Looks like the axis of evil may be about to stir up the pot:

A series of op-eds in the Lebanese daily Al-Mustabal, by Nusair Al-As’ad, warned of a planned Syrian-Iranian coup in Lebanon. [9] According to these articles, Hizbullah was planning to launch, in the near future, a new stage in the coup being led by Syria and Iran in Lebanon, during which it would use its weapons on the domestic Lebanese front. The threats by the Lebanese opposition to establish a second government in Lebanon were part of this planned coup, and the coup was to be carried out under the banner of establishing a second government.

The articles stated that the threat voiced by Syrian President Bashar Assad during his April 2007 meeting with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, namely, that the situation in Lebanon would “reach the point of civil war,” was actually “an official declaration of the coup he is now staging in Lebanon.”

That would be the end (at least temporarily) of the Cedar Revolution. The State Department is supposedly gung-ho on democracy in the Middle East. Do they have a plan? I’d like to think so, but only because, like a second marriage, it would be a triumph of hope over experience.

Many have been expecting, and Israel has been prudently preparing for, another war this summer. This may be the precipitating event. Let’s hope that they learned from their mistakes from last summer.

[Early afternoon update]

And then there’s this:

The London based Al-Hayat reported Saturday that Israel was “concerned” that Syria’s decision to remove military checkpoints on the road to Kuneitra on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights could be a preparation for war.

According to the report, the checkpoints in question had been in place for 40 years, ever since the Six Day War.

In response to yesterday’s post, Greg Scoblete emails:

I read your post “Overrated” following an Instapundit link. I think you’re right, re: doctors, but I noticed you derided the notion that the jihad has any basis in U.S. policy. I think you simplify the argument. There is absolutely some causality between the two, just as there is causality between Islamic fundamentalism and violence. There is ample evidence of this in the writings of bin Laden and among analysts who study Islamic terrorism. (I wrote as much at TCS Daily here).

Nor is it a “progressive” myth. George Bush, Wolfowitz, and other administration officials have explicitly linked U.S. policy to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. This isn’t in the spirit of blaming the victim but of knowing your enemy. Believing we’re being attacked solely out of religious animus is a comforting myth, but not one that will help us win a needed victory over jihadist terrorism.

Of course, I oversimplified. The post was running long as it was.

Of course we have made foreign policy mistakes that have resulted in the current mess, going back for decades.

My point was that they’re not the mistakes that the “progressives” and transnationalists think they are, and that it’s not because we do things that make the Caliphists and hirabis upset, or explain “why they hate us,” which is the prevailing mind set.

Our foreign policy mistakes have been to give in to them, and thereby encourage them. Terrorism is not an ideology of hopelessness, but of hope. Hope that by making us fear them sufficiently, we will give in to their unreasonable, savage, medieval demands.

[sigh]

It will take a long essay to explain this properly.

Continue reading “Overrated” Follow Up →

In response to yesterday’s post, Greg Scoblete emails:

I read your post “Overrated” following an Instapundit link. I think you’re right, re: doctors, but I noticed you derided the notion that the jihad has any basis in U.S. policy. I think you simplify the argument. There is absolutely some causality between the two, just as there is causality between Islamic fundamentalism and violence. There is ample evidence of this in the writings of bin Laden and among analysts who study Islamic terrorism. (I wrote as much at TCS Daily here).

Nor is it a “progressive” myth. George Bush, Wolfowitz, and other administration officials have explicitly linked U.S. policy to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. This isn’t in the spirit of blaming the victim but of knowing your enemy. Believing we’re being attacked solely out of religious animus is a comforting myth, but not one that will help us win a needed victory over jihadist terrorism.

Of course, I oversimplified. The post was running long as it was.

Of course we have made foreign policy mistakes that have resulted in the current mess, going back for decades.

My point was that they’re not the mistakes that the “progressives” and transnationalists think they are, and that it’s not because we do things that make the Caliphists and hirabis upset, or explain “why they hate us,” which is the prevailing mind set.

Our foreign policy mistakes have been to give in to them, and thereby encourage them. Terrorism is not an ideology of hopelessness, but of hope. Hope that by making us fear them sufficiently, we will give in to their unreasonable, savage, medieval demands.

[sigh]

It will take a long essay to explain this properly.

Continue reading “Overrated” Follow Up →

In response to yesterday’s post, Greg Scoblete emails:

I read your post “Overrated” following an Instapundit link. I think you’re right, re: doctors, but I noticed you derided the notion that the jihad has any basis in U.S. policy. I think you simplify the argument. There is absolutely some causality between the two, just as there is causality between Islamic fundamentalism and violence. There is ample evidence of this in the writings of bin Laden and among analysts who study Islamic terrorism. (I wrote as much at TCS Daily here).

Nor is it a “progressive” myth. George Bush, Wolfowitz, and other administration officials have explicitly linked U.S. policy to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. This isn’t in the spirit of blaming the victim but of knowing your enemy. Believing we’re being attacked solely out of religious animus is a comforting myth, but not one that will help us win a needed victory over jihadist terrorism.

Of course, I oversimplified. The post was running long as it was.

Of course we have made foreign policy mistakes that have resulted in the current mess, going back for decades.

My point was that they’re not the mistakes that the “progressives” and transnationalists think they are, and that it’s not because we do things that make the Caliphists and hirabis upset, or explain “why they hate us,” which is the prevailing mind set.

Our foreign policy mistakes have been to give in to them, and thereby encourage them. Terrorism is not an ideology of hopelessness, but of hope. Hope that by making us fear them sufficiently, we will give in to their unreasonable, savage, medieval demands.

[sigh]

It will take a long essay to explain this properly.

Continue reading “Overrated” Follow Up →