Billmon:
III. Et Tu Stephen?
II. The Trap
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August 5, 2006
WB: How I’m Feeling At The Moment ++
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Trap: U.S. Treads Softly Over Iran’s Role in Crisis
“We have been driven into something we didn’t want to do,” said Anthony H. Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
“Far from Israel being the American proxy in a war against Iran, we’ve become Israel’s proxy in its war against Hezbollah,” he said. “Israel’s miscalculations have been so serious that its only hope for victory is to have the United States and the international community do for Israel what it can’t do militarily, which is defeat Hezbollah, assemble an international force in Lebanon and bring some sort of endgame to all this.”
Canadian PM Harper totally misread the Canadian people. The polls are brutal for Harper in the Toronto Star:
“77 per cent prefer that Canada stay neutral. Asked specifically about Harper’s support for Israeli actions, 45 per cent oppose and only 32 per cent approve. (In Quebec, 61 per cent and 17 per cent, respectively).
While Harper has rejected Canadian participation in a multinational force to act as a buffer between Lebanon and Israel, 53 per cent favour such a force, while 34 per cent disapprove. (In Quebec, 67 per cent and 26 per cent).
Allan Gregg, chairman of Strategic Counsel, told me Tuesday that the poll shows how far Canadians have shifted over the last 25 years, “from a position that was overly pro-Israeli to one that is far more balanced, far more of the view that there are no white hats in this conflict.”
The Conservative party has tried to position Harper’s stance as principled, but Canadians are not buying. Only 19 per cent say he is motivated by principle, while 53 per cent believe he is cozying up to Bush (in Quebec, 11 per cent and 72 per cent).”
As Billmon reports Harper is now singing a different tune but his flip flop confirms he was not acting based on principle. If the fighting in Lebanon drags on you might see both the Harper and Blair governments kickd to the curb by their respective parliaments. Adios big egos.
Posted by: joejoejoe | Aug 5 2006 6:03 utc | 2
A game of substitution.
We read Charles Krauthammer today, and there’s an irresistible final paragraph:
His search for victory on the cheap has jeopardized not just the Lebanon operation but America’s confidence in Israel as well. That confidence — and the relationship it reinforces — is as important to Israel’s survival as its own army. The tremulous Olmert seems not to have a clue.
Let’s substitute:
His search for victory on the cheap has jeopardized not just the Iraq operation but Americans’ confidence in their leaders as well. That confidence – and the relationship it reinforces — is as important to America’s standing as its own army. The tremulous Rumsfeld seems not to have a clue.
Now, why is it genius when Rumsfeld and Cheney are responsible, but idiocy when Olmert holds the reins? All I want to know, really. Give me a call, Charles, clue me in.
Posted by: SteinL | Aug 5 2006 6:13 utc | 3
In case you haven´t seen this yet: The neocons’ next war
The National Security Agency is providing signal intelligence to Israel to monitor whether Syria and Iran are supplying new armaments to Hezbollah as it fires hundreds of missiles into northern Israel, according to a national security official with direct knowledge of the operation. President Bush has approved the secret program.
Inside the administration, neoconservatives on Vice President Dick Cheney’s national security staff and Elliott Abrams, the neoconservative senior director for the Near East on the National Security Council, are prime movers behind sharing NSA intelligence with Israel, and they have discussed Syrian and Iranian supply activities as a potential pretext for Israeli bombing of both countries, the source privy to conversations about the program says.
…
At his first National Security Council meeting, President George W. Bush stunned his first secretary of state, Colin Powell, by rejecting any effort to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. When Powell warned that “the consequences of that could be dire, especially for the Palestinians,” Bush snapped, “Sometimes a show for force by one side can really clarify things.” He was making a “clean break” not only with his immediate predecessor but also with the policies of his father.
…
Confused, ineffectual and incapable of filling her office with power, Rice has become the voodoo doll that Powell was in the first term. Even her feeble and counterproductive gestures toward diplomacy leave her open to the harshest attacks from neoconservatives. Scowcroft and the Bush I team are simply ignored. The sustained assault on Rice is a means to an end — restoring the ascendancy of neoconservatism.
