I'm afraid that this isn't just empty musings by Podhoretz. Remember, Madam Albright said that the deaths of 300,000+ children as a result of US sanctions on Iraq and bombing of civilian infrastructure (like water treatment facilities) was "worth it" - remember, the hope was to terrorize the civilians in Iraq so much that they would rise up against Saddam and do the job for us. Dershowitz - who has openly defended the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians using the Holocaust as an excuse - has more recently started talking about "degrees of civilianness" too...

And Israel's attack on Lebanon is quite obviously intended to terrorize civilians to depopulate the South of Lebanon, and generally punish Lebanese civilians for supporting Hezbollah:

Israel is gambling that the right strategy is to make the people who elected Hamas and a government that includes Hezbollah reckon the costs of their representatives' recklessness. That is why Israel has targeted not only Hezbollah leaders and strongholds but has also bombed infrastructure that sustains daily life for everybody in Lebanon. From Israel's standpoint, this is no longer a fight with nonstate terrorists who are holding their fellow citizens hostage to their tactics. It is, rather, war between Israel and countries that are pursuing (or tolerating) violent policies endorsed (or at least accepted) by their electorates.

 We have long had inner cities terrorized by gangs, even by competing gangs that fight each other.  When was the last time a president declared that we werre engaged in a global war on gangs?  And, when has a president sent in an invading force to replace the mayor and city council of such a city?  And, I can only think of one incident where we bombed a large area of such a city to try to "get the gang" - Philadelphia, not too long ago.  So, have we all succumbed to an ever increasing loss of battles in the "war against gangs"?  Nope.  We let the city police forces do their jobs as best they can.

Acts of terrorism are different?  Really?   Who did we declare war against when Oklahoma City had a federal building bombed?  No one.  Who did we declare war against when a series of abortion clinics were bombed?  No one.  Who should we be engaging in war against when the 9/11 events were committed?    Yes, the answer is still no one.  And, the answer is the same for the same reasons too.

Israel has it's own problems, quite different from our US problems.  No conflation of Israel's problems with our own is justified.  I can't say what Israel should do to solve their problems, but war hasn't yet been the solution to those problems, so it isn't at all likely that it will be now. 

Hoppy in Sacramento

Rachel

This is all very helpful, but it is essentially the same thing the anti-Bush left has been saying since Mission Accomplished.

Are you proposing that terrorism be fought with special operations? Are you suggesting that broader coalitions be united before any military engagement is undertaken?

The basic problem here is that we all know Bush's stragegies are wrong. There is no use in lamenting on it. Harping over how Bush is stupid and reckless might bestow some kind of emotional catharsis upon us, but it does nothing at all in terms of finding pragmatic solutions to the problem.

I have been deeply disappointed by the Democrats response to the alleged failures of the Bush foreign policy.

Rather than proposing viable alternatives the left seems content with merely criticizing the president and pointing out that he is corrupt and arrogant.

To me, that is equally as regretable anything Bush himself has done.

Accept John Podhoretz' position that our invasion of Iraq was sensible and necessary and you accept his rhetorical challenge that only the severest of occupations could be successful. That is; either destroy the enemy's morale in the war (Germans and Japanese in WWII) or in the putting down of the insurrection (Philippinos in the Philippine-American War). There is no other way.

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. If you can't accept torture and atrocities, don't invade -- and certainly, don't occupy -- another country.

Rachel says:

There is no bigger failure in a war leader than the inability to understand the nature of the enemy. A war for hearts and minds DEPENDS on civilians being persuaded that we are right and turning against the terrorists in their midst. It cannot be won any other way....
Karl Rove and his cronies pride themselves on divisive wedge strategies domestically--why can't they understand the need for one in the war against terror?

Seth responds:

I am not fighting a war against Hezbollah. I am not fighting a war against Iran or Syria. I am not fighting a war against Hamas. I, we, are fighting a war, of sorts against Al Qaeda.

Get your damn priorities straight.

Its hard to tell whether John Podhoretz is sincerely hoping to persuade his readers that they should support a terrorist strategy in defence of liberal civilization.

Whatever his intentions, the practical effect of his article among those who agree with it would be to induce despair and hopelessness about the possibility of persuading enough people to follow that terrorist strategy and give fellow supporters of that strategy the comforting thought that they are "Too Nice to Win" as they accept defeat and adapt their posture accordingly.

Whether John Podhoretz is doing that consciously or unconsciously, that is the inevitable result of the current policy of Israel proclaiming an intention to crush the largest political party in Lebanon knowing that it cannot occupy south Lebanon and that its previous attempt to do so ended in defeat after 18 years despite not being "too nice" to inflict tens of thousands of civilian casualties.

What makes Rachel so sure that Bush doesn't understand the nature of the enemy and doesn't understand the need for a wedge strategy?

In appealing to the Christian Right, does Karl Rove really believe in their principles?

In proclaiming that Iran and Syria are the main enemies in a GWOT and Hezbollah is their proxy does Bush really believe it?

People here seem generally comfortable with accepting that Bush is a mendacious liar.

When Bush maneuvered both Truman Democrats and paleo-conservatives into supporting the invasion of Iraq by saying it was about WMDs and to "disarm Sadaam", did he really believe it?

