Where Now, Libya

It would appear that the Qaddafi era in Libya is drawing to a close, not done but ending. It will probably close messily, but with that guy out if not dead. The immediate challenges are to keep the necessary infrastructures functioning, electricity, garbage collection - the stuff that keeps the place from being unlivable. There may be no real political structure within Libya but there is a structure that supports the day to day life support system. It will be a challenge.

The piece that has pundits and pols disturbed is the political outcome. There doesn't seem to have ever been any sort of political system in Libya, political in the sense of opposing points of view being somehow accommodated. There certainly has been a system of cronyism, propaganda, repression, and militarism but nothing properly called politics. This lack of traditions or actual systems has folks in an uproar.

You would think to hear them that they are regarding a pack of monkeys or something as informed as that. Despite all the propaganda and the rest, Libyans seem to have been able to figure out that not only was something wrong but that there is something to replace that wrongness. It is repeatedly pointed out that Libya is tribal and regional, as though that means that none of those folks have had to get along with each other and competing ideas and agendas. That is flatly ridiculous. What they do not have is the experience of an established political system.

I'm not so sure that is an actual drawback. They do not have the experience of a history of, say English Common Law to fall back on but they do have an idea of fairness violated. Putting together a system doesn't mean you have to a previous system you've lived under to use as an example. What you need to do it successfully is to understand that your point of view isn't the only one to be considered. (Maybe our government could learn that) It is also necessary to understand that not everything is open to consideration. Another Qaddafi is not open to consideration, for one example. Government has to be able to change, it has to be able to meet new conditions with new answers. It also has to leave all its inhabitants feeling as though they have a stake in its continuation. (another consideration for our own) It is not all that difficult to keep a privileged few from taking over the place with the examples of others to look at (ahem).

I think it will be much more difficult for a place like Egypt to overcome the faux political system than it is for Libyans to create one. There certainly are those who have a lot to lose without Qaddafi to keep them on top and they certainly won't like it. The absence of a faux system to keep them protected could easily turn into an advantage - or a bloodbath - or both.

I'm not silly enough to predict any outcomes in Libya but I would like to stand up to the doomsayers. I'd also like to stand up for people, actual people as opposed to the elite who seem to think they're destined to run any damned place that exists. I've found that people in general seem to be able to figure things out when they're not stultified by generational bullshit.

NO - this is not a foray back into goddam politics.

Since I'm Clueless On The Middle East

In a reply to a commenter I made the point that I'm clueless about what to do in Afghanistan and Iraq at this point in time. I'm clueless because there are a hell of a lot of competing interests that I think need to be addressed. It doesn't matter what I thought about getting into Afghanistan or Iraq or what I thought about the methodology as far as what to do NOW.

I think some of the interests that need to be addressed include (in no particular order of importance):
our national security
the secutity of those nations
the economic and social interests of those nations
our social and economic interests
the simple well being of the citizenry of all included nations
the cultural impacts on all nations involved
the possibility of accomplishing any of those ends
the means of accomplishing any of those ends

I will say that I've seen little evidence of the liklihood of killing your way out of a mess and it seems the more generalized the killing the less liklihood. I am by inclination anti-war, I need to be convinced that it has to be done. I don't think it is reasonable to dismiss the fact that we've killed people and blown things up and those outcomes should be addressed.

I don't like answers that simplistically deal with a part without looking at the complexity of the actual situation.

Yes, this is an ivitation to use the comments section for something other than "Chuck you're great" or "Chuck you're an ass."

Things That Go Bang

Lately there's been a lot of talk by people about Libya and "no fly zones." It almost seems as though thinking about what you are proposing before saying something might make them seem ... I don't know ... wimpy. Some of these folks come from a background that ought to make them familiar with ordinance and what it does.

You can't just tell someone they can't fly; you have to make it impossible. That means air defense systems must go away and the way to do that is to break them and that takes things that go bang. Stuff that goes bang does just that and anything anywhere near it gets broken also. Whether the targeted entity makes any effort to place such systems with public cover or not it will not be the only thing broken. Men, women, and children who have no stake in the continuation of Ghadafi will be part of the damage. They will be killed or badly injured.

