Becoming A State Isn't Enough To Bring Peace

There is no doubt that the Palestinian Authority (PA) can usher a state called "Palestine" into existence.  There is nothing magical nor even particularly difficult about achieving the status of "state."  Even the longest standing, most broadly accepted basic definition of statehood, The Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, which dates back to 1933, establishes rather minimal requirements for state status.

The Montevideo Convention provides only four prerequisites.  (1) A permanent population, (2) A defined territory, (3) A government, and (4) The capacity to enter into relations with other states.  In practice these requirements have been further reduced.  As a practical matter, a state can be said to exist when other states say it does.

Even when territorial limits are hazy, poorly defined or still in the process of being determined, an established state has the sovereign right to declare another entity has achieved the same status.  This is also the case when a government is not fully formed, fledged, or functioning.  All that is necessary is that other states recognize the new kid on the block.  The recognition need not be universal.  Nor does the new state need the recognition of any or all of the Great Powers to come into full, legal form.

History is full of examples of states being recognized long before they had achieved either defined borders or a fully functional government.  (Recall that the US falls into this category.)  History is also replete with examples of states and governments which were widely but not universally recognized or lacked recognition and acceptance by one or more of the contemporary Great Powers.  (The US non-recognition of the Bolshevik regime in Russia or that of Mao in China did not make these two states sudden nonentities.)

A state need not be contiguous (pace Constitutional law professor and president Barack Obama) to be both recognized and viable.  At its creation Pakistan consisted of two parts separated by more than a thousand kilometers of India.  It was both recognized and (until the fruits of Punjabi racism and Islamabad's inefficiency matured) viable.  Pakistan existed with its two disparate components because enough other states said it did.

To make it simple but without undue simplification: States come into existence when enough other states recognize its existence and enter into relations with it.  That's all, folks.  There is no need for UN action.  While the General Assembly upon recommendation of the Security Council can extend membership to a new state, this is not required for the state to exist as both independent and sovereign.

All of this brings us back to Palestine.  An increasing number of countries ranging from Brazil to Russia have extended some form of diplomatic recognition to the territory of Palestine as governed by the PA.  As this tide gains force, it can be expected that most of the current membership of the UN will do likewise regardless of the well-intended but quite irrelevant counsel of President Obama.

By the old standards of diplomacy, this should mean that Palestine would come into existence as an independent and sovereign state.  But, the old norms do not apply.  There are two constraints which taken together render the old way inapplicable in this case.  One of these is the Oslo Accords, which formed an agreement between Fatah and Israel.  The PA is not mentioned.  It couldn't be--it did not exist at the time.  Nor was Hamas referenced.  Only Fatah and Israel.

The sundry agreements which fall under the appellation of the frosty Norwegian capital sharply limit the ability of the PA to exercise jurisdiction over territory and persons alike.  The Oslo agreements served to place the Palestinian territory under an ongoing form of Israeli suzerainty.  To a major extent, the effect of the Oslo agreements was to put a diplomatic and political gloss on an underlying brute fact.

The brute fact was (and is) the Israeli occupation.  Even if the territorial extent of full Israeli occupation has been reduced over the years, it still exists as the rock upon which the independence and sovereignty of the PA must founder.

The combination of the Oslo agreement and the fact of ongoing Israeli occupation renders the past experience with the process by which states come into existence nugatory.  This dreary reality is well understood and publicly accepted by PA officials.  They know that even if every country on the face of the globe extends diplomatic recognition, this will not change realities on the ground--as long as the US does not do the same.

Israel's stance in comparison is not central.  There are precedents of states and governments receiving full diplomatic recognition even though they were under full or partial military occupation.  Indeed, that was a key principle underlying the political integrity of governments-in-exile during World War II.  It can be argued that by failing to end its long condemned occupation, Israel has created a Palestinian version of a government-in-exile which has a legitimate claim on the international community for aid in regaining its (temporarily) lost land.

The PA (particularly if Hamas is left out of the picture somehow) has a good case for UN intervention based on both the government-in-exile precedents and international law generally.  Assuming the UN General Assembly took some sort of action equivalent to extending full membership to the PA controlled Palestine, so as to duck any US veto in the Security Council, would it really matter with respect to the larger and more important question--peace?

The short answer is no.  An independent Palestine would still have to deal directly with Israel regarding all the critical matters such as borders, land swaps, an Israeli military presence in the Jordan valley, the status of Jerusalem, and the return of Arab refugees.  These matters would be no less contentious and vexing should Palestine become an independent state than they are right now.

The best which could be asserted about potential benefits to the PA is it would have some additional diplomatic leverage.  As an independent state Palestine could be more effective in opposing additional growth in the Israeli "settlements."  As an independent state Palestine could sign on to the Statute of Rome giving it the right to seek prosecution of purported Israeli war criminals before the International Criminal Court.  This threat would have great leverage in and of itself.

A well coordinated use of mass mobilization of Palestinians in a move on the Israeli Wall and checkpoints along with diplomacy could bring about the desired UN action without US support.  Indeed, it is hard to see how the combination of non-violent mass action and diplomacy could be openly opposed by the Obama administration given the coming of the next election.

The reconciliation between the PA and Hamas has shored up the political base of Abbas.  Now if he and his fellows can show a modicum of smarts in orchestrating global opinion and the photogenic appeal of a series of totally non-violent marches on the Great Wall of (specious) Security behind which Israel cowers, he can pull off the coup of the decade--and mousetrap the Obama "team."

The record of the Palestinians in the theater of global politics and the realities of international diplomacy has more often than not been one of dismal incompetence and self-inflicted defeats.  But, sometimes all it takes is one successful attempt at swinging for the fence.  This time Abbas may do it with the result that Palestine will come into existence.

But, this may well not lead to peace.  And, one cannot expect the Palestinians to make it two-for-two.  That would take Elohim and Allah working in perfect harmony.  Anyone want to make a bet?

There Was A Time When Wars Were To Be Won

It seems strange now, but once upon a time, long, long time ago, states went to war with the intention of winning.  By winning it was generally understood that the purpose of the war was to impose one state's political will upon another.  By so doing, it was assumed that the victorious state would create a better state of peace--from its perspective at least.

In some wars, World War II being the archetypal example, it was easy to formulate both the political goal and its necessary subordinate, a definition of victory.  Of course, this was easy to accomplish in that for most of the combatants (the US was an exception here), the conflict was existential--a total war of national survival.

But, even lesser wars--the Falkland Islands War, for example--national survival was not at stake.  Even so, the British formulated a clear, unitary political goal with a relevant definition of victory.  The venue was small, the goal limited to the ejection of the invader, and victory was understood to mean the surrender or destruction of the occupying force along with a de facto pledge by the invader not to repeat the effort--at least in the near future.

In other wars--the several Arab-Israeli affrays come to mind--the political context precludes finally and completely bending the loser to the political will and goals of the "victor."  Because the combination of size and international dynamics prevented the existentially threatened Israelis from carrying on the war until all its Arab adversaries admitted defeat and forswore future military attacks, the conflict between Arab and Israeli came quickly to resemble the indecisive, limited wars of Europe during the Eighteenth Century.  No victories, only truces, no better state of peace, only timeouts between bouts.

When looking at the history of war since the end of "The Good War," the US stands out as a driver of the new trajectory--wars without clear political goals, lacking coherent definitions of victory.  In part, this has been the necessary consequence of the American fixation upon collective security either actual, as in the cases of the Korean War and the Gulf War of 1990-91,or fabricated, as in the wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and, most recently, Libya.  The requirements of collective approval automatically assured hazy goals and the lack of any clear cut understanding of the meaning of victory.

To a greater extent, the American failures to establish a unitary political goal, to define victory, or even to state realistically what might constitute a better state of peace arises organically from the nature and character of domestic politics in the US.  The foundation truth here is simply that Americans are not really comfortable with the idea of interventionary warfare.  We do not cotton up to the notion of getting into someone else's war.

During the long debacle of our intervention in the wars of the Vietnamese, the responsible administrations, the several Congresses, the media and public opinion molders, all were uncertain as to what we sought in the conflict.  There was no agreement as to what our political goal might be beyond the boilerplate of "stopping Communist aggression. or "supporting democracy against armed force from without and subversion from within."  The only idea of what might constitute a better state of peace was a South Vietnam in which the noise level of armed violence was reduced to a level such that the region might not be kept awake all night.  Whether by force or negotiation, the US really did not have a clue as to what might be required of the North Vietnamese or the southern insurgents.

Without stating clearly and understandably what political dictate must be accepted by the other three combatants in the war, it was impossible for the US to establish either a goal or to define victory.  As a result, it was impossible to continue American political will as the years went by and the blood flowed.  It was also impossible to weaken the political will of the North or the southern insurgents.  Finally, the lack made the possibility of bending the Southern government to our will a chimera at best.

The same lacks characterized our invasion of Afghanistan.  Had the domestic political environment allowed it, the US could have mounted a punitive expedition aimed at killing or capturing as many Taliban and al-Qaeda figures as possible so as to destroy both entities.  A simple punitive expedition would have been explicable to other states--including Pakistan--and would have allowed diplomatic arm twisting so as to have the freedom of operation necessary.  In this approach, the challenges of (re)constructing Afghanistan post war would have been left to the Afghan people and whatever international bodies cared to assist.  There would have been no long term "nation-building" commitment by the US.

