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.

Israel--More Of A Symbol Than A Reality

The Geek just read an excellent post by Robert Fulford in the National Post regarding the nature of Israel qua Israel as the new universal recipient of hatred. Israel is not simply a target of criticism for its policies, practices, and actions. Not anymore. Now, Israel has been transmogrified into the vessel for the ancient and reprehensible vice of anti-Semitism.

In a very real sense Fulford's views bring the thesis of a recent book, Israel Is Real: An Obsessive Quest For The Jewish Nation And Its History, by journalist Richard Cohen, into a sharp focus. Cohen's work is predicated on the idea that the creation of Israel has made Jews far less safe than they have been throughout the centuries of the diaspora. There is much to commend this counter-intuitive understanding as Fulford's rendition of the growth of Israel-bashing as an industry in much of the West--including the US--demonstrates.

Fifty and more years ago in the Geek's teenage years, there was a sense of universal approbation for Israel within the American public, particularly the American elite, the chattering class, the academics, the opinion molders. The Israelis were applauded almost without exception for their industry, their battlefield valor, their willingness to sacrifice, their ability to "make the desert bloom." The Sabras, the kibbutz, and the kibbutzniks were held up as examples worthy of emulation by the kids of suburban Chicago (and, presumably, elsewhere.)

Even the Suez War of 1956, which was both opposed and brought to an end by the efforts of President Eisenhower, was not particularly disapproved of by We the People. The mere fact that the effort of France, the UK, and Israel to topple Nasser, regain the Suez Canal for "civilization," and seize the Sinai constituted a criminal conspiracy eluded American opinion including that possessed by individuals well sited to know the reality.

Israel's star remained on the ascendant though the Sixties. The increased use of terror attacks by the "Palestinian resistance" led by Fatah brought increased sympathy toward and support of Israel among the elites of Western Europe and the US. The Six Day War of 1967 brought universal acclaim within the US--and most of Europe.

Jokes concerning the back-up lights on Egyptian tanks flew across TV. Invidious comparisons between the success of the IDF and the (perceived) failure of American forces in South Vietnam were commonplace both here and in Europe. Once again no one seemed aware of the calculated way in which Israel both planned and executed the war so that an act of real estate acquisition could be plausibly disguised as a "defensive" effort against a coalition of forces which greatly outnumbered and outgunned poor, little Israel.

The Arab response of terror, more terror, and even more terror could not have been better planned to secure support for Israel had that been the goal of Arafat and his ilk. Airline hijackings, aircraft bombings, suicide attacks on soft, civilian targets and, ultimately, the attack on the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, all worked to Israel's advantage in the collective mind of the West, of the US.

Arafat's swaggering bluster and pistol wearing at the UN General Assembly worked to Israel's advantage as well. To put it simply and bluntly, the Arabs were not, are not and probably never will be, masters of public relations. Certainly the war for the approbation and approval of the West was won by Israel through the Sixties and Seventies.

When the Egyptians staged their surprising breakthrough of the Bar Lev Line at the outset of the Yom Kippur War of 1973, it rocked the American and European elites and publics alike. The Nixon administration rushed assistance to Israel with the full support of We the People. The American people cheered almost as lustily as the Israelis when the IDF crossed the Suez Canal cutting off the majority of the Egyptian Army.

The Arab oil embargo orchestrated and led by Saudi Arabia in the wake of the IDF triumph did more than anything to assure a firm support for Israel among We the People. Far more even than the awesome capacities of the Israel Lobby, the oil embargo and the all-too-obvious intransigence of the Arabs generally made certain that We the People would keep firmly in the Israeli camp.

The Arabs, their culture and religion particularly, became their own worst enemies in the battle for understanding and support in the West generally and the US in particular. From its foundation in the late Forties through the late Seventies, Israel was rooted culturally in the Western tradition. The Arabs were not at all Western in norms, values, belief systems, or institutions of society and polity. They were the "other" in all essential respects while the Israelis were one of us.

Unnoticed in the US until the Eighties was the demographic shift in the Israeli population. As the decades had rolled by, the originally European tint of Israel had been slowly replaced by the increased and increasingly obvious hue of Mideast origin Jews who had flooded Israel as they were pogromed out of their home countries in the region. In tandem the Orthodox Jews had become an ever more important political and social force in Israel, which further diminished the somewhat secularist orientation of the socialist, European founders of the country.

The combination of Orthodox and Mideast origin Israelis made the expansionist orientation of the country ever more evident. While never absent, the emergence of Likud as the dominant political party assured the new hardline would be unmistakable.

The IDF response to the First Intifada brought to the TV screens of the West a very disturbing picture of the Israeli Goliath mashing the Palestinian David into the mudholes of Gaza and the West Bank. For the first time Israel was liable to criticism--severe criticism. The government and apologists for Israel lashed back with not-so-well veiled descriptions of the criticism as being anti-Semitic diatribes.

The government of Israel and its supporters, particularly in the US were so used to having a free ride in the public opinion department that neither had a clue as to how to respond both properly and effectively to those who saw the IDF and Shin Bet treatment of rock throwing kids as a blotch on the nation's ethical stature. The denunciation of well-founded complaints of Israeli human rights violations as being anti-Semitism was both wrong and ill-advised.

Worse, it was a blunder.

Had the assorted "Palestinian liberation" groups been able to refrain from terrorism they would have won the changed public opinion battleground quickly and definitely. Had Arafat and company been able and willing to exhibit the slightest skill at compromise, at genuine negotiation, at forswearing totalistic goals such as the eradication of Israel, the establishment of a genuine two state solution was within the realm of the doable in the wake of the First Intifada.