Rachel apparantly believes that Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas are enemies of the US in a GWOT. Seth doesn't. Nor do I. Does Bush?

My view is that Bush has an understanding of the nature of the enemy and the strategy for defeating it that Rachel lacks. In particular he understands that in the long term the US cannot be protected from jihadi terrorism without draining the swamps that breed that terrorism.

Those swamps are the stagnant autocracies of the middle east otherwise known as America's moderate Arab allies.

Bush also understands that it is not necessary for people to believe that the US is right in order for them to turn away from terrorism. The old US foreign policy establishment believed and still believes in supporting stability and the status quo throughout the region because democracy will inevitably result in the election of less "moderate" governments led by strongly anti-US islamists. But that autocratic stagnation and the hopelessness it gives rise to is precisely what breeds jihadis.

Democratic elections in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestine Authority have demonstrated they do have the result of electing more anti-US islamists. So what? They are not at war with the US and the US has neither the right nor the capability to govern those societies better than the people of those societies choosing freeely how they wish to govern themselves.

It is hardly surprising that anti-US parties would win given the US record of keeping the region backward in the interests of Israel and cheap oil for 60 years. This too shall pass.

Those policies brought, as Clinton's CIA Director James Woolsey said, "shame, disdain and September 11". Or as Bush and Condi put it, 60 years of backing tyranny in the name of stability and security bought neither stability nor security.

The US alliance with Israel, which Bush cannot simply cancel overnight, is not a strategic asset but a strategic liability. Israel's oppression of the Palestinians provides a prop for the autocracies and helps breed jihadi terrorism.

Hezbollah, Hamas and Fateh are not jihadi terrorists like Al Queda, strengthening them is a classic wedge strategy. Supporting the more "liberal" pro-Western autocracies and perpetuating endless "negotiations" about the West Bank was the old policy that spectacularly collapsed with the World Trade Center towers.

There is no strategy that could lead to pro-American regimes making peace with the Israeli occupation. If Bush doesn't know that he is indeed as big an idiot as people claim.

If Bush doesn't know that Israel's current behaviour is leading to its total isolation and strengthening Hezbollah and Hamas, he is again an idiot. A very misunderestimated idiot.

He does know that and is not attempting Rachel's ludicrous proposal of trying to persuade people in a region that has been brutalized by 60 years of US support for tyranny that the US is right. He is instead maneuvering for as orderly a retreat and transition to democracy as possible, hopefully with less bloodshed than other watershed transitions like for example the American Civil War.

Israelis are being given a crash course in the fact that tyrannizing their neighbours buys them neither security nor stability. They cannot win Lebanese hearts and minds this way, as Rachel knows. Nor can they win them any other way as Rachel still hasn't grasped.

The end result in Lebanon can only be acceptance of Hezbollah's perfectly legitimate demands for a prisoner exchange and withdrawal of Israel from the small part of Lebanon it still occupies (Shebaa farms).

The Israeli government knew that when it decided to resort to terrorist bombing with its air force. It has been refusing to replace the Israeli occupation of the West Bank with an international force for decades and is now preparing public opinion to do just that, by demonstrating that it has no viable alternative.

The logical conclusion of Rachel's position is that the US should help Israel to keep fighting Hezbollah, more humanely.

The logical conclusion from John Podhoretz's position is that this is not going to work.

Israel is now demonstrating that neither a terrorist strategy nor the previous strategy of exuding sweet reasonableness while building settlements is going to work.

Hezbollah is not a small band of terrorists. Nor is Hamas. Nor was Fateh when Israel was pretending that they were the big terrorist problem. Israel is a terrorist state ruling over a dispossessed people by means of terrorism.

Apartheid South Africa was once a key ally fighting the "Communist terrorism" of blacks who insisted that they had rights too.

The civilians who need to be persuaded are people like Rachel. They need to be turned away from supporting Israeli terrorism and accept the necessity to stop talking about a negotiated rule over the Palestinians and simply withdraw behind the 1967 borders.

It is not necessary for Israelis to support the US just as it is not necessary for Iraqis or Egyptians or any others in the region to support the US. All that is necessary is for the stagnant deadlock crippling those societies to end unleashing modernity and development with democratic processes. That dries out the swamp that breeds both jihadi and zionist terrorists.

The logic of events is pointing towards the need for a comprehensive settlement in the middle east instead of the endless wars and ceasefires promoted under previous US policies.

Rachel apparantly wants to keep fighting those wars, humanely.

Bush and Condi are presenting the stark alternative, abandon the status quo and stop fighting.

More importantly, how do you know when you've won? And if you can't tell, isn't declaring a war a bit silly?

I gotta say, there ain't nothing lunatic about getting out of Iraq with your tail between your legs. Pretty much, that's the situation you've carved out for yourselves down there.

The thing that's sticking in your craw is not common sense, it's pride.

That pride is going to get a whole lot of people killed. Thousands more Americans. Maybe a million Iraqi's, who knows.

But pride won't change the result. And pride won't elevate a butcher or make his work noble.