Iraq was both identical and different.  The difference resided in the inescapable fact that the US had no real reason to invade.  Leaving that non-trivial consideration aside, had the US invaded with the simple, unitary political goal of removing the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein, the definition of victory as well as the task itself would have been easy to state and accomplish.  Again, the post regime removal process would have been assigned to the Iraqi people along with whosoever of the "international community" cared to assist, which might have included the US in a non-occupation role.

In Iraq and Afghanistan alike, the US had no clear, readily apprehended political goal.  There was, as a result, no definition of victory after the capture of Saddam and his major associates.  Other than in glittering generalities of no practical significance, the American administration could not state what our purpose in the country might be or how we might successfully do whatever it was we might think we should do.  Nice sounding words about democracy or rule of law or economic development do not have any real world utility. In order to bend an adversary--whether Sunni or Shiite or secular--to our political will, to our understanding of what constitutes a better state of peace, it is essential to have a narrowly focused, realistically achievable goal which can be transmitted effectively to all involved parties including the American public.

Without the goal it is not possible to define victory.  True, victory can be declared, but it cannot be achieved without the necessary predicate of a goal.  The lack of a realistic, utilitarian goal, coupled with the total absence of any understanding of what might constitute a better state of peace assured not only an unnecessarily prolonged war but one which would end in a quite unsatisfying way.

The inability to articulate a convincing explanation of what might be a better state of peace also complicated the diplomacy of constructing and keeping an alliance, including the very necessary alliance between the indigenous people, their government, and the US.  The inability to share a vision of a better state of peace, to put forth a clear political goal, to know when meaningful victory might be achieved served to worsen the frictions inherent to any alliance as well as to erode the political will of the civilian populations of the interventionary forces.  The longer the lack of a consensually understood goal exists, the more the frictions will grow while domestic opinion turns increasingly against the war.

Now there is Libya.  At the outset, a single US Marine Expeditionary Unit could have removed Gaddafi in a matter of days.  Or, as a senior British officer told Con Coughlin of the Telegraph, a single tank battalion could have done the job in twenty four hours.  Militarily, either proposition is substantially accurate.

The lack of a political goal which was agreeable to the several Western powers favoring the quick removal of the Gaddafi nuisance as well as the existence of only the most vague notions of what might be a better state of peace prevented the focused use of diplomacy and military power to the goal of abating the Gaddafi menace. While excuses might be offered regarding the need for "international community" legitimization of any use of force against the Gaddafi regime, these remain mere excuses.

The difficulties resided not with opposition from Russia or China; nor did they come from the Arab states.  Nor, realistically, was there a basis for the lack of vision in fear of outraging Muslim opinion.  The failure of the several prime Western movers to define a better state of peace or enunciate a political goal emerged from a visceral feeling of oh-no-here-we-go-again!

The bad examples of Iraq and Afghanistan--which we must remember were American adventures in very bad thinking--caused fulminating paralysis of political will in the chanceries of Paris, London, and Washington.  Fear of a rapidly blooming Gaddafi success and all that implied fought with fear of being bogged down in one more Arab/Muslim morass.  The result was worse than doing nothing.

The result was embarking on an intentionally emasculated program of half-measures.  No--make that one-eighth measures.  No objective observer reasonably well grounded in the history and culture of Libya as well as the nature and character of Brother Leader and his coterie could have concluded that the combination of a no-fly zone and civilian protection air strikes would bring favorable or rapid results.  Nor could this observer have concluded that the results would be other than prolonged and bloody stalemate.

Had the Big Three of the West--France, the UK, and the US--mutually determined that the quest for a better state of peace would result only with the removal of the Gaddafi regime, their instruments of diplomacy could have been put to work to assure the tacit acceptance of this decision by other parties both great and small.  With this necessary preliminary being accomplished in private, a joint announcement of goal--the removal of the Gaddfi regime--and definition of victory--the capture or death of the chief members of the regime--could have been made.

The mechanism of accomplishment would have been a short duration ground and air campaign.  The short term nature of the military operation could have been made clear as the first air defense suppression ordinance hit the targets.  The task of the foreign troops would have been restricted to the removal of the obnoxious regime.  The post-removal effort would have been left up to the Libyans and those of the "international community" of a mind (or national interest need) to assist.

In this scenario, the definition of a better state of peace, the political goal, and the metric of victory would have been simple, straightforward, easy to comprehend, unitary--and susceptible to accomplishment in a politically acceptable time frame and at a cost in lives which would be low--certainly for the Libyans far lower than the ongoing agony of internal war.

The public carping by the usual suspects would have taken place.  There would have been the inevitable violent demonstrations by Muslims, or at least those looking for a reason to be outraged.  Nothing new here.

Most importantly, the use of this alternative would have cleansed the West of the ongoing fear of inconclusive war.  Wars are inconclusive only when there is no real and generally acceptable goal for which the war is being fought.  Without an understandable vision of the better state of peace toward which the war is aimed, without a political goal, without a definition of victory, without the use of sufficient and situationally appropriate force, the war must be unnecessarily prolonged or inconclusive.

The hypothetical alternative outlined for Libya would not have made the conflict "a splendid little war," for no war is splendid, but it would have assured the war would have been both little and conclusive.  Even now it not too late to change war horses in mid-stream as a senior British commander has suggested.  It will take ground forces; it will now take more time and lives; it will present a messy problem for diplomats, but failure can still be redeemed.

Far more importantly, given both the situation in Libya and the rush to the exit in Afghanistan, it is now time for decision makers and military planners alike to take a very hard look at the ground truths regarding the conduct of the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It is long past time to reacquaint ourselves with the powerful reality of war, that it is an instrument of policy.  And, a war without a realistic, utilitarian policy behind it is simply a costly exercise in futility.

Our record in costly futility disguised as war is lengthy--Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, (perhaps) Libya.  Isn't it time to break the string?

Another Stop On The Grand Apology Tour? Let's Hope Not!

The new but somewhat battered and confused White House flack, Jay Carney, has assured one and all that The Great Orator Of The Oval will be making a "major" address regarding "the Middle East and US policy in the Middle East" in the near future.  Well, it is about time considering more than a few important developments have taken place in the region in the past few weeks.

One can be excused for harboring fugitive fears that once more Mr Obama will genuflect before the overarching totem of Islam and accompany this deep bow with apologies for real or invented sins of omission or commission on the part of the US.  If the upcoming speech is a replay or a riff from the Cairo Address, it will be an insult to both residents of the region and Americans alike.

There is a real need for a clear statement of declaratory policy for the region.  The reality is that a declaratory policy which is unmistakable in nature and character is long overdue.  A companion reality is simply that without such a statement there is no reason for any government or citizen in the Mideast to consider the US relevant to the challenges currently confronting them.

Several themes suggest themselves for incorporation in a unitary statement of American declaratory policy.  These themes are central to the needs of the region--and they are of a nature such that effective action can be taken so as to turn rhetoric into practical effect.

The first of these is the centrality of Israel to American policy.  This is needed for several reasons.  First, it is an essential clearing of the diplomatic decks.  All hands in the region as well as those outsiders who involve themselves in regional dynamics must know that the US has a deep and abiding alliance with Israel which is predicated upon both coinciding national and strategic interests and shared values, norms, and aspirations.  It is essential that both the realpolitik and idealistic nature of the relationship be clearly put forward.

By putting the pragmatic and the idealistic on an equal footing, the nature of the US-Israel relationship will be more accurately appreciated by Arab leaders--and by Israelis generally.  Israel is currently embarked on a dangerous voyage in the rough waters of religious zeal, and it is critical that Israelis understand that shared ideals, values, and norms are at the foundation of our relations.  These shared factors were created during Israel's long years of Zionist socialism, years which emphasized democracy, tolerance, open and free speech, law which, while congruent with deeply held Jewish precepts, was nonetheless not religious in nature.

By putting the subject of the American-Israeli alliance front and center, Arab leaders can be assured that US policy is constant.  The tacking and yawing of the Obama administration on Israel's domestic actions, particularly the settlements question, over the past year and a half served only to enhance Arab doubts about the consistency and predictability of American policy.  If we could, as it appeared, feed Israel to the wolves over the settlement question, we could not be relied upon in other, more salient matters such as firmly opposing Iran's hegemonic and nuclear ambitions.

In the context of American-Israeli relations, it will be possible as well to make it clear that the US was not going to carry water for either Israel or Palestine in the "peace process."  While we would do what we could in conjunction with other members of the Quartet to facilitate the process, when night falls it is essential that Israel and Palestine talk directly and meaningfully.

This implies that it is requisite for the American president to take a firm position on the new "unity" government  invoked by the Palestinians.  The presence  of Hamas complicates the search for a meaningful and comprehensive agreement with Israel, but only with the inclusion of Hamas would any final understanding be binding on both major wings of Palestinian politics.  A clear statement of what the US will accept would provide the necessary impetus for (1) Hamas making the choice between being a real government or continuing as an exponent of violent political Islam and total irredentism regarding Israel; and (2) giving the Fatah dominated Palestinian Authority pause for thought regarding the pragmatic wisdom of the reconciliation agreement.

Next, the US will have to take a position finally on the "Arab Spring."  This is much more difficult than dealing with Israel and the "peace process."  No matter what stance the US adopts in its declaratory policy, some important constituency will be offended.

It is easy and very attractive to argue as so many well informed observers have that the US must come out four square for democracy.  Making this approach even more appealing is the simple fact that not only do most people around the region expect the US to do so but most Americans tilt that way as well.  Certainly the US cannot come out as a pillar of support for authoritarian regimes--even under the less than plausible euphemism of being in favor of "stability" or "order."

