Gaza Protests In Beirut

A juxtaposition of how viciously stupid Israel is being, via Fox News:

The day after Christmas, White House special counsel Charles Colson told the president that the American people needed to hear "some explanation of why it is we're continuing to bomb [North Vietnam], and that it isn't simply an exercise in trying to decimate a country."

"It's too damn bad we aren't decimating the country," Nixon snapped.

"I wish to hell we were," Colson replied.

"We're doing one hell of a lot," the president continued, marveling at North Vietnam's "war-making capabilities." But Nixon added that the North had been "clobbered this time, because...I told [Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Thomas] Moorer...'Now look here. May 8th, we mined, we bombed. We did a hell of a lot. And it set 'em back a year. Now, we're going to set 'em back two years."

Nixon then told Colson: "The targets they've had have been really something. Everything, except, of course, we're avoiding civilians. I mean, even -- with all the screaming about civilians, believe me: If we were trying, the goddamn place would be leveled. Leveled!"

"God, yes," replied Colson, who after pleading guilty during the Watergate scandals became a born-again Christian and dedicated his life to his Prison Fellowship ministry.

The next day, talking by telephone with Kissinger, the commander-in-chief said of the enemy: "We gave 'em a hell of a good bang, you know. And I'm glad we only lost two B-52s. That wasn't too bad."

Kissinger pointed out that a loss rate of three percent was "about average."

"We're punishing the hell out of them, aren't we?" Nixon asked.

"Oh, there's no question about it," Kissinger replied. The NSC chief added that the French foreign minister had shared with American diplomats a report from France's consul general in Hanoi in which the Frenchman fretted: "I've just lived through the most terrifying hour of my life. An unbelievable raid has just taken place."

When Kissinger, a former Harvard professor and master courtier, sought to flatter his boss, the president cut him off. "You have shown that you are not to be trifled with," Kissinger told the president, producing a mirthless chuckle from Nixon.

"I wouldn't worry about the people here," Nixon said. "I mean, they're bitching around in the news magazines. Don't worry about it, Henry. It's not all that important. The public isn't that much concerned about all this."

The Seizures Of Lebanon

Although it has been almost completely ignored by the media, Dick Cheney has been touring the Mid-East lately, and I don't think it's for the excellent chummus.

Just as Israel's prime minister Olmert sends diplomatic signals to Turkey that it wants their top diplomat to seek a settlement with Syria, Mr. Shadow President shows up in Tel Aviv. Then rumors start flying about Israeli super-spies in Tehran who have "the real goods" on Iranian weapons programs, Cheney pronounces our last NIE on it (saying there is no immediate threat) completely off-base, and Olmert is suddenly on the political brink again, this time over corruption charges. All coincidences.

Then, Lebanon's minority government put pressure on Hezbollah, the unseated majority party in that country, in effect attempting to disarm them. This is like Pee Wee Herman challenging George Forman to a boxing match. Hezbollah's leader in Lebanon, Hassan Nasrallah, held a press conference to say, "The decisions (of the government) are tantamount to a declaration of war and the start of a war...on behalf of the United States and Israel. We have the right to confront he who starts a war with us by defending our rights and our weapons."

Hours later, Hezbollah militiamen took over the streets of Beirut, sacking and burning whatever they wanted--TV stations, government offices. Lebanon's titular leaders huddled in their apartment compounds behind army and police contingents, probably emptying their safes before issuing calls to their troops to retreat, and calls to Al Qaeda to send in Sunni fighters. The last part is funny, because the US is lavishly financing Saad Hariri's Beirut-based Future Movement, it is Sunni, is known to have passed money and fighters into Iraq and Afghanistan, and is for all intents and purposes part of Al-Qaeda.

The net outcome of yesterday's donnybrook is that Hezbollah, the lever of Tehran, will probably win a much larger place in Lebanon's government. Somehow, one doubts that was the intended effect, but these are the circumstances we've been reduced to. And this is apparently the best Dick Cheney can do.

Turkey Masses 150,000 On Northern Iraq Border...And Much, Much More!

