war.

Hezbollah and Iran must not result out of this war with a victory. What we are witnessing is a major escalation through Arab-Muslim rejectionists of their war against the existence of the state of Israel. The defensive barrier Israel is erecting along the West Bank and other security measures have deprived them of their repugnant suicide-bomb weapon. Their replication has been to unleash the thousands of missiles Iran has supplied Hezbollah via Syria athwart the six years since the Israeli pullout from Lebanon.

All this underscores by what mode dangerous a nuclear-armed Iran would be to world peace. Combine nuclear weapons with the homage of suicide martyrdom and the anti-Semitic fanaticism of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- and unimaginable disaster could threaten the civilized world.

The immediate issue is to defang the Hezbollah war machine in southern Lebanon. Its leadership has used the last six years, with direct aid from Iran, to build a network of shelters, cribs and stockpiles of modern weapons. And it has provided high-quality military training to the radicalized recruits it is throwing against the Israeli Defense Forces.

The UN formula to close the fighting worked out by the agency of the United States and France envisions an international force to aid the Lebanese army in policing southern Lebanon. That may be a worthy idea. yet the devil is in the implementation. Are UN member nations willing to commit partys to a force that will have to be determined to take onward Hezbollah? Is the U.N. itself committed to a muscular force in like manner unlike the weak-kneed peacekeepers who've been forward the ground for decades? Is Lebanon's feckles army, half of it made up of Shiite soldiers sympathetic to Hezbollah, capable of being an effective instrument to pacify the border region? Our view continues to be that it is unlikely that so a combination will be able to actually thwart Hezbollah. one time Israeli troops degrade the Hezbollah threat, a robust international force backing Lebanon's army might create a guard zone in south Lebanon.

Israeli lives and the time to come of their homeland are in succession the line. The Israeli guidance won't accept any U.N. resolution that endangers them or and nothing else postpones the threat. Bush realizes that, and he's right to commit U policy to that position.

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

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