John Kasich: We're going to turn now to the former Supreme Allied Commander, General Wesley Clark, former Deputy National Security Advisor Mara Rudman and joining us by phone due to satellite problems, Major General Paul Vallely. General Clark, you've been in the middle of some of the most vicious fighting, sectarian violence - Croats and Serbs, and you were there in Kosovo. How do you get a ceasefire to stick, General?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: A ceasefire is going to reflect the conditions on the ground. This ceasefire is going to stick when the Israelis are satisfied they've done as much as they can and need to and Hizbollah is satisfied it can't do anything more. Until that time, there's not going to be a ceasefire, but it's good to go through the process of putting together a resolution and getting all the pieces in place.

John Kasich: So General Clark, you're not optimistic then, what we're discussing…we've been discussing all afternoon, is really going to take root?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well not right away. I think the Israelis have specific military objectives they want to reach. They want to make sure that they have demonstrated that they can handle Hizbollah, that Hizbollah cannot in the future threaten Israel, nor can any other group do what Hizbollah's done in that…in any other area around Israel. Until that's done, the Israelis really are not going to quit. Hizbollah, on the other hand, is not going to quit because it feels like it's getting stronger, don't mind how many casualties it takes because it's building support in the Islamic world. So, both sides have an incentive to continue to fight.

John Kasich: General Vallely, who do you think is the winner under this UN resolution? Who would be declared as having the edge here?

Major General Vallely: Well John, I don't think anybody is. You know, Iran and Hizbollah's declared War of the World Three here on the west - United States, Israel. And I think in my position as a general, I remember what General McCarthur said “there's no substitute for victory.” So I don't think there should be a ceasefire until the enemy is defeated and there's victory and that means Hizbollah's taken out of play, they're disarmed, and now there can be some sense of peace along that border. Then we've got to deal with the likes of Syria and Iran who are still part of this World War III.

John Kasich: Mara, what is the incentive for Hizbollah to disarm right now? You know, in this resolution which Israel says is very positive, Hizbollah of course rejects it and you have the government of Lebanon saying they don't want this either; where is the incentive for Hizbollah to lay down their arms?

Mara Rudman: There's not a straight out incentive for them to lay down their arms. I actually disagree pretty much with both of your former…with both of your prior speakers to some extent because the entire region always calls for a combination of military action and diplomatic action and that's precisely why the agreement today with France and the United States on the resolution…on the draft language of the resolution was so important. I agree that Israel is going to continue to take military action until there is…until there are steps towards this ceasefire. They cannot leave southern Lebanon until there is movement towards a stabilization force in place. In other words, they can't unilaterally stop action. They can't trust Hizbollah to agree to stop action. But the moves, the diplomatic moves are very significant and there's serious diplomatic activity that's going to go forward over the next several days and that should not be dismissed and that interlocks with Israeli action.

John Kasich: I mean…these gentlemen are very experienced. I tend to agree with you Mara. We're just going to have to watch this over the next 24 hours.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: John, we're certainly not dismissing diplomacy.

John Kasich: General Clark, yeah, I want to get you to come back after. We've got to stand by for now.

<Segment Break>

John Kasich: Welcome back to Heartland. We're continuing with General Wesley Clark and Mara Rudman. General Clark, what are the ground rules under which a…some sort of an international force would have to operate?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, they're going to be very tough because as it was originally discussed, the international force would actually prevent Hizbollah from coming back in. In other words, this wouldn't be a peace-keeping force, this would be a peace-making force that would have to be able to engage Hizbollah, challenge people moving, demand identification, take action against them if they were from…have the powers of arrest and all the use of force that goes with it. That's much different than a UN observer force that's there right now.

What actually will come out of this is probably much less than what we thought at the beginning because there's no UN force that's going to actually want to fight Hizbollah the way the Israelis have to fight Hizbollah. So it's going to have to be an agreement that Hizbollah wants to enforce. So for the agreement to work, Hizbollah's has got to be complicit in it.

John Kasich: Where have we ever had ground rules like that, General, where the forces actually had the power to confront the violators?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well we've done it in Kosovo, we've done it in the Balkans. Um, that's the way the NATO force works. That's what made the NATO force work. <crosstalk>

Mara Rudman: Somalia was also <unintelligible>

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: But it can't be done unless you have a superior military force with a real fighting command and control. That's what NATO would bring to this, that's probably why NATO can't do it.

John Kasich: Mara, what you're concerned about, I'm concerned about, is if you do take a pause, where's the guarantees that Hizbollah will not re-arm or reorganize?