It's great to see Turkey finally doing its part to help out with the region's stability. At the preceding link, the Bush Administration claims that there is no build-up, which means they're taking this time-honored imperial diplomatic approach: "Oh, crap! Now what?? What did we promise the Turkeys, again?" Of course, Turkey has been making noise since at least April, noise of the shooting kind, and has been going over the border into Kurdistan to chase the ethnic secessionist Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) militias. That was with only 30,000 troops. If my math is correct, this is something bigger. For some reason, Turkey feels like they're owed some Kurdish oil in exchange for helping out with Gulf Wars I and II, and they think the US welched on the deal. Whether the build-up is gamesmanship or for real remains to be seen, but a Turkish invasion of Kurdistan is much closer to a "for real" than it was a year ago, now backed by 15 combat divisions.

Next, Israel has mobilized its divisions to either get ready to attack Syria or to re-invade Lebanon. How do I know this? Oh, you know...I listen to Hebrew hip-hop, eat at a kosher deli, that kinda stuff. Syria today just warned all Syrians to leave Lebanon ahead of a military "eruption" they think will take place next week. Plus, Israel is outraged that Hezbollah has been preparing defensive positions in southern Lebanon, somewhat like when France built the Maginot Line defenses, it outraged Hitler.

I and others believe Israel plans to attack over the Golan Heights, stomp on the conventional Syrian army, make Assad flee, then wheel around and attack Hezbollah in Lebanon from the rear pay-back style. The Syrians and Hezbollah Lebanese will get to try out all their new Russian weapons, including the world's most advanced anti-aircraft missile systems and more of the same portable anti-tank weapons that took out Merkava tanks. Amazingly, the Israelis, who still fight blitzkrieg-style using WWII armored-column tactics, didn't learn their lesson in Lebanon last summer. They might make it through Syria. But they'll get out-boxed in Lebanon, and worse this time than the last. Their troopers are thoroughly demoralized, and even if their equipment issues are solved, they are ill-led. Highly motivated foot soldiers equipped with heavy-punch weapons can tie down armored columns if they can make the air assets stand off. Especially coming off a popular victory. Last summer, Hezbollah learned it took very few missiles to make Israeli pilots skittish. So they went out and stocked up on them like they were Roman candles.

Finally, rumors of Iraq withdrawal discussions in the White House abound. Yes, there will be an Iraq withdrawal just like there was always going to be: to 3-6 permanent bases manned by 3-4 divisions and @50,000 mercenaries. This is not a "bring the troops home" pull-back. It's a "let's free them up to use somewhere else" strategy. And that won't work either. In other news today, the Mahdi Army clashed today with US forces north of Baghdad last night. The Sadrists are the most numerous, main-stream, and powerful group in the country, and they've been holding back based upon their leader Moqtada's say-so. This blows no good.

As you know, I'm a bit skeptical about the Occupants of the White House ever leaving it. But I neglected to mention another increasingly likely scenario: outright military defeat and devolution into Mid-East regional chaos. This has already been taken as a given by the countries in Iraq's sphere for over a year. Even loyal Saudi Arabia is planning for war. Turkey's build-up is like a vulture edging up to a tourist dying of thirst. The proxies of the surrounding countries which correspond to the dominant domestic interest groups will move in to stabilize the remnants of Iraq whether the US wants them to or not. When, not if. Proximity and intelligence are vast advantages in war's logistics.

It might be the Republican Party which, suffering from Cheney Fatigue, will stop the war. The cabal is the war, so stopping it is congruent to throwing them out of power. In a possibly delicious historical irony, it was George Bush Senior, who, while chair of the Republican National Committee, penned the letter to Nixon asking him to resign for the good of the country. Too hopeful? Maybe. But the military situation on the ground is rapidly coming to a head, it's not developing in our Empire's favor, and a growing number of insiders finally are coming to acknowledge the White House can't control that reality.

(Update: Picture above is of Turkish tank column rolling through a small Kurdish village 40 km from the Iraq border on June 1, 2007. The Guardian article is a good brief, available here.)