Bush’s rejection of and reluctance to embrace the peace process concluded with the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections. This failure was followed by a refusal to engage Hamas, potentially splitting its new governmental ministers from its more radical leadership in Damascus. Predictably, the most radical elements of Hamas found a way to lash out. And Hezbollah seized the moment by staging its own provocation.
Having failed in the Middle East, the administration is attempting to salvage its credibility by equating Israel’s predicament with the U.S. quagmire in Iraq. Neoconservatives, for their part, see the latest risk to Israel’s national security as a chance to scuttle U.S. negotiations with Iran, perhaps the last opportunity to realize the fantasies of “A Clean Break.”
By using NSA intelligence to set an invisible tripwire, the Bush administration is laying the condition for regional conflagration with untold consequences — from Pakistan to Afghanistan, from Iraq to Israel. Secretly devising a scheme that might thrust Israel into a ring of fire cannot be construed as a blunder. It is a deliberate, calculated and methodical plot.
True Stein, but it overlooks the fact that Israel can be jettisoned.
Fox Propaganda Network’s Neil Cavuto interviewed Rabbi Yisroel Weiss from Jews United Against Zionism:
Rabbi Weiss: This is the view that was shared throughout the past hundred years, when the whole movement of Zionism was created, the concept – the ideology – of transforming Judaism from spirituality, a religion, into materialism a nationalistic goal to have a piece of land, all the rabbinical authorities said this is antithetical with what Judaism is all about – expressly forbidden by the Torah because we are in exile by God.
Cavuto: So, you shouldn’t have a state? You shouldn’t have a country? You shouldn’t have a government?
Rabbi: We shouldn’t have a state. We should be living amongst all the nations as the Jews were doing for two thousand years as loyal citizens, people who are serving God, emulating God with compassion . . .
Contrary to what people believe, that it’s a religious conflict, we have been living for hundreds of years among Muslims and Arab communities without any UN human rights groups to watch…AIPAC thought it had problems before…
Posted by: jj | Aug 5 2006 6:36 utc | 5
Olmert’s government is telling the American press that the operation can even now be construed as a victory, because it has sent “a clear message” to the Palestinians as well as “Hezbollah and its sponsors, Syria and Iran” that future attacks on Israel would again be met “with overwhelming force, and that the cost is not worth the adventure.” Everyone knows, he implied, that the only thing Arabs understand is force.
This was the same message sent in the same way to Israel’s Arab enemies in 1967, 1973, 1982, 1993, 1996, during the two intifadas, and in numerous individual retaliatory rocket attacks and “targeted killings.” It has yet to deter the country’s enemies.
No one seems capable of acknowledging that Hezbollah, like Hamas, is not the agent of a vast conspiracy intent on bringing down western civilization, but a violent nationalist resistance movement, imbedded in a population committed to its cause, and cannot be “eliminated” or defeated in the way that regular Arab armies were routed in the 1948 and subsequent Arab-Israeli wars.
One would think that at least the Israeli military would have grasped the last point as a result of their own unhappy 22-year experience with Hezbollah, during a previous attempt to maintain a “zone of protection” in Lebanon. It ended in ignominious Israeli withdrawal in 2000, claimed by Hezbollah as victory.
These promises of “eliminated” enemies, or delivery of “clear messages” able to deter all future attack, seem to demonstrate that illusion if not delusion prevails in at least one ruling faction of Israeli government and politics, and possibly in the defense forces. What they really suggest is that it is the Israelis who only understand force. If so, it is a very serious matter for the Israelis, because their own power in the Middle East, like that of their American ally, has peaked, and is now diminishing. And in the United States, this is beginning to be perceived.
Ethinic group – nationality – Who gives a fuck … Tell it!
Surprising that no one will name the B/Sink for what it is.
Posted by: jay boilswater | Aug 5 2006 6:52 utc | 7
@ jj – with the blinding illogic with which Cheney and Rumsfeld are weakening the U.S., I would begin worrying about the cohesive force of that polity. Not just Israel.
