In the administration's view, the new conflict is not just a crisis to be managed. It is also an opportunity to seriously degrade a big threat in the region, just as Bush believes he is doing in Iraq. Israel's crippling of Hezbollah, officials also hope, would complete the work of building a functioning democracy in Lebanon and send a strong message to the Syrian and Iranian backers of Hezbollah.
Seems the Syrians and especially the Iranians have received all the messages they needed to know how to proceed. The Iranians in particular are working with a fair degree of upper hand, because of our troops being bogged down in the midst of a civil war, and because right now, Iran is far more useful to the growing power structure of the members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization than the U.S. is.
"[Bush] thinks he is playing in a longer-term game than the tacticians," said the former official, who spoke anonymously so he could discuss his views candidly. "The tacticians would say: 'Get an immediate cease-fire. Deal first with the humanitarian factors.' The president would say: 'You have an opportunity to really grind down Hezbollah. Let's take it, even if there are other serious consequences that will have to be managed.' "
For someone who majored in history at Yale, and who apparently regards himself as quite the big picture thinkamator, Bush seems to deliberately ignore the simple fact that societies do not transform with violence, unless it's old-school scorched-earth violence. Does he want that level of blood on his hands, because that's exactly what it's going to take here. Hezbollah, while being characterized as little more than a glorified gang, has managed to insinuate itself quite well in Lebanese society. They're in the government, the army, the neighborhoods.
The closest parallel I can think of is the Irish Republican Army. Perhaps Little Lord History Major can ponder the parallels of that and acknowledge that maybe a constant jackboot on the neck is not only not a good way to win the proverbial hearts 'n' minds, it's never going to serve as a pacification tool. It sort of worked in postwar Germany and Japan, but only with massive infusions of rebuilding and infrastructure cash, none of which is taking place in Iraq, nor will it in Lebanon, which had just been rebuilt in the first place before the Israelis went batshit and destroyed it again.
That Bush thinks that this will actually have any other result than inflaming an already furious populace, and destroying whatever Cedar Revolution magic there had been, that all those dead children hit by "targeted" strikes are just "consequences" to be "managed", tells you exactly what a big-picture thinker he is. Look at everything else he's "thought" about.
What it's going to end up doing is isolating us further from the friends we need in the coming years, in an increasingly interdependent world.
President Bush's uncompromising support for Israel in its battle with Hezbollah, a stance now backed by Congress, is threatening to isolate the United States even further from the international community.
It is also putting the administration at odds with fragile democratic governments in the Middle East that it is simultaneously trying to prop up, and sowing increasing anger across the Arab world.
The democratically elected prime ministers of both Iraq and Lebanon have been among the most vocal critics of U.S. policy in the 10-day Israeli bombardment of Lebanon.
Some foreign policy analysts question whether Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice can make much headway on her trip to the region early next week - especially given U.S. rejection of international calls for a cease-fire and refusal to talk to key players such as Hezbollah or its Iranian and Syrian sponsors.
"You don't just negotiate with your friends. Sometimes you negotiate with your enemies, or at least your adversaries," said Sandy Berger, former national security adviser in the Clinton White House. "We negotiated with the Soviet Union for 50 years."
Both the first President Bush and President Clinton met directly with then-Syrian President Hafez al-Assad in efforts to advance Mideast peace prospects.
But the current Bush administration is adamant in resisting any direct contact with Syrian President Bashar Assad, son of the former president, or with Hezbollah leaders.
Yeah well, this gang doesn't do nuance, and actual diplomacy is nothing but nuance, when you get right down to it. The Bush foreign policy, rather than speaking softly and carrying a big stick, has been reduced to shouting and holding its dick. There's plenty of guys like that roaming the back streets of most major American cities.
I think there's a corollary here, between the thought functions of this administration, and those of their most ardent supporters in the "respectable" media. It's not a small point that Clinton and Bush Senior both found a way to deal with Hafez Assad, a vicious tinpot thug if ever there was one. But Clinton and Poppy, whatever their faults, understood quite well how the actual world functions. Serious people actually do read books, they don't just make sure to be seen with books they think will burnish their public image as not-quite-as-dumb-as-you-think. They travel to places and understand how different customs and mores are. They know how vast the world truly is, so they are not caught with their pants down sounding like a mildly precocious six-year-old at a conference of world leaders, babbling on about how Russia and China are big like the U.S. I mean, what the fuck is wrong with this guy, anyway? Seriously.
And that incredibly shallow level of thought, where the person is too stupid even to know that he's stupid in the first place (one of Rummy's fabled "unknown unknowns") is reflected quite well in the ramblings of conservatard commentators, especially the younger ones who came of age in the marketing era of movementarianism. The premise is that it doesn't matter if what you write is completely false and/or idiotic; the machine will ensure that not only will it get published and marketed anyway, but that there enough morons to buy it and take it seriously so that you can even make a career out it. And all it boils down to is affirming peoples' projected ignorance and inferiority complexes.