Don't think you're right.  My sense is we Americans don't have that great an emotional investment in the outcome of our Iraq adventure (our elite leadership? yeah; horse of a different color).

In fact most folks I know don't even think of it as a "War" -- more like a bad situation where we tried to do something nice for people and for whatever reason, they turned out either unable to take advantage of our generosity or just downright perverse.

It won't be any skin off our nose if we "cut and run." 

RogerGathman
This is interesting: "Rather than proposing viable alternatives the left seems content with merely criticizing the president..."

I didn't know the left had forgotten the viable alternatives! Wow, well, here's two or three.

1. Say you have Osama bin Laden holed up in a cave. Say that cave has a back entrance, and fifteen miles away is the Pakistan border. Do you:
a. put soldiers along that border as a priority, or
b. let obl get away and then pay Pakistan 3 billion a year to play zookeeper, so you can keep your war on "terror" going?
Well, viable strategy no. 1 is a.

2. Say Iraq has nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism, and in fact has a failing economy, a crap army, and no power over its Northern half. Do you
a. Invade it on false pretenses and pay no attention to any advice as you occupy it into ruin?
or b. Not invade it.
If you picked a again, you are doing well! Here's a tough one now.

3. Say you have tried to deny the reality of Iran for, say, thirty years. You don't recognize the place, you are alternately hostile to the place and sell it weapons for your contras, but your main strategy is to hope that people inside Iran overthrow the government and become your buddy again. After 30 years do you:
a. think this is the best strategy ever, and its really working or
b. hold face to face talks, recognize Iran, and in general not try to enforce a long term solution on the Middle East, instead opting for phases or relative civility.
Ah, you were thinking we were winning against Iran, eh? Any day now the Shah's returning? Nope. The correct answer is b.

Next week, we'll play the game of left alternatives to looting the social security system, skewing the distribution of wealth in the country so it looks like Neronian Rome, and an environmental policy that doesn't look upon the heat death of the earth as a good thing.

Perhaps the truth is so self evident in this case that the Democrats feel no need to even lift a finger.

Stripped of the sarcasm, your "left" alternative amounts to:

in general not try to enforce a long term solution on the Middle East, instead opting for phases [of] relative civility

That is also the policy of all previous US administrations and the overwhelming bulk of "expert" opinion in the foreign policy establishment.

I cannot even begin to imagine why you regard traditional US policy in the middle east as "left". Frankly I don't care.

But I would like to know why you consider it so self-evidently successful that you only need to mention it for everyone to see that it was obviously a good idea.

The culmination of not trying to enforce a long term solution on the Middle East and its phases of relative civility (ie periodic war punctuating long term stagnation) was September 11. Clinton's CIA Director Woolsey drew the conclusion that letting the region stagnate under corrupt tyrannies had brought the US "shame, disdain and September 11".

Concretely, how would your so obviously "correct" answers to your own questions prevent the situation continuing to get worse with more jihadis breeding in the swamps until eventually there was a more spectacular attack on the US using WMDs?

Specifically your answers were:

1a. This would have (hopefully) increased the chances of having killed or captured Osama Bin Laden. But what about the thousands of other jihadi terrorists that the CIA had funded to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan under more enlightened administrations such as Carter and Reagan? What about the societies they came from that were breeding many more thousands of young men willing to dedicate their lives to global jihad. How does adding another "martyr" stop their cause from growing?

2b. How does not invading Iraq deal with the problem that the regime was so vicious it was bound to explode in civil war eventually and when it did would have drawn in neighbours such as Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait in a regional war? How does it deal with the fact that the murderous sanctions the US was imposing were being described as genocidal by UN official administering them as well as by Al Quaeda while simply dropping them would have resulted in a victory for a predatory regime that would have gone on to start another regional war directly?

3a . How does talking to Iran's reactionary mullahs help establish friendly relations with the Iranian people who hate them?

If you had an orientation towards "draining the swamps" you might want to present a "left", "right" or "whatever" alternative to the various blunders that the Bushies have made in the course of doing so.

But by your own admission your "left alternative" is to pretend the status quo policy was not discredited by its results demonstrated in September 11.

You want to continue the rule of tyrants to buy security and stability just like for the past 60 years.

Bush isn't that stupid. You don't have to be "left" to realize it simply isn't an option any more. Even right wingers like Bush recognize that it didn't buy either security or stability.

Do you have any other alternative apart from advocating the policies that prevailed before and led to September 11?

Thus the poplicies of Dershowitz and Podhoretz are in the fine traditions of Madelaine Albright and are likely to be as successful as her policy of murderous sanctions.

Aren't we lucky the Democrats aren't in power?

Problem is how to make the fact that this is in fact the Democrats position evident to voters in the next Presidential election.

Give them control of at least one House in November and then watch them spending 2 years splitting between supporting the Bushies plan and failing to come up with an acceptable alternative to it.

You can avoid the tough questions and just make cynical remarks when you have no influence on policy whatever. But you are either going to have to vote for "stay the course" or for "cut and run" or propose an alternative course once your votes actually matter again. That may only be a few months away.

Scary isn't it?

Lol. Actually, the quote with Margaret Trudeau was "Hey, I wonder if we can get her to do something with an erection."

