As seen from Just Above Sunset

Saturday, 17 April 2004

Topic: Iraq

Semantics and Responsibility

Chas W. Freeman Jr. was our ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, assistant secretary of Defense (1993-94) and is now president of the Middle East Policy Council. He sent a message about the Iraq war to an email discussion group of foreign affairs experts earlier this month after visiting Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The following excerpts appeared in the Washington Post this weekend.

See The Cost of 'Arrogant Daydreams'
Sunday, April 18, 2004, The Washington Post, Page B05

Here's the opening -

The view in the region, from which I have just returned, is that by destroying the Iraqi state the U.S. made it almost impossible to accomplish regime change, as opposed to regime removal, in Baghdad. No one regrets the end of Saddam's tyranny, but Iraq over the past year is viewed as an Arab zone of anarchy under foreign occupation. No one believes that what will be transferred to the Iraqi Governing Council on July 1 is "sovereignty."

Thus the mid-summer situation will be one in which an Iraqi native civilian authority with little or no legitimacy is asked to coexist with an intensely unpopular foreign occupation force over which it has no control. Few believe this dysfunctional arrangement will be up to managing an increasingly dangerous situation.

Many believe that the only thing now saving Iraq from civil war is the increasing unity of ordinary Iraqis against the occupation. This unity increasingly transcends religious schisms. It is drawing religious fanatics into alliance with secular nationalists. ("My brother and I against my cousin; my cousin and I against a stranger.") A new crop of home-grown Iraqi jihadis is, many fear, forging anti-American alliances with trans-regional and possibly global reach. (Shia with Hezbollah; Sunnis with Hamas; both, somewhat warily, with al Qaeda and its affiliates.)

The most charitable characterization of the Iraqi Governing Council (widely known as "Ahmed Chalabi and the Twenty Thieves") is that they are opportunists. Most observers believe that, once cut loose from direct association with the U.S., such men will find the temptation to engage in demagoguery against the U.S. occupation irresistible. The forecast in the region is an escalating guerrilla war against U.S. forces, coupled with the progressive collapse of the successor regime to the CPA [Coalition Provisional Authority], and conjoined with jockeying for position in the civil war to follow U.S. military withdrawal.

Ah, what does he know? Would you trust his expertise before you'd trust the supurb confidence of Bush and Cheney and Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld and the rest of the theorists who said we HAD to do this? Just asking, here....

This fellow's point?

... In the broader context, one might ponder a few possible lessons: Military triumph does not necessarily equate to political victory. Wars end only when the defeated accept defeat, not when the victor declares victory. A victory that does not produce peace can be much more costly than protracted confrontation that accomplishes deterrence. Arrogant daydreams that inspire military actions can become humiliating nightmares that produce political debacles.

Well, we don't make mistakes. Our president couldn't think of a single one he's made when asked that last week at the press conference.

I sense a disconnect.

But it may all come down to simply a matter of the words you use.

John DeBlasio is a major in the Army Reserve Civil Affairs branch and recently completed a fourteen-month deployment to the Middle East with the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and the U.S. embassy in Jordan.

The Post also published this from him:

The War: What We're Missing
John DeBlasio, Sunday, April 18, 2004; Page B01

Here's what he's getting at:

Ever since the initial planning phases of Operation Iraqi Freedom, we Americans have struggled with the single most important question about our role in Iraq: Are we "occupiers" or "liberators"?

President Bush framed the issue both ways during his news conference last Tuesday. "We're not an imperial power, as nations such as Japan and Germany can attest. We are a liberating power," he said in his opening remarks, enunciating the administration's main theme. But in response to a question, he said of the Iraqis, "[T]hey're not happy they're occupied. I wouldn't be happy if I were occupied either."

Well, that's a tad confusing. Which is it, and is it just a matter of semantics, just silly words? DeBlasio says there is a bit more to it than that.

In October 2002, the Defense Department's general counsel ruled that, under international law, we would be responsible as an occupying force after invading Iraq. Otherwise, it would have been the job of coalition forces, as "liberators," to quickly hand over power to a legitimate government that would assume the legal responsibility for governing the country and its people. In an occupation, we would assume the legal responsibility to guarantee the security and well-being of the Iraqi people. That was also part of the premise of U.N. Resolution 1483, which lifted sanctions in Iraq and further defined our role as occupiers.

Well, since Bush took office we have made it clear that international laws are for others to follow, not us, and the UN is a bunch of pansies like those limp-wristed French and all that sort of thing.

The words don't matter.

