The Devil's Arithmetic Part I

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (1469–1527)

 

BREAKING: Israel has given Syria an ultimatum: Stop the Hezbollah activity along the Lebanon-Israel border and release the kidnapped soldiers within 72 hours, or face a massive attack. An IDF officer denies the report (h/t: Michael van der Galien @ TMV) More updates on entire conflict Allah @ Hot Air, with Rick Moran keeping an eye on the ultimatum.

Let me start off with a bang. "I stand with Israel".

The right response is renewed strength--in supporting the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan, in standing with Israel, and in pursuing regime change in Syria and Iran. For that matter, we might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions--and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement.

Why is the world shocked that the US is not getting involved in any negotiations with the Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists? Our law, in no uncertain terms, prohibits any and all contact with terrorist entities, which means, that US officials are not allowed to hold discussions with representatives of such groups. "American military liaison General Keith Dayton, for example, is only permitted to talk with PA President Mahmoud Abbas's people - not with any Palestinian belonging to Hamas".

Having said that, we don't want to, even if we could. Our involvement at present is a lot more subtle than that. We should hopefully have bigger plans and seize the moment

Is this not the time to go after the terrorist training camps in Syria and Iran? What in the world are we waiting for?
And finally, if we dither through this one, the next one will be worse. Maybe much worse. It's not going away. Stability is a mirage. Chamberlain had a choice between dishonor and war. He chose dishonor and got war anyway. You too, Mr. President.  It's the way it works.

We agree with Israel's actions, and so does the Lebanese Government off the record. Neither are prepared to have Iran's puppet, Hezbollah, usurp Lebanon, destroy the peace the new Government has worked so hard to build, but freedom does not come cheap.

Iran of course sees a unique opportunity to seize power in Lebanon, destroy its budding economy largely based on tourism, and turn it into an Islamic haven, filling their hotels and beaches with burkha clad women. Dream on I say...

The day Hezbollah walked into Israel is the day the Security Council together with Germany expected an answer from Iran, after submitting the proposal to suspend uranium enrichment and enter negotiations to bring it into compliance with the International Atomic Energy Agency in return for a package of attractive incentives. Why were we told Iran could not give their answer until mid August? Simple. Because Iran planned to escalate the situation in this pregnant period. Mobilizing Hezbollah was an ingenious move. Hezbollah the unhinged, live for moments like this; its a dream come true, to be emboldened by their lord and master to save the Islamic world from the onslaught of the infidel. The rhetoric coming from the Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah is music to the terrorist thugs and his call to arms, what they have waited and prayed for. And now it has come, and they have never been more ready. Allahu Akbar indeed.

Michael Ladeen has another interesting observation: "Notice also that over the weekend there was a “security summit” in Tehran, involving all of Iraq’s neighbors, at which Iran’s moonbat President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made one of his trademark understatements about Israel. “The existence of this regime will bring nothing but suffering and misery for people in the region,” he mildly commented, and then said that the anger of the people might soon “lead to a vast explosion that will know no boundaries.

Sounds to me like he knew something before the rest of us. As well he should, because Iran has been quite busy in Lebanon of late. The Lebanese Tourism Ministry’s Research Center announced an amazing statistic in early July: in the first six months of the year, 60,888 Iranian tourists visited Lebanon."

The question is will the Lebanese Government stand up and be counted, or will they officially winge and whine, whilst unofficially agreeing with Israel's operation to rid them of the metastasizing cancer of Iranian theocratic regime. Michael van der Galien tells me that Iran has 100 soldiers in Lebanon. It does not take that many to cause some serious damage, including swift assassinations, which can be blamed on Israel. The public opinion has certainly fallen for it, and the MSM is as usual feeding the hungry anti-Semitic beast of the West.

It is an open secret that the Lebanese Shi'ite Hezbollah are an extension of the theocratic regime of Iran. Syria is of course being manipulated by the puppet strings of Iran and playing the Hezbollah army Proxy General. Some more of the helicopter hovering over al-Assad's summer residence by the Israelis to unnerve the silent butcher of the Middle East would be in order.

"The Syrian people are ready to extend full support to the Lebanese people and their heroic resistance to remain steadfast and confront the barbaric Israeli aggression and its crimes," said a communique from the party's national command issued after a meeting.

It said Israel and the United States "are trying to wipe out Arab resistance in every land under occupation" and that President Bashar Assad was aware of the seriousness of the situation in the region.

Meanwhile the Thug-In-Chief puppet master in Iran, is flexing his muscles, delighted that all is going according to plan.

Ahmadinejad: "Israel would not dare to move against Iran" Iran's President said on Friday[...]

"The Zionist regime does not dare to cast a look with bad intentions at Iran," the president was quoted as saying by state television.[...]

"If the Zionist regime commits another stupid move and attacks Syria, this will be considered like attacking the whole Islamic world and this regime will receive a very fierce response," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying in a telephone conversation with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

This is the work of our Machiavellian Thug-In-Chief at his best. Do not ever forget where he came from. Taking hostages is the business he knows best. Walking around in that monkey suit with sleeves that are always too long for him, and playing President is a role that suits him the least. This masterful plan however, has worked out like a dream.

