The Gathering Storm
...or, today's All-Purpose Mideast Post. Because I've got a lot of work to do this afternoon, and a wake to attend, and besides that, Mrs. Crunchy e-mails to say she's worried about the situation in Lebanon and all, but this blog is getting too fixated, and needs to find something else to talk about.
Message received.
Anyway, "The Gathering Storm" is the title of a book by Winston Churchill, in which he described the lead-up to World War II. It seems like an apt metaphor for what is happening today in the Mideast.
The Times leads today with a report that sentiment across the Arab world is swinging firmly towards Hezbollah. And against their own governments. Why? According to the Times, the Arab street cheers for Hezbollah as redeeming Arab pride for continuing to hold out against Israel. Now, this just shows how psychotic the shame/honor culture of the Arab world is. The terrorist fanatics of Hezbollah launched a war that is destroying Lebanon, and yet the Arab world loves them because they're still standing up to the Israelis. As Thomas Friedman points out in his column today, the Arabs have been pissing away all kinds of opportunities to build universities, hospitals, and all the things that might actually build a stable civil society, one in which ordinary people can live at peace, and create something good and lasting for themselves and their children. No, they prefer to throw it all away on pointless, violent gestures to avenge the perceived loss of "honor."
If they should achieve their dream of destroying Israel utterly, who then will they blame for their miserable state of existence? If every Jew in Israel -- if every Jew on earth -- disappeared tomorrow, it would not improve the lot of Egyptians, Syrians, Lebanese, Jordanians, Yemenis, et alia. They'd be stuck with themselves and the crummy societies they've cobbled together. And then they'll have to find another conspiracy theory to explain away the consequences of their own beliefs and actions. I'm just sayin'.
Nevertheless, it is what it is over there, and what it is is doubleplus bad, and getting worse. In today's NYPost, Ralph Peters explains why Israel is in a world of trouble -- in part because they haven't been ruthless enough. If Hezbollah survives this, as it looks like they will, they've won. And if they win, radical Islam will get a tremendous shot in the arm across the Arab world -- at the expense of sitting governments.
Meanwhile, the situation in Iraq is bleaker than ever. Paul Cella, a conservative who thought the Iraq war was a bad utopian idea, points out that so many Americans still can't reconcile themselves to the idea that democracy in the Mideast will produce bad outcomes if a majority of the people prefer hardline Islam to liberal democracy. Hezbollah has started a war that is destroying Lebanon and destabilizing the region -- and this makes them popular on the Arab street. Freedom is on the march! says Bush. These are the birth pangs of a new Middle East! says Rice.
Yeah, I see that. God help us all. The final chapter of Thomas Ricks' "Fiasco" -- which comes highly recommended to me by a very well-placed and combat-experienced military officer -- sketches out four possible scenarios for the Iraq endgame:
1. Somehow, we muddle through, and things calm down and stabilize after a long and patient occupation, thanks in part to the political patience of the American people.
2. Things don't stabilize, but the US endures a violent and seemingly endless occupation because if we left, the whole place would collapse into civil war and carnage. Basically we stay there to keep the lid on at best. Cf. Israel's 1982-2000 occupation of Lebanon, or France in Algeria.
3. Civil war, partition, and regional war. Writes Ricks:
... and that's still not the worst-case scenario. That would be:
4. The caliphate. Ricks says the "nightmare scenario" is a new dictator emerging from the ruin and chaos of regional wars. He manages to unite the country, and perhaps the region, and riding a wave of new pan-Arab feeling (and atop massive oil revenues), he marshals the Muslim world behind him in a dramatic showdown with the West.
I don't know about you, but it seems to me at least possible, however farfetched, that the denouement in Lebanon, by uniting Sunni and Shia in hatred of Israel and the US, could get us significantly down the road to the nightmare Ricks envisions.
And now, time for something completely different...
Message received.