Israeli PM Olmert About To Resign

The Winograd Commission, a government-appointed investigation of the catastrophic Israeli attack on Lebanon last year, has just hung an anchor around Ehud Olmert's neck, and he's about to get thrown overboard. While not entirely responsible for the worst defeat in Israel's modern history, Olmert didn't exactly add value or cut the losses while the formerly most admired Army in the world was being defeated by the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, and he carries the title of Prime Minister. He and his new 6% approval rating are still hanging tough and refusing to resign, but he'll probably be gone in a matter of days. If anyone reading this happens to be in Israel or plans to be there, it would be good idea to keep tabs on Olmert's whereabouts so you can stay a mile, or preferably two, away from him. If he doesn't resign, crossfires and car-bombs are distinct possibilities. He falls under the domestic "Something Has To Be Done" category, which if the name Yitzak Rabin rings a bell, well...the standing-near-him-thing, not so good right now.

His successor will probably be Tzipi Livni, Israel's Minister of Foreign Affairs (pictured above). This is good. She is a right-wing dove who talks with Arabs, a go-between of consummate skill, and she held secret talks with Fatah and the Third Way (the Palestinian Moe and Curly parties) a couple of months ago. And she's a realist. During the invasion of Lebanon, or what is now being called the Second Lebanon War, she was pushing with everything she had to pull the troops back after the first few days. I don't know if any post about Israel can be filed under 'Progressive Politics,' but there's a first time for everything, and I'm going to try it. The effects of Israel's defeat in Lebanon may have taken longer to come to fruition than I'd hoped, but the fruits may be sweeter.

The Dance Of The Seven Realignments

To know, know, know her is to love, love, love her. Condi Rice just laid out the most transparent, nakedly comprehensive foreign policy since Andrew Jackson told Kit Carson to go West and kill every Indian he saw.* Writer David Ignatius has a chat with her and surfaces some quotes from it. Not to put too fine a point on it, Ignatius is a transmission device for national intelligence, and in "Rice's Strategic Reset," he gives her room to unwind and bask in the effects of her recent policy efforts. Bottom line, Condi is feeling pretty good about how the Mid-East is shaping up, and is ready for her Nobel Peace Prize.

There does appear to be progress at first glance. The US has been breathlessly explaining the threat posed by Iran to nations in the region, and has pimped the benefits of forming a coalition of NATO, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Israel to contain Khomeini's Islamic Revolution. Choosing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as the primary battering ram is natural, since it has been expanding membership steadily eastwards over the last decade to keep Russia in its place. Now NATO is conducting joint operations with Israel and Pakistan, and the US wants to induct both as full knights of the realm, even though they're a looong way from the North Atlantic. NATO as the security apparatus explains why there are British and German naval vessels presently patrolling off Beirut backing a Christian politician in Lebanon. Here is why Condi finally had a good hair day:

The administration's tougher stance against Iran arguably has already produced some results. Iran's firebrand president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, appears to be in political trouble with the ruling mullahs, in part because his reckless talk alienated other Muslims. But the strongest leverage against Iran appears to be the West's unified diplomatic coalition. "The Security Council resolution [condemning Iran's nuclear program and mandating mild sanctions] has had more of an effect than I thought it would," Rice said.

The UN Security Council Resolution against Iran's nuclear ambitions was a Dance of the Seven Veils, useful for amusement and distraction. Much as I love Condi, if she thinks China or Russia will enforce any of the Resolution's specifics, her head's not right. Iran has reined in the rhetoric of its President because it wins by waiting. Allow me to translate Condi's Miss Universe acceptance speech: by promising to maintain the status quo and apportioning future slices of the oil pie, the US feels it can move natural enemies to rapprochement and contain the Persian Plague they all hate. The State Department took the basic building block defined by the Iraq Study Group and started off by saying, "We can all agree that the specter of Iran with nukes is a bad idea, right?"

Well...no. The "we" in question can't agree, not even on that. This realignment, reset, whatever you want to call it (regurgitation?) is built on flimsy, flammable gauze because it ignores one key ISG recommendation, one uncomfortable reality, and one looming, incredibly telling and stupid contradiction.

