[Rhodes22-list] Politics--Ted Koppel on Iraq

[Robert Skinner]

Brad, thank you for the Hanson article.  It is a very 
interesting and relatively coherent analysis of the 
current dynamics in the Middle East.  If you take as 
a postulate that Bush had as his initial intent the 
destabilization of the Iran-Iraq detante and the 
exposure of the jihadist sociopathy, then you could 
make an argument for his foreign policy.

As for me, I believe that even a blind pig can find 
an acorn now and then.  To me, it is likely that 
the situation and options that Hanson describes are 
more the result of good luck than prescient planning.

Whatever the causes, however we arrived at this point, 
I'm all for loosing the hounds on the jihadists.  I 
have been and still am of the opinion that vandals of 
any origin are the true enemies of peace, and the 
current group has weapons of far greater power than 
any before.  I am sure that many misbegotten 
psychopaths are dreaming of the day when they can 
drive a nuke or dirty bomb into Manhattan.

I'd say that any nation who actively advocates the 
obliteration of another nation or supports another 
with that goal (including our own) has no business 
with nukes.  Further, any nation that has a 
territorial boundary issue with another (including 
our own) and refuses to submit the issue to 
international arbitration is on the ragged edge of 
outlawry.

As Stephen Hawking observes (paraphrasing), if we 
continue to fight over who owns this ball, there 
won't be a ball to fight over.