But yes, we sort of avoid the label of "occupier" as it doesn't feel right, even if the president slips and uses the term. Hey, at least he's been pretty good at avoiding the term "crusade" for the last year or two. But we have, in avoiding the "occupier" label, kind of avoided some things - we avoided "zeroing in on the potential for humanitarian catastrophes instead of the administrative and security issues that became paramount following the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime."

Oh well, at least we don't think of ourselves as (shudder) "occupiers."

And thus we owe no one anything.

Posted by Alan at 16:49 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Saturday, 17 April 2004 19:43 PDT home

Friday, 16 April 2004

Topic: Bush

Coming Attractions - Another Book You Might Not Want to Read
"History? We don't know. We'll all be dead."

I'm rather fond of an old Duke Ellington thing called "Come Sunday." Nice piece. Well, on Sunday Bob Woodward will appear on the CBS show "60 Minutes" to introduce his new book Plan of Attack - and that's what's coming this Sunday. The book will be available in stores the following day.

The Associated Press got its advanced copy and has a preview.

See A book on Bush's secret rush to war
Friday, April 16, 2004 - but this link is from The International Herald Tribune, Saturday, April 17, 2004 - time zones being what they are.

The big thing with Woodward's new book is easy to sum up:

President George W. Bush secretly ordered a war plan drawn up against Iraq less than two months after U.S. forces attacked Afghanistan in 2001 and was so worried the decision would cause a furor he did not tell everyone on his national security team, according to a new book on his Iraq policy.

Bush feared that if news got out about the Iraq plan as U.S. forces were fighting another conflict, people would think he was too eager for war, Bob Woodward writes in "Plan of Attack," a behind-the-scenes account of the 16 months leading to the Iraq invasion.

Bush did not address those preparations when asked about them Friday, saying, "I do know that it was Afghanistan that was on my mind and I didn't really start focusing on Iraq until later on."

Yeah, yeah. Bush had a Jones for taking over Iraq and getting the guy who plotted to assassinate his father and all that - long before anyone thought. It was a war of choice he'd had on his mind for years and years. The 9-11 attacks were an excuse. The WMD stuff was a sham. Heard it before.

This is nothing new.

Woodward does quote Bush as saying, "I knew what would happen if people thought we were developing a potential war plan for Iraq. It was such a high-stakes moment and ... it would look like that I was anxious to go to war. And I'm not anxious to go to war."

Really? Guess so.

Bush and his crew have indeed been all over the media denying accusations they were preoccupied with Iraq at the cost of paying attention to the Al Qaeda terrorist threat leading up to the 9-11 thing. Why? Because Bush's own counterterrorism chief, Richard Clarke, quit in huff and, under oath, testified the Bush crew was blithely ignoring the real threats multiplying left and right. Clarke's point? The administration's determination to invade Iraq undermined the war on terror. Wrong war. Stupid move. Doesn't address the problem. Bush is a fool being led by manipulative, nasty folks. Yeah, yeah. That's being said a lot.

Woodward book, if the Associated Press is correct, indicates the key manipulative, nasty fellow is Vice President Dick Cheney. He was the one who exploited Bush and got him intensely focused on Saddam Hussein - and this started as soon as Bush took office and continued even after the terrorist attacks theoretically made the destruction of Al Qaeda the "top priority."

But the details in the AP item are just cool:

Woodward says Bush pulled Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld aside Nov. 21, 2001 - when U.S. forces and allies were in control of about half of Afghanistan - and asked him what kind of war plan he had on Iraq. When Rumsfeld said it was outdated, Bush told him to get started on a fresh one.

Bush said Friday the subject of Iraq came up four days after the terrorist attacks when he met his national security team at Camp David to discuss a response to the assault. "I said let us focus on Afghanistan," he said, taking questions after a meeting with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain.

Asked about the Nov. 21 meeting with Rumsfeld in a cubbyhole office adjacent to the Situation Room, Bush said only, "I can't remember exact dates that far back."

The book says Bush told Rumsfeld to keep quiet about their planning and when the defense secretary asked to bring the CIA director, George Tenet, into it at some point, the president said not to do so yet.

Even Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was apparently not fully briefed. Woodward said Bush told her that morning he was having Rumsfeld work on Iraq but did not give details. In an interview two years later, Bush told Woodward that if the news had leaked, it would have caused "enormous international angst and domestic speculation."

A secret plan to wage a war of choice, and he doesn't even tell his own people, and doesn't want us to know, or anyone in other countries?

