In today's TAP Online column I praise Condoleezza Rice for her late-breaking realization that working toward an Israel-Palestine peace agreement would be a good thing. Meanwhile, The New York Sun reports that "Israeli officials have spoken to a top White House official in recent days, using friendly Washington contacts to go 'over Condi's head' to describe several of her new ideas as unrealistic, a Jerusalem source, who declined to be identified, told The New York Sun."
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Overhead
27 Mar 2007 11:56 am
Comments (27)
Rice is spending a lot of time on Israeli-Arab issues, and Ban Ki-moon is also making it a priority, but there's also this bizarre rush to produce accomplishments that don't amount to much of anything. I mean, what's the deal with biweekly discussions of the "political horizon?" The only "political horizon" around here is the Winograd Committee report that may force out Olmert and the Labor Party elections that will bounce Peretz, and could lead to Ehud Barak deciding to bolt the coalition and bring down the government. Anything that happens before all that is wasted effort, unless you just want to look good.
Sharon and his contingent rarely had much trouble in going over Colin Powell's head to coordinate with the White House, given how close Bush ended up being with Sharon, and also how skeptical Bush was of Powell in general. Indeed, some of those efforts to evade or even undermine Powell were helped along by...Condi Rice.
1. Gee, Mr. Yglesias thinks that an Israeli/Palestinian peace agreement would be a good thing. I'm quite sure that most of the participants also think it would be a good thing. Unfortunately, the Israeli and Palestinian concepts as to what constitutes a peace agreement are so far apart that the chances of such an agreement are slim and none and slim is already on the bus headed out of town. As a for instance, the Palestinian concept envisions the State of Israel agreeing to go out of business. This doesn't appear to provide much of a basis for a negotiated settlement.
2. Mr. Yglesias seems to think that appeasement of Syria and Iran will induce the governments of those two countries to behave themselves. Unfortunately, both of these countries are run by the most ruthless dictatorships in the Middle East, now that Saddam is gone (they make the dictatorships of Egypt and Saudi Arabia look like liberal democracies by comparison). History tells us that appeasement of dictators doesn't moderate their behavior, it only whets their appetite.
Our groveling before Mao and the Chinese went quite well, actually. Also the appeasing the Soviets (which for right-wingers means "talking to" rather than "bombing") also went pretty well, overall.
History tells us that appeasement of dictators doesn't moderate their behavior, it only whets their appetite.
Seriously, is this a joke? Are we seriously supposed to debate this proposition? Oh, okay then. So, after the US and UK gave Poland to Stalin, his appetite was wetted and the USSR invaded France and Norway just six months later. Terrible decision. Appeasement never works.
As we all know, appeasement doesn't work in the Israeli-Arab conflict either. I mean, look at all the times Egypt went to war with Israel after Begin and Sadat signed the Camp David agreement.
Re Yglesias
Stalin was prevented from advancing from East Germany by the presence of a large US force in West Germany and the formation of NATO. I would hardly call the Berlin Airlift appeasement.
Re Haggai
Egypt and Israel were bribed to behave themselves to the tune of > 5 billion/year. Neither of them can afford to do without the bribe so they have behaved themselves, at least with respect to each other.
Re tequila
The Korean and Vietnam wars were hardly examples of groveling and appeasement.
Iran isn't a dictatorship.
Also, do you know what "appeasement" is? Giving the ex post facto thumbs up after a country has, like, invaded and annexed foreign territory is appeasement. Refraining from killing sand niggers with whom you have political disagreements is not appeasement.
Also, what in the fuck would Stalin have used to invade anything outside the Russian sphere? His horsedrawn carts and cannibal soldiers?
Jesus, man up, you pussy. Iranians aren't going to eat you.
I'm really curious what case someone has for saying that Iran is a much more ruthless dictatorship than Saudi Arabia.
Mr. Glick (SLC),
If Hamas recognizes Israel on the condition they can disembowel a Zionist wacko for falafels- are you available?
"Israeli officials have spoken to a top White House official in recent days, using friendly Washington contacts to go 'over Condi's head'
In reading various books about Iraq, such as The Assassins' Gate and The One Percent Doctrine, one can't help but notice that the 'top White House official' who's over everyone's head, and who kills any idea or initiative smacking of the least bit of moderation, is inevitably Dick Cheney.
