“He gave me a lesson in democracy and said: ‘We see the democracy the United States spearheaded in Iran and with Hamas, in Gaza, and that’s the fate of the Middle East,’” Ben-Eliezer said. “‘They may be talking about democracy but they don’t know what they’re talking about and the result will be extremism and radical Islam,’” he quoted Mubarak as saying. — Mubarak slammed U.S. in phone call with Israeli MK before resignation
Conservatism didn’t inspire the Egyptian people, it was liberalism.
Control is the central tenet of conservatism. That’s what the Egyptian people were fighting against, the control of the regime in all facets of their lives.
Control is also what 20th century leaders and thinkers desperately try to hold on to in the wake of a multi-platform media explosion, which obliterates the notion you can control anything anymore.
What Mubarak warns against may happen, but eventually liberalism will win there too, even if in the confines of a religious society, a conservative construct forwarded from ancient times.
Freedom cannot be stopped. It can only be delayed.
Liberalism is what broke out in Iran during the Green uprising.
Liberalism is what kept France from accepting the burqa.
Liberalism is what sparked the uprising in Tunisia. The basic human desire to live life freely is something worth dying for, because without freedom there is no essential life.
Liberalism is what inspired Egyptians to rise up to demand freedom.
In fact, freedom itself is a liberal notion.
Women in the Mideast demanding respect are invoking liberalism, while the conservatives who prop up old rules want to inhibit their freedoms.
Gays fighting to stay alive in Muslim countries are fighting conservatism. In America, they’re fighting for the basic equality of life, which conservatives believe should be denied.
Women in America are fighting to be as free as men.
Conservatives and leading Republicans like Sarah Palin are fighting to stop that basic human right from manifesting against the basic principles of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Conservatives in both political parties have made religion more important than the individual life being lived. Religion itself a conservative notion, which aims to control, unless you get beyond the organized into the self-spiritualized experience, which conservative society mocks.
Wherever liberalism is missing there is angst, anger and unrest.
Liberalism reaches out in support of our fellow man and woman, while conservatism demands up from your own boot straps mentality in a system rigged against the poor.
The Taliban and the Islamic extremists we’re fighting are all conservatives. Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria and many other countries are all conservative nations fighting against the freedom of people.
Conservatives, in whatever party they serve, wanted to gain control of Iraq, so they voted for preemptive war.
Conservatives wanted to control Palestinians, so they forced an election that delivered Hamas.
Conservatism is dry, infertile, cruel and deadly. It is about control and order versus freedom.
Liberalism is ripe, generous, infinite and hopeful. It is fundamentally uncontrollable, which is why people fear it. Like freedom itself, it is inexhaustible.
Everywhere in the world where people are rising up on the cry of freedom it’s because of liberalism.
Conservatism is bondage to rules, which in our country is well represented in Strom Thurmond, as well as Trent Lott, who bolted the Democratic Party to eventually form the Republican Party’s Southern wing, because they couldn’t stomach integration that was being heralded by the new liberalism of the ’60s.
Conservatism shuts off, where liberalism opens up.
Imagine if Iran’s mullahs were liberal.
Imagine if PM Netanyahu was a liberal.
Imagine if Democrats who voted for the Iraq war were guided by liberalism instead of 20th century conservative militarism.
When a small group of freshman Republicans voted against several tenets of the Patriot Act recently, they were joining liberals at a point of common ground, bipartisanship meeting organically. Liberals believing that government has no right to infringe on personal privacy without reason, with a few new conservatives agreeing because they think government’s role should be restricted so that it doesn’t impede on the individual.
Could this finally be a place to reboot, a new political beginning?
Then the Republican establishment rose up, including Rush Limbaugh, to say these conservative freshman were misinformed. The Right’s elite stepping in to curtail the freshman’s freedom to vote in favor of the people over government intervention. Their basic reasoning being that there is much to fear in the world, which makes impeding the American citizen’s freedoms worthwhile. Republican conservatism once again robbing people out of fear, which they also utilize on immigration.
