A long, but must-read piece, particularly for the White House, which seems to be going wobbly (I have to say that I’ve been extremely unimpressed with Dr. Rice for the last few months).
President Bush set out a series of policy changes from the weeks after 9/11 to his second Inaugural in 2005. Threats would be confronted before they arrive, the sponsors of terror would be held equally accountable for terrorist murders and America would promote democracy as an alternative to Islamic fascism, the exploitation of religion to impose a violent political utopia. Every element of the Bush doctrine was directed toward a vision: a reformed Middle East that joins the world instead of resenting and assaulting it.
That vision has been tested on nearly every front, by Katyusha rockets in Haifa, car bombs in Baghdad and a crackdown on dissent in Cairo. Condoleezza Rice calls this the “birth pangs” of a new Middle East, and it is a complicated birth. As this violent global conflict proceeds, and its length and costs become more obvious, Americans should keep a few things in mind.
First, the nation may be tired, but history doesn’t care. It is not fair that the challenge of Iran is rising with Iraq, bloody and unresolved. But, as President Kennedy used to say, “Life is not fair.”
…In foreign-policy circles, it is sometimes claimed that past nuclear proliferation
With the Middle East seemingly on a rolling boil right now, Taylor Dinerman has a new review of Bob Zubrin’s 2003 satire The Holy Land. I briefly reviewed it myself a couple years ago, and it sadly remains very topical today.
If this report is true, it seems monumentally stupid on Syria’s part (not that there’s anything improbable, or wrong with that). In fact, it seems like a golden opportunity for Israel to salvage some face from what is so far (relative to Arab expectations) a disaster.
Israel could take out Syria’s tanks with a trivial effort, and no losses whatsoever. If they think that they’re somehow going to get the Golan back in this little imbroglio, Baby Assad (or whoever is really running the country) is even dumber than he looks.
Ari Shavit asks what happened to Israel, and answers:
Generally it is not right to conduct an in-depth investigation of a wartime failure during a war. However, at the end of the most embarrassing year of Israeli defense since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Israeli government is not drawing conclusions. It is not reorganizing the system, there is no evidence of a real learning curve and it is not radiating a new ethos. On the contrary: It is adding another layer of folly onto a previous one. Its slowness to react is dangerous. Its caution is a recipe for disaster. Its attempt to prevent bloodshed is costing a great deal of bloodshed. So that now of all times, just when the forces are moving toward south Lebanon, there is no escaping the question of where we went wrong. It is so that Israel will be able to achieve a last-minute victory and so that the troops will be able to achieve their goals and so the soldiers will be able to return home safely, that we must ask already now: What happened to us? What the hell happened to us?
A simple thing happened: We were drugged by political correctness. The political correctness that has come to dominate Israeli discourse and Israeli awareness in the past generation was totally divorced from the Israeli situation. It did not have the tools to deal with the reality of an existential conflict. It did not have the tools to deal with a reality of an inter-religious and inter-cultural conflict. That is why it focused entirely on the Palestinian issue. It made the baseless assumption that the occupation is the source of evil. It assumed that it is the occupation that is preventing peace and causing unrest and perpetuating the instability.
I think that the Israeli left finally gets it. Sadly, there’s no sign that their compatriots in Europe, the US and Canada do. Whether or not Olmert survives this debacle will help tell the tale. Fortunately, the Lebanese cabinet is in disarray, and the attempted hudna is breaking down, so Israel may yet get a chance to continue to remove the Iranian infection that is killing Lebanon, and preventing peace.
Apparently, the two young men (of whose religion we may not speak) with the untraceable cell phone collection in my home state, were planning to blow up the bridge. It’s certainly the most compelling target in the state, particularly given on what hard times downtown Detroit has fallen.
Still, the Ambassador or Bluewater bridges would have been much more convenient. Hey, here’s an idea–they could blow up the Windsor Tunnel and flood Detroit! With any justice (and a lot of luck), they could submerge Dearborn itself. To heck with those pesky laws of physics.
Apparently, the two young men (of whose religion we may not speak) with the untraceable cell phone collection in my home state, were planning to blow up the bridge. It’s certainly the most compelling target in the state, particularly given on what hard times downtown Detroit has fallen.
Still, the Ambassador or Bluewater bridges would have been much more convenient. Hey, here’s an idea–they could blow up the Windsor Tunnel and flood Detroit! With any justice (and a lot of luck), they could submerge Dearborn itself. To heck with those pesky laws of physics.
Apparently, the two young men (of whose religion we may not speak) with the untraceable cell phone collection in my home state, were planning to blow up the bridge. It’s certainly the most compelling target in the state, particularly given on what hard times downtown Detroit has fallen.
Still, the Ambassador or Bluewater bridges would have been much more convenient. Hey, here’s an idea–they could blow up the Windsor Tunnel and flood Detroit! With any justice (and a lot of luck), they could submerge Dearborn itself. To heck with those pesky laws of physics.