Hell, I'd have a tough time picking a winner in Iran vs. Egypt.
Stalin was prevented from advancing from East Germany by the presence of a large US force in West Germany and the formation of NATO.
This might be a good argument for why we shouldn't allow the Iran/Syria boogiemen to actually, you know, cross the Israeli border. But it has nothing to do with the topic of this post.
Unfortunately, the Israeli and Palestinian concepts as to what constitutes a peace agreement are so far apart that the chances of such an agreement are slim and none and slim is already on the bus headed out of town. - SLC
Indeed. From the Palestinian point of view, to even come to the negotiating table and thus implicitly recognize Israel is about as much of a concession as they should be willing to make. And they are being entirely reasonable and have history on their side. From the Israeli point of view, to even come to the negotiating table and thus implicitly recognize that Israel should settle for anything less than 100% of the original partition of British Palestine (wherein the Palestinian Arab State=Jordan) and/or not be allowed the same freedom of ethnic self-determination allowed to so many other nation-states, is about as much of a concession as they should be willing to make. And they are being entirely reasonable and have history on their side.
The problem with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not that either side is being un-reasonable, but that both sides are entirely justified in sticking to their guns. I say we sit negotiators for both sides in a room and force them to listen to Fear and Trembling, at least until they get so mentally numb by 19th century rhetoric, that they make an, um, leap of faith away from reason and negotiate. Didn't Carter and T. Roosevelt use similar techniques to force negotiations?
Delay of resolving the Israel-Palestinian conflict is a long strategic tradition. It plays into the hands of the extremists on both sides. The Israeli far right that would like to keep the settlements and dreams of a Greater Israel (without the pesky Palestinians) and the Palestinian far right that dreams of an Islamic Palestine from the Jordan to the sea (no real mention of what would happen to those inconvenient Jews.)
I think the proper response to those that just want to delay things indefinitely is to interpret their lack of action as an implicit vote of support for a binational and secular state with equal rights for all. This is in itself a threat to the far right factions of both sides, as that isn't that they are aiming for, but really if they don't want to divide up the country, the world should ask for it to be unified properly.
Re Guy
"Iran isn't a dictatorship."
Mr. Guy has to be kidding me. The mullahs and their front guy Amadinejad run Iran like their personal fiefdom.
"Also, what in the fuck would Stalin have used to invade anything outside the Russian sphere? His horsedrawn carts and cannibal soldiers?"
Mr. Guys' ignorance of the Soviet capabilities is mind boggling. At the time, the Soviet army was the largest in the world and had the largest tank force in the world. In fact, if the Soviet army had marched on West Germany, they could only have been stopped by nuclear weapons.
Re Trevor
Well, Israel hater Trevor, who evidently believes in Islamic fundamentalism is true to form and posts a nonsense comment. Mr. Trevor is a shitty little man.
Re DAS & Ben
Mr. DAS and Mr. Ben show a remarkable ignorance of the situation in Palestine. The Greater Isreal movement they talk about is totally marginal in Israeli politics and has very little support in either the Knesset or among the Israeli public. On the other hand, the Palestinian demands that the State of Israel agree to go out of business is the mainstream view therein. Until such time as the aforementioned Palestinian demand becomes as marginalized as the Greater Israel movement is, there is no peace to be had.
Well the Iranian dictatorship is up for re-election in a couple of years, so they're doing a lot better on that whole political freedom thing than Saudi Arabia.
And for being so marginalized, there does seem to be a lot of continuing settlement building going on in the West Bank.
Mr. Guys' ignorance of the Soviet capabilities is mind boggling. At the time, the Soviet army was the largest in the world and had the largest tank force in the world. In fact, if the Soviet army had marched on West Germany, they could only have been stopped by nuclear weapons.
We were talking about Stalin and the supposed expansionist threat he posed to the West. Stalin, at the end of World War II, literally commanded an army of horsedrawn carts and cannibals. Remember the Nazis carting off Ukraine's entire industrial infrastructure? Yeah.