They have however not only underestimated Israel's resolve, her military capabilities and Olmert's willingness to follow his old boss' stratagem by giving up more land, but taken the latter as a sign of weakness. Omri Ceren's wise words

Every single strategic decision that Israel has made this century has been to reduce the land that it controls. In fact, wideeyed anti-Zionist conspiracy theories aside, that was true for most of the end of the last century too. So the question arises: when "Zionists" (not "Jews", of course) are accused of cunning and shadowy conspiracies meant to sow discord among otherwise peaceful neighbors, is this the product of a linguistic habit borne of a rhetorical comfort zone that plays on certain, shall we say, unsavory registers? Or are some of these people so far gone that they actually believe those mysteriously predictable conspiracy theories? We think we might know the answer.

Enough already. Don't confuse Olmert's dovish moves with an inability to stand up to what is quite obviously a declaration of war. Why should we expect the bombings to cease before the job is done

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan that Israel would not end its military operation in Lebanon until the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls for disarming Hezbollah and the deployment of the Lebanese army in southern Lebanon.

The devastation of Hezbollah is in full motion, and the point is driven home that Israel will not tolerate  terrorists having their present 'kid-glove treatment' status. It is a perfect opportunity for Israel to polarize the Arab nations and force them into taking sides against the military might of Iran's militant rule. You can hear the crickets chirping in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, they don't dream of loosing Israel as the age old buffer between themselves and Iran with Syria as the master pawn. In any event why fight when someone else can do the dirty work for you?

We aren't being serious, but neither is a feckless international community that refuses to proportionately denounce the outrages to which Israel is being subjected. That goes also for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who says "all sides must act with restraint." But Israel's current problems result in part from an excess of restraint in responding to previous Hamas and Hezbollah provocations.

Now Israel is confronted with a war on two fronts with proxy terrorists armed and financed by Syria and Iran. Yesterday, medium-range Hezbollah rockets hit civilian targets across northern Israel. Any of those rockets might easily hit the port city of Haifa's oil refineries and chemical plants, causing horrific damage that would give Israel cause, and perhaps the self-preservation necessity, to strike Damascus and Tehran.

Iran in turn can now do what it planned all along, which is to get up from the negotiating table and announce that this is the very reason it must now go its own way and finish building its nuclear capabilities. Of course the enrichment was originally only destined for peaceful energy purposes, but now of course Iran must defend itself, and the Islamic world as a whole. If it can take a sovereign state like Lebanon, and a member of the UN to boot as spoils of war, so much the better.

I cannot wait for al-Assad to be ejected from his hot seat right now, one way or the other. It is obvious that the Arab nations are not up for battle and his usual 'playing dead' until the West does the dirty work for him and restrains Israel, will not work this time. If Syria continues to play dead, Israel will quite rightly assume that they are biding their time to strike and will act accordingly.

The Hezbollah celebration over capturing two Israeli soldiers was evidently short-lived. Within a few days Hezbollah, while it will still exist in some form, will cease to function as a military organization capable of anything but tactical, reactionary operations. That will deny Iran its biggest, most powerful and most flexible international tool and cement Iranian impotence in the wider region.

How convenient the timing was, as the world waited for Iran's answer and our President wondered why it would take Iran until mid-August to decide. Why the magical month and date? We are fools and that will never change. Neither will our weak responses to Iran such as "we express profound disappointment". Oh really? What happened to the "No you do not have until mid-August you have 48 hours?"

When will the Chamberlain 'stop or I'll say stop again' brigade learn their lesson? You do not come to a gun fight armed with a knife. "Israel's military invasion and naval blockade of Lebanon is being denounced in European capitals and at the United Nations as a "disproportionate" response to the kidnapping of two of its soldiers by Hezbollah", but Israel has learned her lesson the hard way, and I admire her chutspah, and courage to stand up for freedom against terrorism. Why should she be loosing sleep over her northern border? To embolden the Jihadist preaching Hezbollah, and its master doing his Devil's Arithmetic? No, the middle finger is firmly up. The US might not be openly saying it, but we are with you all the way. Go Israel, go....

Israel can and will handle the immediate military threats on its two borders. But ultimately there will be no resolution in Lebanon and Gaza until the regimes in Syria and Iran believe they will pay a price for the wars they are waging through their proxies. The referral this week of Iran's nuclear file to the U.N. Security Council is a start, although we have little confidence it will lead anywhere. The White House has cited Syria and Iran as the culprits behind this week's events, but more forceful words and action are called for. The Middle East stands on the cusp of its worst crisis in a generation, and this is no time for formulaic statements calling for "restraint from both sides."

Devil's Arithmetic Part II is here.

A few recent related posts on ATB:
The Muslim Brotherhood And Hezbollah Detonate The Political Bomb
The Washington Post Inaugurates The New Moderate
Unmasking The Hamas Code Of Honor
'Israel Cannot Succeed By Empowering Terrorists'
'Pallywood Does Not Recognize Israel
'The Palestinian-Spin-Of-The-Century' The World's Most Audacious Marketing Coup'
Total War

Comments

[jess1dering]

www.jeffkouba.com/myblog/blogger.html
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Kenny,
Do you know about this blog. Plenty of information here AND he and his wife adopted two little ones from Russia.

