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

[Brad Haslett]

Robert,

You may find the attached editorial interesting as well.  It supports some
points you made.  BTW, Friedman's book "The World Is Flat" is a great read
on globalization.

Brad

------------------------

[image: deseretnews.com]

Deseret Morning News, Saturday, July 22, 2006

*U.S. needs help from World of Order*

*By Thomas L. Friedman*

 TEL AVIV, Israel — There was a small item in The Jerusalem Post the other
day that caught my eye. It said that the Israeli telephone company, Bezeq,
was installing high-speed Internet lines in bomb shelters in northern Israel
so Israelis could surf the Web while waiting out Hezbollah rocket attacks.

I read that story two ways: one, as symbol of Israeli resilience, a
boundless ability to adapt to any kind of warfare. But, two, as an
unconscious expression of what I sense people here are just starting to
feel: This is no ordinary war, and it probably won't end soon. At a time
when most Arab states have reconciled to Israel and their dispute is now
about where the borders should be, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah Shiite
militia, armed with 12,000 rockets, says borders are irrelevant. It is
Israel that should be erased.

That's why I find, in talking to Israeli friends, a near total support for
their government's actions — and almost a relief at the clarity of this
confrontation and Israel's right to defend itself. Yet, at the same time, I
find a gnawing sense of anxiety that Israel is facing in Hezbollah an enemy
that is unabashedly determined to transform this conflict into a religious
war — from a war over territory — and wants to do it in a way that threatens
not only Israel but the foundations of global stability.

How so? Even though it had members in the national cabinet, Hezbollah built
up a state-within-a state in Lebanon and then insisted on the right to
launch its own attack on Israel that exposed the entire Lebanese nation to
retaliation. Moreover, unprovoked, it violated an international border with
Israel that was sanctified by the United Nations.

So this is not just another Arab-Israeli war. It is about some of the most
basic foundations of the international order — borders and sovereignty — and
the erosion of those foundations would spell disaster for the quality of
life all across the globe.

Lebanon, alas, has not been able to produce the internal coherence to
control Hezbollah and is not likely to soon. The only way this war is going
to come to some stable conclusion anytime soon is if The World of Order —
and I don't just mean "the West," but countries like Russia, China, India,
Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia too — puts together an international force
that can escort the Lebanese army to the Israeli border and remain on hand
to protect it against Hezbollah.

I am not talking about a U.N. peacekeeping force. I am talking about an
international force, like the one that liberated Kosovo, with robust rules
of engagement, heavy weapons and troops from countries like France, Russia,
India and China that Iran and its proxies will not want to fight.

Israel does not like international forces on its borders and worries they
will not be effective. But it will be better than a war of attrition, and
nothing would set back the forces of disorder in Lebanon more than The World
of Order helping to extend the power of the democratically elected Lebanese
government to its border with Israel.

Too often, assaults like Hezbollah's, which have global implications, have
been met with only "a local response," said Gidi Grinstein, who heads Reut,
an Israeli defense think tank. "But the only way that these networks can be
defeated is if their global assault is met by a global response."

Unfortunately, partly because of China, Russia and Europe's traditional
resentment and jealousy of the United States and partly because of the
foolish President Bush approach that said unilateral America power was more
important than action legitimated by a global consensus, the global forces
of order today are not at all united.

It is time that The World of Order got its act together. This is not
Israel's fight alone — and if you really want to see a "disproportional"
Israeli response, just keep leaving Israel to fight this war alone. Then you
will see some real craziness.

Bush and Condoleezza Rice need to realize that Syria on its own is not going
to press Hezbollah — in Bush's immortal words — to just "stop doing this
s---." The Bush team needs to convene a coalition of The World of Order. If
it won't, it should let others more capable do the job. We could start with
the elder George Bush and Bill Clinton, whose talents could be used for more
than just tsunami relief.

The forces of disorder — Hezbollah, al-Qaida, Iran — are a geopolitical
tsunami that we need a united front to defeat. And that united front needs
to be spearheaded by American leaders who understand that our power is most
effective when it is legitimated by a global consensus and imbedded in a
global coalition.

 ------------------------------

 *New York Times News Service*
------------------------------

(c) 2006 Deseret News Publishing Company



On 7/22/06, Robert Skinner <robert at squirrelhaven.com> wrote:
>
>
> 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
> __________________________________________________
> Use Rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org, Help? www.rhodes22.org/list
>