Posted by: SteinL | Aug 5 2006 6:57 utc | 8
Bush’s rejection of and reluctance to embrace the peace process concluded with the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections
This is very true. But also, there is a lot of history in the meantime between the one and then the other. There was all of Sharon’s tactics during the intifada: every time Hamas sent a suicide bomber, blow up something else of the PA, preferably around the traditionally Christian areas. What a surprise, it only strengthened Hamas’ support. Before that march up the Temple Mount, Hamas had nothing. Arafat had huge support because it looked like negotiation had worked. Christian Palestinians who’d made money elsewhere actually moved back and started investing in the West Bank, building homes, etc. Then *poof*
Posted by: 2nd anonymous | Aug 5 2006 7:03 utc | 9
Harper has not misread the polls. He disregarded the facts.
The whole Lebanon thing took him pants down. First, he borrows his talking points from the White House. “Israel has the right to defend itself, blablabla”. But while having fun with his ole pal Dubya in Russia, 8 stranded Montrealers are blown to bits by an IAF air strike. Harper had nothing else to say that this was part of a “measured response”.
Oops. Not only he turned Canada’s pragmatist foreign policy on its head, he just disregarded the fact that there are a lot of Canadians with lebanese roots (250,000) as there were a lot of Canadian nationals stranded in harm’s way (30-40,000). More than 13,000 had to be evacuated. The small Canadian embassy (10 people) had no real contingency plan to evacuate its nationals.
Then he flies to Cyprus to “lend” his plane to the evacuation effort (read photo op) and spends 24 hours sitting on the tarmac while waiting for the ships chartered by Canada to bring a batch of refugees to ship home with the Prime Minister. But, the ships have to play cat and mouse with Israel’s Navy so Canada has to ask the UK to take Canadians aboard Royal Navy ships to get some people in Harper’s plane.
Three days later, the Israeli kill four UN observers in Khyiam, including a Canadian major. Harper “forgets” to issue a statement for a full day, only to wonder why UN observers were there (hint, they were observing, as per UN resolutions). Harper refuses to budge. Mini-Bush is a decider.
Seeing the awful polls in the last two weeks, his MPs are getting pretty scared, especially his 10 rookies elected by slim margins in Quebec, which has never been a fertile ground for his right-wing agenda in the first place. The French-speaking province has been anti-war and anti-military for centuries. Harper has only 124 seats in the 308 in the Canadian House of Commons, and has to get at least one other opposition party on board on any money bill. But all three opposition party (the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Québécois) are strongly opposed to his policy) and they screamed murder (in fact the Liberals, the separatists and the three major Quebec unions will join the Lebanese community in a joint demonstrate Sunday in Montreal for the for the first time since Vietnam).
joejoejoe: As Billmon reports Harper is now singing a different tune but his flip flop confirms he was not acting based on principle. If the fighting in Lebanon drags on you might see both the Harper and Blair governments kickd to the curb by their respective parliaments. Adios big egos.
The fact that Harper will fall in the next year is a certainty. The timing is less clear, The Liberals will select a new leader in late november so a fall election is a bit too fast. That, and the fact that it would be a third general election in three years. Anyway, there will be a poll in the spring of 2007, at the latest.
Posted by: ClaudeB | Aug 5 2006 7:08 utc | 10
Jay:
To be considered seriously here, you should write at least 1500 words, on even the most obscure subject. And please be as obscure as possible. This makes for fun.
No evidence much is required, just write.
You have a lot of catching up to do.
About 1475 words on your first post, by my count.
Posted by: Violet | Aug 5 2006 7:12 utc | 11
ClaudeB – Well said.
I couldn’t believe Harper’s behavior after the Canadian UN observer was killed in southern Lebanon. I said above that he misread the Canadian people, not the polls but it’s more accurate to say didn’t trouble himself with the Canadian people at all. Harper did his mini-Bush vaudeville act forgetting that unlike Congress, Parliament can boo him off the stage.
Posted by: joejoejoe | Aug 5 2006 7:16 utc | 12
Fisk A terrible thought occurs to me – that there will be another 9/11
And do the Israelis realise that they are legitimising Hizbollah, that a rag-tag army of guerrillas is winning its spurs against an Israeli army and air force whose targets – if intended – prove them to be war criminals and if unintended suggest that they are a rif-raff little better than the Arab armies they have been fighting, on and off, for more than half a century? Extraordinary precedents are being set in this Lebanon war.