[jess1dering]

Hi Keny Pierce,
I was off-line for a few months and sorely missed visiting Alexandra and Friends. It's good to be back, even though it's only for the time being.
I'm writing , in part about Ghost's comments on Sunday, July 16th @ 7:11 PM. I humbly submit that they sound like snippets gingerly lifted from a few leftist, Bush hating sources.
In his other entries ,I read shallow criticisms of isolated incidents and do not sense a cohesive understanding of the ME affair. While not many of us are experts , most of us can converse with an overall understanding of the situation. I have learned much from that sort of dialogue at ATB. I do not mean to infer that
because Ghost doesn't agree with me , he doesn't understand. I just see no evidence of anything other than disconnected jabs at President Bush and his administration. The motivation for these contempt-laced jabs seems to be rooted in that easily detectable Bush-loathing syndrome that so many seem inflicted by these days. Some clues that we are dealing with hate motivated, blindly partisan pseudo-opinion can be found in the words Ghost uses to express himself, for instance;
*.. Dubya and this Republican adminitration is simply incompetent
*..They have failed diplomatically, and they have no military resources left to threaten anybody because the(y) squandered military might in the Iraq quagmire.
*.. being prosecuted incompetently due to incompetent Republican civilian
*Unfortnately, we have a Republican administration of Chickenhawks that in a perverse inversion of Theordore Roosevelt's famous dictum, speak loudly, but walk with their britchs dropped around their ankles. The direct result of literally charging-off in the wrong direction.
*All the chickenhawk warriors in this Republican administration are out of bullets.
*Dubya's gang has made every mistake in the book...and proven them to be mistakes once again.
There are many more examples of partisan contempt and empty-of-substance over-generalizations in his writing.
I will be happy to apologize if there is a meaningful dialogue between Ghost and any other soul on this site. Heaven knows enough people have tried to engage him.
I will wait hopefully, but as has been advised, I will not hold my breath.

[Kenny Pierce]

Ghost,

One more random point (you'll at least have plenty of choices of which things to ignore and which to refute): I don't see the sense of people who claim we have no military resources left. As Ray at Davids Midienkritik puts it, in response to a Der Spiegel line about how America has "bled itself white in Iraq:

"Bled itself white with fewer US deaths in Iraq than on 9/11 alone? Bled itself white with dozens or even hundreds of times fewer casualties than in previous wars? As an historic reminder to Mr. Mascolo, the United States suffered 81,000 casualties and 19,000 combat deaths in the Battle of the Bulge alone, and the nation was certainly not too weak to finish the task of occupying Germany.

If the U.S. is indeed exhausted by the Iraq war, that would be a moral failure -- the American people, heavily influenced by the Left, no longer has the will and capacity for self-sacrifice in the cause of freedom that it had in the 1940's. It would also rise from a concurrent failure to recognize that we are, whether we like it or lot, in the middle of the next World War, in which our only real choices long-term are to fight or submit. But it would not be a matter of military or economic inadequacy. It seems to me perfectly clear that the United States, even without the quite effective help of the Israelis, and without abandoning our project in Iraq, is militarily capable of eliminating the regimes and military capabilities of Hezbollah, Syria and Iran (though not, perhaps, for the far more strenuous task of nation-building that some people seem to think is now the necessary final phase of any war in which we engage). Indeed, because American military troops now can use Iraq as a staging center for attacks on Iran and/or Syria, our tactical position for potential military attacks is much better than it would have been four years ago.

True, Bush has rather less political capital -- but that strikes me rather more as a function of partisan intransigence and distortion, on the part of his domestic political enemies, than as a function of military realities.

In the case both of Iran and of Syria, the dominant prorities from the standpoint of U.S. foreign policy, seem to me to be:

1. To make it absolutely and unmistakably clear that sponsorship of Islamist terrorism on the part of any dicatorship or oligarchical cabal, will be enough to get said dicatator or oligarchs out of power, because dead.

2. To eliminate the military capabilities of the Syrian and Iranian states so that even if another vile thug seizes control in the power vacuum following our withdrawal (should we choose to withdraw immediately), said thug will not be able effectively to sponsor terrorism and will know better than to hope to evade our vengeance if he is foolish enough to make the attempt.

3. To destroy any capacity Hezbollah has for effective military action aimed either at Israel or at the fledgling Lebanese democracy.

None of those goals require us to engage in occupation. We would be involved in the cost and effort of long-term occupation and nation-building only if we wished also to make progress toward a fourth goal:

4. To establish in Iran and Syria a government that respects and protects the rights of the people to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (contingent upon their being willing not to infringe upon others' similar rights), for so long as it takes for a dominant majority of the local populace to have embraced, and to be willing to fight effectively and self-sacrificially to defend their and (most critically) others' right to, those liberties.

