From Youssef Ibrahim, in the New York Sun:
The balance of power and terror that shaped the Middle East landscape until the latest Arab-Israeli war has shifted profoundly in favor of radical forces, to the detriment of Arabs and Jews alike — as well as America.
Israel's handling of its confrontation with Hezbollah and Hamas in Lebanon and Gaza has been hesitant and clumsy. Led by inexperienced Prime Minister Olmert and his incompetent defense minister, Amir Peretz, Israel failed to put enough boots on the ground when it mattered, early in the battle against Hezbollah, stripping the country of its most potent weapon: its aura of invincibility.
Worse yet, Mr. Olmert's ineptitude as a leader has opened a Pandora's box. Jihadis will now flock to attack Israel's newly perceived weaknesses in fighting guerrilla forces in Gaza, the West Bank, and along the border with Lebanon, further upsetting a precarious balance of power in a turbulent Middle East where the forces of radical Islam have now gained the upper hand.
Hezbollah's insanely reckless attacks on Israel, coupled with the terror group's ability to hold its own against a tentative Israeli military campaign for weeks now, have all but shifted conventional thinking on the Middle East, with dire consequences for the whole region.
The war has transformed Hezbollah from a somewhat isolated sectarian Shiite terror group to a pan-Arab emblem of heroism.
There is more damage to assess here:
• Iran and Syria, until recently pariahs in the region and much of the Arab world, loom as serious decision-makers. Some in Congress and within the Bush administration, as well as Sunni Arab governments that privately loathe Syria and Iran, are now courting them as essential partners in making peace or war. This is a sinister development for the two rogue terrorist states.
• Much of Lebanon, a lone friendly democratic state in the Middle East, lies in ruins. Its people are traumatized by the failure of their best friends in the West to come to their rescue. A quarter of the Lebanese population, many of whom were allies of both America and even, discreetly, of Israel, are now refugees.
• Syria, which has taken in the Shiite Lebanese refugees, has dramatically paved the way toward reinstituting its influence in Lebanon after being practically evicted from the country months ago.
The regional impact of this disaster is no less daunting.
In Baghdad, a Shiite-dominated government held in place by American forces boldly hails the developments of the past few weeks as a triumph for an ascendant radical Shiism.
Sunni countries, including Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, privately welcomed the Israeli campaign as a way to deal with their Shiite enemies and the Iranian-Syrian axis of influence. They have since been forced into an embarrassed silence as they watch Israel and its hesitant leadership get bogged down.
When Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the now fugitive leader of Hezbollah, decided to send his troops across Israel's border to kidnap two soldiers and kill others, a worse result could not have been envisioned.
For America, this adds to what has already been a lamentable Middle East policy.The Bush administration has given hope to Arab populations that support liberal values and secularism, only to let them down time after time.
After his 2004 re-election, President Bush promised that America would stand behind the Arab world's pursuit of freedom and democracy, but he has retreated from this policy into nevernever land.
The sight of the American president standing next to Iraq's militant pro-Iranian Shiite prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, inside the White House last week was the depth of depravity in politics.
Nothing symbolizes a bargain with the devil more than those images, which shall live in infamy.
The prime minister of Iraq, the country we liberated from dictatorship, is nothing more than an Iranian Muslim fundamentalist agent. To honor a reactionary fundamentalist in the halls of Congress is to dishonor the great American enterprise to liberate the Arab world from reactionary fundamentalism.
Mr. Bush, have you lost your way?
7 comments:
Pastorius, I don't think Bush has lost the way. It looks and feels more like the rest of the world has lost their way.
If America was totally self-sufficient, we could do whatever we please, in regards to the rest of the world. Alas, we are not.
There are NO countries that stand with the United States, in our war on terror.
The countries we most need to assist, Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, France, Germany, Spain, Britain, stand to lose MONEY, if democracy reins in the middle east.
They will not look beyond the pocket book. Ever.
As islam takes over the world, look for less help, rather than more.
Iran will have nukes. (the guy in the u.n., in charge of non-proliferation, is a muslim.) He WANTS iran to have nukes. All muslims, appointed by and within the u.n., who will not renounce islamic terrorism and recognize Israel and its right to exist, should be released from their current duties. Possibly executed as well, for dereliction of duty and destruction of freedom and life.