Taking out the infrastructure of air defense means that you have attacked a nation. What ever lofty goals precede the action - it is an act of war to bomb a nation, which Libya is. We have been at war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in actuality, Pakistan - all primarily Muslim nations. We are not making a lot of friends with our things that go bang. We especially are not making friends with the innocent casualties that keep happening.

Maybe the videos of smart weapons and plain distance has blurred our ability to understand just what the effects of ordinance are. There is a lot of heat, a lot of fast moving air, and a lot of flying stuff composed of the stuff that was broken and the stuff the broke it. None of that is good for organics - like humans.

Egypt Celebrates ... and?

Mubarak stepped down and now Egypt celebrates and that's cool. Now that "who" they were against is done the "what" they are for part starts. It's been pretty easy to be against but it is going to get messy when it comes to the positive aspects because there isn't a system - not Parties, not much of anything except a military left behind if they're getting rid of all of Mubarak.

Good luck to them - they're going to need that, also.

(I'm real happy this Prez doesn't shoot from the hip like .... oh you know)

US History Means What To Egypt's Situation

I've been hearing a lot lately about what is happening in Egypt and the US Revolution and our democracy. I'd like to know how somebody can make those comparisons and act as though they know something about history. "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it" has a lot of truth, but it also involves comparing history to something that has some congruence and making statements that also reflect what happened in history.

Now talking about how we succeeded in forming a government ignores a bit of something - the date of the Constitution. The government that came out of the Revolution was The Articles of Confederation and it failed. The great Constitution a bit over a half century later was sorted out by a bloody Civil War and in some respects is still not sorted out. Does somebody really think a good resolution of Egypt's current situation would be a conflict like our Civil War?

What happened in the US in response to our Revolution comes out of centuries of English evolution of government and Western European thought on governance. Egypt's experience with Western history involves colonialism from a dissimilar government and the economic/militaristic colonialism of also radically dissimilar governments. Whatever other issues the new and continuing US had with its former ruler their was a cultural and political sympathy between the two.

However corrupt English rule of the colony now the US was, it was more distant and of considerable lower degree. What exists in Egypt as corruption is within blocks not across an ocean and the results are more dramatic in their severity. Whatever context the US support of Mubarak is held in, there are not US soldiers standing in the streets enforcing the corruption and authoritarianism of the Mubarak government as there were Redcoats in the colonies.

I don't know where the Egyptian revolution is headed or what it will reach - I do know that using the US as a context is ludicrous.

Israel to US - F*** You

While the Middle East veers around the edges of disaster our "friend" in the region counts on its lobby to keep a direct blow to Palestinian desires and US ideas of peace process from having any outcome. Israel is putting 1,600 new Jewish homes in East Jerusalem, land taken and occupied after the 1976 war.

There is no doubt that every nation has its own interests and will hew to them rather than another's in most cases. It is entirely reasonable and congruent with national sovereignty for a nation to look out for its own interests. Those interests can get pretty complicated when the region you live in is as unstable and possibly hazardous as the Middle East. It is a region of theocracy and military chest beating and a confusing and tangled history. Adding to all the nonsense of the area is the issue of being a virtual client state of the US.

For pretty serious economic and strategic reasons the US would like to see the area both stable and prosperous (somewhat more than a few "sultans"). The collision here would seem to be Israeli insistence that they should be free to claim land, on the simple basis of "we can." Such behavior runs directly counter to US efforts to get a peace process going and moving to some end that Palestinians can reasonably be held to. US interests in the Middle East are not Jewish - or should not be - but rather the fostering of forms of government we can exist with in some form of comfort. Judaism is not the interest of the US government, it is entirely meaningless in the construct of government in this country - but not politically. Given the politics of strengthening the hands of the mullahs in Iran knocking the snot out of peace between Israel and Palestinians ought to count for something.

In a part of the world where the primary support of a nation comes from outside non-Islamic white nations the default setting becomes Iran crazy if those other nations are not fair brokers. Whatever emotional connection Likud may have to East Jerusalem, it is conquered territory and conquered in recent memory. If the assertion is that due to force of arms Israel is permitted to behave in any manner it chooses, then the corollary must also be true - that countering force of arms is also as acceptable. This would mean that lacking, due to force of arms, a military that non-military tactics of force will be and must be utilized. To be sure, it is horrid to have buses full of civilians blown up, cafes shattered, or any of the other means taken by those with no military to fly bombs, shoot artillery, field infantry, and generally acceptably kill people and that is what you get.