This is a very noble goal (and, I might point out to Dubya, a rather different goal from "establishing democracy," since a democracy in a country full of people who value rights only for themselves and not for others is just another name for a tyranny -- as converts to Christianity or Mormonism or Hinduism in "democratic" Afghanistan are all too well aware). But I am quite ready to be convinced that we can only effectively do that in one nation at a time and therefore should limit our present efforts in Iran and Syria to the first three goals, given our existing engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan. For the first three, however, I think it is absurd to pretend that we do not now possess the necessary military capability to eliminate the regimes and the military infrastructure of both Iran and Syria, in little more time than was required to eliminate Saddam's regime in Iraq.

If I were Condi Rice, I would, by the way, be making very public statements right now to the effect that the United States considers it an absolute necessity that Hezbollah be disarmed, recognizes that this cannot be effected without collateral damage to the Lebanese civil infrastructure, and therefore will make a very large foreign aid contribution to rebuilding efforts just as soon as we are satisfied that Hezbollah has been stripped of any ability to resist, by military efforts, the will of the Lebanese people as expressed through its parliament. At every opportunity we ought to be emphasizing that Hezbollah is the enemy not only of the Israeli, but also of the Lebanese, state.

[Kenny Pierce]

Oh, one last thing: insofar as Dubya's policies have destabilized the Middle East, I don't consider that a black mark on his records, as the sort of "stability" that the Middle East has seen the last half-century doesn't strike me as being at all worth preserving. If Israel succeeds in decimating and disarming Hezbollah, then I will think it quite delightful that "stability" broke down long enough for Hezbollah to be taken out.

I do agree that the United States should be (and one hopes is) furiously working behind the scenes between the Lebanese government and the Israeli government to get them to agree on terms under which the Lebanese government can take up the reins once Israel has done that which the Lebanese government desired, but feared, to do itself -- that is, disarm the Hezbollah bastards. The Lebanese democracy absolutely needs peace with Israel in order truly to flower and grow, and it absolutely needs the ability to govern all of its own country. An armed Hezbollah ensures the eventual failure of the Lebanese democracy; and I hope that twenty years from now the Lebanese will look back on this war as the completion of the Cedar Revolution and the final piece of the puzzle that restored them to true security and prosperity.

[Kenny Pierce]

Ghost,

You realize that I tend to have some trouble following your train of thought from time to time...I'd really be interested to get a bullet-point list of specific actions/policies you think Dubya should adopt at this point. Take where we are as a given and take all his prior errors as sunk cost, and assume (contrary to fact, I know) that we have a State Department that is unified in purpose and loyalty behind the President and therefore will work to make his policies successful rather than undercutting them. What should this country be doing right now in the Middle East, in your opinion?

No metaphysical wandering if you can help it (I enjoy your excursions but am not generally enlightened by them), just what we should be doing and what message(s) we should be delivering.

I don't have time to compile such a list of my own and post it this morning but if you'd like I'll try to do so in the next couple of days.

[Kenny Pierce]

Hey, Ghost, just thought it was worth observing that you've been very impressive the last few days on the Israeli-Palestinian thing.

[Kenny Pierce]

Ghost,

It sounds as though you are actually criticizing Bush for not backing up his rhetoric when it comes to Hezbollah and Hamas and Iran? If so, then there is far less of a difference of opinion between us than I thought. Unless Bush is playing a double game behind the scenes (a possibility but then the better he was doing that the less we would know), his public policy would I think be better served by his giving full support to Israel and publicly offering to provide whatever military assistance Israel might find necessary in disarming Hezbollah, including taking out Baby Assad on the grounds that disarming Hezbollah would do no good if Assad were going to simply rearm them with Iran's money.

What would you think of that policy?

[Ghost Dansing]

Oh yes...and just to show how great the military intervention in Iraq has helped out in this whole situation, read the following:

Iran’s influence over the post-Saddam government in Iraq is substantial because the predominant parties in that government have long enjoyed Tehran’s sponsorship. An emerging concern is that Iran’s influence has extended to support for militant groups in Iraq. U.S. officials say that sophisticated explosive devices are entering Iraq from Iran, suggesting that Iran, or factions within Iran, are backing Iraqi factions that use violence to oppose the U.S. presence in Iraq. This report will be updated as warranted. See CRS Report RL32048, Iran: U.S. Concerns and Policy Responses, by Kenneth Katzman.

http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/68285.pdf

[Ghost Dansing]

http://www.soldiersdad2.blogspot.com

I'm not sure how this through any light on the topic. Nice people saying nice milque toast things that have absolutely no bearing on the eventual outcome of Iraq...or anything else...but vaguely coddle Dubya's foreign policy failures.

The latest "Iraq (Charm) Offensive": the selling of the killing of Zarqawi, the formation of the new Maliki government, the surprise presidential trip to the Green Zone and the rollout of "Operation Together Forward" to secure Baghdad more than three years after its liberation from Saddam is just the latest model of the Axis of Evil gimmick.

In his Rose Garden press conference last month, Dubya promised that this juggernaut of crack Iraqi troops and American minders would increase the number of checkpoints, enforce a curfew and implement a strict weapons ban across the Iraqi capital.

It’s been predictably downhill ever since. After two weeks of bloodshed, Col. Snow of the Army explained that the operation was a success even if the patient, Iraq, was dying, because we expected that there would be an increase in the number of attacks.

Last week, the American ambassador allowed that there would be “adjustments” to the plan and that the next six months would be critical.