With the Likud dominated government of Israel and the Arabs locked in a tie for the title of Most Intransigent, the advantage went to Israel, which possessed not only the formidable capacities of the Israel Lobby but a strong residuum of good will within the American public. While Americans were (and are) likely to hold Israel to higher ethical standards than they do the Arabs, We the People are willing to cut the Israelis some slack given the reprehensible tactics of terror and indiscriminate attacks on civilians.

In short, Israelis have occasional lapses in behavior, but the Arabs always act worse.

Still, within the opinion molding elites of both Europe and the US, the balance had started to shift. The shift continued in the course of the Second Intifada and its aftermath. Increasingly, the government of Israel was perceived as unreasonably wedded to its "facts on the ground" as well as having been entirely too shrewd in how it carved up the territory reserved to the new Palestinian Authority. For the first time it became respectable to doubt, to question the genuineness of any Israeli commitment to a comprehensive peace treaty.

In the wake of 9/11 and ensuing events, the notion that if only Israel would evacuate the (to use the current Israeli term) "disputed territories" the Islamist jihadists would go away and the climate of apprehension as well as the costs of wars would end. This (arguably specious) belief constituted a tipping point. The onus was placed on Israel.

At some point in the past few years the onus placed on Israel to make peace joined insensibly with the ancient horror of genuine anti-Semitism. It became possible, even desirable, for the decrying of Israel as an "apartheid" power, a Jewish form of Nazism to take firm root within the European and North American chattering classes, particularly academia. The bashing of Israel became good form within self-consciously "liberal" constituencies.

In short form, Israel became the "other." Those people just aren't like us, don't you know. And, those people meant, not simply Israelis, but all Jews. Anti-Semitism donned the respectable cloak of opposition to Israeli policies and practices. Fulford makes this point both simply and powerfully.

The shambling golem of anti-Semitism gains strength from its new clothes. It is for this reason that Cohen's thesis has a particular saliency as well as a particular irony.

At the same time the success of the same "liberals" in ruling the use of accurate terms regarding the nature and character of the enemy in the current wars between the US and the rest of the West and the Islamist jihadists as politically incorrect and socially unacceptable has provided a great advantage to the enemy. This is an unintended but real consequence of the multi-cultural demand for "sensitivity."

It must never be forgotten that by ruling words either acceptable or not, the nature--and the outcome--of a debate over policy is determined. The not so subtle shift of recent years has given an unearned advantage to the Islamists, the jihadists, the irredentist Arabs, such as those who recently met at the Fatah congress.

This advantage may well be demonstrated in the widely anticipated "Obama Plan" for peace in the Mideast. It would be both ironic and tragic if Israel, which was in large measure the creation of Western and American guilt feelings in the wake of World War II, would now become a sacrifice on the alter of Western and American guilt over the "plight of the Palestinians."

History is filled with such ironies. And, such tragedies.

Disengaged "Engagement" With Iran

The Obama administration has been and remains dedicated to a policy of "engagement" with the mullahs of Iran. Yet, given its stance not only on the stolen election of 12 June but its lengthy aftermath of protests, arrests, torture, murder, and, now, a three part series of show trials, one must wonder just what the word "engagement" means around the White House and Foggy Bottom.

As horrifying tales of torture, rape, and murder leak out around the edges of the Koran Curtain surrounding the Islamic Republic of Iran, the silence thunders on at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the not-too-distant quarters of Hillary Clinton and the State Department. Even Joe Biden who is normally quick with the lip has been singularly quiet.

Some kind of "engagement," ain't it, bucko?

Oh, there were a few soothing, ambiguous words out of SecState Clinton during her eleven day safari through Africa. But, these amounted to nothing more than boiler plate tropes. There was no bite. No indignation. No condemnation. No "engagement."

Even Ronald Reagan during his period of "constructive engagement" with South Africa was willing to say negative things about some of the more outrageous actions of the white minority regime. Way back when, long before the Nice Young Man From Chicago was born (or that matter the much older Secretary of State either), Franklin Roosevelt, the paragon of the Democratic Party actually, really, honest-to-gosh, for sure, criticised Soviet dictator Joe Stalin for the purges, death camps, and show trials which decorated his reign. Can you believe it? Engagement--and negative at that.

Dwight Eisenhower went more than a tad negative over the show trials and executions which marked the beginnings of the Castro period in Cuba. JFK did the same. Golly, the historical record is replete with examples of American presidents and secretaries of state staking out firm ethical positions regarding the perceived wrongs committed by governments with which the US stood in opposition.

US presidents and secretaries of state have criticised, even strongly condemned, the actions of governments even as we sought to establish or maintain a diplomatic gavotte with them. No matter how much the US might have needed to do a deal with a country, no president, no secretary of state, no administration before that headed by President Obama has failed to take and maintain a strongly enunciated stance when a government has violated norms and values espoused by the United States.

Admittedly, President Obama has opened a new chapter in American diplomacy with his emphasis upon cringing apologies for presumed wrongs committed in the past. Sometimes, as in his reference to Operation AJAX in the course of his Cairo Address, the cringing is so extreme as to violate historical reality. But, he is evidently not one to allow mere historical (or any other form of) truth to get in the way of servile supplication for forgiveness for wrongs never inflicted in the (vain) hope of gaining cooperation from the unwilling in return.

FDR did not let Krystalnacht go by unmentioned, uncondemned. Nor did Harry Truman allow the Soviet excesses of repression slip by without a word. JFK was not given to ignoring the violations of human rights and democracy pass him by without being acknowledged with pejorative (and occasionally salty) comment. Ike even took allies to task for actions contrary to the norms of civilized behavior as in the Sinai War of 1956.

The list goes on through every president, every secretary of state. Until now. Until the Obama Ascendancy.