“Compassionate conservatism” is finally understood to be the oxymoron it always was.
Pres. Obama is the latest elite politician to err on the side of conservatism over liberalism under his fear and ignorance moored to marketing more than truth. Because without liberalism Barack Obama would not be president. His conservatism evident amidst the Egyptian revolution, because he didn’t trust the Egyptian people’s freedom cry and know instinctively that they were in the right, no matter the outcome.
The Iranian Green uprising teaching a lesson Pres. Obama and his administration didn’t learn. The thirst for freedom will eventually win out.
If Barack Obama trusted liberalism, which he never has, he would have known what to do on Egypt from the start. If Sect. Clinton had trusted liberalism she would never have uttered that Mubarak’s government was “stable.” And V.P. Joe Biden would never have embarrassed himself by stating Mubarak shouldn’t step down or that he wasn’t a dictator. In the Administration’s struggles to get Egypt right the answer was always right in front of them, but they simply couldn’t see it and definitely didn’t trust it. It’s not just their failure, however, it’s the failure of a world coming out of the 20th century where control was policy.
Freedom cannot flourish in the confines of conservatism.
When Ronald Reagan shouted to Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall,” it was a liberal demand.
When a conservative is crying out for freedom’s justice he’s simply pleading for a release from bondage that conservatism itself has imposed.
There’s no denying it.
Wherever freedom is breaking out, demanded or being defended, liberalism is at its heart.
“The President must stay in office in order to steer those changes through. I therefore believe President Mubarak’s continued leadership is critical. It’s his opportunity to write his own legacy. He has given 60 years of his life to the service of his country and this is an ideal moment for him to show the way forward.” — Frank Wisner, Pres. Obama’s U.S. Special Envoy to Egypt.
Well, wasn’t that helpful. There are so many ironies in this story today it will take the entire Super Bowl to decipher them all.
Pres. Obama might as well have sent former Vice President Dick Cheney to see Mubarak. It would have had the same results. Tony Blair’s playbook has become the consensus.
“He’s been a good man, a good friend and ally to the United States,” Cheney said. “We need to remember that.”
But when you’re choosing someone to represent you in Egypt it might behoove you to actually pick someone you can trust, but who also isn’t moored in 20th century thinking. Of course, the other side of this “special envoy” business is that Mr. Wisner is a free agent, so he’s not bound to say what the boss wants and clearly doesn’t respect the Administration’s line. But it was certainly highly predictable that someone like Mr. Wisner would deliver rhetoric sounding more like Dick Cheney than Barack Obama. It’s the same talking points handed down since before Ronald Reagan.
The Obama administration has disavowed Wisner’s remarks, but the damage is already done. When you have your special envoy contradicting you it makes Pres. Obama look out of control on his own foreign policy, but when it’s done in the Middle East it makes him look like weak and foolish, which is dangerous for the U.S.
And I understand the enthusiasm of the Huffington Post blaring “PROTESTERS WIN MAJOR CONCESSIONS,” which was Richard Engel’s line on “Meet the Press” as well, but I think a little caution is in order. Do promises to people mean anything coming from Mubarak?
The Administration now has the same problem on Egypt as they did on stopping Israeli settlements. They got out in front of the settlement issue, but didn’t exert any leverage, which led to Biden being humiliated when he landed on Israeli soil. The U.S. wants an “orderly transition” to begin “now,” but what leverage are they willing to apply?
As an aside, Arabs will never take us seriously if leading journalists like David Gregory don’t become more balanced. Talking to El Baradei about the Israeli peace agreement with Egypt, Gregory delivered AIPAC’s question for them on “Meet the Press.” He said if Egypt’s next government equivocates on the peace deal with Israel it makes everyone nervous. That is no doubt true, but 80 million Egyptians wanting a government that represents them is well apart from Israel right now in the land of the Pharaohs. Gregory was mindlessly ignorant about the Egyptian people in his broadcast today, which should have been an embarrassment to NBC News.