We don't elect anyone in a Newfie Drinking contest, thank god.

And the Alliance is a sort of national embarrassment. Steve Harper finally sort of won an election, but its a minority.

That sounds even more constructive and helpful than your other proposal to sack the people who didn't prevent September 11, 2001.

Glad you liked them. That sacking thing is basically about 'accountability' and 'responsibility.' I remember your country used to think highly of those concepts.

Any chance of you letting us know what plan you come up with sometime before September 11, 2006?

Sure. First things first. Impeach the boob. Remove the incompetents who are screwing things up.

Let's be realistic here. The United States six years ago was at the top of the game. You had a balanced budget, top flight military, international credibility, you had identified Al Quaeda as a problem and were taking steps to deal with it. The world was quiet and stable, not without problems, but those problems were managed.

Where are you now? You've pretty much blown all your political, economic and military capital. And to what end?

The truth is that most of your problems are self inflicted and derive from spectacularly incompetent management. Go and take a look at New Orleans, there's a textbook case.

No matter what plan you come up with, no matter what new strategy you employ, you put it in the hands of screw ups... and they'll screw it up. They'll screw it up spectacularly.

Moreover, this particular gang of idjits is particularly unruly. They pretty much intend to do things their way only and they're not good at taking advice or looking at facts.

So, the bottom line is that there's no improving things so long as you are not going to demand some basic baseline levels of competence at serious levels.

Sorry Lester, but that's just the facts.

You do know that this stuff about coming up with a plan is not going to impress many voters at the elections to be held 8 years after Bush took office.

Or don't you?

Lester, ol pal, ol bud, I think that it may well impress voters, what with their being exposed to eight years of refusing to have a plan and substituting mindless thrashing.

But hey, I figure your 'drunk drowning in a bathtub' strategy still has a couple more years to go... We'll see what happens. I mean, it hasn't been working for you so far, but you never know...

Or maybe not.

Arthur has a fascinating thesis:

My view is that Bush has an understanding of the nature of the enemy and the strategy for defeating it that Rachel lacks. In particular he understands that in the long term the US cannot be protected from jihadi terrorism without draining the swamps that breed that terrorism.

He's positing that beneath the apparently inept quest for power and domination, Bush is actually operating on a sophisticated and nuanced liberal master plan to subtly reform the region.

That's such an amazing proposition that I've actually had to go away and spend a night kicking it around.

Unfortunately, I've concluded that it is largely bunk.

Which is actually a sad thing, because I'd feel a lot better about everything if I believed that Lester was right.

But, sadly no. It doesn't look like anything of the sort goes on in the administration. Quite the opposite.

The most telling window into Bush's thinking, and how Bush thinks, was with his impromptu 'open mike' conversation with Blair, where, mouth open and chewing on a breadstick he opined that 'Syria should just tell Hezbollah to stop this shit.' and 'Kofi Annan needs to get involved.' Or things to that effect.

The thinking on display here was profoundly superficial, not terribly nuanced, and desperately wrong. It's at the level of sophistication of a guy on the bus talking economic theory.

An examination of Bush's foreign policy before and after 9/11 reveals a basic continuity of purpose and action. Don't talk to states you designate as 'hostiles' - Iran, Iraq, Syria, North Korea. Ignore non-state terror groups. Invade Iraq (a policy course established well before 9/11). Support Israel, regardless of consequences. Control the Persian Gulf and extend that control or influence as far as possible. Make inroads into Russian influence to forestall its economic or political resurgence. Cordon off China to neutralize it. Divide Europe.

Essentially, its the perpetuation and expansion of American power without the sophistication of a skillful hand or iron fist, but rather the blunt will of a raging erection.

In this context, the grand vision of 'reforming the middle east' to drain the 'fevered swamps producing terrorism' is nonexistent.

Oh, I'm sure that it's articulated among the pseudo-intellectuals that pass for America's 'think tank' class. But as a serious set of policies or initiatives? Forget it. It's business as usual.

And beyond the blind urgency of an unrestrained hardon, its' pretty much an ad hoc, reactive and random quest.

Those swamps are the stagnant autocracies of the middle east otherwise known as America's moderate Arab allies.

True enough, or at least, true-ish. But look to the actual policies there. There's some lip service and credit taken when we see some modest token democratic gesture. But in every respect, it is business as usual with these autocracies. The structures which perpetuate them are maintained.

Admittedly, it would be difficult to simply overthrow these structures. But there is scope to support and encourage meaningful social reforms. It's not being done.

Bush also understands that it is not necessary for people to believe that the US is right in order for them to turn away from terrorism.

I'm not sure what this is getting at. I think that the better thing to say is that local factors are critically important to societies dealing with domestic unrest.

The old US foreign policy establishment believed and still believes in supporting stability and the status quo throughout the region because democracy will inevitably result in the election of less "moderate" governments led by strongly anti-US islamists.

I'll extend that thesis a bit. The American and British policy was to install or support monarchies and established traditional governments, largely because these monarchies and traditional governments could be relied upon to cater to American and British interests.