Mealy mouthed responses to the actions of the reactionary mullahs and their accomplices in wholesale violations of human rights, democratic processes, and judicial procedures are not only out of keeping with the American tradition. The weak-kneed stance of the Obama administration is not pragmatically sanctioned. If the president and his foreign policy team expects that their disengaged, more-than-merely-arm's-length reaction to the mullahocracy will result in some movement toward a diplomatic resolution of the nuclear weapons contretemps, the whole crew has its collective head in an anatomically improbable location.

Considering that the actions of the reactionary clerics in Tehran have proven so reprehensible as to result in evident seismic splits in the clerical ranks generally, the expectation that a tolerant US position on the election and its aftermaths will result in "let's make a deal" is completely unsupportable by the realities. The totalistic reactionaries from Ayatollah Khamenei to "President" Ahmedinejad do not understand tolerance, acceptance, understanding as anything other than weakness--the weakness of surrender.

There is a time and place for the tough line. There is a time and a place for the firm, consistent stance in support of fundamental principles.

Now is the time. Iran is the place.

While the Bush/Cheney administration might have been terribly ill-advised with the invasion of Iraq, it did scare the dickens out of the mullahs. The so-called "grand bargain" might have been a myth and Iran might plausibly have already solved the problems of the physics package for their nascent nuclear weapons program, but the reality is that the mullahs were frightened enough to make exploitable offers of cooperation to the US.

Fear has a powerful capacity to focus the mind. For a few months following the invasion of Iraq the mullahs were afflicted with sufficient fear to provide an opportunity for American diplomacy. It is to be regretted that the Bush administration did not use the brief window of opportunity. The fine military historian Edward Luttwak pointed out recently in the WSJ that the opportunity was forsaken needlessly and would not come again absent an equal application of fear in Tehran.

To be "engaged" requires an ear willing and able to listen. Right now that ear is absent. It will not return unless and until the Iranian regime is given a good reason to do so.

That means the time is now, right now, to crank up the fear machine. If the Obama administration is serious, if the president is honest about policy, the Iranians must not be permitted to acquire nuclear weapons. Given that they are not far from that goal (how far is a matter of debate between people of equally good will) the mullahs must be made to focus their minds. They must be scared again.

This means drop the cringing. Stop the disengaged stance on the vile actions of the mullahs and their ilk. It means stop bemoaning our military weakness, our inability and unwillingness to send more men, more weapons, more ships, more planes, to the far corners of the world in support of policy. It means taking a very strong, very well articulated and quite consistent stance against the current Iranian regime and its actions. It means openly (and covertly) supporting the opposition. It means drawing a firm line in the sand and letting the Iranians know the precise consequences which will result should they cross the line.

It means taking risks. Very real, very large risks. It even means, (say it ain't so) putting the Great Agenda For Transformation at risk.

It means both talking the talk and walking the walk.

It is either that or abject surrender of our core values, principles and, potentially, national and strategic interests to a collection of reactionary True Believers.

That's the choice. It isn't pretty. It isn't nice. It isn't pleasant to contemplate. But, the way in which the choice is made will have massive and continued impact on the future of the US and the world. It is President Obama's call.

The question is simple: Is the Nice Young Man From Chicago both tough enough and smart enough to make it?

One can be forgiven for shuddering over the probable answer.

The Deeply Divided Mind Of Pakistan

If Pakistan or the collective Pakistani people were a single individual there is a better than good chance it would meet the criteria for schizophrenia outlined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. There has never been any real doubt that the Pakistani government was badly split over the nature of the threat or threats confronting it and the country. The Pakistani people are just as badly and deeply conflicted over who should do what regarding "extremists."

In one area alone is the collective mind of Pakistan in full unity. That area is religion. Specifically, Islam of an austere and demanding nature.

The government of Pakistan most recently demonstrated its capacity at double think (the capability to entertain two, antipodal ideas at the same time with the same fervor) in the matter of the US UAV hit on Baitullah Mehsud. The Pakistani Interior Minister, Rehman Malik, is apparently quite pleased that the "drone" whacked the Taliban heavy. At the same time he demanded an end to the UAV operations.

It is not that the minister has anything against the Predators and Reapers in principle. No, not at all. Actually, he is rather in favor of them. So much so that he (along with the rest of the current government) demands the US furnish some to Pakistan so that the Pakistanis can decide against whom and at what time the machines will be used.

The target could be Taliban. It might be al-Qaeda. Or, it could be in India.

Considering the long standing focus on India as the main enemy, there is no reason to believe that the government has suddenly experienced an epiphany resulting in Taliban outranking the feared and hated power to Pakistan's south. This fundamental orientation is good and sufficient reason for the US not to pass along UAVs to Islamabad--even if we had some to spare, which we don't.

Malik maintains that the UAV attacks kill too many civilians. In this the Interior Minister is accurately reflecting the view of the majority of Pakistanis. The average Pakistani in the mosque is highly negative about both the UAVs and the US. Anti-Americanism has grown in recent years and months to the point that a poll taker hanging around after the Friday sermon would have no difficulty determining that most Pakistanis see the US as the new main enemy. India drops to a distant second place.

While the death-from-on-high delivered by remote control may be a high profile symptom, it is but a symptom of the underlying splits in the minds of Pakistanis. So also is the anti-Americanism which is far more apparent than real. Far more a sign of the divisions within than a stand alone phenomenon which should alarm policy makers (or their critics.)

The Pew Global Attitudes Project gives some important tools which aid in both parsing the nature and extent of Pakistani schizophrenia and understanding its relationship to the anti-American sentiments. The same report provides important insights into just how Pakistanis view Islam and what constitutes "extremism."