Gen. George Casey spoke of tossing more American troops into the Baghdad shooting gallery to stave off disaster. Sounds like Baghdad will be liberated any day now.

Perhaps it is simply the observation of strategic incompetence that motivates the criticism against this Republican administration. It is specifically BECAUSE theY FAILED to consider, properly plan for and resource: "...the huge logistical challenge...the complicated strategic demands..." that they are failing in Iraq...and elsewhere.

Last week’s Time cover, “The End of Cowboy Diplomacy,” lays it out: The Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war, upended by chaos in Iraq and the nuclear intransigence of North Korea and Iran, is now officially kaput.

INSTEAD, a sadder, more "patient" (backed-into-a-corner) Republican White House, under the sway of Condi Rice, is embracing the fine art of multilateral diplomacy and dumping the “bring ’em on” gun-slinging that got the world into this jam.

The only flaw in this interpretation is that it understates the administration’s failure by assuming that Dubya actually had a grand vision in the first place.

It would be nice if that were even partly so. In truth this Republican administration never had a vision for the world. What it had was a fixation on one country, Iraq.

In pursuit of that obsession this Republican administration recklessly harnessed American power to gut-driven improvisation and P.R. strategies, not doctrine. This has not changed, even now.

The core values of this Republican White House are marketing and political expediency, not principle and substance.

Political spin is the only expertise that is honored, and many competent advisors, some even from his Father's adminstration, were disregarded and ignored, now to their chagrin...all prophecies are coming true and Dubya's gang has made every mistake in the book...and proven them to be mistakes once again.

The so-called doctrine of pre-emption, nothing more than a repackaging of the tired Cheney-Rumsfeld post-cold-war mantra of unilateralism, was just another flowery float in the propaganda parade generated to take America to war against a country that did not attack us on 9/11, and was hamstrung by nearly a decade of sanctions enforced by military operations in the northern and southern thirds of the country.

As the president’s then-chief-of-staff, Andrew Card, famously said of the Iraq war just after Labor Day 2002, “From a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August.”

The Bush doctrine was rolled out officially two weeks later, just days after the administration’s brass had fanned out en masse on the Sunday-morning talk shows to warn that Saddam’s smoking gun would soon come in the form of a mushroom cloud.

The Bush doctrine was a doctrine in name only, a sales strategy contrived to dress up the single mission of regime change in Iraq with philosophical grandiosity worthy of F.D.R.

There was never any serious intention of militarily pre-empting either Iran or North Korea, whose nuclear ambitions were as naked then as they are now, or of striking the countries that unlike Iraq were major enablers of Islamic terrorism.

This Republican administration has fiddled in Iraq while the flames of Islamic radicalism burned ever brighter over the globe.

The rest of the Axis of Evil, not to mention Afghanistan and the Middle East, have grown into just the gathering threat that Saddam was not. And still Dubya fiddles.

Dubya is not pursuing diplomacy in his post-cowboy phase so much as a foreign policy of empty gestures...he's treading water hoping to kick the proverbial can down the road — far enough so the next president can deal with it.

There is no plan for victory in Iraq, only a wish and a prayer that the apocalypse won’t arrive before Dubya retires to his ranch.

So by all means...please "stay the course" and continue to implement Dubya's foreign policy...

Just when Israelis had turned their backs on years of military occupation of Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, they are again fighting in both places with no clear exit strategy.

Sounds like a job for Dubya!

[jess1dering]

Ghost,
http://www.soldiersdad2.blogspot.com
The above is a great source for hard, accurate information about our military effort in Iraq. If you visit there you might gain a more informed outlook. What we hope to accomplish in the ME is a huge undertaking. We are doing a remarkable job. We do have military resources left. Among those familiar with character- qualities like discipline, committment, resolve and loyalty there is plenty of spirit left with which to see the effort through. Those incapable of realizing the enormity of the undertaking , incapable of imagining the huge logistical challenge , unable to fathoming the complicated strategic demands ,are also intellectually limited enough to believe that they are more capable than experts in the field to critique the war. Because they are lazy ,they critique it with broad strokes and vague ideas , but at core it is little more than raw and uninformed contempt that motivates their words. The are sort of like the terrorists in that hatred is their core motivation. That type, especially those who have been fortunate enough to find themselves in positions of influence such as the media and the gov.'t, do inestimable damage to the cause of containing terror.
Can you suggest an alternative response to the black-hole hatred that took down the twin towers , other than destabilization. All change involves temporary destabilization , doesn't it? Since the ME has been the great breeding ground for terror, might one not assume that a destabilized Middle East is an improved Middle East? The fierce, violent extremism which was responsible for the most horrific single act of war on American soil, is not going to gently fade away, or do you think that it will ? Perhaps it's good that things have been stirred up. Do you think that this stirring has created the bottom dwelling scum? Or is it more likely that it has simply made it visible for the eye to see.
I love my country. I am actually quite proud of President George Bush. For the first time in a long time , we are not being so naive as to believe that we can negotiate with an element that DOES NOT want peace. When an entity wants only it's OWN WAY and will go to any lenght to get it, negotiation is impossible. BUT if you have any ideas for successful and meaningful dialogue with
" the resistance" in the ME please share it with us. Keep in mind that Daniel Pearl devoted his life to fostering understanding between the peoples of the ME. He believed in peace and the brotherhood of man. He believed that man understanding man would end in peace. They hacked his head off and video-taped the occasion. Reasonable ??? Me thinks not.
Finally, from the wee-baby learning to walk
to the most accomplished adult in any field of endeaver , we can learn this truth about the human condition:anyone who has accomplished anything worth anything in life realizes that great success is not without it's failures. Thank God that there are souls in this world who are wise enough to realize that perfection isn't required or POSSIBLE in this old world of ours. I thank God that there are souls who applaud valid and meaningful effort, who believe in those willing to reach for a worthy goal. I know there are no guarantees in life, but I think that our efforts in the ME are essential. I hope we succeed.

