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July 17, 2006

Special Report Roundtable - July 17

FOX News Special Report With Brit Hume

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EHUD OLMERT, ISRAELI PRIMER MINISTER (through translator): We will continue in this until the Hezbollah and the Hamas carry out these basic fair and decent conditions that they are required to do so by all enlightened human beings. Israel will not agree to live in the shadow of the threat of missiles or rockets against its citizens.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: There were some wire service reports today suggesting that Israel had backed off some of its conditions for ending its counteroffensive into Lebanon. But among the conditions that stand are that Hamas return its -- Hezbollah and Hamas return the Israeli soldiers that were seized and that Hezbollah be disarmed and that -- and that, the Lebanese government take control of that area of Lebanon from which all the firing of missiles and rockets into Israel have come.

Some analytical observations now on all this from Fred Barnes, executive editor of the "Weekly Standard"; Mort Kondracke executive editor of "Roll Call"; and Mara Liasson, national political correspondent of National Public Radio, FOX News contributors all three.

Question, if Hezbollah said tonight OK, OK, OK, OK, we'll return the - - we'll return the two captive soldiers and we'll knock off the rockets for now. Would Israel be disappointed? What would Israel do?

MORT KONDRACKE, "ROLL CALL": I think Israel would be disappointed.

HUME: Why?

KONDRACKE: Because look, various critics are saying that the Israeli response to this was disproportionate. If you think that the offending action was simply to seize the soldiers and, you know, and Israel blasting away at Lebanon, but this is a -- this is a serious threat to Israel in the long run because the Hezbollah has got all thee rockets, it's got 10,000 rockets...

HUME: And now some missiles, apparently.

KONDRACKE: ...and missiles and using them at will, dominating Lebanon. It's a permanent threat. Just -- and it's in the nature to the threat of Israel's existence, along with Hamas, along with Iran, along with Syria. And the Israelis want to pound Hezbollah into -- at least into impotence, if not out of existence. They can't really destroy it, but they want to make significant inroads against both Hamas and Hezbollah. So I don't think the Israelis are going to stop soon.

MARA LIASSON, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: But that's going to be very difficult militarily because it's not like Hezbollah has bases that you can bomb these missiles, and there's supposed to be 13,000 of them are hidden in homes and trucks and they're not in any central location you can get. What I think the Israelis would like is to see the Lebanese government come in and actually take control of over the territory that has been controlled by Hezbollah.

HOME: Does anyone think the government with Hezbollah members and the parliament 23 strong in the parliament, two in the cabinet is any chance...

LIASSON: I don't know if they're willing or able.

(CROSSTALK)

LIASSON: Well, I think that they would also like the international community, as there was a lot of talk today, the U.N., other countries have been offering some peace-keeping forces if that was possible. There is a U.N. resolution, 1559 I think is the number that Israel wants enforced which says Hezbollah is supposed to be disarm...

HUME: Or be disarmed.

LIASSON: Or be disarmed and somebody has to do that because Hezbollah certainly isn't going to do that on its own.

FRED BARNES, "WEEKLY STANDARD": Yeah, anything -- look, for Israel, anything short of Hezbollah being disarmed and thrown out of that area along the boarder, whether their presence is replaced by the Lebanese army or by some international force, anything short of that and Israel has lost the war and as a result, the U.S. has lost the war and the result, it's a triumph for the Iranians. They are -- the Israelis are our friends. They are our strategic ally in that part of the world. If they suffer a defeat here, and it would be a defeat, particularly knowing now, as Mort was suggesting...

HUME: Defeat if what?

BARNES: If Hezbollah remain there with this arsenal, which is much larger and more sophisticated than the Israelis throughout and I think anyone else thought, with the missiles, with the drone that hit the Israeli ship, 10 miles offshore. These guys are loaded for bear. And unless they're either crippled or worse, as Mort suggests, than Israel will wind up, after all this in as bad or worse a situation.

HUME: Is Mara right in suggesting that Israel, militarily, may not, or is not able to dispose of Hezbollah militarily?

BARNES: Well, I would clarify that, it's clear they can't do it through air power alone. They will have to invade southern Lebanon and drive out Hezbollah that way. No, I think they could do it that way, but because -- for the reasons Mara cited, these missiles are hard to find, they hide the missiles in people houses, and so on, and there's so many of them, you would have to send the Israeli army in.

HUME: And?

BARNES: Where it's been before.

LIASSON: Or you'd have to go house to house to find these things and I don't know if Israel is -- Israel, if it had wanted to invade with ground forces or even reoccupy Gaza, it could have done that and it hasn't yet. I don't think it wants to.

HUME: Well, wait, isn't it possible, Mort, that what Israel is doing with the air campaign is, as they say, preparing the battlefield?

KONDRACKE: Well, it could well be. I assume that in order to clear out -- and it is southern Lebanon, so there is a discrete area that it wants to make clean of Hezbollah forces -- they could go in, and they have gone in before, and they could do it again as they temporarily invaded Gaza, not stay, but to...

HUME: It was a brief incursion, even today.

KONDRACKE: Yeah, as small one. A very small one.