At the same time it is most inadvisable for the US to alienate the oil shiekdoms of the Gulf Co-operation Council.  The members of the GCC are already suspicious regarding the steadfastness of the US given the way in which the administration pulled the throne out from under Hosni Mubarak's rump.  It must be borne in mind that several of the GCC have already sought reinsurance to balance the potential loss of American patronage.

One alternative to the false dichotomy of democracy or authoritarianism is economic liberalization.  Close examination of the causes of the revolts of the ""Arab Spring" shows that politics per se was less of a factor by far than was the combination of poverty, lack of economic opportunity, maldistribution of wealth, corruption, and governmental domination for personal benefit of the economy.  All of the featured countries--even Syria--exhibit all the negatives of economic stagnation, corruption, and wealth skewing in favor of an elite joined hip and shoulder with the authoritarian regime.

An American declaratory policy--particularly if followed by convincing actions including development assistance (which, of course, will be opposed by the woolly mammoths of the Republican Party) will go a very long way to addressing the root causes of popular political disaffiliation in the Mideast and North Africa. It might be noted in this connection that should the US not take this route, the Trolls of Beijing will--and they can point to the success of their efforts in fostering prosperity without bringing the specter of democracy into the foreground.

Finally the president needs to address violent political Islam.  Our position should be simple and easily understood.  The US will use all of its instruments of soft persuasion to encourage governments to live up to all the requirements of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for example.  We will not, however, use force in this area.  How countries and their people choose to order their internal affairs is their concern, not ours.  We may deplore restrictions on religious practices, or subordinating women, or criminal justice systems which exact inordinate punishments, but we will not be sending Predators or the Marines to indicate our displeasure.

Should a government give refuge or support to a group practicing violence which harms us, our national interests, or those of our allies, then we will use all necessary force to abate the threat.  There is no justification for violence, for attacks on civilians, for terror.  No excuses.  Zero tolerance.  In the event that a terror attack can be traced to a particular government, then the US reserves the sole right to act.  The bright, shining line is violence directed against civilians outside the country of terrorist origin.  The US is indifferent as to motives, unconcerned as to ideological or theological rationales--only the act.

Three major points is enough for any speech, no matter how long.  While there are many other matters of US policy in the Mideast which deserve clear declaration, these should wait a future moment.  Carving out three clear areas and then following up on them with action is challenge enough for any administration, any country.

Or the president can just say we are sorry for whatever and go off for another round of golf.  That would be easier.

Internal War--Neocons And The Tea Party

Like the shambling corpses in the classic black and white version of Night of the Living Dead, the neocon ninnies have been resurrected by the fragrant miasma surrounding the "Jasmine" and "Lotus" revolutions.  Eliot Abrams and Joshua Muravchik having been baying in the van, eager for a faster, harder intervention in Libya and chomping after the chance to depose Bashir Assad.

Back east (from the Geek's perspective) in the soon-to-be-wilds of caucus Iowa, the redoubtable neocon hawk John Bolton, in the context of a conservative Republican cattle call, not only lambasted the Obama view of foreign policy, he advised the GOP to add foreign policy to its current two arrow quiver.  The nonpareil unilateralist and one time UN ambassador is obviously of the view that foreign affairs will be an ever larger component of the domestic political scene--and all the Republican front runners were monumentally deficient in this aspect of the presidential job description.

Bolton's understanding both of the increasing importance of American foreign relations and the lack of both experience and talent in this area represented within the Republican front bench may be accurate, but it is far from unchallenged within the ranks of the elephants.  The Tea Party movement, or at least its favorites which gained election this past November, does not constitute a cheering section for US engagement with the rest of the world.

Senator Rand Paul has staked out an isolationist position which makes the (in)famous isolationists of the Thirties seem almost like globalists in comparison.  Other Republicans--not just Senator Paul's dad, Ron--are all for slicing and dicing foreign aid in all its myriad forms.  There seems to be a near universal consensus among those on the right of the aisle to stop paying dues or other assessments to the UN.

At the same time the standard issue defense conservatives of the GOP seek to keep as much money as possible flowing to the Pentagon, regardless of all other considerations.  It does not seem to be "more bang for the buck" so much as "more bucks for more bangs."

As if all these different and contradictory currents were not confusing enough, Republicans in Congress are simultaneously for and against the Obama intervention in Libya.  They are for it in the sense of feeling good because Made in the USA bombs and missiles are macerating goodly numbers of Gaddafi thugs.  They are against it because (a) Obama treated Congress like a collection of mushrooms, (2) the US isn't running the show, (3) the administration dithered too much, too long, (4) because it looks as if the US is dancing to a French tune.

The picture of Republican foreign policy is more disjointed and disjarring than one of Jackson Pollock's exercises in random splattering.  By comparison the Obama understanding of how to conduct the nation's international business appears almost rational, well considered, and tightly braided.

As the line on Monty Python ran, "Stop this sketch!  This sketch is silly."

The Republicans had best get a grip on a very inconvenient truth: The Man With The Moustache is probably right--foreign affairs will be far more central to American presidential (and congressional) politics a year hence than it is today.  At the same time both the neocons and the isolationist tilted members of the GOP and Tea Party movement are as wrong as a soup sandwich.

This set of contentions does not mean nor imply that the Obama hyper-multilateralist, apologetic, deferential way of dealing with the world is right.  It is not.  It is as wrong as grilled watermelon.

There are a couple of ground truths involved which render Obama as well as the neocons and the neo-isolationists wrong.

The first of these is simply that the US is a Great Power.  It is not simply first among equals.  It stands alone in its mixture of hard and soft power capacities.  There is an implicit but quite evident corollary to this.  The rest of the world is not only comfortable with this but expects the concomitant American leadership when unpleasant bumps occur in the global night.  (OK, to err on the side of accuracy, there are some states which are quite unhappy with the status quo, examples include Iran, Venezuela, and the two rivals, China and Russia.)

The second and equally critical foundational truth is this: The only sure guide to a state's foreign policy and diplomatic relations is national interest.  True, principles, that is, national norms, values, ideals, and aspirations as well as the inducements and constraints of domestic politics are an important component of the process by which national interest is defined, but they are not the sole determinants of this interest.

This positive statement is accompanied by a negative.  The worst, the absolutely worst basis for determining either national interest or foreign policy is ideology.  Ideologically driven approaches lead to blunders as in Iraq.  This is why the neocon approach is doomed to counterproductive failure.  As history has demonstrated times beyond counting, institutions cannot be transplanted to new and strange environments by force of arms.

The inapposite nature of ideologically predicated foreign policy is also why the unquestioningly multilateralist stance of the Obama administration is wrong.  The same can be applied to the neo-isolationist understanding of the Pauls and their soulmates in and out of Congress.  No Great Power has ever resigned its status.  The other countries just won't allow it without imposing very large and quite unacceptable costs.  Unless, of course, one considers the cost in lives and treasure extracted by World War II to have been just fine.

Looking ahead, it is necessary to ask a question: Have the events of the so-called "Arab Spring" been an earthquake or simply a foreshock?  A year from now will the world be shaking to aftershocks or will the real earthquake, a temblor of ten on the global political Richter scale?

Consider what might plausibly occur over the next six to twelve months in the Mideast alone.

In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood may gain political dominance through the much celebrated "democratic process" and, having done so, drop its secular cover and revert to its base: violent political Islam.  The MB has the advantage of tight organization, a well established hierarchy, a long developed agenda, and a large amount of perceived legitimacy.  Also, there is no reason to conclude that it has abandoned its core definer of commitment to political Islam including,where necessary, that of the violent sort.

If the Assad regime is overthrown, the most likely outcome will be a Sunni regime dominated by advocates of violent political Islam with any number of domestic and regional scores to settle and goals to accomplish.  Or, if hard pressed, the Assad government might choose to unite its restive population with the time honored technique of an external war.  Or, as a wrinkle to this, Hezbollah may be turned loose by its two sponsors, Syria and Iran, with predictable consequences for the region.

Libya may well turn out as a stalemate, a divided entity caught in a slow motion semi-internal war.  It is equally possible that the post-Gaddafi country will be one in which the Sufi inclined majority falls under the control of the Salifist derived advocates of violent political Islam who are quite thick on the ground of Eastern Libya, Cyrenaica.  This would give AQIM a secure and wealthy base of operations.  It would also mean for the majority of Libyans that they have simply exchanged a secular authoritarian regime for one of a Koran waving nature.

There is a better than excellent chance Yemen will collapse into a welter of feuding regions and tribes in which the single greatest "winner" will be AQAP.  In this regard it is well to recall that Secretary Gates this past weekend termed AQAP the largest threat confronting the West from all the assorted franchises of bin Laden's group.  Saudi Arabia would be put square in the crosshairs of AQAP should it emerge as the most potent faction in the riven remnants of Yemen.

Then, of course, there is Iran.  There is always Iran.  The mullahs will be a year closer to the goal of the "Mahdi Bomb."  The Iranian government will have had more months to cultivate and spread influence among the Shia of Iraq, Bahrain, and the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia.  (Recall that the Eastern Province is majority Shia as well as the most prolific producer of oil in the kingdom.)