Now that Obama’s own special envoy has directly confronted the Administration’s policy in public, this further greases the launch pad for what Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and many Tea Party activists began some time ago, further delegitimizing Pres. Obama.
However, the Republican campaign against Obama “losing Egypt” comes at a particularly ironic moment, all of this happening on Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday.
Mr. Reagan “cut and run” on Lebanon, sending an early signal to our adversaries, some of whom became Al Qaeda, after 241 Marines were murdered by a suicide bomber in Beirut. He was instrumental in creating what Pakistan is today through his friendship with Zia to help the U.S. in Afghanistan, building on Pres. Carter approving initial funding, all part of the Reagan Doctrine. The Gipper called Afghanistan’s mujahideen “freedom fighters,” one of whom was Osama bin Laden. Reagan’s C.I.A. Director William Casey cultivated his own little war that crossed the Afghanistan border into the former Soviet Union, right under Reagan’s nose, which was recounted in Bob Woodward’s book, “Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981-1987.” If Iran-Contra had happened in his first term Reagan would have been the second Republican president in two decades to deserve impeachment proceedings. But Reagan’s “nuclear zero” was important and among a long list of Republicans no-nos that would have gotten him a Tea Party challenger today. If nothing shows Sarah Palin’s foreign policy ignorance it’s her chirpy genuflections of Ronald Reagan that don’t come close to representing the man. There is Mr. Reagan’s moral abdication in leading a fight against HIV-AIDS; that he opened the amnesty door without a solution for people; implemented a payroll tax hike; then another tax hike to hide the disaster of his first tax cut; and the whopping deficit he left behind, which didn’t get cleaned up until William Jefferson Clinton came into office.
If Reagan taught us anything it’s that brilliant “Mad Men” marketing to sell a product pitch man to the public may work, but it does not make a good president, which takes a lot more than acting the part.
From an old Newsweek article no longer available online recalling reality, not the Peggy Noonan – Sean Hannity – Rush Limbaugh – Sarah Palin myth of a very mortal man beaten by the weight of the presidency.
The podium was shorter than usual, but even so, Ronald Reagan seemed diminished as he stood behind it — “smaller and frailer,” one friend thought, with lines of strain around the eyes and mouth. Sounding tentative, he stumbled twice over his lines as he thanked the three-man panel he had asked to pass judgment on his handling of the Iran scandal; whatever the commission found, he promised to “enact the proper reforms.” Then, in a din of shouted questions, he was ushered protectively to the door of the briefing room on the arm of the diminutive chief judge, former Texas Sen. John Tower. Reagan’s stricken look was fully justified: he had already heard the verdict.
The Tower commission’s report was devastating — a calm, searing appraisal of Reagan’s presidency that threatened to shrink him to irrelevance for the rest of his lame-duck term. The only good news was that Tower and his colleagues, former Secretary of State Edmund Muskie and former national-security adviser Brent Scowcroft, believed the president’s story that he genuinely wanted the truth to be told about the Iran-contra affair and that he hadn’t intentionally misled the nation. For the rest, he emerged as a careless, remote and forgetful leader, too indifferent to supervise the reckless swashbuckling of his aides. His Iran policy was found to be foolish and counterproductive, and it was carried out unprofessionally and perhaps illegally. None of the officials involved in the dealings escaped criticism; in Tower’s words, the president “was poorly advised and poorly served.” But Reagan himself “clearly didn’t understand” what was going on: he let his emotions rule him, never ordered a critical review and allowed his aides to manipulate him and make their own foreign policy as they lied, diverted arms profits and tried to cover up the scandal.
Part of Reagan’s legacy is he “clearly didn’t understand” what was going on at times. It now collides with his son Ron’s recounting his own personal experiences watching his father during his second term, after he was shot. Real questions now part of history about the very real possibility that Pres. Reagan had Alzheimer’s while he was president.