/Robert Skinner

Brad Haslett wrote:
> 
> You may recall the discussion we had a couple of years ago after the US sold
> some bunker busting bombs to Israel.  It is my hope that before the shooting
> stops in the current fight,  Israel "tests" a couple of these on Iran's
> nuclear reactor.  Here is Victor Hansen's latest assessment.
> 
> Brad
> 
> Private Papers
> www.victorhanson.com
> 
> *July 21, 2006**
> **A Strange War**
> Israel is at last being given an opportunity to unload on jihadists.*
> by Victor Davis Hanson
> *National Review Online*
> 
> *S*um up the declarations of Hezbollah's leaders, Syrian diplomats, Iranian
> nuts, West Bank terrorists, and Arab commentators — and this latest Middle
> East war seems one of the strangest in a long history of strange conflicts.
> For example, have we ever witnessed a conflict in which one of the
> belligerents — Iran — that shipped thousands of rockets into Lebanon, and
> promises that it will soon destroy Israel, vehemently denies that its own
> missile technicians are on the ground in the Bekka Valley. Wouldn't it wish
> to brag of such solidarity?
> 
> Or why, after boasting of the new targets that his lethal missiles will hit
> in Israel , does Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah ("We are ready for
> it — war, war on every level") now harp that Israel is hitting too deep into
> Lebanon ? Don't enemies expect one another to hit deep? Isn't that what "war
> on every level" is all about?
> 
> Meanwhile, why do the G-8 or the United Nations even talk of putting more
> peacekeeping troops into southern Lebanon, when in the past such rent-a-cops
> and uniformed bystanders have never stopped hostilities? Does anyone
> remember that it was Hezbollah who blew up French and American troops who
> last tried to provide "stability" between the warring parties?
> 
> Why do not Iran and Syria — or for that matter other Arab states — now
> attack Israel to join the terrorists that they have armed? Surely the
> two-front attack by Hamas and Hezbollah could be helped by at least one
> conventional Islamic military. After promising us all year that he was going
> to "wipe out" Israel , is not this the moment for Mr. Ahmadinejad to strike?
> 
> And why — when Hezbollah rockets are hidden in apartment basements, then
> brought out of private homes to target civilians in Israel — would
> terrorists who exist to murder noncombatants complain that some "civilians"
> have been hit? Would not they prefer to lionize "martyrs" who helped to
> store their arms?
> 
> *W*e can answer these absurdities by summing up the war very briefly. Iran and
> Syria feel the noose tightening around their necks — especially the ring of
> democracies in nearby Afghanistan , Iraq , Turkey , and perhaps Lebanon .
> Even the toothless U.N. finally is forced to focus on Iranian nukes and
> Syrian murder plots. And neither Syria can overturn the Lebanese government
> nor can Iran the Iraqi democracy. Instead, both are afraid that their
> rhetoric may soon earn some hard bombing, since their "air defenses" are
> hardly defenses at all.
> 
> So they tell Hamas and Hezbollah to tap their missile caches, kidnap a few
> soldiers, and generally try to turn the world's attention to the collateral
> damage inflicted on "refugees" by a stirred-up Zionist enemy.
> 
> For their part, the terrorist killers hope to kidnap, ransom, and send off
> missiles, and then, when caught and hit, play the usual victim card of
> racism, colonialism, Zionism, and about every other -ism that they think
> will win a bailout from some guilt-ridden, terrorist-frightened, Jew-hating,
> or otherwise oil-hungry Western nation.
> 
> The only difference from the usual scripted Middle East war is that this
> time, privately at least, most of the West, and perhaps some in the Arab
> world as well, want Israel to wipe out Hezbollah, and perhaps hit Syria or Iran
> . The terrorists and their sponsors know this, and rage accordingly when
> their military impotence is revealed to a global audience — especially after
> no reprieve is forthcoming to save their "pride" and "honor."
> 
> After all, for every one Israeli Hezbollah kills, they lose ten. You are not
> winning when "victory" is assessed in terms of a single hit on an Israeli
> warship. Their ace-in-the-hole strategy — emblematic of the entire pathetic
> Islamist way of war — is that they can disrupt the good Western life of
> their enemies that they are both attracted to and thus also hate. But,
> as Israel
> has shown, a Western public can be quite willing to endure shelling if it
> knows that such strikes will lead to a devastating counter-response.
> 
> *W*hat should the United States do? If it really cares about human life and
> future peace, then we should talk ad nauseam about "restraint" and
> "proportionality" while privately assuring Israel the leeway to smash both
> Hamas and Hezbollah — and humiliate Syria and Iran, who may well come off
> very poorly from their longed-for but bizarre war.
> 
> Only then will Israel restore some semblance of deterrence and strengthen
> nascent democratic movements in both Lebanon and even the West Bank . This
> is the truth that everyone from London to Cairo knows, but dares not speak.
> So for now, let us pray that the brave pilots and ground commanders of the
> IDF can teach these primordial tribesmen a lesson that they will not soon
> forget — and thus do civilization's dirty work on the other side of the
> proverbial Rhine.
> 
> In this regard, it is time to stop the silly slurs that American policy in
> the Middle East is either in shambles or culpable for the present war. In
> fact, if we keep our cool, the Bush doctrine is working. Both Afghans and
> Iraqis each day fight and kill Islamist terrorists; neither was doing so
> before 9/11. Syria and Iran have never been more isolated; neither was
> isolated when Bill Clinton praised the "democracy" in Tehran or when an
> American secretary of State sat on the tarmac in Damascus for hours to pay
> homage to Syria 's gangsters. Israel is at last being given an opportunity
> to unload on jihadists; that was impossible during the Arafat fraud that
> grew out of the Oslo debacle. Europe is waking up to the dangers of radical
> Islamism; in the past, it bragged of its aid and arms sales to terrorist
> governments from the West Bank to Baghdad .
> 
> Some final observations on Hezbollah and Hamas. There is no longer a Soviet
> deterrent to bail out a failed Arab offensive. There is no longer empathy
> for poor Islamist "freedom fighters." The truth is that it is an open
> question as to which regime — Iran or Syria — is the greater international
> pariah. After a recent trip to the Middle East, I noticed that the
> unfortunate prejudicial stares given to a passenger with an Iranian passport
> were surpassed only by those accorded another on his way to Damascus .
> 
> So after 9/11, the London bombings, the Madrid murders, the French riots,
> the Beslan atrocities, the killings in India, the Danish cartoon debacle,
> Theo Van Gogh, and the daily arrests of Islamic terrorists trying to blow
> up, behead, or shoot innocent people around the globe, the world is sick of
> the jihadist ilk. And for all the efforts of the BBC, Reuters, Western
> academics, and the horde of appeasers and apologists that usually bail these
> terrorist killers out when their rhetoric finally outruns their muscle, this
> time they can't.
> 
> Instead, a disgusted world secretly wants these terrorists to get what they
> deserve. And who knows: This time they just might.
> 
> (c)2006 Victor Davis Hanson