The Israeli-Palestinian Question will not be answered in the next few months.  The resumption of rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza points in a dangerous direction.  So does the restart of IED attacks mounted in all probability from the West Bank of the Palestinian Authority.  Once again the dead and the fearful will direct policy on both sides.  This implies the cycle of strike and counterstrike will escalate slowly but inexorably over the next year--unless a more dramatic war intervenes on the Northern Front of Israel.

This set of seismic shocks yet to come has been restricted to the Mideast.  The rest of the world has been ignored intentionally but this in no way should be taken to imply the rest of the globe--North Korea, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, even Latin America will be monuments to peace, love, and flower power, sections of the globe where overage diplomats and military officers can be safely put out to pasture, free to rusticate without unpleasant demands placed upon them.

John Bolton was right.  And, it would be good for the Herd of Elephants to pay attention to him.  Foreign matters will come closer and closer to center stage.  This will be the case to an even greater degree if We the People become more optimistic about the economy over the next year and if, (unlikely as this may be) Congress addresses the deficit to more than a symbolic degree.

The US has suffered through eighteen years of ideologically driven, situationally naive presidents.  We have at least two more years of this enervating situation yet to go.  Is it too much to hope that the days of True Belief will come to an end--along with the decline of American influence and status in the world--in 2012?

Unfortunately it is.  That is unless either Obama bows out or the Republicans come up with a person capable of being a president who is not out of his depth when he must play his role on the world stage.

And, make no mistake about it, the next president will have to play a great role--for the earthquake is yet to come.

When Will Israel Lose Its Reason For Existence?

Many reasons can be adduced for the existence of the Jewish state.  Likewise many accomplishments can be credited to Israel's existence from the revivification of Hebrew to the impressively dynamic cultural, scientific, and other intellectual products which have emerged from this small segment of the Mideast.  But, despite the other reasons and regardless of the many accomplishments, the core reason for Israel's establishment and its continued existence is that of providing a safe haven and guardian for Jews worldwide.

The horrors of the Holocaust, the realization that even a state and a people of the demonstrated cultural maturity of the Germans could engage in a coldly planned and executed mass butchery so shocked the infant conscience of the West that a Jewish "homeland" was seen as an absolute necessity.  Not even the intransigence of the Arab majorities of the Mideast and the Arab tilt of the British government could do other than marginally slow the process of recreating a reasonable approximation of the Israel which had existed two thousand years earlier.

It is important to keep in mind that no effort was spared in the attempt to create the old/new Israel by means purely peaceful.  Negotiations, mediations, compromises were all for naught in the face of an implacable Arab/Muslim animus to both the proposed state and the Jews generally.  All of the efforts to bring Israel into existence without the trauma and bloodshed of war collapsed before the Islam intoxicated armies of the surrounding Arab states.

The armed resistance of the Arab states was not unexpected.  The historical record was littered by attempts at compromise, exercises in diplomatic negotiation scuppered by the Arabs.  Even the most generous of agreements which would have left Arabs in control of the vast majority of the old League of Nations Mandate of Palestine were rejected--often to the accompaniment of violent street protests.

At the same time the Mandatory Power, Great Britain, showed continued partiality to the Arab cause which was wrapped in the most thinly disguised antisemitism.  The British were loath to see the new state come into existence, a loathing which was enhanced by the excesses of Zionist terror groups such as the Stern Gang.  In the end, the resistance of the British was undercut not by sentiment but by the harsh dictates of economic reality.

Even in the US there was no great consensus on the need for or desirability of an Israel.  Even though Americans were vastly disturbed by the revelations of the "Final Solution" and the ruthless means by which it was carried out, the odor of antisemitism hung heavily in the political air.  This reality coupled with the first realizations that the US and the West needed the oil found under Arab sand made more than a few senior diplomatic and political personalities reluctant to put American weight behind the proposal to create a Jewish "homeland."

To his everlasting credit, President Harry Truman recognized that facilitating the birth of Israel was the right thing to do.  It was the right thing because there could be no more assurance in the future than there had been in the past that antisemitism would not spring back in full, highly lethal form.  The presence of an identifiably Jewish state would provide an ultimate lifeboat should the seas of human hatred raise waves against the Jews of the world again.

Later American administrations as well as We the People supported the existence of Israel.  While the Jewish state has often been an annoying ally or client (take your pick), it has been recognized generally that the need for Israel has been and continues to be very real.  The base hatred expressed in the word "antisemitism" has not evaporated over the decades since the full picture of the "Final Solution" emerged.  Quite the contrary, it has grown.  Most recently, the growth of lethal hatred for Jews not only in Israel but around the globe has been propelled by Islam.

That is a harsh statement.  Its harshness is fully justified not only by words and deeds recorded in the Koran, the Haddith, and the Sunnah or in the actions and rhetoric of Islam's "golden age," but are contained in the rhetoric and behaviors of leaders, both clerical and secular, in Muslim majority societies today.  It is not that every Muslim is antisemitic, eager  to kill or even inconvenience Jews, but rather that enough highly placed, quite influential Muslim figures, including the heads of states and governments, are of such a mind.

Even if by some miracle the current peace talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel result in a real, viable agreement over the next year, Israel and the Jews of the world will not be appreciably safer.  The Iranian proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, like the puppet master in Tehran, will not embrace any accord.  None of these will join in a chorus of "Give Peace A Chance."  All will remain armed, hostile, and quite eager to kill Jews and destroy Israel.

Even if Bashir al-Assad suddenly decides that Washington has offered the better deal and Israel relinquishes its hold on the Golan, the basics will not change.  Sure, it would be nice if Syria switched sides, but even this highly unlikely eventuality will not address the basic contextual reality.

The unaddressed but absolutely fundamental reality is Iran.  More specifically, it is an Iran with a nuclear capability.  Should Iran achieve its long sought goal of nuclear weapons, the Jews of Israel will be not one wit safer than those of their religion living in Germany or Middle Europe in the Thirties.  The Iranian leadership is and will continue to be (absent a dramatic regime change) implacably antisemitic and anti-Israel.

Given a nuclear capacity, the Mullahocracy will have a vastly increased diplomatic influence in the region and throughout the globe.  A nuclear Iran linked with the current nuclear power, Pakistan, will be the first among equals in a community of nations profound in their hatred of Jews generally and Israel in particular.  This is not an exercise in alarmism but rather a sober reading of the trajectories currently at work not only in Iran and Pakistan but in most of the majority Muslim states of the world.

No faith can be placed in deterrence.  In principle either or both the Israeli and US nuclear capacities should be enough to give even the most zealous fanatic pause for thought.  In reality, the game is not so simple and straightforward.

In the real world the most potent nuclear weapons are those which remain unused, the ones which constitute the ultimate force in being.  These unused weapons assure not only greater diplomatic status and influence but also give a measure of safety for employment of asymmetrical means.  One of the most under appreciated features of the Cold War nuclear balance of terror is the freedom with which both major contestants waged indirect, proxy, or minor wars under the shield of the nuclear umbrella.

Beyond this ground truth, it is important to ask, is the American deterrent credible?  Would an American president, any American president, risk the consequences of authorizing retaliation for an attack on Israel?  Even if the adversary lacked the means of delivering a heartland strike, would not the other potentials exercise profound inhibitions on the person in the Oval?

The Israeli "Samson Option" is real.  It is real in the sense that the Israelis have the hardware to retaliate.  But, is retaliation enough after even a small number of nuclear weapons have hit Israeli targets?  Or is it simply the hand from the grave?  Israel is a small place filled with six plus million Jews.  A bomb or two hitting almost anywhere in the country would inflict a massive number of casualties.  In a real sense Israel would be dead as a functioning polity and society.  The retaliation might kill a larger number of Iranians or whoever else is down range, but to no useful avail.

To answer the question posed in the title of this post: Israel will lose its reason for existence the day Iran gets a nuclear capacity.  At that point it, can no longer be the credible protector let alone lifeboat for Jews everywhere in the world.  At that point, Israel will no longer be what it was meant to be by the farsighted statesmen who shepherded it into existence.

At that point, on the day Iran gets the bomb, the faith and commitment, the work and effort of generations, will be rendered pointless.  It will be the blackest of black days in human history.

ADMIN NOTE: Despite the defenses against spam comments the Geek invites, welcomes and will post all on topic comments.

Memo To Palestinians

Yousef Munayyar is the executive director of the Palestinian Center which, the Geek presumes, is located in Los Angles. At least his op-ed piece today appeared in the LA Times.

Munayyar advances the thesis that the Palestinians resident in and adjacent to Israel constitute a sovereign deterrent to any Iranian attack, particularly one of a nuclear nature. This is an interesting but utterly fallacious notion.

The events of the past sixty plus years have shown that there is no concern for Palestinians held by Arab leaders, let alone those of Iran. The assorted Arab autocrats, kings, and sheiks have exploited, used, manipulated, and assured the deaths of Palestinians time after bloody time. The Palestinians are useful and quite expendable tools in the eyes of Arab and other Muslim political and military leaders.

In and of themselves, the Palestinians are of neither interest nor importance. Beyond their base utility as a cudgel to be used against Israel--and before 1948 the Zionist movement--the Palestinians have no value, be it ideological, political, or religious. The only exception to this general rule is the use of Palestinians as hewers of wood and drawers of water in the various oil based feudal sheik- and kingdoms.

Mr Munayyar and his fellow Palestinians have to get a grip on their history dating back to the immediate post-WW I period. Throughout the ensuing eighty years the Palestinians have been far more cruelly and cynically exploited for ends not of their desire by their fellow Arabs, their coreligionists, than by the Zionists and Israelis.