In fact, one of the most profound changes in the region these past three decades has been the growing unwillingness of Arabs to be afraid. Their leaders – our “moderate” pro-Western Arab leaders such as King Abdullah of Jordan and President Mubarak of Egypt – may be afraid. But their peoples are not. And once a people have lost their terror, they cannot be re-injected with fear. Thus Israel’s consistent policy of smashing Arabs into submission no longer works. It is a policy whose bankruptcy the Americans are now discovering in Iraq.
And all across the Muslim world, “we” – the West, America, Israel – are fighting not nationalists but Islamists. And watching the martyrdom of Lebanon this week – its slaughtered children in Qana packed into plastic bags until the bags ran out and their corpses had to be wrapped in carpets – a terrible and daunting thought occurs to me, day by day. That there will be another 9/11.
Sorry to take up so much space around here, but…
The tactics I described in #9 seem to me to be the same pattern that has taken shape in Lebanon:
Collective punishment: attack the moderates when action is taken by the more radical militants –
This includes the destruction of infrastructure;
The destruction of all viable economic progress and signs of development put in place by moderates and dependent on the non-Islamic population;
The marginalizing or making irrelevant of the moderates in power – displacing them through military action with the radical militants.
Iraq has similar patterns. A country (sure, ruled by force and absolute power) which had a strong professional middle class, prosperous Christian minority groups, strong infrastructure, diverse populations both ethnic and religious that more or less lived side by side, etc… militarily imposed Shiite government to replace it leading to chaos and civil strife.
So… why?
What do the neocons get from it?
What did Sharon get from it?
What does Olmert think he’ll get from it? What good did it do to empower Hezbollah as Hamas was empowered? To destroy the Siniora government which was Western-slanted and opposed to Syria?
I cannot believe they had no clue what would result. Can anyone be that blind??? Is it even possible?
Posted by: 2nd anonymous | Aug 5 2006 7:28 utc | 14
Stein, since we don’t do sound bites around here, both are extremely important.
I read Kraut-‘s piece you excerpted. He’s saying the same thing – screw Israel. If you can’t do what we couldn’t do in Iraq, screw you. Who needs Israel anyway. I’m stunned w/the speed of this. Given prominence of NeoNuts in Wash, I’m not sure that isn’t partly designed to bring Nutandyahoo into office, w/whom they’d presumably rather work. (Incidentally, according to Ze’ev Schiff’s article, that I think Billmon linked to the Generals never asked for ground invasion, contrary to Kraut’s assertion that Ohlmert refused their request.)
Another thing that Kraut’s art. brings to the fore is how between Israel & xUS, they’ve brought about precisely the opposite of what they intended – hugely strengthened Iran & guerilla forces in the region. (Here’s link to Kraut’s art.)
And I guess it goes w/out saying if they aren’t restrained from attacking Iran, they could bring down US to complete the disaster. I wouldn’t want to be living in Israel about now…
Posted by: jj | Aug 5 2006 7:38 utc | 15
Oh, the pundits are running scared these days. They know their past columns will provide rich pickings for anyone wanting to demonstrate their cluelessness.
Krauthammer running (or helping elbow out Olmert? Maybe they’ll pull a Frankenstein Sharon any moment). Friedman abandoning his rosy six month perspective.
All we need now is Brooks telling us that “in spite of our best efforts, things haven’t turned out necessarily to our advantage.” Then we’ll know that this was the defining moment when the West declined – but that is for the history books that Bush is so keen on being judged by.
Posted by: SteinL | Aug 5 2006 10:42 utc | 16
Good God Mr. Bartender !!
That was a strong series of shots ! Especially this early in the morning !!
But I’ll take them !!
p.s. : Give them hell Billmon !