Anyway, "The Gathering Storm" is the title of a book by Winston Churchill, in which he described the lead-up to World War II. It seems like an apt metaphor for what is happening today in the Mideast.
The Times leads today with a report that sentiment across the Arab world is swinging firmly towards Hezbollah. And against their own governments. Why? According to the Times, the Arab street cheers for Hezbollah as redeeming Arab pride for continuing to hold out against Israel. Now, this just shows how psychotic the shame/honor culture of the Arab world is. The terrorist fanatics of Hezbollah launched a war that is destroying Lebanon, and yet the Arab world loves them because they're still standing up to the Israelis. As Thomas Friedman points out in his column today, the Arabs have been pissing away all kinds of opportunities to build universities, hospitals, and all the things that might actually build a stable civil society, one in which ordinary people can live at peace, and create something good and lasting for themselves and their children. No, they prefer to throw it all away on pointless, violent gestures to avenge the perceived loss of "honor."
If they should achieve their dream of destroying Israel utterly, who then will they blame for their miserable state of existence? If every Jew in Israel -- if every Jew on earth -- disappeared tomorrow, it would not improve the lot of Egyptians, Syrians, Lebanese, Jordanians, Yemenis, et alia. They'd be stuck with themselves and the crummy societies they've cobbled together. And then they'll have to find another conspiracy theory to explain away the consequences of their own beliefs and actions. I'm just sayin'.
Nevertheless, it is what it is over there, and what it is is doubleplus bad, and getting worse. In today's NYPost, Ralph Peters explains why Israel is in a world of trouble -- in part because they haven't been ruthless enough. If Hezbollah survives this, as it looks like they will, they've won. And if they win, radical Islam will get a tremendous shot in the arm across the Arab world -- at the expense of sitting governments.
Meanwhile, the situation in Iraq is bleaker than ever. Paul Cella, a conservative who thought the Iraq war was a bad utopian idea, points out that so many Americans still can't reconcile themselves to the idea that democracy in the Mideast will produce bad outcomes if a majority of the people prefer hardline Islam to liberal democracy. Hezbollah has started a war that is destroying Lebanon and destabilizing the region -- and this makes them popular on the Arab street. Freedom is on the march! says Bush. These are the birth pangs of a new Middle East! says Rice.
Yeah, I see that. God help us all. The final chapter of Thomas Ricks' "Fiasco" -- which comes highly recommended to me by a very well-placed and combat-experienced military officer -- sketches out four possible scenarios for the Iraq endgame:
1. Somehow, we muddle through, and things calm down and stabilize after a long and patient occupation, thanks in part to the political patience of the American people.
2. Things don't stabilize, but the US endures a violent and seemingly endless occupation because if we left, the whole place would collapse into civil war and carnage. Basically we stay there to keep the lid on at best. Cf. Israel's 1982-2000 occupation of Lebanon, or France in Algeria.
3. Civil war, partition, and regional war. Writes Ricks:
[A] thoughtful US Army officer who had served in Iraq sketched out what he expected for the next ten years of his career. "In 2009, after we withdraw, and the south turns into Shiastan, and the Kurds declare independence, and Turkey invades, and Sunnistan leads to the fall of the house of Saud, and Arabia becomes the first step in the caliphate, and oil goes to two hundred dollars a barrel, then we have to invade Arabia with a broken Army, and then it's our Algeria," he said.
... and that's still not the worst-case scenario. That would be:
4. The caliphate. Ricks says the "nightmare scenario" is a new dictator emerging from the ruin and chaos of regional wars. He manages to unite the country, and perhaps the region, and riding a wave of new pan-Arab feeling (and atop massive oil revenues), he marshals the Muslim world behind him in a dramatic showdown with the West.
I don't know about you, but it seems to me at least possible, however farfetched, that the denouement in Lebanon, by uniting Sunni and Shia in hatred of Israel and the US, could get us significantly down the road to the nightmare Ricks envisions.
And now, time for something completely different...
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