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| The new smite |
| 2004-04-22 |
| I don’t think it’s my imagination, though I have had to read a lot of tea leaves to come to this conclusion. I think, quite apart from exigencies of an election year, that the Bush administration, nay verily, President Bush himself is changing his tune; that his own reading of the apocalyptically bad situation in the Middle East is evolving with experience. He is quietly abandoning positions which have been proven naïve. He is hunkering into positions that have been proven unavoidable. The new song, which will flavour his second term if there is one, might be entitled, "No more Mr. Nice Guy." The tea leaves I am reading are all over Iraq, and Afghanistan, but also heavily deposited in Gaza. Punches the Americans were still pulling only a few weeks ago are being freely delivered. Now, the world is getting increasingly out of touch with America. This is evident in the common assumption that the Democrat presidential candidate, John Kerry, would offer a kinder, gentler version of American statecraft, and therefore deserves the prayers of the world’s peaceniks. Mr. Kerry, though essentially a man of the left, is a political weathercock. Read carefully what he has been saying recently about the U.S. commitment in Iraq, and national interests throughout the region. He is now trying to position himself as hawk to Mr. Bush’s dove, in the "war on terrorism". He is less tactful than Mr. Bush in referring to the "Islamic threat", and has been downright rude to Saudi Arabia. In press conferences among international media, he has forgotten that he can speak French. (Mr. Kerry is also moving into positions that Mr. Bush is moving on from, but that is a different story.) And the polling data suggest the U.S. public may be getting grittier rather than softer in their determination to deal with the hard problems presented by international terrorism and rogue states. Example: at the same time that an increasing proportion think things are not going well in Iraq, a stable or increasing proportion think the U.S. should remain there. Karl Rove, Mr. Bush’s political wizard, seems to have detected that Americans are tiring, not of aggressive political language, but of anything that smacks of empty idealism. I have noticed that the administration, including even the State Department, is muting the blather about "democracy in Iraq". Since it’s not going to happen, they might as well stop promising. U.S. support for Israel is the real test, since Israel remains, to anyone with a reasonably clear comprehension of the Middle East, America’s only reliable ally. On Israel, the U.S. public has now had 31 months to consider the "plight of the Palestinian people", and also their behaviour, in light of what happened on 9/11/01. Sympathy for suicide bombers is at a new low. Sympathy for Israelis who kill Hamas terrorist leaders is at a new high. It is against this political background, that President Bush has been emboldened to "move the envelope" out of reach of the old Oslo platitudes, and openly endorse Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s efforts to build a security barrier around the West Bank (to match the one already around Gaza), and even retain possession of proximate Israeli settlements on the non-Israeli side of the old "Green Line". Why should Israel give up anything, when she will get nothing in return? Why should she act any differently from the U.S. in hunting down and killing terrorists publicly pledged to her annihilation? The response to Mr. Bush’s endorsements of Israel are serious, by "moderate Arab" diplomatic standards. King Abdullah of Jordan postponed a meeting in the White House, and President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt gave an interview to Le Monde in Paris in which he said, among other unpleasant things, that, "American and Israeli interests will not be safe, not only in our region but anywhere in the world." So what else is new? Appeasement is a two-way street. Until now, it has generally been assumed that the U.S. must do the appeasing, and that Arabs and their allies are supposed to be appeased. It is this basic formula that not only the Bush administration, but the U.S. at large has grown sick of. They get nothing for their appeasements but more grief; just as Israel received no benefits -- only more blown-up buses -- when she wasn’t killing Yassin or Rantisi. Everything else being equal, you might as well smite your mortal enemies. The trick, after all, is to make them appease you. I’ll buy that David Warren |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #13 He is now trying to position himself as hawk to Mr. Bush’s dove, in the "war on terrorism". If he thinks we can depend on John Kerry to be a hawk once in office, he is out of his mind. Kerry knows he has to say hawkish things now to bring middle-of-the roaders on board. Once in office, he will fly the white flag above the white house. |
| Posted by: Zpaz 2004-04-22 1:54:03 PM |
| #12 You got it TomA. Course TJ also thought war could be mercifully shortened by taking no prisoners and killing out of hand. I'm still wondering if he was right. Pass me a lemon. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-04-22 11:14:06 AM |
| #11 Everything else being equal, you might as well smite your mortal enemies. The trick, after all, is to make them appease you. "You got to show them the BAYONET" Thomas Jackson |
| Posted by: TomAnon 2004-04-22 10:09:28 AM |
| #10 I doubt we'll be giving up in Iraq; we'll keep our committment there. The real question is whether we will be willing to bother going the liberation/reformation route elsewhere in response to future terrorist attacks, or whether we'll respond instead with a war of punishment, or conquest, or even outright extermination. |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2004-04-22 9:13:21 AM |
| #9 I guess I read too many iraqi blogs.. I'm not ready to give up on democracy in the middle east |
| Posted by: dcreeper 2004-04-22 8:38:49 AM |
| #8 Nice article. Mike, while I think the Sauds deserve a firm ass-kicking, I personally don't want to pay $5.00 or more/gallon for gas. I have to drive 25 miles to work everyday! That is a dilema that needs much thinking upon. Can we get Iraq to a point where it can supplant lost oil from the Sauds? Or can we secure the Saud oil fields and supply while dragging them into the 21st century (or as close to 21st as we can get them)? Either way, I strongly believe that road to long-term peace (or atleast stability) goes through Riyad. |
| Posted by: AllahHateMe 2004-04-22 8:36:18 AM |
| #7 Kerry's in a box. If he comes out as a war hawk now, it will be just another flop. "I voted for it before I voted against it - but then I voted for it again" That's not to say that he won't try to do it, though. |
| Posted by: B 2004-04-22 8:01:56 AM |
| #6 Yeap,I favor the Teddy Roosevelt school of diplomacy"Speak softly and carry a big ass stick" |
| Posted by: raptor 2004-04-22 7:26:30 AM |
| #5 I think Kerry has found that bashing Saudi Arabia enjoys great political resonance across the political spectrum. I expect we'll see more and more of that from him. |
| Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-04-22 7:14:43 AM |
| #4 Commentary like David Warren's has been appearing more and more in the last few months. For many of us, the jury is no long out on whether Arab society can be reformed, and rendered benign, by grafting Western-style democracy onto it. The jury has rendered its verdict, and the verdict is: forget about it, these people are hopeless. I myself am not quite there yet, but that's the direction I'm moving. |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2004-04-22 5:31:56 AM |
| #3 I think Bush and them are fiqureing out that the American ppl has had enough of playing nice.Time to pull out the extra size baseball bat and start whacking. |
| Posted by: djohn66 2004-04-22 3:31:57 AM |
| #2 B - I came of age in the '60's. They can't die too soon for me. Why anyone would want to keep living in that time period is beyond me. They must have pathetic lives otherwise. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2004-04-22 2:56:01 AM |
| #1 This is evident in the common assumption that the Democrat presidential candidate, John Kerry, would offer a kinder, gentler version of American statecraft, and therefore deserves the prayers of the world’s peaceniks. Mr. Kerry, though essentially a man of the left, is a political weathercock. Read carefully what he has been saying recently about the U.S. commitment in Iraq, and national interests throughout the region. He is now trying to position himself as hawk to Mr. Bush’s dove, in the "war on terrorism". I've seen the same thing in my tea leaves too. Things have changed for Americans since 911. The 60's are not quite dead yeat, but they are on life-support and there is no chance of a recovery. |
| Posted by: B 2004-04-22 2:48:07 AM |