Posted by: Chamed Ahlabi | Aug 5 2006 11:59 utc | 17
I suggest a salutory viewing of “The Fog of War” which shows that Bob Mcnamera and the entire US policy managing group in the 1960s was as utterly ignorant and morally crippled as the current group, and that people like Bob are incapable of learning. The difference is that Bob, at 85, agonizes about what he did although not too deeply and I can’t imagine Wolfie or Rummie ever entertaining doubts.
My favorite part is Bob learning, 30 years after the Vietnam war, that Vietnam and China have been historic enemies so it would have been unlikely for Vietnam to be, as Bob imagined, a tool of China. Think about it. This bastard sent 1/2 million US soldiers and uncounted tons of bombs to destroy a country without once even asking someone about its history or culture.
But it’s also interesting to be reminded of what war crimes mean. Bob points out that over 100,000 Japanese burnt to death in one night after the US fire bombing of Tokyo and Bob’s superior Curtis Lemay (Kubricks inspiration) told Bob that if they lost the war, they would be convicted of war crimes.
Posted by: citizen k | Aug 5 2006 13:19 utc | 18
Friday nights I often watch the news shows on PBS, usually the only corporate media I watch in the week. I saw what everyone else is seeing.
This was the week that the tide turned and began running out
Olmert should be given a lot of credit for doing in three weeks what the feckless anti-war movement couldn’t do in four years. Olmert, the dove. Who knew?
Now the Lamont phenomenon, and Harper’s fall in the polls has the whole political class running scared. Politicians don’t mind losing a fixed race, what they can’t stand are sea changes of opinion. Because that means that Joe and Mary Q. Public has escaped the corral of media managed beliefs, and is running wild. The elite do not like the public running wild. They COULD go anywhere.
So, now everyone is running wild and scared. Hillary wants to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic by having Rumsfeld resign. Every politician is looking over his pro-war ass. Bush’s poll numbers could drop precipitously into impeachment range. Dems could capture the House. Pundits look even stupider than normal. Bliar could fall. Mexico is abroil.
Here’s the trap (Its called a fork in chess, and that’s just what the bright boys, and girl, have gotten themselves into.): If Israel cannot declare victory, then its reputation is in shambles, the US might be forced to cut it, and we lose our knight in the middle east. If the US enters Lebanon to secure an Israeli victory and a Hizbullah defeat, then it might lose Iraq when the Shi’ites’ anger finally boils over.
Another way to put it: We have got ourselves into a lose/lose situation.
And these dummies won’t be happy until they get us into a lose/lose/lose situation trying to extricate us.
Everyone knows, he implied, that the only thing Arabs understand is force.
Actually the only things the gangster US and Israelis understand is force, or the threat of force.
@ #14:
What do the neocons get from it?
What did Sharon get from it?
If there is a difference between the neo-con policy and the realist policy, here it is.
Realists defuse and manipulate. Neo-cons inflame and push forward.
The neo-con argument ALWAYS goes as follows: If do we don’t push forward, we lose everything.
But, everyone is getting wise to this. By continually doubling down, they are about two bad bets from losing the whole empire.
Everyone around the table has sweat on their brow. The cards have been dealt. We have a weak hand. How will the bets go this round?
Can we bluff our way out of this?
Posted by: Malooga | Aug 5 2006 14:02 utc | 19
I read Kraut’s column as an attack on Olmhert, possibly to bring Netanyahoo back as jj suggests. The “special relationship” card has always been effective in the US, but I think Charlie is using it this time on Israeli opinion makers. He’s tacitly admitting that Israel’s position (survival?) in the ME is dependent on US patrimony and warning Israel that it’s performance in this war is putting that relationship at risk. This is the first time, to my knowledge, that a pro-Israel US columnist has 1) openly acknowledged Israel’s dependency on that relationship and 2) openly used the threat of it’s dissolution to try to influence Israeli actors. If #2 seems a stretch, I’d respond that columnists in the MSM don’t just write to inform the public; they often speak for and/or to specific constituencies within elite circles, and I think he’s speaking to (and for?) AIPAC hardliners and Israeli elites in this gragh. The rest of his column is pure neocon drivel (“Hezbollah is a wholly owned Iranian subsidiary”, etc, ignoring any interest it’s members might have in the country where they actually live.). So, while his spots may look blanched today, he hasn’t changed them. It will be interesting to see if any other columnists pick up the theme.