The first threat to this came, not from Islamists, but from secular reformers, beginning with Nasser in Egypt, who threw out the monarchies in favour of western style modernization and reform. Nasser was followed by Assad in Syria, the Baathists in Iraq, Quadaffi in Libya. They met unrelenting resistance from Britain and America and this drove them into the Soviet camp. Nevetheless, economic and political warfare by the west, their own economic and political bungling and disastrous campaigns against Israel largely stripped their credibility.

By the 1970's, their wad was shot, their credibility as an effective political or economic movement was done, and for most of them, their focus shifted towards local concerns and self perpetuation.

The Shah of Iran, of course, tried to straddle the fence, remaining a traditional feudal Monarchy, while the same time embracing technocratic secular reform... effectively embracing the worst of both worlds.

By the eighties, the period of genesis of the Islamic movement, Muslim peoples were faced with two distinct styles of government - traditional autocratic monarchies, and secular nationalist reform regimes - both of which were largely failed and discredited.

Into this social and intellectual vaccum, a new political philosophy was drawn... Islamic theocratism... Or, a government of Islam.

The period of the eighties is when we see the consolidation of the Mullahs in Iran, the rise of the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan and the rise of terrorist or radical Islamic movements in Egypt, Algeria, the Sudan. It's also the period of the Iran/Iraq war which can be interpreted as a contest between the secular nationalists on the one hand and the theocratic reformers on the other... between an old and a new vision for muslims.

Terrorism may be a big cause for us in the 21st century west. But if you look to people actually being assassinated or blown up by radicals in the middle east... well, look at what happened to Anwar Sadat. It starts there, and they were suffering for twenty years before it arrived on our shores.

Theocratic fundamentalism did well enough to be considered a live cause. They kicked the Russians out of Afghanistan, which was a major boon. They kicked Israel out of Lebanon. Hamas proved to be a more effective representative of Palestinians. The Iranians did okay in the Iran/Iraq War (but they were Shiites, so it didn't really count).

It did well enough that the traditional feudal regimes, which had been threatened by the secular nationalists, felt the need to accommodate them somewhat. The traditional nature of the monarchies was somewhat more comfortable with the traditional nature of the theocrats, so there was some basis for adaptation, accommodation, and coexistence.

Not so the secularist nationalists, whose regimes clamped down big time. If you look around, you'll see Saddam in Iraq, Mubarak in Egypt, Quadaffi in Libya, the Algerian Army, Assad in Syria, all engaging in aggressive violent repression of theocratic movements and theocratic terrorists. The two philosophies were absolutely antithetical. It makes a remarkable contrast to the 'live and let live' approaches we saw in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf.

The big turning point was the Gulf War.

Look at this in terms of the middle east as three big competing visions: Traditional Monarchy/feudalism, Western reforming secular nationalism, and radical theocratic fundamentalism.

The Secular Nationalists were on the ropes. They'd fought the Fundamentalists, but had no other accomplishments. The Iran/Iraq war had ended in an inconclusive stalemate. With the Gulf War, we saw a secular nationalist regime attacking a traditional autocrat regime.

The result discredited both. The secular nationalists were handed their most humiliating and pervasive defeat yet. They were stalemated and discredited, isolated, ineffectual and neutered.

On the other hand, the traditional autocratic regimes were shown to be hollow rotten shells, finger puppets for the west and for America. They would and could not stand on their own, rather, their existence depended on outside, western, support. Without it, they'd collapse.

This had two effects. It really gave the philosophical and political edge to Islamic fundamentalism. It was victory by default, the other two competing visions lay in ruins. And it also persuaded Islamic fundamentalism that the true problem, the true threat, was not their local rivals... but rather, the West and America.

Certainly, its after the Gulf War that the Islamic fundamentalists begin debating the inescapable role of the America in their lives, and many, particularly Osama Bin Laden and his supporters, start to conclude that the true enemy is America.

Their reasoning is thusly: The Secular regimes are a joke, barely able to hold on and unable to stand up to the west. The Autocratic regimes are puppets of the west. If America can be pushed out, the autocratic regimes will fall over and the secular regimes will be unable to stand against them.

But that autocratic stagnation and the hopelessness it gives rise to is precisely what breeds jihadis.

Not quite.

Democratic elections in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestine Authority have demonstrated they do have the result of electing more anti-US islamists. So what? They are not at war with the US and the US has neither the right nor the capability to govern those societies better than the people of those societies choosing freeely how they wish to govern themselves.

Wrong. They are at war with you, in the sense that they want you out of their lives. They don't want you operating their governments like finger puppets. This puts them on a direct political and economic collision course with American interests. They know it. You know it.

It's progressive of you, though, to argue that perhaps America really should get out of the lives of these people, and I commend you for it.

However, the thing is, that the Islamists are only electorally successful because the US has, in different ways, managed to completely undermine the competing philosophies. Keep that in mind.

The Islamists do have a problem. Their one real success (apart from Iran who were Shiites and don't count) was Afghanistan, and they pretty much disgraced themselves there. They are unlikely to be able to live up to their own PR in terms of actually accomplishing things for their people. It's possible that without American intervention and manipulation, their star would have fallen naturally.