[Ghost Dansing]

You are of course correct Crusader. Diplomacy is useless in the Middle East. I'm totally with Dubya and the Republican gang in the White House: "Stay the Course", "Bring 'em On" and send in the troops to help Israel pursue the final military solution in Lebanon and the territories.

Go for it.

Sometimes when one doesn't specifically answer "the question", it is because it is the wrong question, or a question that contains within it tacit misunderstandings of the situation, or even the nature of the discussion.

I was discussing this Republican administration's impotence because of an overall failure in its foreign policy, and you are trying to discuss the historical failures of diplomacy in the Middle East. Two different issues.

[Crusader.NoRegrets.]

As usual, Ghost, you don't answer peoples questions. You haven't answered one of mine yet. I could post a reply to your previous post, but I'll just save myself all the typing and refer you to my previous post.

And by the way, as Mark Steyn put it so eloquently, this war is beyond the "Great Men" of diplomacy.

And US "brokering" in the Middle East is a despicable history of delivering a steady supply of Jewish blood into the Islamist holocaust mill. So you'll probably find that yet another US "peace plan" has very little credibility left with ordinary Israelis (most are not dripping leftwingers) and that is your buddy, Bill Clinton's, legacy.

[Ghost Dansing]

Dream on Crusader. Hamas, Hisbollah, Syria and Iran are taking advantage of America's diminished diplomatic stature and military posture to forward extremist agendas. Dubya, who was going to right all the wrongs of the Clinton administration by becoming the anti-Clinton has created a foreign policy debacle that will take decades for the United States to overcome.

In times of crisis in the Middle East, the world often has looked to the United States for leadership. But this time the Bush administration has largely stayed on the sidelines.

For three weeks, beginning with the June 25 Hamas raid into Israel and capture of an Israeli soldier and subsequent Israeli attacks against targets in Gaza, the United States refrained from launching a major diplomatic initiative to calm rising tensions.

Even when Hezbollah later captured two Israeli soldiers and killed another three, the U.S. exercised restraint.

Now, with a new front against Hezbollah militants in Lebanon and the violence threatening to become a broader regional conflict with the potential to draw in Iran and Syria, calls have grown louder for U.S. engagement.

But the Bush administration, which blames Hezbollah for the current situation, has limited diplomatic options, and its capability to focus on the crisis is overstretched by the war in Iraq and nuclear standoffs with North Korea and Iran.

U.S. Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs David Welch and deputy national security advisor Elliot Abrams are in the Middle East, engaging in intense shuttle diplomacy.

On Friday they met with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and are expected this weekend to meet with Israeli officials. The United States wants Israel to exercise restraint with its military in Lebanon, fearing a humanitarian or economic crisis could weaken Siniora's pro-U.S. government.

For now, all eyes are on a United Nations team sent by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, seen as the best chance to exert pressure on Iran and Syria to gain the release of the soldiers and, ultimately, get Israel to stand down.

A peaceful end to the crisis could preserve what many hoped would be one of Bush's more successful foreign policy legacies -- a thriving democracy in Lebanon. But if it occurs without serious U.S. engagement, the United States may find its longstanding role as an "honest broker" in the Middle East diminished, along with its influence in the region -- and particularly perhaps inside Lebanon.

Meanwhile, Siniora has received no U.S. support for his calls for a cease-fire, and Lebanese diplomatic sources say they are seeing "mixed messages" from the Bush administration. While Washington has shown verbal support for the Siniora government, officials are still not criticizing the attacks on Lebanon.

All the chickenhawk warriors in this Republican administration are out of bullets.

bang...bang... What was that Texas saying again? "All hat, not cattle?"

All booster, no payload.

All crown, no filling.

All foam, no beer.

All hammer, no nail.

All icing, no cake.

All lime and salt, no tequila.

All missile, no warhead.

All shot, no powder.

All wax and no wick.

[Crusader.NoRegrets.]

Ghost

Diplomacy has been tried in the ME and has never brought Israel lasting peace, because no one will name the elephant in the room. The "palestinians" don't want Gaza or the West Bank, they want Tel Aviv, Judenrein.

Given that is their one and only desire (those who wanted a better future for their kids left a long time ago, got over it and moved on, so to speak), all that is left is to marginalise the remainder somehow, until what? Jordan and Egypt have built "apartheid" walls to keep the "palestinians" out, so what other choice is there?