One very important factor in contemporary Pakistani public opinion is the growth in negative perceptions of both Taliban and al-Qaeda over the past year. Currently seventy percent of Pakistanis have an unfavorable view of Taliban, which is more than double the percentage a year ago. The unfavorable view of al-Qaeda has nearly doubled from thirty-four to sixty-one percent. At the same time the favorable views of these groups has dropped significantly with only ten percent or less entertaining the positive outlook.

During the same period the percentage of Pakistanis concerned over "extremism" in the country has inched from seventy-two to seventy-nine percent. When the views on aspects of Islam or, more accurately, Islamist, doctrine and practices are taken in to account, one may wonder just how Pakistanis understand the word, "extremism."

The Pew pulse-takers found that more Pakistanis view India as a "very serious" threat than either al-Qaeda or Taliban. India leads the threat parade in the minds of sixty-nine percent with Taliban coming in with fifty-seven and al-Qaeda trailing at forty-one percent. At the same time some sixty-four percent of Pakistanis perceive the US as an "enemy" while only nine percent view the US as a "partner."

Going a bit deeper in the numbers, the anti-US feelings are nuanced. Over half of all Pakistanis want improved relations with the US. They perceive the best, fastest road to improved relations is for the US to pump humanitarian and economic development money into the country. Just shy of nine in ten Pakistanis want to see Yankee greenbacks flood the areas now contested with the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The men at the mosque also are in favor of the US providing intelligence assistance to their government and armed forces.

Just don't kill anybody while you're at it. Money good. Intel OK. Doing something lethal is seen as very, very bad.

The downturn in favorable views of Taliban and al-Qaeda has been driven by the boisterous way in which the jihadists have been killing and maiming Pakistani civilians. It has also been driven in lesser part by the dim perception that the US strikes have been in response to the jihadist actions.

Factoring in the overwhelmingly positive feelings Pakistanis demonstrate regarding their Army, a rough calculus can be developed. Muslim troops kill jihadists--very, very good. Jihadists kill troops--very bad. Jihadists kill Pakistani civilians--very, very bad. Infidel American machines kill miscreant jihadists--very, very, very, very bad. Infidel Americans give Muslim Pakistanis money--very, very, very, very good.

Now the problem of defining "extremism." By most standards the monolithic views of Pakistanis on Islamic matters would be "extreme." Overwhelming majorities approve of applying the death penalty to any individual who "leaves" Islam for another religion, lopping off hands and feet or whipping for crimes such as theft, and stoning adulterers to death. These attitudes are indistinguishable from the practices and beliefs of both Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Only in the area of education for girls and women does the Pakistani perspective differ from that espoused by the Islamist jihadists. More than eighty percent of Pakistanis see education being equally important for both sexes.

A final, very important datum located by the Pew survey folks. Pakistanis are intensely nationalistic. The national identity trumps the ethnic or linguistic for nine out of ten. This goes a very long way in explaining why Pakistanis so strongly disapprove of the UAV attacks. They are seen a violation of national sovereignty.

The nationalistic orientation of both people and government is not only a cause of the apparent schizophrenia, it also suggests a way out for the US. The way out includes providing humanitarian and economic development aid as has already been proposed and partially put into action. It also requires a much stronger, far more public effort to persuade the Pakistani public that the UAV strikes are taken with the full cooperation, approval, and support of the Pakistani government.

So far the government of Pakistan may well know that most if not all strikes are undertaken with the knowledge and approval of Islamabad. But, the public does not know. It must be brought into the loop. Both the US and Pakistani governments must get on the stick and let the people of the country know that their national sovereignty is not being infringed or shown disrespect by the infidels and their machines.

The Interior Minister and all the others at the upper levels of both the government and the Army (which is the most trusted institution in Pakistan) must let their people know in no uncertain terms that the UAV strikes are both approved of and highly important in stopping "extremism." Maybe it is past time to go to the videotapes and show the Pakistani in the mosque just what is being done, how it is being done--and just who is being killed down range.

Sometimes dropping the veil of unnecessary secrecy is critical to achieving a necessary success. In this case the success will come when the Pakistanis both in and out of government can overcome the bad case of schizophrenia which is impairing our common effort against the black turbans of Islamist jihadism.

One More Search For An Easy Out

There is little doubt that the results of last weekend's North American summit was a disappointment for advocates of immigration "reform" in the US. Bowing to the winds of political realism, President Obama admitted that there would be no effort in the direction of establishing a "pathway to citizenship" this year, campaign promises to the contrary notwithstanding.

While it may be a refreshing novelty to see the ambitious and energetic Nice Young Man From Chicago acknowledge that his Agenda of Transformation might have been a tad overreaching in its breadth, this is no way has changed the view of governments from Mexico City on to the south. In the Central American region, there are few (if any) matters of greater importance than the Great Gringo of the North opening its borders.

It might be argued that there are other, far more pressing issues than what the CentAm politicos and opinion molders call "migration," such as rampant crime, increasing poverty, and severe fraying of the social compact. However, a review of the region's media quickly shows the facility with which each and every one of these is linked to the unwillingness of the US to open its borders to all comers.

Mexican governmental officials in common with their colleagues in most Central American countries agree that the economic and social problems currently faced are monumental. But, almost without exception, the next sentence pushes responsibility onto the US for its "failure" to "reform" its "migration" laws and policies.

There is no arguing against the contention that immigration both legal and illegal has been and is critical to the social and economic stability of Mexico and other countries in the region. Not only does the aggregate of remittances from "migrants" provide highly significant revenues, the border serves as a social and political safety valve of great value to regime stability.

With the decrease in the number of "migrants" as well as the total value of repatriated remittances, the money available in the lands south of the border has decreased. At the same time the direct and indirect costs of higher unemployment and its attendant factors have increased. From public assistance to the internal drug war, the expenses have gone fast boost right on through the stratosphere.