The record of Palestinian misery directly and solely attributed to the ambitions and goals of assorted Muftis, kings, presidents, dictators is long and so well documented that it needs no dilation at this point. Neither is there any compelling necessity to point out that there has never been an Arab or Muslim equivalent of Israeli historian Benny Morris. No Arab, no Muslim, has done what Morris did so ably years ago--demonstrate and document the ill-usage of the Palestinians.

Morris employed declassified Israeli records to blow open completely the worst kept secret of the Israeli Wars of Independence--the program of Palestinian forced removal. That the Israeli armed forces used atrocious behavior to encourage Palestinians to leave the area is undeniable.

Equally undeniable is the role played by the invading Arab armies whose commanders and political masters worked assiduously to convince Palestinians to leave the area of operations. These appeals were accompanied by assurances of a speedy return in the wake of the victorious Arab armies.

Mr Munayyar is, not unsurprisingly, silent on the complicity of the Arab armies in the "ethnic cleansing" of the land which became Israel. He is equally silent on the manifold sins committed against his fellows by Arab states, Arab statesmen, Muslim Arab clerics, and all the others who sought their goals on the backs and through the blood of Palestinians.

The pall of silence extends to those Palestinian leaders exemplified by Arafat but including scores of others ranging from blood drenched practitioners of terrorism-without-a-reason to imitation diplomats outpointed, out maneuvered at every turn in every conference. Nor does Mr Munayyar mention any of the many times when the Palestinians were offered the better part of a perfect deal only to reject it in the bootless hopes of getting a totality which existed only in fantasy. From the Thirties through the UN offers of sixty-three years ago right on down to the silence which met the Olmert offer two years ago, the Palestinians have rejected ninety percent of the loaf in the delusional expectation of getting one hundred ten percent if only they were intransigent enough, long enough.

In addition to offering the Palestinians-as-human-shields hypothesis, Mr Munayyar spends some time severely excoriating Benny Morris for having come out in recent years as a critic of the Palestinian removal effort not for having been excessive but for not having gone far enough. Morris has repeatedly said in the past decade that the leaving of twenty percent of the initial Palestinian population resident in the land which became Israel was a serious mistake.

From the Israeli perspective the Morris criticism is trenchant. It has much to recommend it. Had all Palestinians ether been ejected or left in response to the Arab importuning, there would be no "Palestinian question" today. Stalin was right when he famously said during the purges, "No person--no problem." This is the centrality of Morris' revised position.

The Geek (who is by genetics, if not culture, three-eighths Apache) has read and heard on a number of occasions that the Whites would have been well advised a century and more ago had they exterminated the indigenous population rather than pen them on the reservations. He has heard and read the same view expressed by descendants of the once free, once proud Native American population both blended like himself and pure of lineage. Anyone who has spent any time on the "res" cannot but help thinking similarly at least every now and then.

Given the conditions under which so many of the displaced Palestinians have been forced to live for generations now, conditions fostered not only by the well-meaning folks of the UN and its lesser bodies but also by the Arab governments, it is not unreasonable to conclude that even the Palestinians of today would be much better off in all respects had the 1948 removal been total and accepted by countries in the region and around the world as a permanent fact. Where they have been allowed to integrate fully into host societies the Palestinians have shown themselves a great addition to the energy, the vitality, the economic prosperity of their new homes.

Full integration, however, has been spotty, haphazard in the extreme. Full, organized integration has been prevented by the reach of Palestinian dreams far outstripping the grasp of reality. Exacerbating this condition has been the exploitation of the Palestinian dream by the self-centered Arab states.

The Palestinian people have been driven to excesses of dream, the farther shores of despair, the violent margins of Islam by a host of manipulators, a legion of exploiters, a monstrous regiment of those who seek their own goals of power through the suffering of others. It is this concatenation of evil doers which has assured the Palestinians have had no moment of peace, no society of harbor, no new world on which to plant feet and family in which to grow a real future.

While Israel is far from guilt free, it is the lesser, even the least of the evils both inadvertent and intentional which have conspired to make the Palestinians inhabitants of a hell on Earth. The same applies when assessing the Palestinians-as-human-shields thesis advanced by Mr Munayyar. It wouldn't bother the mullahs in the slightest if a few million Arab, Sunni Palestinians became ions in a mushroom cloud.

It would be best for individual and collective peace of mind, best for individual and collective futures if Mr Munayyar and his fellow leaders and spokesmen for the Palestinians realized just what Palestinians mean in the Arab (and Iranian) calculus. The entirety of the Palestinian population ranks as less than nothing in the estimate of Arab and Iranian leaders--unless they remain as useful and utterly expendable tools of state policy.

Israel Is Sovereign First And A US Ally Second

There is one place and one place only where the rubber hits the road in the Mideast. That spot is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While that is not news, the implications for US influence in the region are great, growing, and all bad.

The general view in the Arab political and military circles is that the US is neither able nor willing to pressure Israel into making necessary concessions. Admittedly the concessions sought by assorted Arab states are maximal and seemingly unreasonable in the extreme. Still, one should note that the Arab negotiating posture has always started with the maximum not unlike the merchant who always goes to a stratospheric price first.

The Arabs have a long history of intransigence and obstinate refusal to adjust their demands and expectations to a level consonant with reality. The intransigence and obstinacy are made worse by the political pressure placed upon Arab regimes by the potent Islamist factions in their populations. This pressure will not abate; it can only increase.

That the negative view of American good office capacities is universal among both military and political leaders in the region was conveyed quite bluntly to a delegation from CENTCOM touring their area of responsibility last December. Time after time in meeting after meeting in one country after another the CENTCOM ears were filled with the same refrain.

The words went rather like this: The US cannot (or will not) stand up to Israel. We have lost faith in the American promises. The US is not believable on any matter because it is not believable regarding Israel. US standing here is in decline, rapid decline. The US must deliver on Israel or we will have to look elsewhere for our security.

In mid-January a senior level crew from CENTCOM briefed Admiral Mullen with a forty-five minute, thirty-three slide Powerpoint presentation which stunningly portrayed the collective CENTCOM synopsis of the situation within its primarily Arab and Muslim area of responsibility. Reputedly the JCS Chairman had never before received a briefing such as this, at least on the Mideast, one which focused not simply on military considerations but one which included the political context in which military matters existed.

Since military affairs never exist absent the political context, this reality is surprising in and of itself. When the fusion of religion and politics resident in Islam is taken into account, the lacking of earlier similarly inclusive briefings is downright shocking.

The substance of the briefing, the nature of Arab complaints and doubts is inherently plausible. There can be no doubt but the Arab states whether in the Gulf or further to the west desire, no, demand that the US do the heavy lifting. It is an imperative within the Arab states generally that the US be forced to compel Israel to accept a peace settlement with the Palestinians and other Arabs which closely approximates the maximum demand.

The assorted members of the Arab League which, after all, constitutes much of CENTCOM's remit are both unable and unwilling to compromise on their maximum demands beyond grudgingly acknowledging that Israel may have a "right" to exist. Politically, culturally, even temperamentally, Arab Muslims do not know the meaning of the word "compromise." Force, compulsion, coercion, whether direct or indirect, is the Arab Muslim approach to problem solving.

Having proven repeatedly that they are not up to the task of coercing Israel either through direct military action or the less blunt methods of terrorism and diplomatic isolation, the political and military leaders of the oil shaykdoms and other authoritarian states now seek to force the US to do the compelling. This is nothing new. The feudal oil states under the leadership of Saudi Arabia tried to do this using the "oil weapon" bestowed upon them by the grace of Allah.

There are among us those old enough to remember the oil embargoes of the Seventies, the long lines at the few open gas stations, the stand-by rationing systems, the cost explosions. The carping, whining, and complaining of those who were inconvenienced or worse by the "oil weapon's" effects lingered long and loud. Still when the lines lessened, prices stabilized, the net effect of the Saudi inspired "pressure" was zero, zilch. The "oil weapon" proved to be a fizzle yield device.

Now the ever churning minds of the obstinate churls of the desert are trying a new gambit. It is the all-too-evident hope of the Saudis et al to capitalize on the apprehension over Iran which runs throughout Washington. The reactionaries of the Arabian Peninsula are saying, in effect, "We think the US is weak, lacking both will and strength. So we will have to look elsewhere for new alliances to assure our security."

The words of Maxwell Smart come to mind. "The trick is old. The trick is stupid. The trick worked."

CENTCOM was obviously shaken by the Arab (implicit) threat. Ankle deep in Yemen, knee deep in Iraq, and neck deep in Afghanistan, the commanders of CENTCOM do not need to hear this sort of threat. They (over) reacted to it as is demonstrated by the proposal to include the Palestinian Authority in CENTCOM's mission portfolio.

How CJCS Admiral Mullen did or will react is not yet clear. How the JCS did or will react is also unknown. It is enough that CENTCOM reacted as it did. While no military commander, particularly one with a very full plate before him, likes to receive messages implying lack of both political will and material capacities, to receive them with a sense of panic and impending doom is inapposite to say the least.

The knee knocking at CENTCOM and not the flap surrounding the Biden trip to Israel is the real news coming from the Israeli-Arab front in recent weeks. It is necessary for the boys and girls down around Tampa way to stop hyperventilating and meditate a bit. The Arab "threat" is less real in its potential exercise than would be another employment of the "oil weapon."