Could this be? Surely not.... Maybe.

It seems also that General Tommy Franks, who was in charge of the Afghan war as head of Central Command, "uttered a string of obscenities when the Pentagon told him to come up with an Iraq war plan in the midst of fighting another conflict."

No doubt.

Woodward also seems to claim Cheney was key in a curious decision on March 19, 2003, to strike Iraq before a forty-eight-hour ultimatum for Saddam Hussein to leave the country had expired. General Franks was, Woodward says, against it, saying it was unfair to move before a deadline announced to the other side. If the book is correct, Rumsfeld and Rice favored the early strike, and Secretary of State Colin Powell leaned that way. But the AP reports Woodward is claiming that Bush did not make his decision until he had cleared everyone out of the Oval Office except the vice president. "I think we ought to go for it," Cheney is quoted as saying.

Good man, Cheney. And you know what we did.

Well, we did hit hard a tad early with precision smart bombs and GPS equipped cruise missiles. Heck, I saw it on television. And, Woodward claims, Tenet did call the White House before dawn to say the Iraqi leader had been killed. Oops. Saddam wasn't there. Maybe Saddam instinctively knew when we said forty-eight hours we were sort of joshing.

CBS has more detail in a news release before the Sunday interview with Woodward. See Journalist Shares War Secrets, their "60 Minutes" teaser.

Here's one nugget:

In the interview, Woodward talked about how the administration was able to finance secret preparations for the Iraq war.

"President Bush, after a National Security Council meeting, takes Don Rumsfeld aside, collars him physically and takes him into a little cubbyhole room and closes the door and says, 'What have you got in terms of plans for Iraq?' What is the status of the war plan? I want you to get on it. I want you to keep it secret," says Woodward.

"...The end of July 2002, they need $700 million, a large amount of money for all these tasks. And the president approves it. But Congress doesn't know and it is done. They get the money from a supplemental appropriation for the Afghan War, which Congress has approved. ...Some people are gonna look at a document called the Constitution which says that no money will be drawn from the treasury unless appropriated by Congress. Congress was totally in the dark on this."

Hey, a little less humanitarian aid for the Afghans, and you get a war plan for invading and occupying Iraq - and no one is the wiser. Not quite legit, but clever.

And the Washington Post has some further nuggets.

See Bush Planned for War as Diplomacy Continued
William Hamilton, Washington Post, Friday, April 16, 2004; 3:00 PM

I like this:

Woodward describes a relationship between Cheney and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell -- never close despite years of working together -- that became so strained that Cheney and Powell are barely on speaking terms. Cheney engaged in a bitter and eventually winning struggle over Iraq with Powell, an opponent of war who believed Cheney was obsessed with trying to establish a connection between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network and treated ambiguous intelligence as fact.

Powell felt Cheney and his allies -- his chief aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz and undersecretary of defense for policy Douglas Feith and what Powell called Feith's "Gestapo" office -- had established what amounted to a separate government. The vice president, for his part, believed Powell was mainly concerned with his own popularity and told friends at a private dinner he hosted a year ago to celebrate the outcome of the war that Powell was a problem and "always had major reservations about what we were trying to do."

Before the war with Iraq, Powell bluntly told Bush that if he sent U.S. troops there "you're going to be owning this place." Powell and his deputy and closest friend, Richard L. Armitage, used to refer to what they called "the Pottery Barn rule" on Iraq -- "you break it, you own it," according to Woodward.

But, when asked personally by the president, Powell agreed to present the U.S. case against Hussein at the United Nations in February, 2003 -- a presentation described by White House communications director Dan Bartlett as "the Powell buy-in."

Well, he's a good soldier, and knows better than to try to stand up to Dick Cheney.

And this is amusing:

The president described praying as he walked outside the Oval Office after giving the order to begin combat operations against Iraq on March, 19, 2003, and the powerful role his religious belief played throughout that time.

"Going into this period, I was praying for strength to do the Lord's will. . . . I'm surely not going to justify war based upon God. Understand that. Nevertheless, in my case I pray that I be as good a messenger of His will as possible. And then, of course, I pray for personal strength and for forgiveness."

Yep, God made him do it. He was reluctant, but God made him do it and will forgive him.

Well, others might not.

The Post also reports Bush was asked by Woodward how history would judge the war. Bush's reply was classic: "History. We don't know. We'll all be dead."

Well, that could happen sooner than we'd all like, given how things are going.

If you want to know more about all this you can watch the Woodward interview Sunday, or buy the book on Monday - or just pour a stiff drink and hope for the best in the coming weeks and months.