We help fund the behavior of Israel, considerably fund that behavior. Our interests in the region are not served by that behavior. This would indicate that our money is being thrown away. It certainly is time to rethink the funding of behavior directly counter to US interests. It also will not happen. Theocracy is scarcely a dying business in the US.

No, announcing it during VP Joe Biden's visit will have no effect.

The Sweet Smell of Success...and Burning Flesh

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Kadima have led the Israeli government into Lebanon and Gaza and it is looking much like an electoral defeat as a result. In the face of the spectacular destruction in Lebanon Hamas is a power, even more so and after the wreckage of Gaza rockets continue to fly into Ashkelon.
McClatchy's Cliff Churgin quotes 37 year old teacher Rosie:

"Last time I voted for Kadima, but now I'm thinking of voting for Likud," she said. "They promised us security, but the conditions my children live in are unacceptable."
****
"I want someone who will give us security. I don't care what the world thinks," she said. "My son is 2 years old, and to see him during the sirens is not a reality I'm willing to live with."

It looks as though the big winner in the coming elections will be the far right Yisrael Beiteinu party, headed by hard-liner Avigdor Lieberman, which will head into 3rd largest. This party will remind Americans of a few things, maybe best distant memories, such as calls for a citizenship law that would call on all citizens to sign loyalty oaths to the Jewish state. Failure to sign would result in losing the right to vote or to be elected. I happen to find the party slogan, "Without loyalty there is no citizenship," a bit Stalinist or Hitlerian for my taste but perhaps Jews have a different perspective? That stuff in itself would be discouraging but then there is the issue of the right's stance on Jerusalem, the West Bank, etc and no compromise whatever with Arabs.

Dr. Etta Bick of the Ariel University Center in the West Bank said that voters were moving right because of a change in priorities,

"The issue, if not the peace process . . . is security, and on security the public is on the right," Bick said. "There is disillusion about the peace process."

This is said as though there was a peace process, on much of anybody's part. Such doubt as I'm raising might be considered to tossing un-aimed rockets and roadside bombs and a few other Palestinian techniques.

In something like this conflict where there are racial, religious, historical, and even regional incitements to continue the slaughter a bit more incitement for political ends is to be expected. In order to get around to doing something a tad different it would seem that the pain of staying in the same mess needs to exceed all the excuses and that's probably a lot of pain. These people are full of excuses (and some other brown stuff), everybody has done something to everybody and that doing is inexcusable and must be met with force. It is a flatly ridiculous idea that they quit inciting each other.

So we have success coming our way, the asshats from Hamas and Hezbollah will get the asshats from the Israeli right to play with. This ought to mean the measure of goodness is the volume of opposition blood running on the ground. Evidently rearranging the debris that is Gaza and adding a bit more was a good idea, damn near as good an idea as tossing undirected high explosives at the most dangerous dog on the block.

It is probably time to offer sanctuary to the few on each side who disapprove of such behavior in some American enclaves and let them have at each other. Let their bloodthirsty gods sort them out, thought the Palestinians probably need a few more guns and bullets to make it really interesting.

BTW, I highly recommend McClatchy if for no more reason than that they still employ some of Knight Ridder's truth telling squad.

Allies, Friends, And Other Nonsense

Starting somewhere around the beginning, nations sometimes find they have over-lapping interests. Because it is not in our interest to engage in another land war in Europe that looks like WWII we have made agreements with various nations that attacks on them are attacks on us. Separately we make agreements regarding trade and intellectual property. We do this because our interests are served by doing so and they enter into these agreements because their interests are served. This is a formalized recognition of congruence of interests and called alliance. These alliances are not entered into lightly nor are the agreements simple.

Each nation on earth has its own interests and its constituency is not the world, it is its own citizenry. Any nation that entirely disregards the world is making a mistake, but it will take measurement of the world and its own interests. There is nothing whatever unusual or Machiavellian in this. It is also a cold blooded measurement based on very real considerations.

There is a concept of friendship between nations that gets frequent play. This is something other than alliance, it is some amorphous connection between nations based on an emotion. The truly odd thing is that people have no problem with this idea and it is as reasonable as saying a rock is your friend. A government is an artificial construct that is built to allow its citizenry to function. A government is a thing. Whatever emotional connection the citizenry may have with another nation, it is not something a government can do.