It is hardly surprising that anti-US parties would win given the US record of keeping the region backward in the interests of Israel and cheap oil for 60 years. This too shall pass.

Well, its unsustainable.

Those policies brought, as Clinton's CIA Director James Woolsey said, "shame, disdain and September 11". Or as Bush and Condi put it, 60 years of backing tyranny in the name of stability and security bought neither stability nor security.

Not to be mischievous or anything, but 60 years is a good long time. Nothing to be ashamed about with a record of domination like that.

The problem is that in attempting to keep the region down, we have opened the door to an inimical philosophy. Had the region been allowed to develop naturally, had the secular reformers actually succeeded, Iraq might well have gone the way of Spain or Portugal, with a dictatorship giving way to a liberal democracy.

The US alliance with Israel, which Bush cannot simply cancel overnight, is not a strategic asset but a strategic liability. Israel's oppression of the Palestinians provides a prop for the autocracies and helps breed jihadi terrorism.

I'm not sure how it provides a prop for the autocracies.

Supporting the more "liberal" pro-Western autocracies and perpetuating endless "negotiations" about the West Bank was the old policy that spectacularly collapsed with the World Trade Center towers.

Well, except that they weren't liberal at all. We were adamantly opposed to the regimes which were closest in philosophy and outlook to our own. It was these regimes, the secular nationalists, who were most incised about Israel. The traditional autocracies might make a speech or two, but generally, they could care less.

There is no strategy that could lead to pro-American regimes making peace with the Israeli occupation. If Bush doesn't know that he is indeed as big an idiot as people claim.

He is.

If Bush doesn't know that Israel's current behaviour is leading to its total isolation and strengthening Hezbollah and Hamas, he is again an idiot. A very misunderestimated idiot.

Again, he is. However, you misunderestimate his perspective.

Bush's current view is that the secular regimes, what's left of them, are irrelevant. They're either dependent upon America (Egypt), in a state of surrender (Libya), under occupation (Iraq) or isolated and impotent (Syria). So who cares what they think, they don't matter.

By the same token, the Traditional Monarchies and Autocracies are also irrelevant in that he correctly perceives that their very existence is tied to American support. So who cares what they think, they don't matter either.

The only actor who counts is Israel. So why not support Israel's great wall, its expropriation of west bank lands, its attacks on Lebanon. What's the gain, what's the point of opposing any of these things?

Israel's isolation doesn't matter, because the states which might oppose it are irrelevant.

Hamas and Hezbollah are local insurgencies of no broader consequence to the United States. So if Israel is prepared to risk them, why not... It's Israel's call.

Hardly sophisticated or nuanced. But there you go. All the subtlty of a raging erection.

He does know that and is not attempting Rachel's ludicrous proposal of trying to persuade people in a region that has been brutalized by 60 years of US support for tyranny that the US is right.

Nah, his approach is that he doesn't need to be nice to them. They just need to be obedient, or suffer the consequences. Iraq is object lesson "A" that you don't mess with the big dog.

He is instead maneuvering for as orderly a retreat and transition to democracy as possible, hopefully with less bloodshed than other watershed transitions like for example the American Civil War.

And here you depart for fantasyland.

There's no sign of retreat in Iraq. Indeed, Bremer (Mr. 'Will to Power') was planning on a 5 to 10 year tenure. The plan was apparently to put long term bases in Iraq and use the country as the launching point for American power.

Nor is there any sign of retreat with respect to Iran, Syria or Israel's assaults on Lebanon. The goal is regime change or radical restructuring.

No such radical restructuring or regime change is in mind for the Monarchies, but there is no sign of disentanglement either.

Economically and politically, disentanglement from the region, and its critical supplies of oil, would be a major reversal for the US on the world stage. Realpolitik suggests that won't be happening. And the administration fancies itself a 'realpolitik' player.

Israelis are being given a crash course in the fact that tyrannizing their neighbours buys them neither security nor stability. They cannot win Lebanese hearts and minds this way, as Rachel knows.

So... Bush is encouraging them, so that they will learn from their failure? And he's sending them emergency rations of jet fuel and precision guided munitions, and running interference at the UN so that they'll have a free hand and eventually learn for themselves that it just won't work?

In the same way you sit and watch a child put its hand on the burning stove, or stick wires into an electrical outlet, so it'll learn better next time?

Hmmm... well, that's an interesting approach to parenting. But I'm not persuaded that its the underlying motive behind American policy in this instance.

Nor can they win them any other way as Rachel still hasn't grasped.

Huh???

The end result in Lebanon can only be acceptance of Hezbollah's perfectly legitimate demands for a prisoner exchange and withdrawal of Israel from the small part of Lebanon it still occupies (Shebaa farms).

Probably.

The Israeli government knew that when it decided to resort to terrorist bombing with its air force. It has been refusing to replace the Israeli occupation of the West Bank with an international force for decades and is now preparing public opinion to do just that, by demonstrating that it has no viable alternative.

So they've killed 500 people to justify what... something you claim they knew all along they'd have to do?

Colour me skeptical. I don't believe that Israel really was counting on this outcome. The more likely reality is that they thought they could take out Hezbollah and severely misjudged the situation.

