Middle East
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07.27.06
You may have heard that Bob Dylan has been hosting a show on satellite radio. But you may not have heard it, because you don’t have satellite radio. Redemption is now at hand: visit White Man Stew to download archived versions of the show, which is organized around themes such as “Weather,” “Drinking,” “Baseball,” “Coffee,” “Jail,” and “Divorce” (via Philebrity Reader).
Once you’ve heard Bob Dylan introduce music by Lonnie the Cat, Blur, and L.L. Cool J, you won’t look back.
Here’s a sample mp3: Staple Singers, “Uncloudy Day” (with Dylan intro)
Dan Rubin asks why the left has been silent on the conflict in the Middle East.
I’ve said my piece about the war here and here, and I’ll say more about it when I have more to say. Plenty of liberal bloggers on my blogroll have been writing about the war; I think that the assertation that the left has been silent about it is a bit of a canard.
Speaking of war in the Middle East, Terry Gross hosted an excellent program about the subject today on Fresh Air. She interviewed Georgetown Professor Daniel Byman, who provided a remarkably even-handed, and wonderfully edifying, view of the situation. It’s well worth a listen — Byman presents Middle Eastern history and politics in all of their multi-faceted complexity. He affirms certain points currently being trumpeted by American conservatives (such as the deep connections between Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah) who are calling for more war, but he also says that Israel’s response to the kidnapping of its soldiers was disproportionate (that was the point, he argues), and that an American or Israeli attack on Iran is likely to end badly.
If you listen, please let me know whether you agree that Byman’s views were non-partisan.
Two of my daily reads, Lance Mannion and Dan Rubin, wrote about MyHeritage.com, a site that uses facial recognition software to analyze your photos and tell you which celebrities you most resemble.
I thought the whole thing was a crock until I learned that I resemble Heath Ledger (62%), Johnny Depp (59%), River Phoenix (50%), and Michael Vartan (50%). I am now MyHeritage.com’s biggest fan, even if it also pulled up Alan Alda (58%), Dan Rather (57%), and (gasp) Steven Seagal (48%). Hey — any programmer worth her salt will tell you that every piece of software has its glitches. . .
Update: If you like the Dylan shows above, also check out Down in the Flood, a podcast series by Jason Chervokas. Chervokas also writes a very fine blog called Trickster.
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By Matt
posted in Books, Movies, Music, Television, Blogs, Internet, Technology, Celebrity and Celebrities, Links, mp3, War, Middle East
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07.16.06
There has been some disagreement about the Bush administration’s response to the developing war in the Middle East. Hilzoy sees an administration in disarray; Steve Clemons sees an administration whose options have been constrained by Israeli actions; and conservatives, not surprisingly, see an administration reaction that they would describe as “so far, so good.”
What are our ultimate intentions in the current war? This comment by Dan Kervick on the Steve Clemons post sums up what I suspect (and fear) is going to happen (via a comment on Obsidan Wings):
The US and Israel seek to provoke Syrian and Iranian intervention in the Israel-Hizbollah conflict, to provide a causus belli for expanding the Middle East war from Iraq to at least those two countries. Israel is helping Bush with his political problems, and his Iran problem, and is executing the first stages of a coordinated political-military strategy that will lead ultimately to major US military operations against Iran and Syria, a rather large-scale war in the region, and a geopolitical realignment and settling of scores that will be in the end to the advantage Israel and the US - or so they hope - after much loss of life of course.
There is no reason to suspect that this is all an attempt to drag the US into a war it doesn’t want. If that were the case, we would be able to detect that fact from the statements and diplomatic maneuverings of the administration. But we see nothing of the sort. Instead, the administration has gone out of its way to link the conflict between Israel and Hizbollah to Syria and Iran, and to escalate diplomatic tensions rather than defuse them.
I believe Dick Cheney is still in charge of this administration’s foreign policy - not Rice. So to understand what is going on, you need to think like a Cheneyite or neoconservative hawk, and look at events from a broad geostrategic perspective that reflects their values and priorities. From their point of view, the US has a rapidly closing window of opportunity to consummate the war whose opening battles were Afghanistan and Iraq, a war that (they hope) is going to remake the Middle East to the advantage of Israel and the US - and a war which they think is in some sense unavoidable, and so is better fought sooner rather than later. Iran’s power is growing; China’s power is growing; Russia’s power is growing and Europe’s political culture is changing. Before long the balance of power will have shifted so as to drastically curtail US options, and place Israel on the wrong side of unstoppable regional trends. It’s now or never for the hawks.
The administration has decided to go for it, and throw the Hail Mary pass now. Israel in Lebanon is the first back out of the backfield. That this is an election year gives them all the more reason to strike.
Posted by: Dan Kervick at July 15, 2006 06:23 PM
This is only one possible scenario of many, but it sounds right to me. I’m not sure I agree that there will be “major US military operations against Iran and Syria” — I think we’re much more likely to tacitly condone Israeli strikes than to commit our own overstretched forces — but, given the history of the Bush Administration, the low approval ratings of the president, the administration’s obvious desire to attack Iran, and the current rhetoric (Kervick notes in a later comment that U.S. and Israeli leaders are striking similar notes, which he summarizes as “Hizbollah ‹— Syria ‹— Iran”), all signs point to a larger conflict.