Sunni Arab states are far more worried than is Europe (or the US) regarding the impending possession of nuclear weapons by the eschatologically inclined Shia regime of Iran. They are far more vulnerable to Iranian backed subversion and terror than is Europe, the US, or even Pakistan. Being militarily incompetent, the states of the Gulf, of the Arab Mideast generally, have no choice but to nail their assorted green flags to the American mast.

If they are really, really worried about either American political will or military capacity, it is due to their extreme reliance upon both to deter Iran or defend the region against Iranian attacks be they direct or indirect. Yes, the assorted Emirs, Kings, and Presidents of the Arab states would dearly love to see the US muscle Israel into some semblance of submission to their demands. A demonstration of American "toughness" directed against Israel--even if no Palestinian advantage were to be gained--would be seen as proof that the US could be relied upon to fulfill its role in protecting the Sunni Arab despotates.

That, bucko, is the real deal behind the Arab's purportedly negative views of the US. The subtext is this, "Get tough with Israel so we can believe you will be tough with Iran."

Of course getting "tough" with Israel might have the collateral benefit of helping the Palestinian cause. But, that is secondary.

You gotta say this about the Arabs: What they lack in subtlety they more than make up for in dedication to national interest.

Hamas Goes Islamist

Hamas has always been rhetorically inclined toward the Islamist and Islamist jihadist line. But, until quite recently the Islamism of Hamas has been far more oratorical than practical. That has changed.

Hamas has always been seen (and seen itself) as a primarily nationalistic entity oriented toward seizing power in all the territory currently under Arab control as a preliminary to the destruction of Israel. The violent takeover of the Gaza Strip was merely stage one in the process.

It was not long after the Hamas triumph in Gaza that the organization came under increasing pressure from the more totalistic Islamists in their midst. Over the past eighteen months the challenge from the "left," that is the Salifist rooted, al-Qaeda leaning Islamist jihadists, has grown more rapidly than even the extensive instruments of repression at Hamas' disposal could counter.

Belatedly Hamas attempted to get ahead of the Islamist jihadist curve by moving to impose a more austere Shariah predicated view on the population of Gaza. The first sign of this co-option was the requirement for "modest" dress at the beaches of Gaza. This put-the-women-back-in-garbage-sacks effort was quickly followed by other gambits ranging from the banning of mixed gender social events to the closing of coffee houses and Internet cafes and a prohibition against chewing gum.

The efforts failed. Spectacularly.

The extent of the failure was shown dramatically by the Great Mosque Shoot-Out a few days ago. Abdel-Latif Moussa, the jefe grande of the Salifist based group, Jund Ansar Allah (Warriors of God), preached a sermon of direct defiance to the Hamas regime. Hamas responded literally within minutes with an armed attack on the mosque.

The consequent firefight lasted several hours. More than a few of Allah's Warriors and some Hamas gun slingers were sent to Paradise (or its antipodes.) Abdel-Latif reportedly blew himself up as Hamas' gunsels closed in on his house.

End of firefight. But not end of story.

The Jund Ansar Allah drew its membership from the younger components of the Gaza population. These men are and have been bitterly frustrated by the failure of Hamas to establish a properly Islamist polity and society as well as its apparent lack of a will-to-combat against Israel.

The tipping point came with Operation Cast Lead. The ease with which the IDF penetrated the Hamas "defenses" as well as the utter lack of any response by Hamas in the weeks following the IDF withdrawal moved more and more young (and youngish) men into the ranks of JAA and other, smaller, but no less Islamist jihadist groups in the Strip.

Hamas has no choice now but to move further and faster along the road to the most extreme form of Islamist jihadism. In this, their sponsor, Iran, will no doubt be both supportive and gratified.

The continued refocusing by Hamas on Islamist jihadism has a number of implications. None of them are positive from the perspective of forming a Mideast peace deal.

As Hamas goes so also must Fatah and its larger cousin, the Palestinian Authority. While the West Bank areas under the control of the PA are both tranquil and prosperous in comparison to "Hamastan," the PA must contend with its own growing body of Islamist jihadist leaning young men. As the recently concluded Fatah party congress demonstrated, there is an appreciable generation gap in its ranks. At the moment the old men of Fatah hold power but they have been forced to admit representatives of the younger, more militant, far more Islamist jihadist oriented men into the leadership circle.

As in many, if not most, "revolutionary" dynamics there has been, is, and will be a thrust to the "left," the more extreme, more passionate, more simplistic, more totalistic position. While much of Crane Britton's model of revolution has been disproved, this steady move to the extreme remains unchallenged.

The Islamist jihadist worldview is simple, easy to understand. Its goals are firm, well-defined, utterly totalistic in nature. Its dynamic takes advantage not only of a firm base well established in the Muslim faith and its practice over centuries, it also fully taps into the passions driven by frustration, fear, and bitterness. It, like other ideologies including Marxism-Leninism and National Socialism, promises victory. Unlike these other, purely secular faiths, Islamist jihadism promises a win-win: Victory in death by instant passage to Paradise.

No mistake must be made about it: Islamist jihadism has an appeal and a power almost impossible to underestimate. This is equally true whether one accepts the sociological/economic explanation of jihadism or one which focuses on the linkage between personal identity and personal religious belief.

As Islamist jihadism becomes an every increasing driver of the agendas and actions of Hamas and, inevitably, the PA, the quest for the ever elusive goal of a comprehensive peace in the Mideast will become ever more difficult. Not simply because both Hamas and the PA will be more resistant to any form of compromise. Nor because Arab states generally will back the fulminating irredentism in order to protect themselves from Islamist jihadist attack.

While these two factors in and of themselves would be sufficient to put a speed bump of Mount Everest proportions on the road to peace, they will be joined by a third. Israel will match the Arabs intransigence for intransigence.

This tit-for-tat dynamic will ensue not because the current Israeli government is more obstinate than most (although it sure can seem that way) but because any violent action taken by the Arabs must result eventually in an even more violent Israeli response. The Israeli government is not any more loath to defend its people, territory, and interests than is the government of the US or any other country.

As was demonstrated in the long months of constant Hamas attacks, the government of Israel can be very, very patient. It matters not that the patience is required by purely tactical considerations such as assuring minimal world and, more importantly, US disapproval of the IDF counter blow. The critical fact is that all patience comes to an end. The record shows convincingly that when it does, it is the Arabs who suffer the most death, the greater destruction.

The historical record also demonstrates that every time the Arab "tit" is followed by the Israeli "TAT," peace hopes and plans vanish like a desert mirage. This brutal reality is, of course, central to the Islamist jihadist agenda.

The prohibition of chewing gum may seem humorous. The stick-women-back-in-garbage-sacks regulations may be disgusting. In and of themselves these things don't matter--except to those directly involved. Even though the more revolting (to most Westerners at least) aspects of Shariah may violate human rights, the moves by Hamas are no more repugnant than practices already long established in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan.

What is most important, what must be firmly gripped by policy makers in the US, is that the imposition of Shariah is not the end of the Islamist jihadist agenda. No. It is merely the beginning. The next stage is the ramping up of violence, of terror, of attacks on Israeli (and other) civilians. The real deal, the nitty-gritty of the Islamist jihadist game plan, is the total blockage of any Mideast peace.

The initiative rests not with the diplomats or the Deep Thinkers of the Obama administration. The power of decision and action does not reside with genuflections before the totems of Islam. Nor does it lie with those who posit a sociological or economic or educational response to the power of Islamist jihadism.

No. The initiative, the capacity to control the nature and direction of affairs in the Arab-Israeli conflict rests solely with those willing to kill and die in keeping with their True Belief. It rests with the trigger pullers and suicide bombers. More, it lives with those ambitious, driven men who control the pullers of triggers and pushers of clickers.

Whether anyone likes the idea or not, the ground truth is that the game is being run as it has been for some years now by the Islamists, the jihadists, the men of evil. Get a grip on it.

Palestinian Bargaining--An Insider's View

As the Palestinian Authority sees matters, the Israeli's are steadily weakening over time, so there is no reason for the PA to move quickly. Time, as the Arabs see it, is on their side.

In an interview from three weeks ago recently made available to English readers, Saeb Ereqat, the head of the PA's Negotiations Department, projected a confident attitude. Reflecting over the last offer made by the former Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, the Palestinian opined that Israel's political will was eroding to the extent that there would be no need for any Arab concessions on territory, the right of Arab return, or monetary compensation to fugitives and their descendants.

Saeb Ereqat made his assessment without any reference to the pressure being placed upon the government of Israel (GOI) by the Obama administration. Had he done so his confidence might have been greater. Adding in the recent Solana Ultimatum and today's partial embargo by the UK on weapons sales to Israel would have boosted the confidence index to stratospheric levels.

Among the critical points made by Ereqat was the continuation of the Palestinian demand that Israel recognise the PA's sovereignty over all of the West Bank territories seized by the IDF from Jordan during the Six Day War. He contended that this recognition must precede any talks of land swaps such as that proposed by the fading Olmert ministry at the end of nearly two hundred meetings under the provisions of the Annapolis agreements.

The land exchange proposed by Olmert would have seen the small land areas currently housing the overwhelming majority of Israeli citizens in the new West Bank "settlements" for an equal number of square kilometers of unused land as well as a passage zone thirty klicks long and 150 meters wide linking the Gaza Strip with the PA's West Bank territory. Ereqat did not make any objection to this proposal in principle but stated categorically that it could come only after the Israeli recognition of complete PA sovereignty over all the land in question.