By focusing on the Great Gringo Conspiracy To Fence US Out, the Mexican government and its elite supporters have sought to avoid responsibility for the well-being of all Mexicans. While the same may be said of other regional countries, Mexico is the local seven hundred pound gorilla as well as being the number one source of both "migrants" and complaints about American policies on "migrants."

So, it deserves the pride of place.

Mexico has large economic problems. No one would dispute this. It is also a country of vast resources, an energetic and able population, and tolerably well developed essentials such as education and public health. Again, few, if any would dispute this.

The answer to Mexico's economic difficulties does not reside in outsourcing Mexican workers to the Land of the Gringos. It rests with the development of Mexico's indigenous resources, both material and human. This, of course, costs money. A lot of money.

Mexico has a lot of exploitable minerals. It also has a whole lot of oil. Additionally, the country has very large and unexploited agricultural potential. It deserves mentioning that the minerals and oil as well as much of the agriculture was initially developed (some would say mercilessly exploited) by foreign, particularly American, money and interests.

That reality constitutes one of the two dinosaurs at the dinner table that the highly nationalistic Mexicans do not want to admit. (The other is the Mexican responsibility for the Mexican-American War in the mid-1840's. More of that in a few minutes.)

Porfirio Diaz was an autocrat. A dictator who overstayed his welcome by quite a few years. A century and more ago, after having left seminary to join the war against the US, Diaz went into politics. He became president. A sort of an early form of president-for-life. As such he oriented himself to the economic development of Mexico. In the process he sold most of the country to foreigners, particularly Americans.

During his thirty-one years in office, foreigners, specifically the gringos, came to own the vast majority of the aggregate wealth of Mexico. Concentrating at first in agriculture including ranching, the outsiders shifted to the extraction industries, including the first development of Mexico's oilfields and then transportation and industry. While the foreigners, led by Americans, did exploit Mexican labor, they did not do so to an extent significantly greater than did the Mexican elite.

Along with abusing labor, the outsiders did create the infrastructure which supported Mexico--or at least those dining at the head of the table--for generations following the overthrow of Diaz and the decades of internal war which ensued. The impoverishment of Mexicans would have been orders of magnitude worse in the wake of the bloody and highly destructive internal wars had it not been for the fruits of the (nationalized post-Diaz) industrial, extraction, and agricultural infrastructure created by the Americans and others.

Even in the diminished form, these existed after stability was restored in the late 1920s. The artifacts of the gringo "robber barons" provided a sound basis for the continued development of Mexico during the years of the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. Not all Mexicans benefited from the structures left behind by the expropriated foreign investments. Not by a long way.

The government, dominated by PRI for more than three quarters of a century, benefited. So did those members of the elite which supported the continuation of the one party state. The mutual back scratching of PRI and the elite assured that prosperity would be ever more mal-distributed, and that proper investment in infrastructure and human resources would be neglected.

The consequences of this inequitable distribution of wealth and lack of investment in both infrastructure and human resource development were delayed through the 1950s, '60s, and '70s by the availability of Gringoland. Under assorted "guest worker" programs as well as illegal immigration, surplus workers were siphoned off to the north and the wages, at least in part, went south.

This approach was assisted by the growth of the co-production facilities established in ever growing numbers along the border. Mexicans got good jobs at rates of pay greater than deeper in the interior of the country and American (as well as other foreign owned) companies got a decreased cost of production. NAFTA was supposed to build upon and greatly expand this avenue of economic development.

This road paved with good intentions ran into the cross-traffic of globalization. One important result of the opening of China under President Clinton was the introduction of lower cost competition to Mexico. Not even the transportation costs offset the advantages of producing goods in China or elsewhere in Asia with the result that NAFTA never has reached its full potential for Mexican development.

A major answer to the economic problems which have become increasingly acute in Mexico over the past decade is found in the oilfields, particularly the offshore fields. The proper development of these will require money far beyond the capacity of the Mexican state-owned oil company to generate. It also demands expertise which is lacked by Pemex. To put it bluntly, the proper development of the nascent oil resources under the Gulf of Mexico as well as the repair and upgrading of the old fields requires outside investment and expertise.

Privately, few, if any, Mexicans would disagree that the best, fastest, overall economic development would result from opening the new fields as well as the old to co-production schemes involving US companies. Publicly, the embracing of this position would be political suicide.

Nationalism!

Mexico is so exuberantly, so joyously nationalistic, one would be forgiven in thinking it had been independent for only a handful of years rather than the two centuries which is the case. In its adamant, almost irredentist nationalism, Mexico more closely resembles a polity in the freshness of infancy than one which has attained a respectable maturity.

In its genuine infancy, Mexico made a few critical mistakes. First, it invited Americans to settle in the province of Tejas. Second, the Mexican commander sent to squash the rebellious Texicans was better at politics than at fighting a real, shooting war. Third, the revanchist minded Mexicans sought (successfully) a war with the US.

The Mexicans had a good war plan for fighting the gringos. They were so proud of it that it was even published in the newspapers of the day. They were also proud of their army, which Mexicans assured one another would speedily defeat the Americans and reclaim Texas and the honor lost at San Jacinto. The French and British governments both concurred with the Mexicans in this belief.

All were wrong.

The US actually let the Mexicans off easily with the peace treaty, given the military and political realities. Uncle Sam kept Texas, took California (which the Polk administration wanted very much as Polk saw the US as a Pacific Ocean power) and the land lines of communication between Texas and California, which meant what is now New Mexico and Arizona. The "large Mexico" faction prevailed in Congress for two reasons: no slave-friendly terrain was included outside of Texas and the US population was going through a peak of anti-Catholic sentiment.

