Billmon's essay today on the Israeli situation is an important read. He correctly observes that speculating about Iran or Syria's involvement is a distraction from the real issue -- what exactly is Israel trying to accomplish? I think he is saying that Israel is acting recklessly, without a real policy, trying an old style of intimidation that cant work anymore. Billmon is the most nuanced of writers, always a pleasure to read. He quotes Martin Van Crevelt as saying (paraphrasing) the only just war is one between nations of roughly equal power. The longer a nation persists in any other kind of war, the more unjust it will seem.

So you're saying we should just cut off all American funding to Israel, publically disavow what they're doing, pull out of Iraq and pretend the last several decades of U.S. foreign policy never happened?

I think Matt's unstated assumption is that American foreign policy should ideally be an attempt to balance our role as the world's superpower (promotion of peace and stability, opposition to tyranny and genocide, etc.) with America's various foreign interests (cheap oil, elimination of threats to America, etc.). The Bush administration has been a solid disaster on both, but it's clear that the various "fighting, war, and chaos" Matt alludes to is damaging on both fronts: lots of innocent people get killed and many more suffer in resulting humanitarian crises while the rapid destabilization of the region leads to increased terror, expensive gas, threats to various regimes we're friendly with and so on.

It should also be noted that we don't really have the option of just ignoring the Middle East altogether (even if it's true that we should've pulled out of Iraq long ago). We've given Israel billions and billions of dollars over the last couple decades, essentially building them up to be the preeminent military power in the region. Even if we think we have no responsibility for what they do with that power, the rest of the Mideast certainly doesn't see it that way. Al Qaeda calls America "the far enemy" for a reason.

Once again, even if America decides to ignore the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that doesn't mean that Muslims throughout the rest of the Mideast - you know, where they have all that oil, and where all those al Qaeda people keep coming from - are going to ignore it. Quite the opposite, I imagine. We've supported one side in this conflict for decades, and we can't undo that or the damage it's caused just by walking away. It's our mess to clean up.

The Marshall Plan which can always be brought up to make the natural isolationist view of the U.S. public blink and think twice, ala "maybe we can do some good by getting involved."

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Do these events now put the lie to the neoconservative "truism" that democracies don't go to war with democracies?

Nah, they'll just revise it to "fully-functioning democracies" or add some other provisos.

Well, we can’t afford to ignore the Middle East. That is obvious. We are knee deep in the sand there. I guess we could ignore the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, if only others in the Middle East would. They won’t. That is obvious. So I think a policy and engagement beyond the President’s “Israel has a right defend itself” is necessary.

This is the most inflammatory situation I have ever seen there, and is much more than putting “some hurt on a bunch of annoying malcontents”. These “malcontents” have a lot sympathy from a lot of people. And the situation is deteriorating, and a lot of innocent “malcontents” are dying, and will continue to die.

How far is a country allowed to go in defending itself? That is a question with as many answers as people with agendas, but I believe the Middle East will say this is too far, and will react accordingly – more “fighting, war, and chaos”. It won’t be to our advantage. And I think the neocons need to be careful about whipping up some kind of war fever against Syria and Iran over this. I think we ran out of “cakewalks” in Iraq.

If this doesn’t de-escalate soon, my “rhetorical bugbear” is really a question: “could this be the fuse that finally burns all the way to the powder magazine, and blows up the whole damn thing?”

He SAYS that, but he didn't ask/tell Israel to stop when Lebanon asked (whether or not he should have is a different issue), so I don't know how great a friend he is to Lebanon. I've read they've been backsliding since the spotlight moved on.

As Ellen suggested in her comments, totally withdraw from supporting either Israel or Palestine, and frame it as not the real important issue in the Mideast.

I simply find Ellen's points to be intriguing, partly because Americans are blamed for supporting Israel, when in actuality I don't think most "Americans" care at this point and think "a pox on both your houses."

It's only strategically important because of the symbolic value parties involved give it. If one side keeps the symbolic value, but the other drops it, the narrative falls flat. They could argue that America in the past armed Israel to an unfair advantage, and we can say: so what, past is past, deal with reality as it is now, U.N. and international law supports the existence of Israel, go complain to them. "America" and "the West" and the "U.N." and "Zionism" as one giant imperialist bugaboo is the basis of their war of civilizations argument, prove it false.

Ask yourself the same question so many ask of chickenhawks about Iraq. Are you so invested in either side here to send your son or daughter to fight in it?