Posted by Alan at 17:58 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
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Thursday, 15 April 2004

Topic: For policy wonks...

Henry Kissinger's Short Definition of Diplomacy: Purposeful Ambiguity

Considering that President Bush on Wednesday endorsed Israel's plan to hold on to part of the West Bank in any final peace settlement with the Palestinians, I posted this: In-Your-Face Diplomacy - Timed Just Right to Make Things Much Worse and Force Outstanding Issues to a Head. In the item I suggested even if this was, maybe, the right thing to do, which I doubted, this was not the time to do it.

That idea seems to be the idea floating around. And the idea the shift in policy isn't good for Israel either.

See A Handshake That Doesn't Help Israel
David Ignatius, The Washington Post, Friday, April 16, 2004; Page A21

After reviewing the announcements, Ignatius gets to the nub of things.

Bush supporters would argue that he has done no more than state the obvious: Some Israeli settlements will remain in the West Bank after any "final status" agreement, and Israel will never absorb within its own borders the Palestinian refugees who fled after 1948.

But Bush ignores the fact that there can be powerful reasons not to say the obvious -- and that studied ambiguity is an important part of successful diplomacy. That's why six previous administrations had resisted taking the step Bush did Wednesday and endorsing one side's positions in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. They wanted to preserve America's ability to act as a mediator, in part because they believed that role best served the interests of America's ally, Israel.

Bush is not a man for diplomatic ambiguity. He famously prefers to see things in simpler, black-or-white terms. In particular, he tends to view the world through the narrow and sometimes distorting prism of the war on terrorism. Asked Wednesday whether Israeli settlements are an impediment to the peace process (which is the position taken by his predecessors for the past 20 years) Bush answered: "The problem is, is that there's terrorists who will kill people in order to stop the process."

Say what? The answer doesn't match the question! Has Bush finally started drinking again? The Daily Mirror has it right. Their headline after Tuesday's press conference? "The President's Brain Is Missing!" The full item is here.

In another item I commented - "Well, he's not wishy-washy. And people like that. As John Stewart likes to point out, and many other now do too, Bush is not stupid. We are. Bush depends on that."

Ignatius puts it more eloquently -

This distaste for subtleties is probably part of what many Americans like about Bush -- he's not some fancy-pants diplomat talking all the time about "nuances." But the public should understand that however satisfying Bush's plain talk may be, it can be harmful to the nation's security.

Then Ignatius gives examples:

The recent turmoil in Iraq offers two examples of how the Bush administration's rhetoric can put the United States out on an awkward limb. U.S. officials decided to demonize the troublesome Iraqi Shiite cleric, Moqtada Sadr, despite warnings from Iraqis and some U.S. officials that such "capture or kill" tactics would only enhance Sadr's standing.

Climbing out on that limb was defensible if the administration was certain it would never have to make its way back and negotiate a deal with Sadr. But it seems increasingly likely that the U.S.-led coalition may have to settle for some negotiated arrangement that allows Sadr and members of his militia to survive as the price of restoring stability within the Shiite community.

The dangers of demonization are also clear in the United States' relationship with Iran. Bush set the ultra-moral tone when he designated Iran as part of the "axis of evil" in 2002. That sort of language is fine if you think you're never going to need to strike a bargain with the evil one. But who should show up this week in Baghdad to explore a negotiated settlement of the Shiite crisis than an Iranian mediating team. Iran paid a severe price yesterday when one of its diplomats was assassinated in Baghdad.

Sources tell me the administration was prodded into accepting Iranian help by the British, who have centuries of experience in supping with devils of one sort or another.

Ignatius then makes the obvious point.

Great powers need flexibility. They should avoid taking public steps that unnecessarily limit their ability to maneuver in private. They should be cautious about marching up hills without being sure how they will get back down. They should never (or almost never) say "never." They should be especially wary of using military force, because once the battle is joined, it can't be abandoned. To the Bush administration, these may seem like sissies' rules, but they've served successful U.S. presidents well for more than two centuries.

Well, these guys aren't sissies.

But Ignatius argues the sad thing is this new shift in policy was not necessary at all. He argues the Israelis have powerful security reasons for withdrawing unilaterally from Gaza and dismantling their settlements there. We didn't have to take up the issue of the West Bank. Some things are better left unsaid - ambiguous. That allows for negotiation. It doesn't exclude one side. We ticked off a lot of folks for no reason.