Far from having been the victim of Yankee aggression as Mexicans have liked to think for the past century and a half, the war was sought, provoked, and entered into with glee by the Mexican government and elite. The truth hurts nationalistic egos, but there it is.

Not that many years later it was the US which reclaimed Mexico for the Mexicans when Napoleon III tried to establish a French "protectorate" over the country. Preoccupied by the War Between the States there was nothing the US could do at first. But, when the US reminded Paris that Sherman's Army of the West was now unemployed following the Confederate surrender, the overreaching French withdrew the Foreign Legion supporting Emperor Maximilian and that was that.

Of course, this American action receives little if any credit in Mexico. In the same vein the Mexicans give no public credit to the Yankees who laid the foundations of much of the nation's prosperity. Of such is nationalism comprised.

Now, rather than get a grip on the realities of life and invite foreign firms to assist directly in the development of the oilfields and other extractive industries so as to provide both jobs now and tax revenue necessary for development generally, the Mexicans look for the usual villain--the US. Rather than let go of the badly frayed comfort blanket of hyper-nationalism and actually do something constructive about the fundamental economic and social problems, the Mexican government and elite would much, much rather heave epithets and accusations at Washington.

It is far easier and much cheaper to demand "migration" reform in the presumed needs of Mexican social and economic stability than it is to drop the myth of a history which never was and spend money which the ricos would much prefer to spend on their own perceived needs and desires. It is simpler, if ultimately self-defeating, to whine about American unwillingness to accept every Mexican who makes it across the border than to take real, effective action to solve the problems at home.

Mexico is two hundred years of age. Almost as old as the US. It is long past time that the Mexican government act its age. Quit whining, stop your bitching about the border. Get on with the job of providing a decent present and future for your citizens. Even if it means having to accept foreign investment and investors for the first time in generations.

Borders First--Peace Later

The best way to cut through the who-is-going-to-duck-first dynamic currently at work in the Israeli-Palestinian contretemps is not the freezing of the Israeli "settlements" as the Obama administration has been attempting. Nor is it the effort to cozen or coerce the assorted Arab states led by Saudi Arabia to make cosmetic "concessions" to Israel as the letter signed by seventy-one US Senators has urged.

The best approach is one which focuses on establishing borders between Israel and the proposed Palestinian state on the West Bank. At the same time the matter of a workable border between Israel and Syria which returns the Golan Heights to Syria must be addressed. This would leave only the Shaba Farms as territory disputed between Lebanon, Syria, and Israel in abeyance.

Now, Bucko, let's take a dekko at each border question in turn.

The Israeli "settlements" are an irreversible fact on the ground. This includes the belt which has been constructed around East Jerusalem and East Jerusalem itself. The necessary starting point is to acknowledge that the oft spoken of "Green Line" was an artifact of the 1949 Armistice, which ended active hostilities between Israel and the Arab coalition which had sought to throw the Jews into the sea.

More importantly, it must be acknowledged by all parties--including the Obama administration--that the "Green Line" was drawn where it was because of a deal between King Abdullah I of Jordan and the emerging Israeli government. The deal was based on a mutual agreement that Israeli forces would not move into those portions of Palestine reserved for the Arabs under the UN formula if Jordan's Arab Legion refrained from entering those areas reserved by the partition to the new Jewish state.

The agreement between Jordan and Israel held. The Arab Legion did not enter Jewish portions and the infant IDF stayed out of the areas reserved for Arab occupation. Since the Old City of Jerusalem was not specifically partitioned by the UN, the Arab Legion did successfully defend that place against attacks by the Jewish fighters. This meant, of course, that the West (or Wailing) Wall remained in Jordanian hands.

When the IDF opened the Great Land Grab War of 1967, the government of Israel warned Jordan to sit it out. Unfortunately Jordan's King Hussein felt this was an impossibility given the external and internal Arab pressures brought to bear upon him. As a result, the Jordanian forces were defeated and both the Old City and West Bank occupied by Israel.

It is important to note that contemporary documents including those of the Lyndon Johnson administration show that Israel would not have entered either the Old City or the West Bank had the Jordanian army remained on a purely defensive basis. This would have been the case despite intense pressures within both the people and government of Israel to gobble up the West Bank, and to an even greater extent, the Old City of Jerusalem.

When push comes to shove, the real deal is that the decision by King Hussein to enter the war alongside Egypt and Syria brought about not only the defeat of the Jordanian Army but the consequent occupation of the West Bank and the Old City. This is the ground truth even granting that no one in the government of Israel was at all disturbed by Jordan refusing to accept the warning. Indeed, there is powerful evidence that the relevant Israeli decision makers were betting the ranch on King Hussein reacting as he did.

Having acquired the West Bank and the Old City by what used to be called "right of conquest," the government of Israel wasted no time perfecting their claim on the new lands by creating what the government termed, "facts on the ground." These facts were reinforced by the official annexation of the Old City (or East Jerusalem) within months of its having been taken.

As had been the case in 1948-49, the removal of Arabs from the newly acquired lands was encouraged by the Israeli governments as well as the assorted Arab governments. Both population relocation and the creation of facts on the ground were in no way influenced by the actions and stances adopted by the US or the UN.

Available declassified documents suggest powerfully that the government of Israel not only never contemplated the exchange of land for peace in the West Bank but was of the view that the Arab population of the disputed territory would accommodate itself to the changed reality--or leave.

The government of Israel was wrong as events of the past forty years have demonstrated amply. Arguably, the best course of action would have been the immediate return of most of the West Bank to Jordan while Israel retained East Jerusalem and the land necessary for what was initially conceived of as a species of defensive belt. But, most of the movers and shakers in Israeli politics were convinced that the Jordanian monarchy's days were numbered and that the number wasn't large.