What the PA negotiations chief left unmentioned was one simple, small but critical fact. In the event that Israel recognised PA sovereignty over all the territories in question there would be no impetus for the PA to undertake the land exchange. The PA would have all the land including that occupied by Israeli citizens under their full, absolute, and legal control. They could have their cake and eat it too as the old cliche runs.

GOI would be out of its collective mind were it to grant the demanded recognition on nothing more than a PA promise that the land swap would be worked out later. Nothing in the history of Israel indicates that any government no matter what the external pressures might be and regardless of the desire for peace would surrender the fate of nearly 200,000 Israelis to the mercies of the new Arab state.

This would remain the case in the unlikely event that the Palestinian entity swore mighty oaths that Israeli Jews would enjoy all the rights, privileges, and immunities of their Arab colleagues and could continue the quiet enjoyment of their residences and businesses in the "settlements." The first duty of GOI is the protection of Israelis. So the Palestinian demand is both a non-starter and a deal killer.

Even the hyper-confident Ereqat must know this. He has to be hoping that the combination of external pressure by the US and EU coupled with the continued annoyances from his Hamas counterparts in Gaza will continue the slow, steady enervation of Israeli political will which he so obviously believes to be a continuing process.

Another point which Ereqat makes repeatedly is the requirement for both some sort of Arab "right of return" for those displaced from what is now indisputably Israeli territory during the 1948 and 1967 wars. He also asserts that financial compensation for those who do not wish to exercise their "right" must be forthcoming. Importantly, both the "right of return" and the compensation are not limited to those directly affected, but includes descendants without limit so the forty-six great-grand children of an Arab who heeded the call of his brothers to flee so that he could return with the victorious Arab armies would be entitled to full compensation or the right to move back to the old family house (which is now a multi-story apartment block or a shopping center.)

Repeat after the Geek, please, "Non-starter and deal killer."

Turning to political matters, Ereqat spins a fine piece of sophistry regarding Hamas. In his view there is no requirement that Hamas change one single syllable of its charter (which calls for the destruction of Israel) even though it won election in the Gaza Strip and, after expelling the PA by force of arms, has acted as sovereign in the district. No, opines Ereqat, all that is required by the assorted UN Resolutions as well as the agreements undertaken in Madrid, Oslo, Annapolis, and sundry other points is that the PA acknowledge Israel's right to exist with defined borders in peace with its neighbors.

Well, golly, perhaps Mr Ereqat believes that bit of tendentious reasoning, but it is more than simply difficult for a less biased and involved person to accept it. Practically speaking, Hamas is commensual with the Fatah originated PA.

The blood-and-guts view of life espoused by Hamas is at least as popular on the Arab street as the give-the-appearance-of-peace-a-chance stance tactically adopted by the PA. The same might be said of the Islamist purist approach of Hamas, but the jury is out on that one. In any event, by isolating Hamas in the way Ereqat does, the PA can take the ostensible high road while winking at Hamas conducted or inspired terror attacks on Israel.

Saeb Ereqat indicates that the PA is just as ready, willing, and able to fight as is Hamas. He allowed that following the establishment of Palestine there would be no reason why the PA could not fight alongside Hamas and others to establish a unified Arab state, a new caliphate. This posture is difficult to reconcile with a man or an organisation dedicated to the peaceful ending of a long standing conflict. Neither does it indicate any basic predisposition to live in harmony with a Jewish state.

Only once, at the very end of the interview does Mr Ereqat show any slackening of ebullient confidence. That is on the subject of Iran. Clearly, the PA sees Iran as a major, perhaps the single most important, supporter of the PA. But, he fears the US effort to positively engage the Iranians in conversation might fail. He sought to reassure any American who might read his analysis by quoting the former head of the IAEA, Mohammad ElBaradei, as telling him that it would take Iran "fourteen to sixteen years" to acquire an atomic bomb. So, he advises, "We must change this worn out record."

Right, dude. For sure. And, the Netanyahu ministry is all ready to toss in the towel and turn over a whole bunch of Israelis to your violence prone, quite anti-Semitic excuse for a government.

The EU Is Getting Impatient With Israel

The European Union has joined the US in showing impatience with Israel over the deadlocked "peace process." The Union's bureaucrat in charge of foreign policy, Javier Solana, has called for a UN imposed deadline for the implementation of the "two state solution."

This demand goes far beyond the American call for an end to all expansion of the Israeli "settlements" on the West Bank including so-called "natural growth." Considering Solana's speech in London, one word comes to mind: Ultimatum.

While the proposal appears to be evenhanded in that no specific mention is made of Israel as the foot dragging "peace process" participant, there can be little doubt that the threat, the ultimatum, was directed at the government of Israel (GOI) and not either of the two pseudo-governments of the two pseudo-states, Hamastan and Fatahland. This inference follows automatically from the reality that GOI is organised, coherent, and capable of both making and effectively implementing decisions.

The bodies which run the two competing "Palestinian states" are neither competent nor coherent either one with the other or internally. The Palestinian Authority is closer to behaving like a responsible government than is the coterie of criminals and Islamist jihadists who control the impoverished, heaving mass of turbulence called the Gaza Strip. That, however, is not saying much.

Solana's barely disguised ultimatum is both ill-advised and not at all helpful. It is useful primarily as an indicator of two critical components of the context surrounding any progress toward a comprehensive peace treaty between Israel and the Arabs.

The first of these context components is frustration with perceived Israeli obduracy. The Spanish diplomat wants to take the process out of the hands of the locals, particularly the Israelis.

Solana is demanding the UN Security Council establish a deadline for the implementation of the two state solution and, should the parties not provide their own, impose one of the Security Council's manufacture without regard to the position of the primary actors. He added that he, personally, was willing to grant the new UN created Palestinian state as a full member of the UN.

The EU foreign minister approves of the rolling back of Israel to the borders it occupied prior to June 1967. This would mean the abandonment of the cities and towns built since that war in land taken from Jordan. While there is a wide range of figures purporting to represent the number of Israelis currently living in formerly Jordanian territory, even the minimum number of roughly 186,000 shows that a large number of lives would be uprooted suddenly, dramatically, and permanently.

The majority of these Israelis, approximately eighty percent, live close to the pre-1967 borders and occupy less than three percent of the land taken from Jordan forty-two years ago. This implies that little benefit would accrue to the Palestinian entity in return for the Jewish dislocation.

Abandoning the "settlements" constructed near the pre-1967 border would place Israel at a severe military disadvantage. The new construction was undertaken with a firm consideration of military, including counter-terrorism, needs. Thus, even leaving out the humanitarian considerations which usually top the list of concerns in both the EU and UN, the imposition of a two state solution which meets the Arab demand of withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders would constitute a significant threat to the continued security of the Jewish state.

None of these considerations seems to have crossed Sr Solana's mind. Or the collective minds of his superiors in the EU establishment. The worthies at the helm of the Union seem to have decided that Israel is the root of the ongoing Mideast problem. Apparently the collective frustration at the irredentist demands of the Arabs has shifted to the Israelis.

The sub-text of the context here is not difficult to parse. Israel is believed to be more "civilized," or, perhaps, "more European" than the Arabs. Thus, Israel should be able to exhibit a degree of altruism in the interests of global peace and accept a heavy hit or two in the pursuit of the higher, better goal of ending the Mideast conflict.

This attitude implies a degree of condescending paternalism such as might be expected from a collection of former colonial powers. The thought path runs along this line: "You know, you can't expect the Arabs to do that sort of thing, sacrifice for a greater goal. They just aren't like that, you know. Not the better sort of people. Not like us at all."

The Europeans are both bored with and frustrated by the never ending Israeli-Arab conflict. They want the Gordian Knot to be cut and cut quickly. Their preferred sword is the UN Security Council. They desperately want to displace ultimate responsibility to the "international community," and that means the UN as both developer and enforcer of the final solution.

Leaving aside dark suspicions of anti-Semitism being alive and well in the EU, the Solana Ultimatum shows clearly that Israel has lost the moral ascendancy it once enjoyed. The long legacy of aggressive wars from Suez in 1956 to the Six Day War on through to the invasion of Lebanon three years ago along with the enormous number of disproportionate punitive raids extending from the bloody operations of Ariel Sharon's Detachment 101 back in the mid-1950s to Operation Cast Lead six months ago have served to erode Israel's claim on European (and American) sympathy and support to its current near zero level.

This shift in European perceptions and opinion constitutes a tectonic movement. The result can be seen in Solana's demand. Israel had better act like the self-sacrificing good global citizen we want it to be or the UN will do the job for it. And, if the Jews don't like what the UN does, they had best adjust to the new reality--and remember we gave them the chance to be masters of their own destiny but they blew it.

The US may not be willing to embrace the Solana expressed EU position--yet. The potency of the Israel Lobby must not be underestimated. Even so, the sizable straw in the gale constituted by the demand of President Obama for a total, absolute, and immediate halt to continued construction in the "settlements" is a strong hint of what is to come.

The majority of Americans still support Israel with a high degree of unreservedness. However, that support is weakening and could disappear quickly with sufficient provocation or manipulation by the Obama administration. We the People could be expected to desert Israel en masse if, for example, there is an attack launched against Iran which brings in its wake either or both a wave of terrorism or a spike in oil prices which further dislocates the fragile American economy.