Israel is now demonstrating that neither a terrorist strategy nor the previous strategy of exuding sweet reasonableness while building settlements is going to work.

Itself in essence a terrorist strategy.

The civilians who need to be persuaded are people like Rachel. They need to be turned away from supporting Israeli terrorism and accept the necessity to stop talking about a negotiated rule over the Palestinians and simply withdraw behind the 1967 borders.

OK.

It is not necessary for Israelis to support the US just as it is not necessary for Iraqis or Egyptians or any others in the region to support the US. All that is necessary is for the stagnant deadlock crippling those societies to end unleashing modernity and development with democratic processes. That dries out the swamp that breeds both jihadi and zionist terrorists.

You use a lot of swamp imagery, what's up with that.

Here's your problem. You guys have spent a good long time discrediting and crippling the forces of modernity and development which would have sustained and given rise to Democratic processes.

The Jihadi's are in the game largely because you made a point of destroying or discrediting their competitors.

So... whatcha gonna do?

The logic of events is pointing towards the need for a comprehensive settlement in the middle east instead of the endless wars and ceasefires promoted under previous US policies.

Well, it would be good to stop promoting wars. It can be argued that the US had a major hand in some of the key wars in the region, particularly the Yemeni War (North and South duking it out as part of the East/West confrontation), the Iran/Iraq War (Iraq acting as the US proxy).

The Lebanese civil war can be attributed to consequences of Israel and the destabilization introduced by Palestinian refugees. The Israeli wars are their own things. The Algerian Civil war was also western influenced.

But apart from that, the region is pretty peaceful.

Bush and Condi are presenting the stark alternative, abandon the status quo and stop fighting.

Not persuaded. Bush and Condi are proposing to rewrite the entire map of the region based on their own peculiar visions, and created by the Israel and America's raw power. Their mistake is that they think that they can shape something by force and make it permanent. It won't be permanent.

That power will fade, perhaps is fading. When that happens, it will inevitably come apart.

You appear to have "misunderstood" a half century and more of US dealings in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere.

American foreign policy is and always has been designed primarily to support the seaborne flow of those trade goods which it wishes to buy or sell.  Post-World War II the US's principal trading concern has been the free flow of oil, the largest source of which has been located in the Persian Gulf area.

It should be obvious to anyone that insofar as Iranian geopolitical  expansion constitutes the greatest threat to the flow of Persian Gulf oil, America can be expected to seek to block that expansion.  Installing(?) or supporting a Shi'i dominated Iraqi government is hardly likely to satisfy American interests.

Murtha thinks we can accomplish our goals from "over the horizon."  I don't.  But there's nothing cynical in either view.

Welcome to reality-based thinking, Arthur. 

Ok, this longer post from Valdron does not have the sneering tone of the earlier post that made me decide not to bother responding, so I'll take it seriously.

Unfortunately I don't have time to respond fully right now.

Just to clarify though, Valdron appears to view the islamist parties that are likely to come to power in free elections as an expression of theocratic fundamentalism and terrorism. That is precisely what the autocracies say to justify their refusal to hold free elections and precisely what Israel says to justify refusing to make peace.

My view is that islamism and islamo-fascism are two different things. The suppression of the islamist parties by the tyrannies, combined with the suppression of any progressive parties has left only liberals (who are generally useless) as the legal opposition and completely stunted political development. That is what breeds islamo-fascist jihadis.

Shia islamist parties already dominate the government of Iraq. The sunni islamist muslim brotherhood is likely to dominate the government of Egypt and Jordan with similar politics to Hamas in the Palestine Authority.

These developments create an atmosphere far less conducive to the breeding of jihadis, and far more open to actually progressive political development, than the stagnant rule of the autocrats (whether secular or not).

The current enormous boost to Hezbollah is undermining all the autocracies and closing the sunni-shia divide exploited by the sunni autocracies. Naturally the old foreign policy establishment regards this as further proof that the Bushies are blundering idiots, but it would require rather more than mere stupidity for the Bushies to imagine that the current attack on Lebanon would have any other effect than to boost Hezbollah and undermine the "moderate" regimes.

When I referred to the US staging an orderly retreat I did not mean abandoning the elected government of Iraq to its islamo-fascist enemies and the tender concerns of its neighbours seeking stability.

What I was referring to is the (vacillating and inconsistent) withdrawal of US support from the stability of tyranny using the excuse that the opposition was islamist, communist, pro-Soviet or whatever the US was worried about at the time.

What the US has been worried about since September 11 is none of the above, but (wahabi/salafi) islamo-fascist terrorism - a trend that the US sponsored, and encouraged its Saudi allies to sponsor in the late 1980s to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan).

For some neocon analysis supporting that very different view of the islamist parties from the one Valdron appears to assume would be taken by US policy see some of the links to Gerecht.

Much of Valdron's analysis seems similar to Chomsky's so the following link to an attempt to make Chomsky spend a night thinking about it may be of interest at least in answering the question about what's up with swamp imagery

I'll leave it there in the hope that a follow up from Valdron after taking a look at those might narrow the debate to actual areas of disagreement rather than misunderstandings about where I am coming from.