The negotiations conducted by Arafat and the rest of the Fatah combine which resulted in what is now the territory of the Palestinian Authority were poorly conducted by the Arabs. The government of Israel took full and complete advantage of the Fatah-men and spun circles around them. The Fatah types were too eager for some semblance of success and were willing to sign almost any deal, even one which left the under-construction Palestinian Authority with too little land, even less water, and an absence of territorial integrity.

The Arab's failure cannot and should not be blamed on the government of Israel. The chickens which are roosting today are purely those of an Arab provenance.

The fact of the matter (as lawyers like to say) is that the government of Israel is not going to abandon the majority of the "settlements" and relocate the 300,000 Israelis living in them to "their" side of the ancient "Green Line." For the Arabs to expect this is purely hallucinatory.

This implies that the crux of the border issue between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is finding a means of redrawing the no-longer-operative "Green Line" so as to accommodate current reality. This means the new border must include most, but not quite all, the post-1967 construction on the Israeli side. In return the Israelis would concede barren land from Israel's side of the "Green Line" to the Palestinian Authority so that the latter could honestly state that the new Palestinian state had the same number of square kilometers as the pre-1967 West Bank.

That would be the easiest of the several "border" issues to settle. The issue of East Jerusalem is much, much tougher. The starting point here is the reality of Israeli annexation. While that act has never been recognised internationally, there is no chance that Israel is going to undo the annexation. No Israeli government could survive politically.

At the same time the Arabs have declared that Jerusalem is to be the capital of the Palestinian state. This declaration has been reinforced by the Muslim view of the Dome of the Rock as the third most holy site on the Islamic map.

As President Obama has found out, the status of Jerusalem is the worst sort of regional third rail. There is no real probability that either the Israelis or the Palestinians will continence the other having sole proprietorship of the place. There is no high probability that some sort of joint government can be worked out, at least in the next few years. This is true even though it is the most likely to work over time arrangement for Jerusalem.

Perhaps some sort of Jerusalem "neutral zone" agreement can be achieved with both Israel and the PA agreeing to jointly administer the municipality while neither claims it to be the capital and Israel provides the infrastructure services. In this way there is some slim possibility that propinquity can breed trust. Admittedly, this is a slight and frail reed on which to place much hope, but there aren't a lot of alternatives.

The Golan Heights is second only to Jerusalem as one tough problem. The Israelis want the water of the Golan. This flow currently provides Israel with roughly fifteen percent of its water. Syria wants the Golan. Both the land and the water. Syria is facing a diminishing amount of surface and sub-surface water which has already heavily and negatively affected the country's agriculture.

Israel is flatly lying when it maintains that its national security depends upon holding the Golan Heights. The national security dodge might have been true in 1967 or even during the 1973 war when Syria came within millimeters of breaking through the final Israeli defense line. (Note, it was US provided intelligence that allowed the IAF to redeploy its aircraft from the Sinai front to the Golan in finest "cavalry-to-the-rescue" style.)

There is no way that Israeli national security depends upon occupying let alone effectively annexing the Golan today and into the future. Not only has the change in offensive and defensive weapons technology militated against this contention, the continued presence of the UN truce monitoring force is an additional guarantee for both sides.

Israel is going to have to give up the Golan Heights if it wants a comprehensive peace treaty. Take a grip on this. The status of the Golan is the best measure of Israeli good intentions. On that basis, considering the recent statements of ForMin Lieberman, Israel has no interest in a comprehensive peace. None.

The Obama administration would be very well advised to focus on Syria. If it can lever the government of Israel into reaching an agreement with Syria which sees the return of the Golan then there will be a reasonable basis to believe that Israel is willing and able to achieve a general peace. If not, well, then the true color of Israel's intentions will be evident for all to see including the seventy-one senators whose names appear on the recent letter to Obama.

The Obama administration seems willing to accept that the march to peace in the Mideast will be a slow one. The Deep Foreign Policy Thinkers appear ready to accept the one-step-after-another approach to peace. The problem resides in their collective failure to identify the right first step.

The right first step is borders. Within that step, the first move should be on the Syrian matter. If nothing else, Syria is a rational actor with a single well delineated goal. And, the will and ability of Israel to make a concession based deal on the Golan is a very good, an unbeatable test of its sincerity and flexibility.

It's worth a try.

On Safari With Secretary Clinton--Part II

Secretary of State Clinton took her roadshow to Angola and, most recently, the Democratic Republic of Congo. All was superficially love, kisses, and flower-power in Angola. The scene was much less pleasant in the DRC.

The Congo is a mess. It has been a mess since independence arrived ahead of schedule and in a welter of violence just under fifty years ago. Except for the years of repression under Mobutu, the Congo, under its varied names, has been the central bloodbath of Africa. The place laid claim to the title of The Great Sanguinary Swamp as the Belgians pulled out and the locals started shooting, raping, and committing wholesale robbery of anything and everything that was not nailed down. And, if it was spiked in, they just got a longer crowbar.

The US and USSR used the Congo as a Cold War playground. Play, except the stakes were real for those who killed and were killed.

(Paee, the NYT, which in its summary of Ms Clinton's visit incorrectly pinned the tail of blame on the ass of the CIA for the murder of Patrice Lumumba, the pro-Soviet prime minister. Actually, while Dr Death at the Agency had prepared a subtle poison for use on Patrice, it was members of Mobutu's militia who mutilated Lumumba with predictably fatal results. What the hey! Truth, who needs it when you can kick the Agency.)

In the event, the US, working from Cold War imperatives, which confused short-term order with long-term stability, backed Mobutu. This man was a stone psycho who killed, looted, and exhibited megalomania in the first degree. His orgy of looting, killing, governmental inefficiency, and corruption assured that when he was finally removed, the Congo would lack the basics necessary for a functioning state. American policy under presidents from John Kennedy to Ronald Reagan is palpably guilty of grave crimes against the people and future of the Congo.