As Ignatius says

Bush's disdain for decades of diplomacy is costly for the United States. At a time when America needs allies in a real war in Iraq and against Islamic terrorists, Bush's polarizing style fends them off. Saddest of all, in his eagerness to help Israel, Bush may be undermining America's greatest gift to its friend and ally: the ability to help broker a deal with the Palestinians.

Yep.

We cannot be any kind of "honest broker" now. We chose sides. That's what we do. We're not sissies.

And Tony Blair arrives today for talks. He worked long and hard to get us to commit to the "Roadmap for Peace" - if we did that he'd deliver Britain at our side in the new war to change the government in Iraq, in spite of his nation thinking it utter madness. Deal. Now Blair looks like a fool, and Bush smirks, the Arab world seethes, and Ariel Sharon grins - because he has just saved his butt in the upcoming elections in Israel.

Is everybody happy now?

Posted by Alan at 22:24 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Thursday, 15 April 2004 22:32 PDT home

Wednesday, 14 April 2004

Topic: Bush

Reading is Fundamental, or Not

Three amusing paragraphs from London - well, from Clinton's former advisor writing from America and published in London.

See Hear no evil, read no evil, speak drivel
Bush's press conference shows just how ill-informed he is about Iraq
Sidney Blumenthal, The Guardian (UK), Thursday April 15, 2004

Buried in the middle -

Bush, in fact, does not read his President's Daily Briefs, but has them orally summarised every morning by the CIA director, George Tenet. President Clinton, by contrast, read them closely and alone, preventing any aides from interpreting what he wanted to know first-hand. He extensively marked up his PDBs, demanding action on this or that, which is almost certainly the likely reason the Bush administration withheld his memoranda from the 9/11 commission.

"I know he doesn't read," one former Bush national security council staffer told me. Several other former NSC staffers corroborated this. It seems highly unlikely that he read the national intelligence estimate on WMD before the Iraq war that consigned contrary evidence and caveats that undermined the case to footnotes and fine print. Nor is there any evidence that he read the state department's 17-volume report, The Future of Iraq, warning of nearly all the postwar pitfalls, that was shelved by the neocons in the Pentagon and Vice-President Cheney's office.

And this:

... As the iconic image of the "war president" has tattered, another picture has emerged. Bush appears as a passive manager who enjoys sitting atop a hierarchical structure, unwilling and unable to do the hard work a real manager has to do to run the largest enterprise in the world. He does not seem to absorb data unless it is presented to him in simple, clear fashion by people whose judgment he trusts. He is receptive to information that agrees with his point of view rather than information that challenges it. This leads to enormous power on the part of the trusted interlocutors, who know and bolster his predilections.

Well, I guess this all is amusing. Or not.

Posted by Alan at 21:26 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Wednesday, 14 April 2004 21:27 PDT home

Topic: For policy wonks...

In-Your-Face Diplomacy - Timed Just Right to Make Things Much Worse and Force Outstanding Issues to a Head

Things are quite terse in Iraq. So, you want to things to get worse? Why not? We've said that we will either capture or kill the nasty Shiite cleric al-Sadr no matter where he's hiding. We shut down his newspaper and we'll get him too. Who cares about his being a cleric? He's a bad guy.

The more moderate Shiite clerics, led by that Sistani fellow, tell us to back off or ALL Shiites will join the resistance, and all Shiites around the world will do things that we won't much like.

But why should we back off? Like they think we should care about their silly little religion? The guy is bad news. At least that's what you pretty much hear from the right these days.

And some say we should do more to let moderate Muslims know we respect them. We get rapped for our overt support of Israel. Well, we claim that's just not so at all. We do respect these odd Muslim folks and their funny little pet Palestinians. Really. Ask George.

But enough is enough, at least for the neoconservative folks who run our government and instruct George Bush. It seems it became time for an "in your face" move to inflame the Arab world, just to show them who's boss.

Looks like we've decided to bring things to a head. Time to choose sides.

The bare bones story today -

Bush Endorses Israel's Plan on West Bank
Barry Schweid, Associated Press Diplomatic Writer, Wednesday, April 14, 2004

WASHINGTON - In a historic policy shift, President Bush on Wednesday endorsed Israel's plan to hold on to part of the West Bank in any final peace settlement with the Palestinians. Bush also ruled out Palestinian refugees returning to Israel, bringing strong criticism from the Palestinians.

An elated Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said his plan to pull back from parts of the West Bank and Gaza, hailed by Bush, would create "a new and better reality for the state of Israel."
But Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia -- with whom the Bush administration deals while boycotting leader Yasser Arafat -- called Bush "the first president who has legitimized the (Israeli) settlements in Palestinian territories."