Arthur

I agree that most Americans would love to have a clear, distinct choice during this upcoming election. Yet that doesn't seem particularly likely, at least not in terms of A versus B.

On the one hand you will have the Republicans touting essentially a promotion of the status quo. Yet the Democrats, while clearly not endorsing this view, have yet to offer anything substantive in terms of alternatives.

Murtha's plan has been the one exception and that has largely gone by the wayside.

Today (8/1) Congressional Democrats drafted a letter to President Bush stating that the American people favor the implementation of a process which would call for the gradual extraction of U.S. forces in Iraq.

Yet it provides nothing in terms of how to achieve this goal. It should be common sense that when your political adversary (in this case the president)does not share your viewpoints, merely calling upon him to not only adopt your cause but also draft the specific measures of your own agenda seems self defeating.

In essence, the Democrats call on Bush to lay out a withdrawal plan. That is not a progrssive way to go about things.

The Democrats must take the initiative, no matter how inherently reluctant they may be, and propose their own specific plan not only to the president but also to the public. That, in and of itself, would create the line in the sand for this upcoming election.

Actually America's main concern was to block Communism, and later to block the Soviet Union.

By the 1970s a "two pillars" strategy was in place with the Shah of Iran as one pillar and the House of Saud as the other.

The Iranian pillar turned and devoted itself to fighting the Great Satan.

The Saudi pillar became a breeding ground for jihadi terrorists also fighting the Great Satan.

With such astounding success, reality-based thinking came to be used as a sarcastic derogatory reference to completely disasterous counter-productive policies based on half-baked ideas about geopolitics with no understanding of the most important "actors" - the people.

Remember it was "realists" who put a billion dollars of CIA funding into Al Queda to fight the Soviets and encouraged the Saudis to put in another billion and open up wahabi/salafi madrassas for training jihadis around the world.

Unfortunately they weren't carted off in tumbrels as CIA Director Woolsey advocated after September 11, but they now have plenty of time in retirement to write papers for think tanks and op-eds passing on the wisdom of the accumulated experience of the old and bankrupt foreign policy establishment and warning how democratic transformation of the region is a disaster opposed to everything that the US so brilliantly stood for under their wise leadership.

RogerGathman
Arthur,
Actually, my last paragraph is content full -- its content concentrated on the ridiculousness of the swamp metaphor. Incredibly, you are using the metaphor of the swamp as if it explains terrorism - hence, the idea that stagnancy -- oh, the stagnant water of the swamp - "breeds" terrorists. They are like those pesky mosquitos. Unfortunately, this reverses history completely. The terrorist groups that threaten the U.S. came from three situations: the civil war in Lebanon, the war in Afghanistan, and the war between the Palestinians and the Israelis. In none of those cases was there that terrible stagnancy. The puddles of water and lakes of blood were churned up to such a fine froth that even neo-cons could rub their hands, knowing that out of mass murder arises freedom lovin' free marketeers. But ... that didn't happen. Instead, civil war, nicely aggravated by American arms sales and interventions, such as that mounted in the Reagan years, "bred" the attack in 94 on the WTC -- designed by an islamic warrior whose flights around the world were paid for by the CIA, and who was living in new jersey on a visa signed by a cia official in Sudan -- and in 2001.

To think recognizing Iran is sucking up to the mullahs shows just what a serious problem reality presents for Americans. Far from sucking up, it is the only way that Americans can actually effect, through the use of 'soft' power, changes in Iran. This is even true for those people radically opposed to the regime, since it is much more effective to protest human rights abuses in a country we recognize than in one where those protests are mixed with macho threats to overthrow the regime -- thus fatally diluting the moral stance.

So, going through this one two three again:
1. There is no gain from destabilizing in the hopes that this makes the Middle East less 'stagnant," and thus prone to terrorism. The opposite has happened historically, and it will keep happening.
2. The U.S. cannot pretend to represent one interest in the Middle East -- democracy. It has state interests that interfere even with other democracies -- hence, its enabling of the destruction of Lebanon's infrastructure, to a degree that makes Syria look like a good neighbor.
3. All talk of how the U.S. has to rush into violent situations with armies in the Middle East depends upon continuing to allow the Executive Branch to use the U.S. volunteer army pretty much as its own mercenary force. The average U.S. citizen has no interest in and should have no interest in that kind of aggression. Liberal foreign policy should concentrate on reigning in the forces that are always intent on "American Greatness" projects overseas, since they inevitably result in fiascos.

Ok, this longer post from Valdron does not have the sneering tone of the earlier post that made me decide not to bother responding, so I'll take it seriously.

Sneering? Not at all. Lighthearted, humourous, gently sardonic. Look, my country didn't elect a congenital idiot, so I got no stake in the matter. The fact that the most powerful country on earth, the fact that a country which should be the moral leader of the planet, elected a vicious retard... Well, that's either grounds for tragedy or comedy. I could weep or laugh, I think I'll choose to laugh. I suspect that the Iraqi's tend to weep.

Personally, if you are going to elect an idjit, you should expect to be mocked. So put on a smile, boyo, and laugh along with the rest of us, life is short and the ending is always the same.

Just to clarify though, Valdron appears to view the islamist parties that are likely to come to p