Mara Rudman: Right, you actually probably cannot take a pause and that's part of the diplomatic-military dance that's going on here because you absolutely can't trust Hizbollah not to re-arm and reorganize. That's been their M.O. for some period of time and as General Clark rightly points out, the force that's there, the UN force that's there is almost pathetically weak. I mean, it's not their fault but there's been a UN force in Lebanon since 1978, the UNIFIL force and obviously hasn't been able to do its job so it's important that the UN force that goes in has a strong mandate. It's very tough to get countries to volunteer for that. It's going to take some days to put that together and that's part of the diplomatic-military dance I was referring to earlier in terms of the time it takes for this resolution to move forward. In fact, the fighting will probably continue in the meanwhile but still it's very significant that France and the United States were able to reach agreement today on language and as General Clark points out, there will still be some work, some serious work to go forward on getting countries to agree and seeing what that language actually ends up being but I still remain hopeful that the force that goes in will be a very strong force and a significant improvement over the force that's there now.

John Kasich: General Clark, what about the politics of the UN? You've obviously studied all that as well. What do you see happening here in these next few days?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well I think that it is very important that there is a draft agreement. Now it's going to have to be tuned a little bit to get the Lebanese buy-in. That's why the Lebanese are saying they don't quite agree with it, they're looking for it to take some form that is more palatable to Hizbollah. Hizbollah, ultimately, though is not going to trust this agreement any more than the Israelis trust this agreement. It is ultimately going to reflect the battlefield balance that emerges and the respective strengths of both sides. If it doesn't, it won't last. So that's why they're going to be jockeying back and forth. <crosstalk>

John Kasich: What…General, what if the moderate Arabs really put the heat, really put the heat on Iran to say 'you got to knock this off now, enough's enough'?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I don't think the moderate Arabs can do that because they're coming to us for help putting heat on Iran and they're nervous about Iran so this is a case where Iran has to look at its broader objectives and say 'have we gone far enough' and then Iran reigns back Hizbollah.

John Kasich: Mara, how will Israel ever again unilaterally give up anything?

Mara Rudman: Actually, there needs to be a real separation of issues here in terms of what Israel has done in the West Bank and Gaza and Israel in Lebanon. In fact, as Brent Scowcroft himself wrote in Sunday's Washington Post, what has happened now in southern Lebanon is all the more reason for a United States and international push for an Israeli-Palestinian resolution of that conflict.

John Kasich: Yeah, I got to tell you, it's a long way from it. You know, they unilaterally withdraw from Gaza, they get attacked. They leave Lebanon, they get attacked. This is the most vexing problem. Mara, I want to thank you for being with us. General, stand by.

<Segment break>

John Kasich: Welcome back to Heartland. Even with the bombs raining down, what do the Lebanese people really think about the Hizbollah? In this exclusive 1996 CBN News video, Lebanese reporter Salam Eid and several soldiers were seriously injured by a Hizbollah roadside bomb. He has recovered and says the majority, nearly 80% of the Lebanese people actually want Hizbollah out. CBN News reporter Salam Eid joins us with General Wesley Clark. Salam, why do you say that over 80% of the people don't want Hizbollah, where's the evidence for that?

Salam Eid: What we are seeing now; we are seeing the official governments stating things and we are seeing Hizbollah stating things. What I know for sure is over 80% of Lebanese are sick and fed up of the activities of Hizbollah. Lebanon could not tolerate more destruction and that's why they don't dare to speak it publicly but we know from people that we are talking to on a daily basis that Lebanon is supposed to be a peaceful country, a great country. Lebanon is not supposed to be represented by the activities of Hizbollah. Lebanon should be a peaceful country, open to all neighbors and we have the right to live in peace.

John Kasich: General Clark, you know we were talking about the possibility of the cessation of this violence and you say that conditions on the ground are going to dictate it. Since Israel has the superior fighting power, is it possible that Hizbollah would say 'if this goes on, they could flat out wipe us out so therefore maybe we ought to go along with something now and declare some sort of victory'?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: That's certainly what we would hope, John. We just don't know…we can't see from here. We don't have the inside sources in the west to be able to determine exactly what Hizbollah's action is. Publicly they're saying they're getting plenty of reinforcements. My guess is they're getting fairly near a tipping point, beyond which if the Israelis continue to push, the Hizbollah resistance will dramatically collapse. But they're the only ones who know that point and when they get near that point, then they're going to want to take their win and call for the ceasefire.

John Kasich: That is…really, very very good insight, General. Salam, the number two guy at the UN, just a cou…just yesterday the day before said Hizbollah is not a terrorist group. Your reaction to that?

Salam Eid: I could see them clearly as a terrorist group. They are trying to represent themselves as just purely Lebanese. What we know for sure, in the battle that we are seeing between Israel and Hizbollah, we are seeing two doors. First of all we have the triangle of terror represented by Hamas, Hizbollah and Islamic Jihad, backed by Iran and Syria facing the Israelis as part of a global…they are doing this for a global Islamic jihad. They're not just doing this for the sake of protecting Lebanon. People should forget about that. Their main goal is to achieve Islamic goals, teach to them by what they are reading through their Koran, through their Islamic teachings.

John Kasich: I got you. I got you, Salam. You know Salam, I hope…and General Clark, I really hope that the moderate Arabs…I know that it's difficult. You've got to stand up because if they don't stand up, I think their days are numbered over time. I want to thank you both for being with us. General Clark, always good to see you.