First, the ISG recommendation it ignores is the necessity to engage Syria and Iran. Here is Her Bad Self on the subject:

The Bush administration's thinking about realignment helps explain why it has resisted engaging Syria and Iran, as recommended by the Baker-Hamilton report. As Rice put it, "You have a 'pan' movement, across the region. The war in Lebanon crystallized it for everyone. You can't just leave it there. . . . If you concentrate on engaging Syria and Iran, you may lose the chance to do the realignment."

In other words, the US blames Iran and Syria for Israel's defeat in Lebanon. This is funny-ha-ha. Didn't Israel first invade Lebanon, then get its ass kicked? It's not like Iran gave Hezbollah fighter planes to bomb Tel Aviv. Condi's plan assumes that Sunnis hate Shiites enough to be divided and conquered along an Iranian fault line. But the US is supporting Sunnis against Shiites, and vice-versa. Pitting tribal peoples against one another is a proven method for disuniting them, true, but the US is supporting Sunnis against Shiites in Lebanon and Afghanistan, then simultaneously supporting Shiites against Sunnis in Iraq. If I can notice the forked tongue flicking, the Saudis and the Pakis can, too. The "Reset" also ignores the fundamentally important fact that Iranian-style self-determination offers a better political solution to the peoples of the Mid-east than we do. It offers a way to balance Islam, parliamentary nationalism, and social modernism. They've got a better formula. That's why they're winning.

Second, the uncomfortable reality of Israel pollutes everything in the Mid-east. As the article states, the plan relies on peace between Palestine and Israel...later. Israel isn't getting out of Palestine. There is not even the slightest demonstration of an Israeli quid pro quo, and from Detroit to Jakarta, Palestine is a potent symbol for the West's oppression of Arabs and muslims. So you have to wonder where the optimism...oh, right...there is civil war blossoming amongst "the natives" in Lebanon and Palestine, and Condi can pat herself on the back for just having given billions of dollars to sow them (Sinoria and the Sunnis vs. Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas vs. Fatah in Palestine). So there's the old colonial divide-and-conquer fallback, but there are limits to how much to rely on that tendency. If I recall correctly, Saudis and Pakis were dancing in the streets when Israel was beaten in Lebanon. Of course, I could be wrong, because staunch allies would never do that.

Finally, there is an internal contradiction which shoots this plan through the head like a 7.62mm AK-47 bullet: if democracy spreads in the region any further, the administration might have to turn it into a parking lot to make it cooperate. When Islamic people vote, they elect Islamic democracies. Get it, Condi? That's where the trouble is coming from in Lebanon, and Palestine, and Iraq! It's BECAUSE they held elections, you preposterous fools!!

And elsewhere, where Islamic people can't vote, they're losing patience faster than they would've if the region had remained democracy-free. Getting very grumpy, in fact. For example, the Musharraf regime in Pakistan will be lucky to last another year before it falls to the generals, whose troops are largely Taliban sympathizers. When Taliban fighters cross the Pakistan border and head into Afghanistan to make attacks, they go through the border checkpoints manned by Pakistani soldiers, and these soldiers lift the gates and say, "Happy hunting, brothers! Bring us the head of an English-man!" Inviting Pakistan into NATO makes about as much sense as inviting Osama bin Laden to sleep in Lincoln's Bedroom. But then maybe that would make sense, because if Pakistan or Saudi Arabia have democratic elections, they'd both elect Osama as President.

Honestly, I think Condi is doing pretty well with a bad hand and doing a glorious job (as usual) of lying her ass off. The Realignment makes perfect sense within the philosophically institutional straitjacket of the Bush Administration. All the US can do is forestall its eclipse in the region for an intermission. The Faisal royal family will soon retreat from Saudi Arabia into cushioned exile, and the Bin Laden family will openly rule what it already runs: a pan-Arabic Islamic coalition. And then Iran, because its social revolution offers a better template for livable, prosperous compromise between Islam and modernism, will become dominant in the region over Saudi wahabism, which, socially, represents a return to medieval feudalism. Iran has already won politically, and the US would be far more effective in its diplomacy and its wars if it recognized that fact. Apparently, it would rather back unsteady allies propped athwart failing regimes, give them a make-over, strut, and hope for the best.