			Foreign Correspondent

		      Inside Track On World News
	    By International Syndicated Columnist & Broadcaster
		 Eric Margolis <emargolis@lglobal.com>

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MURDER IN THE CAUCASUS/FIASCO IN LEBANON
by
Eric Margolis 25 April 1996

PARIS - President Bill Clinton dishonored his country in
Moscow on Sunday by likening Russia's slaughter of 42,000
Chechen civilians to America's civil war.  

Clinton thus gave Russia a green light to continue its 
savage campaign to exterminate Chechen independence. Russia
immediately intensified already massive shelling and bombing
of Chechen villages.       

Russia has tried to assassinate the  Chechen leader,
President Dzhokar Dudayev, for five years.  This week, it  
seems to have finally succeeded. Russia apparently lured
Dudayev into peace talks over a portable phone. This allowed
electronic warfare units to target the Chechen leader, and
blast him with rocket salvos.   

Clinton will doubtlessly claim the assassination of Dudayev
right after his Moscow visit was merely a coincidence. He
cannot, however, make the same claim about the debacle in
Lebanon.  

President Clinton somehow convinced Israel's PM, Shimon
Peres,  that hammering Lebanon would force Syria to accept a
disadvantageous peace agreement - before Israeli elections.
Peres, an experienced, highly intelligent, an usually
compassionate leader, should have known better. Lebanon has
been nothing but a curse ever since Israel invaded it in
1982. 

The plan was to use Hizbullah, the guerilla movement that
fights Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, as the
pretext to launch Operation Grapes of Wrath.  Propaganda to
the contrary, Hizbullah is a mere nuisance to Israel.  Syria
is the main foe.  

So Clinton and Peres decided to blast southern Lebanon, 
driving hundreds of thousands of refugees northward to
Beirut. This,  it was believed, would accomplish three
goals: 1. end Israel's ongoing problems in southern Lebanon,
where Hizbullah continues to fiercely resist; 2. force the
Lebanese government, and its protector, Syria, to sue for
peace; 3. assure Peres' re-election. 
. 
Clinton, who has recast himself as an international
statesman, urgently needs the re-election of Shimon Peres
and Boris Yeltsin for his own election campaign.  If
Israel's opposition Likud wins, it threatens to scupper the
very Mideast peace accords on which Clinton has hung his
hat.  If Yeltsin is defeated by the communists, Clinton will
be scourged  as the president who lost Russia. That's why
Clinton just secured a $10.2 billion loan for Yeltsin.     

But the `surgical strikes' in Lebanon promised by Israel's
military did not produce a quick, pre-election boost for
Peres. Instead, they resulted in a bloody disaster at the
Qana refugee camp, where Israeli shells shredded some 100
Lebanese civilians.    Israel received blistering
condemnation around the world for its scorched earth policy
in Lebanon -which has even included persistent attacks on UN
aid convoys.

Operation Grapes of Wrath did manage to unite normally
fractious Lebanese behind Hizbullah, and greatly enhanced
its reputation in the Mideast. Israel's assault on Lebanon 
also allowed Syria to break out of its previous diplomatic
isolation and emerge, once again, as the Levant's power
broker.  Thanks to Clinton,  Syria's wily leader, Hafez
Asad, now holds the high cards in the deadly game of
Lebanese poker.

Still, the real issue is not rockets or civilian casualties.
It remains the 20-year struggle between Israel and Syria to
dominate Lebanon.  So far. Syria has bested Israel in this
dirty war.  Israel's latest foray into Lebanon has produced
yet another costly fiasco, both diplomatically, and in the
court of world opinion.

In fact, Israel failed in all its stated objectives in
Lebanon: destroying Hizbullah, securing its northern border
from pinprick rocket attacks; or forcing Syria out of
Lebanon and into an unfavorable, US-brokered peace. 

The demoralized Peres, bombarded by domestic and foreign
criticism, turned to the US. Clinton sent Secretary of State
Warren Christopher to Damascus on a `peacemaking' charade
that everyone knew was merely a desperate attempt to save
face for Peres before elections.  Syria's Asad, the real
victor, will extract a heavy price for his cooperation.  

Meanwhile, Chechen and Lebanese civilians are now paying the
price for the Clinton Administration's  latest bout of
`statesmanship.'


copyright  Eric Margolis 1996
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