The Cold War imperatives were also at work in the US involvement in the twenty-seven years of internal war which devastated Angola following its gaining independence from Portugal in the mid-Seventies. We played a dangerous and ultimately futile game in the three-way war for dominance in the oil and mineral rich country. When the shooting finally stopped in 2002, our man in Angola, Jonas Savimbi, was dead and the Soviet/Cuban backed Jose Dos Santos was president.

Fortunately George W. Bush was too involved with adventures in regime change elsewhere to attempt to reverse matters in Angola. However, the quarter of a century of war had left Angola a complete ruin. In the past seven years it has made great strides to recovering the long lost infrastructure, including agriculture. More importantly, the Dos Santos government held legislative elections last year which were, particularly by African standards, free, honest, and transparent.

The scheduled presidential election has slipped to 2010 for reasons which may or may not be valid. Ms Clinton strenuously urged Dos Santos to hold the elections as soon as practical. The Angolan government gave no indication of disagreeing with this.

Ms Clinton presided over the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between Chevron Oil and both the US and Angolan government providing for the use of some oil revenues for urgent requirements in agricultural and small business development. This MOU is important since Angola is rapidly overtaking Nigeria as the number one oil exporter in Africa. Despite the flow of money from the oil sector, the majority of the Angolan population is very, very poor, existing on two bucks a day or less. Only a more equitable and rapid spreading of the oil wealth in ways which benefit both agriculture and business will remedy this and, in the process, help assure that another round of instability does not wrack the country.

Of course, the American effort to spread the oil wealth around may assist the US government in countering the increased influence of China in Angola. The Beijing regime has gained more than a little traction with the Angolan government due to its practice of providing development money without any of those American style strings regarding human rights, democracy, and honesty in government. Without getting into the endless debate regarding pragmatism versus idealism in the practice of diplomacy, suffice it to say that the Chinese approach, not unlike the American customs of the Cold War period, provide major short-term benefits, but, arguably, the US linkage of development efforts with the critical ineffables will prove the winner in the longer term.

A stable Angola with increased oil exports is in our national interest. Currently, approximately seven percent of our oil comes from Angola including the Cabinda Enclave. The percentage can go higher, particularly if the MEND insurgency in Nigeria continues to shrink that country's production. To put it crassly, better the oil comes here than it goes to China.

The Angolan government, particularly its foreign minister, were fulsome in praise of Ms Clinton, her remarks, and the MOU. President Dos Santos called his talk with her on environmental issues, military cooperation, and democratic reform, "superb." Considering the past record of the US in Angola, specifically our long running effort to keep Dos Santos from power, that comment, if true, is powerful reason to think the bilateral relations may go from "correct" to "near ally."

Matters did not go so well in Congo. That is no surprise. The US is in large measure responsible for the current situation in the country. This was never the intent of any of the administrations which supported Mobutu regardless of his more than slightly evident deficiencies.

Rather, it is the Law of Unintended Consequences at work. The Congo has never been able to develop any of the necessary structures of government. Nor has it been able to foster orderly development of its vast mineral resources. It has not been able to provide for basic, let alone advanced, education for the overwhelming majority of its citizens. The country has never been able, allowed, would be the more accurate term, to foster the idea of a national citizenship in the congeries of tribes which constitute its population.

Absent a national identity, lacking national institutions, without a national infrastructure, but possessed of great and easily exploited resources, it has been almost inevitable that the DRC has become a tottering, war-wracked simulacrum of a nation-state. The Belgians ran a vast enterprise of exploitation. Independence brought Cold War politics with a vengeance. The aftermath of these as well as the legacy of Mobutu's lootocracy is what is seen today.

Eastern Congo is a venue of internal war with outsider influences. It is the rape capital of Africa. The major reason SecState Clinton flew into the regional metropolis, Goma, was to underscore the reality of mass rape as a chronic feature of warfare, Congo style.

The body count in the Congo at least equals the 1.5 million of Angola, and the internally displaced person count may well surpass Angola's 4 plus million. The consequences of this hectatomb include a loss of perceived legitimacy for the central government and a pervasive sense of hopelessness on the part of the area's youth. Considering the median age of the Congolese is 16.6 years, this means a lot of despair on the part of a lot of people.

While the UN peace keeping force in the Congo may be almost equal to the task of suppressing the dozens of armed groups fighting each other and the central government, the blue helmets cannot build hope, let alone a functioning nation-state. Nor can Ms Clinton's hectoring and imploring.

When a country, in this case the US, makes major foreign policy blunders, regardless of the reasons, intentions, or motives, that country must, repeat, must make amends. The amends must be real, practical, and quick to take some evident effect. Rather than to pass off as Ms Clinton reportedly did, the mistakes of the past as something she cannot "excuse," the US should come forward with a plan of action taken in conjunction with the Congolese government and, where relevant, the UN, with a view to rectifying the results.

This implies the commitment of resources which we can ill afford. Perhaps of manpower, which we certainly cannot afford. It means working with a government which is more one in name only than in substance. It means working to gain the trust of a people who have very, very little reason to trust us and our intentions. It means an exercise in time, frustration, and perhaps too few results coming too late.

Still, it is an effort we must make. We must make it if the current administration is to have credibility in Africa. We must make it if we are to justly see ourselves as the "last, best hope of mankind" or the "shining city on the hill."

As we had the responsibility to do our best to clean up the mess we made in Iraq, we have the ethical and practical responsibility to do our best to clean up the mess our past policies have created in the Congo, in Angola, and all the other dirty little proxy battlefields on the margins of the Cold War.

With victory come the responsibilities of having won.

And, that's a fact, Jack.