There will be NO solution to the the rise of islam, without millions dying.
At the present time, islam feels it has the upper hand, and is pressing with propaganda and terrorism, worldwide.
The spiral of evil is winding ever more tightly, riding the wind is a tough job, even for America.
What would YOU do, if you were President?
I would have killed Muqtada al-Sadr while he sat in the Mosque with his followers in Fallujas. I would have banned the burqa, and
Sharia. I would have forced a separation of church and state. I would have jailed all Islamists, and only allowed non-Islamist candidates to run for office.
These are the things that need to be done before we can have an Arab democracy. Read my post about Ataturk. Ask yourself this question, why do we allow Iraq to have a government which we, as human beings, would never want to live under?
It seems to me that it is obvious that we do not believe that Arabs are deserving of human rights in the same way as we Westerners are.
That may sound like a naiive thing to say taking into consideration all the realities on the ground. But, we had many realities on the ground in the aftermath of WWII, and in the aftermath of the American Civil War, and we did not allow those realities to impede our insistence on human rights for American blacks, the Japanese, or the Germans.
Back when this war started, it was common for anti-war people to carry placards reading, "War Never Solved Anything." Some of us smart-asses on the right would then carry placards which read, "War Never Solved Anything - except Nazism, Fascism, and Slavery."
I honestly thought that we were in this war to do away with Islamofascism. Some success were having in that.
I agree with Youssef Ibrahim here. We have made things worse in the ME, not better.
I must say, I have been thinking this for a long time now, but I have been keeping my mouth shut about it, because I don't think I am that smart, and others who I believe know more than me were still holding out hope that we were winning. But, I have seen that dam begin to crack lately, so I am going to tell the truth, because I think it is a matter of human rights.
Joec, America would lose money if democracy came to the middle east. America has good and friendly ties with theocratic Saudi Arabia, enjoys participating in that countries oil industry. America has installed another religious regime, this time in Iraq and will enjoy participating in that countries oil industry too. America ascribes Islam as the Religion of Peace so Amerca can take a cut of the oil wealth.
Pastorius is right, for peace to occur human rights need to be universal. But right now it is in NOT in ANYONE'S financial interest to make it so. Mostly because the threat of millions dying is still very abstract and well into the future
Unaha-closp,
You think we cynically installed a puppet regime in Iraq to take a cut of the oil industry?
Do you have any evidence to back up that assertion? Do you have any evidence to back up that assertion with regards to Saudi Arabia?
I hear people making these kinds of charges all the time, but I never see any evidence.
For a few months — say, from 9/11 through the Afghanistan campaign — Bush seemed like a man who had outgrown his own limitations and was up to being a war leader. Looking back, I realize that most of what that amounted to was that he said a lot of the right things.
It's become painfully obvious that he was a mouthpiece for neocon advisors, that he cannot follow through, that he dithers and then goes for the soft option, that his mind is easily diverted, that he can't learn from experience or change his mind when it's called for.
In short, Bush is another third-rate politician who's in over his head, when the country is in the gravest danger it's faced since World War II, and I do not underestimate the seriousness of the Cold War.
I'm scared that it's going to take a catastrophic attack to get our so-called leaders to get focused.
Probably the most obvious reflection of Bush's weakness Bush is the fact that no one seems to listen to him.
Think about this, everyone knows we are at war in Iraq. Many people think it is a fake war which was begun to fill imperialistic objectives. Ok, so those people are deluded by ideology. There will always be people deluded by ideology.
But, how many people actually know that we are involved in a civilizational war against Islamofascism; a war which transcends borders?
What percentage of people know that?
15%
25%
And yet, Bush has repeated this over and over again.
I don't think it is so much that Bush lacks vision or understanding as it is that he lacks the ability to rally the nation. He is not a charismatic leader.
We need someone who can articulate the broad and powerful vision of this war. For God's sake, it is as noble as noble can get. If we achieve our objective, we will literally be saving a fifth of humanity from slavery. We will literally be preserving Western Civilization, and the freedoms which it has afforded people will continue on, and the creativity which comes from those freedoms will continue to flourish, which means innovation will continue, and mankind will continue to grow.
You couldn't get any more noble than that. But, Bush can't seem to articulate the vision in a way which strikes lightning into people. I have the feeling that we are running in mud.
God help us.
Post a Comment