Anyhoo, that's the nut of why we're becoming increasingly isolated. Most other world powers have at the helm learned, educated people who have actually had to work for a living at some point. We have a bumbling fool who has to be spoon-fed information, only to burp it back up in random order at inopportune times. His besotted base may not notice, because they're morons, but there's no mistaking that the rest of the world does notice, and strangely, they find that unacceptable for a country that affects everything for the rest of the planet. As a wise man once said, "Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son."
And what's his big plan when Turkey actually does start doing incursions across the Iraqi border, because it is going to happen, and it's not just going to happen once. And as the Kurds accumulate more and more power and prepare themselves for secession, the Turks are going to get more and more nervous.
You want to talk about world wars, you armchair generals, nervous is how world wars get started. Nervous people and unforeseen events is what sets the big shit in motion. I don't even need to ask whether or not George W. Bush has even the slightest fucking clue as to who Gavrilo Princip was.
So now as our Secretary of State drags her vaunted stiletto heels over to the Levant to assure Israel that we don't give a fuck, we venture into the fabled quagmire of moral equivalence, thanks to professional cock-knocker Alan Dershowitz. I mean, if you can't trust a guy who defended Claus von Bulow and O.J. Simpson to know something about morality, who can you trust?
But strategically, this is a real can of worms we're letting be opened. Larry Johnson of No Quarter, an actual CIA agent, explains exactly why the Bushies' approach (or lack of one) is exactly the wrong strategy:
So far Condi has ruled out talking with Hezbollah about any issue. They are a terrorist organization and we don't talk to terrorists. Following our lead, Israel is will rebuff any UN entreaty to negotiate a ceasefire. The table is set for the next evolution of bloodshed.
During the next two weeks we are likely to see combat in southern Lebanon intensify. Most of the action will be on the ground rather than in the air. Both sides will suffer significant casualties. If the United States is perceived (emphasis on perceived) as encouraging or directing the Israeli response, the odds increase that Hezbollah will ratchet things up another notch by playing the terrorist card.
We should not confuse Hezbollah with Al Qaeda. Unlike Al Qaeda, Hezbollah has a real and substantial international network. Unlike Al Qaeda, Hezbollah has a real and substantial international political and financial network. They have personnel and supporters scattered in countries around the world who have the training and resources to mount attacks. Hezbollah has no qualms about using terrorist attacks as part of a broader strategy to achieve its objectives. The last major Hezbollah attack against the United States was the June 1996 attack on the U.S. military apartment complex in Dharan, Saudi Arabia. Hezbollah also organized the attacks on the Israeli Embassy in Argentina in 1992 and Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires in 1994. But they also have exercised restraint when they felt they could achieve their objectives through political means. The ten year hiatus in major mass casualty attacks could come to a shattering end in the coming months, and American citizens are likely to pay some of that price with their own blood.
What to Do?
Although Hezbollah uses terrorism as a tactic, it is not primarily a terrorist organization. It has evolved over the years into a genuine political movement and conventional military force. This is a reality we can ignore at our peril. If we choose to view Hezbollah strictly as a terrorist threat then we convince ourselves that we have only one option--fight. But understand this--if we fight Hezbollah we will unleash a new war front that we are not prepared to pursue. At a minimum we can expect to face the fury of Shia militias attacking our troops and personnel in Iraq.
There are some other options. We could recognize Hezbollah does have people in their ranks amenable to negotiation. If we pursue a political path, while not eliminating the option to take out terrorist elements, we have some new possibilities to consider. The United States needs take the lead in organizing a ceasefire, sooner rather than later. The ceasefire must be accompanied by the insertion of an international peacekeeping force with the muscle to shutdown rocket launches from Lebanon and an exchange of prisoners between Israel and Hezbollah.
If we choose to fight get the body bags ready and take out a home equity loan. Americans will die and gas prices will soar. We will reap our failure to learn anything from the last forty years in the Middle East.
That's it. I hate to sound like Bush, but it's axiomatic that leaders lead. We are not leading, we're lurching between letting shit happen and whacking a hornet's nest, then pretending that we meant for everyone to get stung. Oh yeah, that stining venomous feeling you have is the feeling Freedomocracy™, my friend.
And Bush can afford to be sanguine about the consequences, because it sure as fuck isn't him or his loved ones who have to live with any of it. They're all safe and secure in their little bubble, which hopefully, come November, will prove to be much more permeable than they seem to think it is. If not, if there are still enough Americans out there willing to let themselves get bamboozled by these ratfucks yet again, then perhaps they deserve whatever they get. Too bad they drag the rest of us, who actually bother to pay attention and process information and facts, into their bullshit.
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