On the other hand, Hisb'allah built itself as the answer to Israel's occupation of Lebanon, but have now appointed themselves champion of the "palestinian" disease, ie the cause fo what, getting the West Bank and Gaza? They got Gaza, and the first thing they did with it is launch stuff at Israel.

So with whom in the ME would you like to play diplomacy? Tehran is busy appointing itself as the Holy See of the cannibal Jihad, and thus claims extra-territoriality (a trick they learned from the Nazi movement by the way) over the region's moslems. Syria is irrelevant. Who's left?

By the way, if Saddam were still in power, he'd be pathetically weak by now, possibly actually already assassinated, with Iranian troops patrolling Basra and Fallujah to "guarantee" the religious rights of the Shia. Not to mention possible Turkish intervention in Kurdistan, so no, sorry, Saddam was not going to live forever.

Second, the fact of the US presence in Iraq is making Ahmadinejad nervous. US troops wouldn't need long to smash up any Iranian army trying to move into Syria to attack Israel. No I think Bush appointed the right kind of people
to look after the grand strategy. It's the tactics he mangled a bit I think.

If you don't think Iran is scared, why are they making such a fuss? Clearly they sense that the US is standing in the way of their reconsituted Persian empire. What better place for a US army to be sitting? There are some situations however in which diplomacy will always fail. This is one of them.

[Ghost Dansing]

Well, Mr. Kenneth. Diplomacy is only one aspect of foreign policy. And to even have hope that diplomacy will be effective in some way, a governments has to actually engage in diplomacy. This Republican administration has not and has demonstrably lacked the talent to do so. The only member of this Republican administration that has at any time had crediblity was Colin Powell, and he was totally marginalized.

So if the path of war and war-making is that which was chosen in lieu of diplomacy, it is difficult to see how making decisions that makes America look militarily like a flacid slug in the face of its greatest challenges can be seen as a successful foreign policy.

If the world conditions were as they are now under Clinton or even his predecessor George Herbert Bush, the politicians would be HOWLING about foreign policy failures across the board. For some reason this inane Republican administration has gotten a free pass on every error.

The U.S. is and was having considerable difficulty navigation the dual role of
peace process mediator and primary ally of Israel.

So be it...be Israel's friend and ally and go to her aide militarily.

Unfortnately, we have a Republican administration of Chickenhawks that in a perverse inversion of Theordore Roosevelt's famous dictum, speak loudly, but walk with their britchs dropped around their ankles. The direct result of literally charging-off in the wrong direction.

[rich]

Where are the MSM reports stating that firing missiles at civilian populations is a war crime?

Where are the MSM reports that hiding missiles in civilian homes that are still occupied by the civilians is a war crime?

http://www.israel-un.org/sec_council/60thUNGA/gillerman14july2006.htm

How does Israel "proportionally" defend itself when the aggressor repeatedly uses war crimes to attack it?

[Michael van der Galien]

I left a comment over at the Lebanese Political blog in which the blogger writes he is fleeing to Syria. He writes that he understood as Israel when Israel just started with her attack, but not any longer.

I will publish the comment I left there in its entirety here as well:

I understand your bitterness about all of this, but you must also understand that it wasn't Israel's intention to simply 'send a message'. She has done that on multiple occasions in the past. The UN accepted a resolution that called on the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah. If the Lebanese government felt like she wasn't able to do so on her own, she could have asked for international support and she would have received it.

It is terrible, in any way, that civilians who are not directly involved in the aggression and violence of Hezbollah suffer because of it. But, it's up to you and up to the rest of those civilians to do something against Hezbollah. With democracy comes responsibility. A "we tried so hard" isn't suffice anymore. If you need help, you will receive it. The problem is you didn't do enough, nor did you ask for that help.

About people supporting Hezbollah due to the structure of society in the Middle-East: that is not an excuse either. One must follow the path of tradition only when it is useful and morally right to do so. Once it's clear that tradition has been wrong, one must find the courage to abandon this tradition.

The good news is that although it may appear different right now, all is not lost. You and your fellow citizens still have the time and the opportunity to do something about Hezbollah. Israel is not out to destroy Lebanon at all. If that was her wish, you would have already seen Israeli forces walking on the streets of Beirut.

Furthermore: Hezbollah is a threat to Israel. Hezbollah is being backed up by Iran. There are even Iranian forces assisting Iran in Southern Lebanon. Where is your government? Where are your troops? Where is the public outrage about that?

You write you are becoming a refugee. Because of Israel. No. You are becoming a refugee because your government didn't do what it had to do (about Hezbollah).

[Jeremayakovka]

Reading your post today is a reminder that this war (short and long term) is the West's to lose, not jihad's to win.

Calling Ahmedinejad Machivellian is an insult to Machiavelli.

Giving Syria a whole 72 hours to desist abetting Hezbollah and hand over the soldiers is pussyfooting, undeserved mercy. In the compressed time of Israeli-Arab wars, 72 hours is worth a year of conventional warfare elsewhere. Time, including surprise, is so crucial an aspect of warfare.... 72 hours give the moustaches and the beards too much time to maneuver.

