While I was away from blogging the Middle East exploded.
IRAN PLAYS A PRIMARY PART:
Iran controls and finances Hezbollah in Lebanon, and controls Syria, as well as Hamas in Gaza under the Palestinian Authority. This is a given.
Iran’s maniacal leader Ahmadinejad has declared the Holocaust to be a fiction, and will settle for nothing less than the annihilation of Israel. He has declared these things time and again to the world.
The Bush Administration should not put pressure on Israel to withdraw troops or to stop fighting back.
Each act of Israeli withdrawal has only escalated actions and attacks against Israel proper. Rockets keep coming out of Gaza. The new rockets have a much longer reach — possibly to Haifa and now Tel Aviv.
What other nation in this entire world would the United Nations have the nerve to ask: “Do not defend yourself?”
Only Israel.
THE MIDDLE EAST MAKES ITS SECOND MISTAKE:
The United States determined not to fight back though it was systematically attacked, throughout various spots in the world, under the Clinton Administration. Unfortunately we first recently under-responded during the Iranian Hostage Crisis under Carter. We continued to under-respond when over 250 soldiers were killed in Lebanon under the Reagan Administration and the response was: get out. The die was cast.
We were a Paper Tiger.
Somalia then did nothing but reinforce the Paper Tiger effect. Down a few helos and kill some soldiers? Response: get out.
1993: World Trade Center bombing? Response? Little.
USS Cole? Response? Dead sailors.
Lockerbie: global response? Little.
The United States became a more taste-tempting target. Then the various Middle Eastern factions, al-Qaeda primarily, decided that it would be a good idea to coordinate the 9/11 attacks thinking there would be, as history indicated, little response.
They did not account for President George W. Bush, the son.
Now, with Israel, they did not account for new Israeli PM Ehud Olmert; they were counting on another Sharon-like response similar to his acquiescence regarding Gaza.
Think what you will of Sharon; I am of a firm and unrelenting opinion regarding Sharon. It was time for him to step aside. I am sorry that this “asideness” had to take the form of a medical intervention; but it was necessary nevertheless.
GAZA, ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS:
This is once again very simple, actually. One has but to do the Logical Extension (as I call it) and recall just a bit of history — and apply a smattering of logic as well.
When your most vile enemy, one who has sworn to eradicate you from the face of the entire earth, demands concessions, do not allocate them land directly adjacent your own sovereign soil. Give them land some 2 to 3,000 miles away. In the desert. With little access to transportation or infrastructure.
When you provide them with land directly adjacent your most hallowed religious grounds and that which directly abuts your civilized nation, there could theoretically be something of a minor problem.
And, of course, what about similar Middle Eastern nations allocating lands for the “lost peoples of Palestine?” Huh. I haven’t seen one nation making any such offering for its brethren.
PULLING OUT ALL THE STOPS NOW:
Enough with the couching of terms and phrases.
Hezbollah and Hamas wanted an “incident.” And they got it in spades. They represent doomed cultures with no technological bent whatsoever — cultures that know nothing about Building and everything about Destruction and the Cult of Victimization.
Bush and the international community are simply WRONG with their “suggestions” that Israel “hang back” when attacked from either Lebanon or Gaza.
Allow me to please provide you with a relevant analogy:
Maryland has decided to go rogue. It has seceded from the Union. In response, it has decided to launch missiles from the center of Maryland against Washington DC.
Would Washington respond militarily?
In the meantime, Canada has decided to throw missiles, likewise, at Washington, DC. These missiles are issuing forth from Canada proper, sovereign Canadian soil, but the Canadian government is saying that whatever faction is responsible, is not representative of the Canadian government and thusly the overarching country of Canada should not be held militarily responsible for American deaths resulting from these missile attacks.
How would the United States respond to both scenarios?
And moreover, how would you want or demand your country to respond?
_____________________________
I thought so.
Let’s lighten the hell up on Israel, shall we, and support them with every breath?
BZ
Well said and I agree!!
I’m a cheer leader for Isreal. I hope they blow up Ahmadamnnutjob himself.
Mr. Z – What you are suggest requires an *actual* Foreign Policy by this Administration… as far as I can tell it doesn’t have one. This is unfortunate as a proper response to world events actually requires a Foreign Policy outlook that the American People can hear, understand and stand behind. Without that the US is aimless and its goals pointless without substantial backing by an overall concept.