HUME: All right, we're going to take a break here. When we come back, the question is, if Israel goes into Lebanon what should the U.S. response be? If Israel doesn't go into Lebanon but keeps on doing what it's doing, what should the response be? Stay tuned for that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUME: Back with our panel, discussing the situation in the Mideast tonight. First question is, what about the international reaction? We've been down this road before. The typical reaction is there's a tremendous emphasis from many, many, if not most countries on getting Israel to stop whatever it's doing to stop whatever its doing to whatever its responding to. What about this time?

LIASSON: Well, that's not the case this time. First of all, the Arab governments have been remarkably, in their own way, negative about Hezbollah, and restrained of their criticism of Israel and the Europeans, I think, the toughest thing they've said is that Israel's response should be more proportionate, but they didn't condemn Israel. I think this is a different kind of situation. Hezbollah doesn't have...

HUME: Is it possible, at least in terms of the world reaction, that Hezbollah has made a mistake here? Overplayed its hand?

LIASSON: Yeah, it's possible, but they certainly they have a lot of support. They don't really care about the world, they care about the masses in their own countries, but I think that you don't have the situation where there's Hezbollah has some legitimate claim on territory, the way that Palestinians did through certain U.N. resolutions. In this case, the U.N. resolutions actually favor Israel, because they talk about dismantling Hezbollah, and it was clearly started by Hezbollah, whatever you think about the way that Israel has reacted. And also you can't have peace talks with Hezbollah. Their goal isn't just to get prisoners back, it's to destroy Israel. I don't think anybody's talking about sitting down with the table with Hezbollah.

KONDRACKE: I think Iran is still ahead in this game so far. Iran...

HUME: You think Iran's winning?

KONDRACKE: Yeah, because the subject of the G-8 Summit was going to be how to get Iran to stop building nukes. Now the subject is, how to solve this problem in the Middle East, and the whole subject of Iran's nukes has been off the table. In fact, when...

HUME: So, you think that was the purpose of this, is to get to change the subject?

KONDRACKE: Well, I think that's part of the purpose, sure. And...

HUME: Iran pushes a button and Hezbollah does what...

KONDRACKE: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I think Hezbollah probably is going not respond as swiftly to Iran from now on, because I think they got more than they bargained for. And, you know, they thought capturing a bunch of troops would, you know, involve some response, but not this kind of response, what's been a devastating response.

BARNES: I think Iran is winning, but not for that reason. Remember Hezbollah is like an Iranian terrorist outpost. It's like having the Iranian revolutionary guard sent out there, right on the Israeli border. And until they're removed, Iran's going to be ahead. And I hope that happens.

What's more interesting to me is President Bush's reaction. Because it's different from any president that I can remember going back through Richard Nixon, before then, that's before my time, but they always, at some point, and it may come to this, but usually at an early point say well, you know, both sides acted the badly and we have to restrain them and stop and have a cease-fire. President Bush has not called for a cease-fire. He said he doesn't want to intervene and make military decision for the Israelis. And basically, his policy is let them win this war, let them destroy Hezbollah.

Now, that's only going to happen for a certain amount of time and now they're talking about sending Condoleezza Rice there as early as this Thursday, I believe. No good will come from that. She'll want something to happen as a result to create some result. And the only way I can think of that makes any sense -- she's not going to get the Syria or Iran to remove Hezbollah. So it would be for a cease-fire and -- unless the Israelis...

HUME: Well, do you think she'll -- maybe that'll happen -- do you think she'll go...

KONDRACKE: She may go even this week, but she's going to talk. And the invasion is going to go on, the...

(CROSSTALK)

LIASSON: ...to show that at least we're trying. Look there's something else. The process -- Bush's whole vision for the Middle East was you have democratic elections in Iraq and Palestinian territories in Lebanon, maybe you bring some of these Islamic groups in the government but in the process they are transformed. That hasn't happened.

BARNES: Not in Six month.

LIASSON: No, but the fact is that we want to do is strengthen the Lebanese government to the point, or at least give them the support they need to take care of this problem themselves. They don't have control over their own country.

BARNES: No, the easiest way to do, for them, to have a free democratic Lebanon government is for the Israelis to destroy Hezbollah and then the world will be better...

LIASSON: And how do you do that without destroying -- undermining the Lebanese government?

BARNES: You don't at all, well, you free the Lebanese government. I mean here you have -- Hezbollah has a veto over anything they do.

LIASSON: Israel could remove Hezbollah.

BARNES: Well...

KONDRACKE: Militarily they could substantially demolish Hezbollah and its military capacity. It could give the Lebanese army a chance...

LIASSON: If they could. I agree with that.

KONDRACKE: Now, I don't understand why -- the latest reports were that the Israelis had attacked a Lebanese military base. That doesn't make any sense to me, unless they were somehow in cahoots with Hezbollah, because what we want is for the Lebanese army to take control of that territory itself, and you known for the Israelis to be attacking Lebanese forces would seem to set back the whole political objective as well.

BARNES: And it's clear -- but it's clear now, they can't do it with air power alone. It may be bloody, but if they're going to win, if Hezbollah is going to be defeated, ground troops from Israel are going to have to be sent.

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