[Kenny Pierce]

Ghost,

Just curious as to what diplomatic effort of the last fifty years in the Israel/Palestinian mess you would consider a diplomatic success...

Diplomacy is a form of negotiation, and negotiation is a form of cooperation, and cooperation is useless when you either have friends who are foolish (most of Europe and the Canadian Liberal Party), friends who are in reality not friends (same song different verse), or enemies who have not the slightest intention of keeping their word (are names really necessary here, to anybody with more intelligence than a cocker spaniel or, what comes to the same thing, a Nobel Peace Prize Committee member?). There are problems that can only be solved, long-term, by killing bad guys. What "diplomatic solution" do you think there is to the Iran/Syria/Hezbollah/Hamas axis and the Palestinian death cult? Which of those parties do you think could be trusted for a nanosecond to negotiate in good faith? And would you care to point out to me which of our allies are not burdened with significant anti-Semitism in their electorate (rules out anybody in continental Europe), has the military capability and balls to stand beside us and make a significant difference if necessary (until recently would have ruled out Canada), and wouldn't happily hand all of Israel over to Palestinian terror and vengeance if they thought that they could successfully appease Islamic terror by so doing (the only thing the French like more than surrendering, is surrendering other people)? Australia comes to mind; the U.K. I'm not very confident in but will give the benefit of the doubt; Japan would certainly qualify if only they had a better military. Other than that I'm having trouble coming up with names.

There are situations that have no diplomatic solution. I doubt you could find any situation in the last two centuries of Western history that didn't involve men with tiny goofy moustaches and that more patently and clearly was a situation with no possible diplomatic solution. (Though I could be wrong, and will be entertained and happy to apologize if you can actually show me one.)

[Barclay]

The most cogent analysis I've read so far. The moment of truth for the West is coming and has history has painfully taught us - appeasing tyrants only emboldens them.

[olivia clemens]

We need to think and act more like Niccolo would.

He would not have reduced the arch-nemesis of Iran to a shell of its former self. Instead He would have reasoned we could have our way in the skies over Iraq with impunity while Iraq served as a western barrier for Iranian influence.

W's problem wasn't that he was like Niccolo, but rather that he applied liberation politics for the captive people of Iraq and overlooked geopolitical strategic advantage of having a wolf on the periphery of the fox's territory.

So blame W's compassion and desire to be loved for the failings of US foreign policy; W is a cowboy alright, one who takes too much personal care in the plight of other ranchers' cattle.

That isn't hard-nosed neo-con calculation so much as soft-hearted global liberalism at work. W failed to preserve the American geostrategic advantage of keeping a visible global nemesis to justify American policy in th eregion. That isn't faithful to the neo-conservative thesis, that is pandering to the heart strings of global liberal consciense and then being hated for having tried to do something he thought would earn gratitude from 'civil libertarians' and those who rally for the 'march of democracy'. That is where W went wrong.

Niccolo would have prescribed gamesmanship to keep Iran's policy tethered to the worry of a resurgent Iraq. Instead, we got policy written by someone who was aiming to do what was morally right rather than pursue the course of action that would produce the greatest benefit.

Clearly, our enemies aren't burdened with the conscience of St Augustine. They apply Niccolo's theory without contemplating their own sinful passage to God.

Perhaps in the end, it is better to have acted morally correct and have been hated for it, but I suspect that those circumstances will find us in a worse time than the circumstances we might have had if we followed Niccolo's sage advice and acted like cadgey foxes rather than avenging lions.

Unfortunately, now that we have bared our teeth, lunged at, and destroyed the wolf, the fox has exploited the wolf's own former territory and advanced its range. With no wolves about and lions too slow to catch foxes, the fox has propagated itself and lays low all small prey in a much expanded range.

The lion meanwhile is vitiated as the culprit for all the ensuing violence that folows unrestricted predation by the fox. Rather than being loved, the lion is hated and the fox, once held in low regard for its short teeth, small paws, slight frame, and vermine-like ways, inspires more fear than the wolf could ever have hoped to.

[Joe]

You do not come to a gun fight armed with a knife.

Would that we came with even a knife. All we appear willing to bring to this fight is a strongly worded UN resolution, if that.

Dubya and this Republican adminitration is simply incompetent, and their policies have helped to destabilize the entire Middle East.

It would be more accurate to say the failure to follow through on those policies is the destabilizing factor, not the policies themselves. Had we stepped on Syria while she was interfering in Iraq, Israel would not be dealing with that problem now.

Our inability to wage an all-out war to win is becoming a contemptible weakness, one that will cost us dearly.

[Ghost Dansing]

Nobody is surprised.

Dubya and this Republican adminitration is simply incompetent, and their policies have helped to destabilize the entire Middle East.

They have failed diplomatically, and they have no military resources left to threaten anybody because the squandered military might in the Iraq quagmire...Iraq was an incometent choice of wars, and is being prosecuted incompetently due to incompetent Republican civilian leadership, that overestimated the threat, underestimated the requirements for war, and best-cased the overall scenario.

Then they topped-it all off with a big fat fake cherry suggesting they could actually build some kind of model Liberal Democracy in Iraq that would stabilize the entire Middle East.

Dubya and his neocon cronies have been thoroughly discredited.