The one word that sticks in my craw is “coordinated” — and only partially because the close ties between the U.S. and Israelis are often used in the context of anti-semitism (I want to make it clear that I am not, in any way, accusing Dan Kervick of that). I just don’t think that the Bush Administration necessarily has a plan, or that it was involved in Israel’s decision to begin bombing Lebanon. Now that it’s happening, though, and given the current bloodthirsty mood among neoconservatives, I think that the administration will make up a plan on the fly, just as it did in the aftermath of the attack on Iraq. And it’s quite possible that that plan will include an attack on Iran by the U.S. or Israel.
I’m also reminded, now more than ever, of Seymour Hersh’s The Iran Plans. In case you missed it, consider this passage, about secret meetings on Iran between White House officials and members of Congress:
The House member said that no one in the meetings “is really objecting” to the talk of war. “The people they’re briefing are the same ones who led the charge on Iraq. At most, questions are raised: How are you going to hit all the sites at once? How are you going to get deep enough?” (Iran is building facilities underground.) “There’s no pressure from Congress” not to take military action, the House member added. “The only political pressure is from the guys who want to do it.” Speaking of President Bush, the House member said, “The most worrisome thing is that this guy has a messianic vision.”
Perhaps the Rapture-Ready folks were right to be excited — it does feel like the beginning of a World War.
Update: James Wolcott: World War Two-and-a-Half (here’s the Gingrich comment he mentions):
So Gingrich wants to roll out World War III as a bugle call to give Republicans a Viagra injection and force Democrats to slink behind the cavalry in mealy-mouthed agreement, for fear of being called appeasers and peaceniks by useful fools like Michael Goodwin.
But I don’t know about this. It might have worked as a portentous sales device in the immediate aftershock of 9/11, but we’re nearly five years on and the US stature has shrunk. If a majority of Americans want us to withdraw from Iraq, how eager are they going to be to sign on to a declaration of world war against a stateless enemy?
They’ll only do it notionally, as long as nothing is actually required of them.
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07.15.06
I don’t know what is more frightening: the fact that there is an escalating war in the Middle East, or the fact that this group of “Rapture-Ready” evangelicals views that violence as cause for celebration. Here is a sample post from the message board:
I too am soooo excited!! I get goose bumps, literally, when I watch what’s going on in the M.E.!! And Watcherboy, you were so right when saying it was quite a day yesterday, in the world news, and I add in local news here in the Boston area!! Tunnel ceiling collapsed on a car and killed a woman of faith, and we had the most terrifying storms I have ever seen here!! But, yes, Ohappyday, like in your screen name , it is most indeed a time to be happy and excited, right there with ya!!
Who knew that the Second Coming would be heralded by animated emoticons?
Big tip of the Jesus-fish hat to Richard Cranium of The All-Spin Zone. As far as I can tell, the message-board link was originally posted on Cursor (and later on TP and C&L).
The Talent Show has posted some excerpts, which will prove useful should moderators delete the discussion thread.
Wow.
Update: (3:30 PM) Looks like the thread has been taken down. For what it’s worth, here is a link to the message board home page. I know I’ll be keeping my eye on The Rapture Index.
Update 2: (7PM) Powerline’s Paul Mirengoff sounds almost as thrilled as the Rapture-Ready faithful about the prospect of more war.
I hope that everyone remembered to bring their pom-poms.
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07.15.06
Turner took a step back. Then he ran. As he floundered across the furrows the attack was coming in. The rich soil was clinging to his boots. Only in nightmares were feet so heavy. A bomb fell on the road, way over in the center of the village, where the lorries were. But one screech hid another, and it hit the field before he could go down. The blasted lifted him forward several feet and drove him face-first into the soil. When he came to, his mouth and nose and ears were filled with dirt. He was trying to clear his mouth, but he had no saliva. He used a finger, but that was worse. He was gagging on the dirt, then he was gagging on his filthy finger. He blew the dirt from his nose. His snot was mud and it covered his mouth. But the woods were near, there would be streams and waterfalls and lakes in there. He imagined a paradise. When the rising howl of a diving Stuka sounded again, he struggled to place the sound. Was it the all-clear? His thoughts too were clogged. He could not spit or swallow, he could not easily breathe, and he could not think. Then, at the sight of the farmer with his dog still waiting patiently under the tree, it came back to him, he remembered everything and he turned to look back. Where the woman and her son had been was a crater. Even as he saw it, he thought he had always known. That was why he had to leave them. His business was to survive, though he had forgotten why. He kept on towards the woods.
– from Atonement, by Ian McEwan
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07.14.06
War. Again. And nothing good will come of it, again.
Just yesterday, I linked to Helmut’s post on Zinedine Zidane; there, I heard about Just War Theory — a branch of ethics devoted to the subject of war, and its causes — for the first time:
In Just War Theory, we talk about the question of proportionality. Usually this refers to the severity by which an aggressive act is countered, and the moral requirement not to respond out of proportionality to the aggressive act. The Iraq War, for instance, is all out of whack in regard to proportionality and thus the political need to exaggerate the severity of the initial threat.