The idea of friendship is not held by other nations. Israel is the most frequently evoked friendship lately so a simple question must be answered, "Do friends spy on each other?" No. (not unless something very sick is going on) Israeli agents have been convicted of spying on this nation. I am not in the least offended that Israel would try it, it is the norm in international relations. I am quite sure we do it to them. Governments are quite aware that other governments have their own interests and may not be quite forthcoming about them. Governments are quite aware that other governments may have knowledge they won't share that they'd like to have. They will spy because they are not friends.

Governments will pursue policies that are not in the interest of their allies because they are not friends. The populace of that nation would have every right to be extraordinarily upset if their government acted contrary to their interests in the interest of another nation. Whatever cultural or social connection I may have with another nation is entirely my business. It is not in the interest of my nation for my emotional connection to carry into national policy unless aspects of it are congruent with this nation's interests. There are some really deep connections between myself and England, my language, culture, law, history, ancestry, and... None of that trumps what is good for the USA. There are a whole lot of economic and geopolitical reasons for the US to want a strong and healthy England and those reasons need to be accounted for, but my emotional connection is meaningless.

It is not in the interest of the United States of America for the festering sore in Israel and Palestine to continue and to ratchet up. This is an unstable area that is economically important. It is dangerous to the interests of the US to have conflict in this area. The citizens of the US have demonstrable interest in the welfare of the Middle East. Neither side in the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians have shown an ability to rectify their dispute which means an honest broker is needed. It is quite reasonable for an honest broker to have a stake in peace being established. There is nothing in honest brokership that includes friendship with one side in a conflict. That position precludes any level of trust by one side. Governments understand international agreements based on congruent interests, they do not understand friendship. It is currently impossible for the US to act as a peace broker between Gaza and Israel because the US has espoused friendship for Israel and behaved as though it exists.

I have noticed a very common thread running through discussion of Israel and Palestine, one is that Israel is our friend and the other is that there is some reason to pick a side based on a multitude of reasons, primarily fault. Each side brings forward the faults of the other and denies or minimizes their own. The history of the area is what it is and there is plenty of fault and bad dealing on both sides and a lot of blood on all hands. None of that will look forward to a solution. Civilians are going to get hurt in armed conflict, that is just a fact and both sides hit the targets they can and civilians get it in the neck. Calling out blame for this is an exercise in futility, it needs to stop is the point. Getting it stopped requires getting both sides to agree, not to accept blame.

Israel is not going to just go away and neither are the Palestinians. Negotiating demands are just that, negotiating demands that are where a side starts out. Negotiation means losing something so people start high, they do not start where they think they have to end. What Israel or Hamas says today may well not be what they will accept, it is obvious that Israel not only is not going to pack up and leave they also have the military power to not be forced out of the Middle East and it is just as obvious that short of extermination the Palestinians are in Gaza and the West Bank to stay. There is a whole range of approaches in between those two excesses and what should be obvious is that the end point is a sustainable and prosperous society for each. Greed being what it is, that will probably be the largest sticking point and having the biggest hammer is not a negotiating tool.

Feel free to call me anti-Israel and I'll feel free to call you an asshole. I am anti-stupidity and I find a whole bunch on both sides. Whether either side deserves to bleed is a pointless determination, this is dangerous for large sections of the world and very bad for the populous of the region. This business of calling a government our friend and of picking sides only serves to continue the problem. It is stupidity to fall into the Bush government trap of calling a tactic a philosophy. This trap puts one in the morally and ethically indefensible position of justifying a 500 pound air dropped bomb versus a 15 pound vest bomb as blood and flesh fly. Fifty people killed in a restaurant in Tel Aviv is bad, 50 people killed in Gaza is bad. Talking about trying to kill soldiers versus civilians in a populated area is stupid, what ratio of killed soldiers versus civilians in either case makes it good? If 5 reservists in the restaurant were killed and 5 Hamas fighters in Gaza are they equivalent? If not why not? Because of a side? Is it the delivery vehicle that makes a difference? It is a losing argument because it does not address the reality of the situation, it is simply a blame mechanism which does not answer the end goal.