Further, the Soviet Union wasn't much of a threat, nukes aside. Conscript armies that use homosexual rape as a formal tool of indoctrination tend not to fight well, especially when their gear is made out of old Jolly Green Giant cans.
In re: Iran, also: "Dictatorship" is not, in fact, a synonym for "unpleasant government," and Iran is not, in fact, a dictatorship.
Re guy
1. Mr. guy seems to be ignorant of the fact that the former Soviet Union occupied 1/3 of Germany after WW2 and carted off advanced German weapon systems, as did their opponents in the West. Apparently, he finds that having the largest tank force in the world is unimpressive. Military thinkers think otherwise.
2. Since the mullahs who run Iran decide who can run in the elections, their "democracy" is no more impressive then the so called "peoples democracies" that existed in the former Soviet block.
The Greater Isreal movement they talk about is totally marginal in Israeli politics - SLC
They are marginal in Israeli politics per se, you are right. But they are not at all marginal among American supporters of Israel, who have more money (and power) than sense. And when you know which side your bread is buttered on, you tend to, even unconciously, end up allowing that side's agenda to go through. Until such time as Israelis start looking certain gift horses in the mouth, the Greater Israel movement will not be as marginal as you might think.
Besides, due to the nature of Israeli parliamentary politics, marginal groups can extract many concessions in exchange for votes to form a government. Witness, for example, the stranglehold of religious orthodoxy in Israel.
Also, how do you know the degree to which similar dynamics are making the "Greater Palestine" movement seem un-marginal within the occupied territories? It isn't as if Palestinian politics are particularly transparent ...
*
Regarding Iran: seems to me the set-up in Iran is exactly how the extreme elements of our religious right want to run this country, nu?
Apparently, he finds that having the largest tank force in the world is unimpressive.
You know who had the third largest at the time of the Gulf War? Iraq. How did those Soviet made tanks hold up again?
Please stop being an idiot. There was no point between the end of World War II and Stalin croaking at which the USSR was any military threat to anyone. 20 million people died! Were their corpses going to form the Red Hordes?
Re: Iran. "Dictatorship" does not mean "a government I don't like." Iran is NOT a dictatorship. It is an oligarchal autocracy with both theocratic and democratic features.
Re guy
1. Where did Mr. guy get his information that Iraq had the 3rd largest tank force in the world in 2002? Actually, Israel had the 3rd largest tank force in the world at that time and still does (for the information of Mr. guy, the Israeli Merkava 4 is considered the equal to the Abrams Mark 2).
2. The implication from Mr. guys' comment is that the tanks deployed by the former Soviet Union in 1945 -1950 were inferior to the tanks deployed by the US in the same period. Such a claim is seriously in error. In fact, the Soviet T34 was at least equal to the Sherman tank (if Mr. guy doesn't believe that, just ask the Germans who faced both) and, in many respects superior (for instance, it had a lower profile which made it a harder target to hit).
3. If Iran is not a dictatorship, then the former Soviet Union, the current Vietnam, and China are not dictatorships. They all hold and held elections; it's just that only one party is allowed to compete.
1) Iran holds multiparty elections in which parties with clearly distinguishable platforms compete for votes;
2) by referring to the Gulf War I was obviously referring to the GULF WAR, which did not take place in 2002;
3) WWII-era tanks like those deployed in Germany in 1946, when only steely American resolve, rather than the fact that the USSR had been completely eviscerated by the war, kept Stalin from overrunning Belgium, were not inferior to American tanks because they WERE American tanks;
4) Mr. SLC seems to be unable or unwilling to read
Re guy
I am afraid that Mr. guy is seriously misinformed. The Soviet T34, which the Germans discovered to their discomfort during their invasion in 1941 was a Soviet designed and built tank and had no resemblance to any American tank either before or since. I would strongly suggest that Mr. guy quite writing his ignorant crap on this blog and go to the following sites which may provide him some useful information.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-34
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_tank
Comments closed April 10, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
If George W. Bush vetos the Iraq supplemental the Democrats passed, isn't that him cutting off funding for the troops in the field?
Well, let's see, that would mean Pacemaker Dick, right?
Posted by dj moonbat | March 27, 2007 12:09 PM