"We as Palestinians reject that," Qureia said. "We cannot accept that. We reject it and we refuse it." Arafat earlier called the idea "the complete end of the peace process." And Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said of Bush's statement: "This is like someone giving a part of Texas' land to China."

"If Israel wants to make peace, it must talk to the Palestinian leadership," Erekat said.

Palestinian leaders had previously said they had been assured by the Bush administration they would be consulted before any endorsement of Sharon's plan.

... Previous U.S. administrations have described Jewish settlements as obstacles to peace. One of Bush's predecessors, Jimmy Carter, went even further and called them illegal.

A senior Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Sharon thought that no American president had ever made concessions so important to Israel as Bush did on Wednesday.

... Bush called Sharon's plan historic and urged Palestinians to match Israel's "boldness and courage."

... Past U.S. presidents have operated on the assumption there could be some changes in Israel's borders. But Bush went much further.

He committed himself to Israel's retention of parts of the West Bank settlements in a letter to Sharon in which he said that approach was necessary for Israel's security -- an approach long taken by the former general.

In another major concession sought by Sharon, Bush said a final peace deal should provide for Palestinian refugees to be resettled in a Palestinian state, not in Israel.

And that's leaving out detail.

Aside from the timing - to send a message to the Arab street and those fighting us the cities in Iraq - what's up with this? Israel gives up settlements in Gaza - who wants to live there anyway? Even the Palestinians don't want to live there. But the fact is Israel gives up five settlements in the West Bank, but keeps two hundred thirty thousand settlers there, with the right to expand the remaining settlements.

What's up with that?

An analysis I recommend is over at "Whisky Bar" and contains some interesting observations, including -

This is a shameful capitulation. ... the statement overturns in one stroke almost 40 years of official U.S. policy -- a policy Shrub's father actually showed a fair amount of political courage in defending. For decades, Israeli leaders (Likud and Labor alike) have worked to create those "new realities on the ground" -- as the statement, with the usual neocon arrogance, describes them -- through illegal land expropriations, relentless discrimination against Palestinian landowners, and lavish government subsidies for Jewish settlers. And for decades, the U.S. government has refused to accept Israel's bullyboy tactics, despite the relentless, continuous efforts of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington.

That's gone now -- and probably for good.... Today's statement essentially guts the road map (itself a largely gutless process) by deleting the essential principle that the final status of the territories will not be determined by unilateral action on either side (which in the real world, means on the Israeli side.) It also negates the fundamental premise of UN Resolution 242 -- the bedrock of all peace efforts over the past 40 years -- that territory will not be acquired by force.

Indeed, Sharon actually ends up with something better than an approved settlement list from Bush. He gets virtual carte blanche to keep any settlement he wishes to keep -- and indeed, to grab any part of the West Bank he wishes to grab, as long as it can be connected in some way to those "existing major Israeli populations centers." And if you know anything about Israel's settlement policies in the occupied territories, you know how good they are at connecting things.

By stipulating, in the broadest possible way, the "facts on the ground" that must be incorporated into any final status agreement, the neocons have made a complete mockery of the U.S. commitment to a viable Palestinian state...

Maybe so, but we were (are) getting pushed around in Iraq, so it seem to many of us just a message. Mess with us Christians and our Jewish Likud friends, and you won't get jack in the real world.

The item here continues -

To call this document the most craven, under-handed and one-sided agreement ever negotiated by the U.S. government would be unfair. There are, after all, those 19th century Indian treaties to take into account. But it's pretty clear that, rumors of their demise notwithstanding, the neocons are alive and kicking, and still have a death grip on the U.S.-Israeli relationship. It seems almost inconceivable to me that having plunged America into the bloody quicksand in Iraq, the neocons are now to receive as their reward an only modestly reduced version of their dream of a Greater Israel. Fuck up and move up indeed.

The net result of this nasty little backroom deal won't just be further violence and random butchery in the territories and in Israel proper. It's also going to contribute to the progressive degeneration of the war against terrorism into the war against the Arabs -- if not the war against the entire Islamic world. The line in front of the Al Qaeda recruiting office is going to get a little bit longer; the struggle to stabilize a rebellious Iraq is going to become a little harder, and a future in which a large part of a major American city disappears in a nuclear firestorm is going to become a little more likely.

Yeah, but we'll have made our point about being pushed around by thugs, I guess....

Posted by Alan at 21:08 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
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