I will indulge in the blame game to this extent, the choosing of sides between two malefactors begs for a continuation of the issue that creates the sides. The Israelis and the Palestinians 'have skin in this game' and if you think there is a side, pack up and put your family and blood on the line with them. Otherwise sit the hell down and be a part of solving it.

Short of radical stupidity this blog is done with this topic, people being bound and determined to be assholes is a feature of life I'm incapable of changing. It is stupid on my part to think that speaking reason to the unreasoning will make a difference and on this issue many intelligent and reasonable people ignore their capabilities.

Cycle Of Stupidity Continues

News from the Middle East has a distressing propensity to be bad, sometimes predictably bad. As rockets have flown out of Gaza into Israel the only question was the math, how many rockets before Israel struck back and again math, how hard. No nation or its citizens will tolerate rockets raining down on them, they just will not.

Right along side the fact of retaliation is the fact of an oppressed distinct group, that group is distinct in race, religion, and history. Toss into that already volatile mix a territorial dispute and powerlessness and an explosion is in the offing - continually. Matches abound.

There is no argument that Israel does not possess the necessary armament to pound Gaza flat nor is there any argument that Palestinians do not have the necessary equipment to wage war by alternate means. One can get into an uproar about the military means utilized by either party in this conflict, and do so to absolutely no point. Israel is not going to risk its soldiers in a door to door urban conflict trying to root out rocketeers and bombers. Hamas or whatever arm of the Palestinians are not going to obtain tanks, artillery, and aircraft needed for conventional warfare, but they are going to wage war. Talking about this conflict in terms of war making methodology is pointless, it is exactly what it is and it will be that way.

The cycle of stupidity is the expectation that the utilization of force will accomplish an end. The only military solution is the near extermination of one group or the other, or raising the terror level to the point where any action is too terrible to contemplate. Neither group can afford to go in that direction so what they do is play at violence, each side stoking the cycle.

The other day I posted about understanding your neighbor, it is the one route the parties have out of their circle of violence. The problem is that a half century of conflict and the hate and distrust engendered by it prohibit that approach. Neither party will listen to someone who says, "OK, stop pissing them off." Two racist theocracies stare with hatred at each other and each tries to gain an edge. Both factions have polluted the general populace with their mindlessness, to the point that governmental initiatives are quickly undermined by non-governmental authorities and actors. Neither government has control of their populace and Israel has the least excuse for their own situation in that regard. The Palestinians can at least claim a stew of political chaos, economic desperation, and oppression - Israel on the other hand can only stand on a lack of will to control its factions.

A cease fire that stops the violence on each side, a dream in itself, is not even a beginning. That has been the failure over time, it is seen as something in itself that the killing stops for awhile. The killing impulse doesn't stop, it is only frustrated for a time and breaks out once again. Short of the option of the removal of either party, every option has to be on the table and negotiated with an understanding of the driving forces of each population. While there are differences of a cultural nature that may defy empathetic understanding, all are within the realm of reason. While the international community continues to allow either party to behave in unreasonable fashions nothing will happen, their is no sufficient force within either party to institute a policy of reason.

The international factions not only allow the continuation of this stupid cycle, they encourage it. The United States maintains a near knee jerk approval of Israeli behavior and opponents to the US positions anywhere stoke and supply the Palestinians. There is no responsible player in the game, everyone has a gun on the table and cards up their sleeves. The international community claims outrage over each flare of violence and promptly does what it can to encourage their surrogate. Israel and the Palestinians are the proxies and surrogates of players with no real stake in peace in the area, despite all the claims to the contrary. There is not a single government that could not cut off all aid and support to all parties while they engage in stupidity, but not one of them shows any willingness to do so. The factions on both sides that stand to profit from violent activity are rewarded by someone internationally. That has to cease if anything reasonable is to happen.

Musharraf 's Emergency

Gen Pervez Musharraf was "re-elected" to the Presidency of Pakistan last month and had been awaiting the Supreme Court's decision on the legality of his election, had been until today. He announced the imposition of emergency rules and suspended the Constitution. Apparently the Supreme Court was giving him some difficulties, such as a not unanimous election approval and the release of 61 "terror suspects." Opposition parties were being, well, opposition parties. Islamic militants were on the upsurge. Western nations were not pleased with the turn of events, Condi Rice (here's a stretch) said the US "does not support extra-Constitutional measures."