By any measure that I can think of, Israel’s retaliation against Lebanon and Palestine seems out of proportion to the immediate provocation — the kidnapping of several Israeli soldiers. President Bush says that “Israel has the right to defend herself,” but several commentators I’ve read agree that Israel’s overreaction has endangered not only itself, but also the region as a whole.
Upyernoz believes that, on a political level, the Israeli attacks will ultimately hit members of the Lebanese professional class — the very people who had called on Hezbollah to disarm — the hardest. He writes:
it’s hard for me to see hezbollah’s recent capture of two israeli soldiers as anything other than a provocation. they watched the capture of a soldier outside gaza trigger a full-scale invasion of the territory. what better way to prove they need to stay armed than to provoke their own strike against lebanon?
[. . . ] israel’s bombing of beirut international airport and its blockage of their ports, will hit lebanon’s western-oriented professional class the hardest. and they were the very people who were calling for hezbollah to disarm. these were the people who were on the streets protesting the syrian occupation in february 2005. lebanese nationalism among this group is quite strong. even though they are dominated by lebanese christians and otherwise would not be hezbollah’s friends, they could rally to hezbollah’s cause of defending lebanon from foreign invasion.
and if the blockade of lebanon continues for an extended period of time, lebanon would become dependent on syria for any goods from the outside world. another things that israel probably doesn’t want.
the potential for blowback against the israelis for taking this action is huge.
Juan Cole, meanwhile blames the new war on older failures to make peace:
Rejectionists on both sides are to blame. The Oslo Peace Process could have forestalled all this violence, as Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin understood. But on the Israeli side, the then Likud Party of Bibi Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert derailed it. On the Palestinian side, Hamas rejected it. Had there been a peace process, prisoners would have been released in return for a cessation of hostilities, and there would have been no motivation to capture Israeli soldiers.
The lesson is that if you refuse to negotiate a peace, then you are likely to have to go on fighting a war.
And writing for The Agonist, Ian Welsh argues that Israel is engaging in a war that it cannot win:
None of this leads to a two state solution. None of it does anything but embroil Israel in a guerilla war and occupation of not only Palestine by with a good chunk of southern Lebanon, and by proxy, in a conflict with Syria and Iran.
And in such a war, and in a situation where the Israeli Jews are being outbred in their own country, failure to either create a lasting victory (ie. one where Palestine and Hizbollah and other interested parties can’t attack Israel) or a lasting peace (one where they don’t want to attack Israel), Israel’s enemies will, inevitably win. I’m far from an expert on Middle East Affairs, but all of these commentators sound right — ominously right — to me. I fear that a match has been put to the wick of a powder keg; I only hope that the flame can be snuffed before it burns down, and takes an entire region along with it.
Update:
Other perspectives:
Obsidian Wings: Bad Moon Rising
I have a very, very bad feeling about what’s happening in Israel, Gaza, and Lebanon. I am less interested in assigning blame than in figuring out what’s actually happening. But to get the blame part out of the way: it’s almost never the case, in Israeli/Arab confrontations, that one side is wholly to blame, but in the case of the kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah, it is. This was Hezbollah’s fault, pure and simple. That said, I think that the Israeli response has been disproportionate and in some respects unwise. And that’s all I have to say about the blame game, which, in this part of the world, I find a tiresome and pointless exercise.
Billmon: Failed States
But it is clear to me that the Israelis, through their own actions (plus some help from their clueless allies in the Cheney administration) have put themselves in trap they can’t escape. They’ve reached a strategic dead end, one that doesn’t even leave them enough maneuvering room to turn and go back. A return to the pre-Oslo status quo – full military reoccupation of the territories – is out of the question. The peace process (a pointless squirrel wheel, but one that at least kept the squirrels, both Palestinian and Israeli, busy going through their paces) is dead. The Palestinian Authority is shattered; Fatah’s legitimacy and President Abbas’s credibility flushed down the toilet. And Hamas – the only viable alternative – has been officially defined as Public Enemy Number One by the Israelis, the Americans and the Europeans.
In an earlier era, pre-9/11, pre-Iraq invasion, widening the war to Lebanon might have provided some breathing room, or at least a temporary distraction. But now it’s only added another horn to the dilemma, and created risks that no one – the Israelis least of all – can fully foresee.
Juan Cole: Is the Arab Spring turning to Dust under Israeli Bombardment?
A Lebanon with no Syrian troops and Hizbullah in the government was inherently unstable. All the other parties but Hizbullah had disarmed, so it alone had its own paramilitary. With Syria gone, Hizbullah filled a security vacuum and also was less restrained in its policies. While in the country, Syria supported the party, but also curbed its adventurism.
So this was Bush’s big success in the Levant. It was as though a chef baked a lopsided wedding cake with a ticking bomb embedded in it, and declared it a culinary breakthrough. Now the bomb has gone off. Share This
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