Act II has started after Act I has run its course from the 1979 Embassy takeover to the final moves against the militias and redentists in Iraq. Iran wanted to open Act II with a doozy and did so… and it is now backfiring upon it. Although the actors remain the same, the scenery has changed, thus changing the nature of the conflict. Gone are the ‘occupied lands’ and the Lebanese Civil War and the ‘Guardianship under Syria’. Both Lebanon and Palestine are Sovereign States and activities taken from them are now Casus Belli under Jus ad bellum. Israel has a right to respond via Just War policy as the world knows it. Notice that the Foreign Minister’s meeting in Cairo is *not* playing to the old script any longer for they know that they are in the cross-hairs, too.
This also means that there are now actual things to be looked upon on a road to peace. Israel has called the bluff of Iran and Syria and they must now either ‘put up or shut up’. They raised the stakes and Israel called and doubled. Iran and Syria have a limited stack of chips and are pretty well played out, they may call and raise one last time, but after that, Israel will cash them out. Hezbollah as a proxy for Iranian Foreign Policy has a set of numbered days… as does Hamas, serving both Iran and Syria.
A new player is Egypt that has just had a complete Casus Belli handed to *it* via Hezbollah’s sinking of the unarmed Egyptian Freighter. For Syria, this was not a wise move, as it now puts IT squarely in the cross-hairs for supporting Hezbollah and actually being *reachable* by Egyptian forces. That hand is for Egypt to play, and they can end this charade once and for all by declaring hostilities with Syria and Iran and widening the war, but ensuring the end of Syria and, with the help of Israel, Iran. War does make strange bedfellows, and Hezbollah has handed a *perfect* opportunity to make Act II memorable in ways we never imagined.
IF the US had a Foreign Policy.
Which We do not.
And that may be the worst folly and abdication of duty by ANY President, including Carter who *started* this mess. A clear US Foreign Policy could crack this open and finally end up helping to clear the hellholes of Syria, Palestine and Iran with the help and backing of Israel, Egypt and even, possibly, Jordan.
If this President had a Foreign Policy then *that* could be done.
And as the sun sets upon him, he is running out of time to clearly state a Foreign Policy concept to encompass all of what is going on. And the world will pay for that oversight in Act II if he continues to spout *mush*.
I am not hearing what I need to hear from the Bush Administration. I need to hear and read about unqualified support. Since when did only Israel lose the right to self defense? This isn’t a 3 or 4 or 18 day war — it’s a war that’s been active since Israel became a state in 1948. And Iran is clearly behind these new offenses with missiles it has provided to Hezbollah and Hamas, by way of China.
How would WE feel if missiles rained down on our cities, killing our citizens, attacking our naval ships, and the “international community” indicated we should be more tolerant and sit down for MORE talks with our attackers — as the missiles CONTINUE to rain down.
What else can Israel do to protect its citizens? 1,000 missiles have yet been fired from Gaza alone. The state of Israel should ignore this and not respond?
BZ
Israel handed out the traditional fig leaf offer of a cease-fire and Hezbollah refused it. So that final part of the list is now checked off and stamped.
At this point I do not believe that Israel will put up with *any* terrorist activity from *any* neighbor and will now set things RIGHT. And we should be brining in the Sixth Fleet to help along with its attendant CVN and other aerial platforms.
A hint to Kofi: UNIFIL has *failed* in Lebanon, and after Rwanda and Bosnia I don’t believe Israel really *wants* a ‘UN solution’. One of the Sovereign States of the UN has been attacked viciously, and has every right to respond without UN inteference or brokerage. The UN has not and will not keep the peace. Only NATIONS have done that. Perhaps a side-casualty of Act II will be the UN disappearing from everyone’s radar.
It is time to end this and Israel is starting the job. We should help by pressuring Egypt to state its case that after being attacked it will attack Syria with the help of the US and Israel. Even a token expeditionary force can *win* with US and Israeli aircover to wipe out oncoming resistance.
Just one more card and the house of State sponsored terrorism starts to collapse.
Leaving us with the noxious cancer of Transnational Terrorism to deal with. But that only after Syria and Iran are engaged and fall.
A *real* Foreign Policy, Mr. Bush.
One that has us standing WITH Our Allies, not on the sidelines. We have excess air capacity and even some ground capacity now that troops are not cycling quickly back into Iraq. HELP an ALLY Mr. President.
There is no honor in diplomacy at this point as Our lives depend upon victory over those that would see us fall.