I feel I must respond with huge generalities: History cannot be repeated exactly the same. The only human constant is change. :-)

I think had I been an adult voter at the time, I would have been very skeptical of the Marshall Plan being able to succeed. It was a miracle that it did, only leaving behind a "Cold War" that entangled the world for decades. It was a very moral thing to do, and very "American exceptionalist" in its hubris. One example in history that belies the lesson in the Icarus myth.

And who would have thought that the Japanese would accept and follow a constitution in many ways contrary to their cultural practices, written by Americans in a few weeks?

My greatest generation father, who served at the end of WWII and got a Purple Heart (and will never miss a chance to tell you how much the Army sucks and how it is all b.s.) likes to argue these days that Hitler was no threat to the U.S. and then there's this one, which is one of his top 10 favs: "why are the rich people so afraid of communism, why not just let people be communist if they want?" (I myself am puzzled where he thinks this communism that 'the rich" are afraid of is...I try to say "dad" what they are afraid of is taxes, but he just keeps on it...)

Not necessarily an external action like the Marshall Plan, I'd like to see incentives to K-12 schools to teach Arabic and Farsi. I don't have a simple answer to the problem that it's rather impractical to go into politics or area studies without getting into Islamic issues, and that opens an slippery-slope sack of serpents.

In all fairness, I must say that I have known some boas and pythons socially, and prefer them to meny politicians. As far as other reptiles, if a native-born Galapagos tortoise were to run, he might well be my candidate.
--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

I think the point is that if the US had done this forty or fifty years ago, today the situation would be very different. Either the Palestinians would be done for or Israel would be done for by now.

It was the US and Europe and the UN allowing Israel to build a nuclear arsenal that is the crux of the problem. That was really a no-brainer that should never have been allowed. What were these statist morons thinking - let a little country of fanatics surrounded by enemies have NUKES? Oh, that was really smart.

But even supporting Israel to the degree it has, the US has de facto come down on the side of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, and by extension made enemies of these "malcontents" - including the rest of the ME, which of course then affects our energy policy and so on.

The US has to do one of two things now to recover:

1) Break off all support for Israel, apologize for having supported it in the past, and support proper UN calls for the unilateral nuclear disarmament of Israel and for Israel to deal fairly with the Palestinians.

2) Drop ALL involvement in the Middle East and spend the next $110 billion Bush will be asking for the wars next year (according to todays news) and more on alternative energy. Let the Israelis destroy the Palestinians, let the Arab states figure out how to nuke Israel, and let the rest of the world march in and control the resulting situation, while we sit back in smug indolence.

I don't care either way, but any other approach is just going to cost this country one way or the other, in oil prices, or the lives of US soldiers and civilians, not to mention everybody else's soldiers and civilians in the ME.

The point is: we can't just sit here and say we don't care what the Israelis do - unless we REALLY DON'T CARE.

And that isn't the case at the moment.

Your statement "like to see incentives to K-12 schools to teach Arabic and Farsi" stuck in my mind for some reason, then all of a sudden this morning it reminded me of a sort of flip side suggestion to that:

Juan Cole's American Tranlation Project

Arab Human Development Reports of 2002-2004

Here's a quickie summary from The Economist of the first Arab Human Development Report.

that the combo of high illiteracy with the literate in Arabic only having nothing to read except religion, rumor and government propaganda due to the abysmal dearth of publishing in the language. Many of those that are lucky enough to be literate are so because of religious teaching, which of course can be escaped from by reading from other sources, but the problem is that there are no other sources! The result is perpetuation of status quo of conspiracy mongering via rumor and cynicism about government.

Many have argued that we have a similar problem in the U.S. with "the media" pushing Bush and the war the last few years, but imagine if the ONLY things available in your language was relatively inflammatory commentary on satellite TV, government-censored news in print, either directly or by other means, and religious texts, with the illiterate being informed by rumor from their literate friends. The technology of the net does not solve the problem of nothing being written & published of quality in Arabic. It is the same with things like science, there is no publication coming out of higher education, the higher education is conducted using untranslated info. published in other languages! There is no way up & out of the cycle for someone who only reads Arabic.

That really is a crucial problem, it has to do with so many things, of people breaking out of small tribal groupthink, of women starting to think about empowering themselves. There are only two solutions: publish more in Arabic from outside the current culture(s) or teach everyone in Arab countries to read another language. Obviously as Juan Cole has noticed, the first would be easier.