Posted by: lonesomeG | Aug 5 2006 14:02 utc | 20
Fox Propaganda Network’s Neil Cavuto interviewed Rabbi Yisroel Weiss from Jews United Against Zionism
jj, the Anti-Deflamation League went bonkers over this interview, writing letters to FOX protesting that Rabbi Weiss was not their type of Jew since he didn’t believe in Zionism and therefore should be ignored.
Posted by: Ensley | Aug 5 2006 14:46 utc | 21
Malooga posted at 19 on 5Aug2006 10:02:18 AM
“Here’s the trap (Its called a fork in chess, and that’s just what the bright boys, and girl, have gotten themselves into.): If Israel cannot declare victory, then its reputation is in shambles, the US might be forced to cut it, and we lose our knight in the middle east. If the US enters Lebanon to secure an Israeli victory and a Hizbullah defeat, then it might lose Iraq when the Shi’ites’ anger finally boils over.”
Malooga, the US real danger is that, if the US loses Iraq because of its support for Israel, the US loses the total Middle East and precipitates a global depression because of an oil embargo or closing of the Straits of Hormuz. So, the choice is lose a knight or suffer immediate checkmate. What would you recommend, if you were supposed to be entrusted with the interests of the United States as our “leaders” are?
Posted by: PrahaPartizan | Aug 5 2006 15:02 utc | 22
Malooga thanks for your reply to my questions. What you say makes sense. But I still don’t understand what these people get out of these policies that seem to be the same from the Intifada, to Iraq, to now Lebanon.
One thing I was thinking last night that characterizes them all (the neocons, Sharon & Olmert and a “type” they represent) is that I believe they are truly self-hating people. I think it goes back to a discussion about the Holocaust around here a few days ago, the shame and the horror of it.
The interview with the Rabbi whom I presume is Neturei Karta that jj noted is relevant.
You know there are people who say that Christianity became doomed the moment it had an empire or state power, the moment Christians became something other than an oppressed minority. Certainly Constantine understood this contradiction between the teachings of Jesus and what it took to be an Emperor, to run an empire. Violence and all that it takes to wield power is in conflict with the values of the religion. Constantine didn’t have himself baptised until he was on his deathbed for this reason. There were Byzantine Emperors who returned home, having fought a successful battle even in wars thought to be for the survival of Christianity, against enemies that would force conversion, who were required by the Byzantine church to do penance for having fought in battle. So, somewhere in the world at least to some degree, this conflict between religious teaching & state power has historically been understood.
The Neturei Karta take this idea a full step by saying that being a Jew is incompatible with doing what states tend to do, must do to wield material power, it is a corrupting influence. I don’t know that I’d go that far… but as for the neocons, etc. (and the realists? I need that term defined because I’m not sure what it means exactly) I think the historical values that idealistically, Judaism cultivates in a person: humility, decency, humaneness, sincerity, & needless to say, a spirituality that puts G-d first above all other things… these are things that are rejected from the whole history of Judaism and what it meant to be a Jew – turning their backs on the whole history of Judaism. It’s like somewhere out of shame and grief some people decided to become the ruthless thug elements of all the gentile oppressors throughout history, because it was better than being – the way Sharon supposedly put it if it’s really him in that 1982 Amos Oz interview – one of the Jews who went to the gas chambers singing “Hear O Israel.” I don’t know that people can recover from such self-hatred and corruption of values. I do believe it only results in disaster.
Don’t even get me started on the so-called Christians who do the same. We can all see where it is leading us/has led us… has done throughout history, especially in the last century. It continually raises its ugly head time and time again.
Posted by: 2nd anonymous poster | Aug 5 2006 15:31 utc | 23
Considering how much blood (Lebanese and Israeli) is being spilled to create a buffer zone for Mr. Olmert, that last sentence is a rather remarkable statement.
So – a new Occupied Territory? Could it be?