Any hypothetical Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear constellation would bring results that are predictable in one respect. They would not be completely successful. Beyond that, all one can project with confidence is that the results would be detrimental for the interests of the US and the West. One cannot go beyond Admiral Mullen's word, "catastrophic," in an attempt to quantify the outcome of any hypothetical attack.

Should Sr Solana's ultimatum go as far as the Security Council, it can be expected that the US would be standing alone against France, the UK, Russia, and China. Assuming that the Solana proposal represents a consensus within the highest levels of the EU, it is to be expected that both the British and French would support the setting of a deadline and, if it proves necessary, imposing a solution on the Israelis. Past behavior indicates that both China and Russia would go along with an outcome which favors the most extreme Arab position.

As a result at a time when the US needs the full cooperation of the other members of the Security Council as well as EU members such as Germany and Italy in its efforts to blunt the Iranian nuclear program, we would be standing alone against all of these nations. Seeing this, the Iranians must be applauding the Solana initiative.

For GOI the Solana proposal is an unmistakable warning shot. The EU Foreign Minister has made it clear that the sands of time are not as limitless as the sands of the Arabian desert. GOI has to make a serious, fast move toward the two state solution--or the job will be done by the bureaucrats of the EU and the politicos behind the Permanent Members of the Security Council.

Diplomacy Is Harder Than Swatting Flies

The Geek applauds President Obama for his skill at fly swatting. The capacity for rapid target identification, engagement and neutralisation is an essential for survival in desert or semi-desert areas such as Iraq, Afghanistan or the mountains of southern New Mexico. Fortunately all that fly swatting requires is good eye-hand coordination and fast reflexes.

The Geek bets that Mr Obama wishes that diplomacy required no more than that.

The major difficulty in diplomacy is not that it requires the meshing of disjunctive national interests. That can be the easy part. What makes the game of diplomacy a very hard one to master is that at root it demands the harmonizing of very different views of the world. The basic orientation of a government's, a people's, a culture's understanding of what is central to existence, central to the defining of a national identity is typically in play when countries disagree over specific policies or actions.

Different countries will also differ, even take antipodal positions, on the real nature of the historical trajectories at work or brought into sharp relief by a conflict. For the country most directly involved, the understanding of history and its effects is necessarily subjective. For the other country, the outsider in the matter, history is something else again. It is either a cold, dead objective set of past events of little moment in the current issue or it is something that should be, in effect, outgrown or set aside.

Americans in their formulation of foreign policy and execution of diplomacy see history as being both irrelevant and an influence to be outgrown. Mr Obama likes to mouth history (usually with remarkable and easily avoidable errors) while sponsoring diplomatic demarches which run counter to the historical trajectories governing the interlocutor's behavior.

Take, for example, the current contretemps over the issue of "natural growth" in the assorted towns and cities created as "facts on the ground" by the Government of Israel (GOI) on land seized from Jordan during the Six Day War of 1967. There is a background to the Great Land Grab of 1967. And, this background was and is a powerful determinate to the current disagreement between the Obama Administration and the GOI.

As has been mentioned in a recent post, representatives of the emerging state of Israel came to an understanding with the King of Jordan, Abdullah I, regarding the way in which the Jewish armed forces would cooperate with the Arab Legion of Jordan. The Israelis would not oppose the Arab Legion as long as it moved into those areas of Palestine which had been given over to the Arabs by the UN Partition Plan. In return the Arab Legion would not enter territory assigned to the Jewish state by the partition plan.

Both sides would fight it out in Jerusalem as the UN had kept the city separate from the partition. The result was the Arab Legion could concentrate its efforts on holding the Old City and the Israelis could have the new sections of Jerusalem.

During the run-up to the Six Day War, GOI warned Jordan to stay out of the affray. The clear message passed through numerous channels to King Hussein was that the IDF would not attack Jordanian territory either in the West Bank or the Old City.

The US was completely aware of the warnings. The Johnson administration not only conveyed them to King Hussein but reinforced them as well. As the documents in the LBJ archives demonstrate clearly, the US both believed the honesty of GOI's warning but was ready to back them.

(Note to the Obama administration, the LBJ archives are at the University of Texas in Austin. You would do well to take a look at them.)

For reasons having to do with both the internal political climate of Jordan as well as the pressures long exerted on King Hussein by Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, it was seemingly impossible for the King to take the warning and act on it. As numerous post-hostility writings both governmental and historical show, King Hussein did not believe his throne would survive if Jordan did not enter the war.

There can be little if any doubt but GOI fully anticipated this and issued the warning simply to protect their collective hind ends from American disapproval. Israeli intelligence regarding the political dynamics in Amman was simply too comprehensive for GOI not to have known that Jordan would not and could not sit on its hands.

As both GOI and King Hussein well knew, the Hashemite Kingdom's army was no match for the IDF. Israeli troops gobbled up the West Bank and the Old City. The fighting was intense, far more so than in the IDF walkover in the Sinai, but the end was never in doubt.

The long-standing Israeli desire for the West Bank and, far more so, the Old City with the final relic of the Temple, the West Wall, was accomplished at a cost quite acceptable to Israel. They had stolen the land fair and square. By all past customs and usages of post-war diplomacy, this land was now their land. The West Bank and Old City were by all past standards available for whatsoever use GOI might wish to make of them.

However, the "international community" or at least the UN tossed a big curve ball at GOI. In previous hostilities, provided the country stealing the land at gunpoint had not been the aggressor, it was customary for nation-states generally to accept the verdict of war, the old "right of conquest."

Now, the rules were changed. Now the UN issued its resolution demanding that Israel return the lands taken during the war to their previous owners--even though a strong argument could be made that Egypt and its partners were the aggressors. (It might be noted in this context that the Geek has been convinced for a long time on the basis of the documents that Israel planned and manipulated events so that it could wage aggressive war under a plausible cover of acting in self-defense.)

The US supported a land-for-peace usage for the conquered and occupied territories of Jordan, Egypt and Syria. The political realities here at home prevented the US from pressing its case strongly with GOI. In any event, GOI and the Israeli public would have been exceptionally reluctant to see land-for-peace as a viable option. This was particularly true with regard to the West Bank and, even more, the Old City of Jerusalem.

The US tacitly or even, on occasion, openly supported the GOI creation of "facts on the ground" in the West Bank. Much of the mass of "settlements" was built directly or indirectly by US foreign aid funding.

Israel put the new real estate to work. Not only did Israel have a high total fertility rate, GOI encouraged immigration from all over the world. Including the Soviet Union.

Indeed, the US strongly supported GOI in its immigrate-all-you-Soviet-Jews policy. One need only recall the efforts of Senator Henry (Scoop) Jackson to underscore the crucial nature of US support to fill the new "settlements" by Soviet Jews seeking escape from the Workers and Peasants Paradise and its new style pogroms.

US support coupled with the rise of the nationalistic Likud Party to assure the "settlements," the "facts on the ground" proliferated with startling rapidity and effect. The result was simple.

The West Bank, regardless of Fatah's terrorism or the terrorism of other groups and in total disregard of the UN Security Council's Resolution became Israeli in all but name. Stripped to its essentials, the contention of GOI and its supporters in the US government was the same as had been made in American history for the conquest and occupation of land previously held by the Native Americans.

Here it is short and brutally honest. "We make better use of the land than you did. Anyway, you are a passel of bloody minded, aggressive, primitive heathens."

Rightly or wrongly, ethically or otherwise, the West Bank "settlement" areas as well as the Old City were now Israeli. And, at least from the perspective of repeated governments, that fact was neither negotiable nor changeable.

Sinai could be traded for peace. Portions of the West Bank could be traded as well. But, not the areas which had been designated even before the Six Day War as suitable for development by Israel. Period. End of debate.

The decision was and remains so final, so completely off any table that limiting the continued growth of the developed regions is a non-starter. No Israeli government could survive consenting to a dictated ending of "natural growth." While no new towns, no new cities will be built on land which exists outside the ambit of the past development will be built, neither can the slow growth and consolidation of the previous "settlements" be ended.

It does not matter what the Arab states, the Palestinian Authority, let alone Hamas might demand. Neither does it matter that the reading of history by these entities and their citizens, subjects or members is frankly opposite to that of the Israelis. It doesn't matter that GOI may well have planned and executed a "breach of the international peace" and waged aggressive war forty-two years ago.

History is a strait jacket. Its trajectory brought forth the "settlements" and these "facts on the ground" must be recognised by all interested parties and accepted as to their power and persistence if any move toward the elusive goal of peace is to be successful. That is a hard and quite brutal truth. So is much of the history of the world. As the old cliche goes: "Read it and weep."

The Obama administration's current emphasis on ending "natural growth" as a confidence and trust building mechanism which will bring some sort of positive response from the Arab states and Palestinian population is both a wilful misunderstanding of the power of historical trajectories and doomed to fail. The reality is that the Obama crew must take the "facts on the ground" and the history which called them into existence as they are and not as the Nice Young Man From Chicago might wish them to be and have been.

The "natural growth" controversy now raising great quantities of smoke and giving no light on a complex problem is one example among many of the futility of pretending history never existed or, if it did, it should not have any influence on the present. The "natural growth" affray is an example in miniature of why diplomacy requires not simply a policy consistently followed for success.

Unless and until Mr Obama and his coterie come to understand the ongoing power of history in the affairs of nations, he is best off swatting flies on TV. It's a lot easier and far more personally rewarding than trying to swat nation-states into compliance with the American view of the perfect world.