Pakistan has real problems and militants in Islamabad are only a little part of it, the essentially ungoverned northern provinces bordering Afghanistan harbor the Taliban and their home grown supporters who keep tweaking the UN's nose leading to push back from there. Westerners stomping around in Pakistan is guaranteed trouble.

Musharraf said the declaration of emergency was to “preserve the democratic transition that I initiated eight years back.” Benazir Bhutto's opinion was a bit different, "Unless General Musharraf reverses the course it will be very difficult to have fair elections," she told Sky News television by telephone. "I agree with him that we are facing a political crisis, but I believe the problem is dictatorship, I don't believe the solution is dictatorship.
"The extremists need a dictatorship, and dictatorship needs extremists."

It pays to remember that Pakistan has nuclear weapons, it has a sizable lunatic fundamentalist element, and a growing lack of support for Musharraf, and push back from foreign governments. The US distraction in Iraq has allowed the Taliban's resurgence which means a growing threat to Afghanistan and Pakistan. While the US is calling on Musharraf to restore democracy there is little it is capable of doing however that situation shakes out. It is quite possible that George II's Iraqi adventure may have sown seeds in Pakistan that we may regret for decades.

General Musharraf Wins

Well, since he was the only candidate it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that he would win the "election." The Supreme Court is considering whether he can be President and Chief of Military at the same time, he has promised the Supreme Court he would resign the military position after the election.

Musharraf seized power in October 1999 and has struggled with accusations that his leadership is illegitimate, in 2002 he won a referendum which was widely regarded as rigged and a 2004 electoral college vote which expired this month. Recently he extended amnesty to politicians who served between 1988 and 1999 allowing Benazir Bhutto to participate in government. This followed a threat by Bhutto to pull her representatives in Parliament.

It is of considerable importance to remember that Pakistan has nuclear capability and is home to a large group of radical Muslims. The developments in that area over the past five years do not promise to enhance stability in Pakistan. The Afghan war put considerable strain on Musharraf's leadership, launching into Iraq may have created an extremely risky situation for administrations to come. There is not one hope in the world that the BushCo can or will do anything to improve Pakistan's stability. The Catch 22 in the mess is that Afghanistan is being undermined by the same Pakistani groups that threaten Musharraf and that were further activated by the Iraq adventure.

While George II concentrates on demonizing Iran and Ahmadenijad who have stakes in what happens in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan, the latter two continue on a downward spiral that is not in Iran's interest, as previously demonstrated by them. The US and Iran have congruent interests in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Iraq continues to drive a wedge. Much of the fear of Iran's nuclear ambitions is driven by Iraq and in all probability much of Iran's wish to have some form of deterrent is driven by Iraq and the presence of US troops as an occupying force. Whatever the US has to say about Iraq, it is entirely reasonable for the Iranians to perceive the US troops as an invading force on Islamic ground on their border and as a threat.

I hold no brief for Ahmanejihad, nor for Maliki, and not for Musharraf other than as the alternative to Islamic nut cases with nuclear weapons. Once India acquired nuclear weapons capability, it was inevitable that Pakistan, an ardent foe, would seek it - and achieve it. That capability in the region drives fears of Iran and at the same time creates a nightmare scenario in Pakistan. The US is forced into the cold war position of supporting dictatorships out of fear of the alternative and at the same time opposing one over ideology in the same neighborhood. BushCo seems unable to see the consequences of creating fear in the region and stoking opposition forces with their actions. This from an administration "dedicated" to the proposition of democracy building.

It is much too late to defuse the situation created by invading Iraq, that is done, now the problem is how to deal with the fallout. Ratcheting up the rhetoric and increasing fear in the region is more of the same and the outcome will be more of the same. Playing the game of "how Iraq should have been handled" is now pointless, how to achieve some sort of order out of the chaos created is the order of the day. It is impossible to deal with the players without first reducing the fear factor, you will not get reasonable decisions from fear and anger based thinking. Afghanistan and Iraq sit between two hammers, Iran and Pakistan and possibly Syria, if reasoned thinking is not pursued in the region a disaster is in the making.