Posted by: 2nd anonymous poster | Aug 5 2006 16:09 utc | 24
2nd wrote:
So… why? What do the neocons get from it? What did Sharon get from it? What does Olmert think he’ll get from it? What good did it do to empower Hezbollah as Hamas was empowered? To destroy the Siniora government which was Western-slanted and opposed to Syria? I cannot believe they had no clue what would result. Can anyone be that blind??? Is it even possible?
A new ME, after its bloody birthpangs, a C section performed by an ex-abortionist wearing tennis shoes…
Small, or even large, states that have ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’, that is little power, no army beyond symbolic or for internal control, no nationalistic movements, a population purged of dissidents taken over and controlled economically by USuk/Isr, or, more properly the First World as a whole. Like the US, in short. Except for the military.
The contradiction is that for that plan to work, stability is required. Workers in Iraq are not exploited like those in Bangladesh as they have no jobs, no one will invest there, and the people making money are scammers (contractors, etc.) living off US largesse or funny money. Iraq is a terrible failure. Afghanistan is in a sort of limbo, as illegal produce and hyper-fractioning, its history, alarming geography, prevent further moves forward.
The US’ efforts in the great game – because it is at the end of the day it is about energy and its control – has been concentrated on the ME after it took over from the Brits. A school girl’s map will show that the natural progression is that the EU and the US and its satellites (with Isr in a pincer type movement) take over the ME and control those resources, while somehow integrating ME countries into a poorer, probably very much poorer, version of rich Western countries where people are content and work hard, vote on cultural issues, get involved in reality shows on TV.
An illusion. Born of cultural hubris and military might.
Posted by: Noirette | Aug 5 2006 16:12 utc | 25
Praha wrote: Malooga, the US real danger is that, if the US loses Iraq because of its support for Israel, the US loses the total Middle East and precipitates a global depression because of an oil embargo or closing of the Straits of Hormuz.
I’m no military strategist. I skip the passages about battles in history books. Vague thoughts:
Iran would block the Straits of Ormuz. That would crash the world economy, Japan’s first (66% of its oil comes thru there.) It would cut supply lines to the US army in Iraq. They would be left stranded, alone, sitting and thus soon dead ducks.
Game over.
Posted by: Noirette | Aug 5 2006 16:26 utc | 26
Iran would block the Straits of Ormuz. That would crash the world economy, Japan’s first (66% of its oil comes thru there.) It would cut supply lines to the US army in Iraq. They would be left stranded, alone, sitting and thus soon dead ducks.
It all depends on how long they can block the street. Oil reserves in the “west” are at an all-time high. The US can support its troops by air for quite some time. Iran can not hold the street closed against an all out attack by US naval and air forces. If they are smart, the will inderdict. I.e. not close the street, but attack one ship each week and duck for cover. Still very risky.
So now there is some kind of a UN resolution: U.S. and France Back Plan to End Fighting in Lebanon
France and the United States reached agreement Saturday on a Security Council resolution to halt the fighting in Lebanon and lay out plans for a permanent cease-fire and a long-term political settlement, a French official said Saturday.
…
Under the terms of the diplomatic agreement, a Security Council resolution will call for an immediate cessation of attacks by Hezbollah and of “offensive military operations” by Israel, according to a French diplomatic official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the agreement had not yet been made public. The official said that the text of the resolution would be released later on Saturday and that the Security Council had scheduled a meeting on Saturday afternoon to consider the matter.
A vote cannot occur in the Security Council until 24 hours after the formal introduction of a resolution. And it is far from clear whether Israel or Hezbollah would abide by the terms.
The French official said that the text called for a buffer zone to be set up free of all but the Lebanese Army and United Nations-mandated forces in southern Lebanon.
…
The agreement envisages a second resolution that will create a new international force to patrol south Lebanon, set established borders for Lebanon, lay out the procedure for disarming Hezbollah and empower the Lebanese military to extend its authority throughout Lebanon and particularly those areas in the south controlled in recent years by Hezbollah.
If this gets through and Israel and Hizbollah stick to it this is the stalemate I wrote about. The second resolution most likely will never come or be a dud.
As for stopping “offensive military operations”, Israel has always claimed all its actions to be defensive. So expect everything to flame up again, even when there might come some quiteness for now.