Musharraf has the military power to keep a lid on in Pakistan, up to a point, without broader Pakistani support for keeping that lid on, it will fail. Iran has the capacity to be an actor in the entire area, there is no sign that the mullahs are going to go away anytime soon, courting their positive involvement could create some form of order. The emotional loading of politics in the region is ridiculous, Musharraf is no more reflective of US philosophy than the mullahs are, and the pragmatism BushCo has exercised in making Musarraf an ally should be balanced with its approach to Iran. But pragmatism is not really the BushCo mindset, acquisition of power through fear is their paradigm. We've got a real serious problem and it ain't them Iraqis following us home.

US Weapons and Dictatorships

If you don't pay attention to McClatchy Papers formerly Knight-Ridder you're missing out on a publication that actually does reporting and investigation. This is the outfit that got WMDs right while BushCo was busy getting it all wrong. Now while we're busy installing democracy in Iraq at the point of a gun we're going to sell some real advanced stuff to some dictatorships right in that neighborhood.

McClatchy reports that BushCo wants to sell billions of dollars worth of advanced weaponry to Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Egypt and to keep balance Israel. Saudi Arabia was home to most of the 9/11 hijackers, was home to a large percentage of the foreign fighters in Iraq, and of the recipients the only free state is Israel. At least one component of the Saudi sale is JDAMs, the conversion kit to make dumb gravity bombs into smart directed bombs. Israel naturally didn't like this stuff and asked for the F22 Raptor whose stealth technology is part of the package that makes it the Air Force's most advanced fighter. That means this is the world's most advanced fighter aircraft, no question about it at this point in history. All this arming is aimed at countering...you guessed it...Iran.

The White House shared details with members of Congress last week and is hoping to avoid a fight since Congress has to approve the sales. It is certainly true that Saudi Arabia has some rather dangerous neighbors but one has to wonder if this sort of sale would act as a deterrence or and incitement. I'm not in favor of small children handling loaded firearms and I have pretty much the same reaction to this. We worry about the mix of nukes and Pakistan's instability and even a glance at the Arab recipients shows a mix of a rich ruling elite and an unstable poverty stricken populace. Let's just throw some gasoline on the fire.

Israel, Hamas, Fatah

Israel now has a fundamentalist radical Islamist government on its border, Hamas in Gaza, which is by policy statement dedicated to the destruction of Israel. Fatah, while more moderate in its policies, is lead by a weakened party apparatus and its control of the West Bank is scarcely a given. The Palestinian fracture presents both threat and opportunity. Something more intelligent than the previous US policies is required to take advantage of opportunities and avoid catastrophes.

The data regarding failed states and the rise of radicalism is clear, just as is the correlation between successful states and social stability. These relationships are more constant than anything regarding religions, culture, or other societal influences. There is a real key to policy decisions in this. Consider the rise of Hamas in Gaza; it was a real option in the face of Fatah corruption and economic failure and lack of progress with Israel. The corruption of Fatah was its own doing and may have relationships to the economic failure of the Palestinians, but other elements made greater impacts. While Fatah failed to adequately control attacks on Israel, Israel’s own policies fueled the attacks. A state that cannot employ its people and trade its goods is going to fail economically and from there, politically. Israel is THE trading opportunity and employment pool, if they cut that to the bone, their neighbor is going to fail. The Palestinians are not just going to go away from a failed state, they are going to still be there and be furious.

Israel certainly faces difficulties with Palestinian terrorists in Gaza and the West Bank infiltrating them but seem caught in a Catch 22 situation, open borders allow terrorist infiltration, closed borders cause economic desperation in the territories. Israel must begin to see to providing an opportunity for the Palestinians to have some form of economic prosperity. Israel is not alone in this quandary, the US policy of blocking or refusing aid to the Palestinian Authority due to the participation of Hamas has now put Hamas in control of Gaza through the disintegration of the Palestinian economy and with it their social structure. At this juncture it would be possible to play the West Bank against Gaza by providing aid and social restructuring to the West Bank and improving their situation as a comparison for the probable failure of Gaza under Hamas. The trick, of course, is to smother the corruption of Fatah. This means a real on site presence.

Israel can no longer be allowed to operate with a whip hand only in its relations with the Palestinians and must begin to redress some of real grievances of the Palestinians. This means US politicians are going to have to face the Israeli lobby in our political arena.

We Didn't Do It

Reuters reports shelling of an Islamist stronghold, it's in southern Lebanon and we have nothing to do with it, and neither does Israel. There's something different.