Pres. Obama continues to struggle with breaking with the past and the old guard ways that created this foreign policy mess in the first place, which the choice of Mr. Wisner proves. It’s the same things he’s dealing with in Afghanistan and Israel, but also Pakistan. I don’t know when we’ll get 21st century leaders in Washington ready to turn the page on the past, but it won’t be until leading Democrats, starting with Barack Obama, demonstrably distance themselves from the legacy of Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy.
My favorite moment from the night of the SOTU address: Hillary, Sonia, and Elana
Good morning, news junkies! It’s been a helluva week in current events. Grab a cuppa whatever gets you up and warm this morning and let’s dig in.
Restate of the Union
For the source on that, see VL’s latest webcomic: “Restate of the Union“? Once again, Vast Left hits it out of the park. And, Glen Ford at BAR hits it back out there again (emphasis in bold is mine): “The Obama/GOP Consensus… With whole communities in a state of economic dislocation, Obama burns the rescue boats and poisons the water, all the while promising that the necessary budgetary savings will not be achieved ‘on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens’ – as if Wall Street’s bankers will shield the helpless with their well-bonused bodies… No dollar signs to give meaning to the president’s mystical and misleading rhetoric on jobs, which will somehow be made to appear through a uniquely American process of ‘innovation’ and ‘self-invention’ inaccessible to lesser peoples. This aspect of exceptionalism will out-’green’ China and overtake South Korean Internet speeds, without costing the Treasury an extra dime. ‘Thousands’ of jobs will result, to take the place of the hundreds of thousands that will be lost in the public sector, alone, as government implodes at all levels. ”
Power to the People: Tunisia, Lebanon, Egypt, Yemen, and the Palestine Papers
The real story this week is the one going on in the Middle East. I collected more links and excerpts than I could fit here, so I’ve put up a separate Saturday reads just for the Middle East at my place. Please click on the link above or the image to the left to get the scoop. To the left, description by Mona Eltahawy: “..a photo of a man and a woman standing in Mahalla, posted on the citizen journalists’ Web site Rassd News Network, instantly conveys why Egyptians have taken to the streets. The woman holds a loaf of bread and a Tunisian flag. The man next to her holds a loaf of bread and a sign that reads ‘Yesterday Tunisia. Today Egypt. Jan. 25 the day we began to take our rights back.’”
Modern-Day Slavery Continues Right Before Our Eyes
In South Florida, via the Miami Herald: ” Modern-day slaves’ story repeats daily in plain sight… The case of dozens of Filipino workers held captive spotlights a widespread human- trafficking problem.” And, from Nikki Junker at RH Reality Check: “Moldova, A Hot Bed for Human Trafficking… So when I think of Human Trafficking, I think of the places where poverty is most rampant and in the European Union, the poorest country is little Moldova whose people are bought and sold as commodities to be used by the richer nations of the world.”
Sept. 2010: Hillary at the UN attending the "Every Woman, Every Child" event.
This Saturday in Women’s and Children’s Health
For the extended version, please click here or on the image to the left. Topics covered: Breakthroughs, Cancer Research, January: Cervical Health Awareness, February 4: Official Wear Red Day, Abortion Rights Awareness Month?, Obstetric Fistula, Chemicals and the Rise in Childhood Cancers, Demography trends in India, Stupakistan: An Interactive Map, Anti-Abortion Myths, Catholic hospitals, Abortion showdown in Texas, Stem Cell Research, Siddhartha Mukherjee’s The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer.
Race to the Truth
I wrote this back in November, but after hearing Obama’s SOTU remarks on education, I thought I would revisit it. It’s chock full of links–I basically recorded everything of interest I could dig up on the charter school debate. If you want to read the entire piece, click on the link/image or bookmark for later. Otherwise, here are the three must-read links you ought to familiarize yourself with if nothing else: 1. Ravitch’s “The Myth of Charter Schools” 2. CREDO 3.Harvard study
Bringing it altogether: Populism vs. the Pseudo-Pragmatism of Barack Obama
The president’s speech on Tuesday failed to put people first and then added insult to injury by championing the false pragmatism of “[spending] cuts to things I care deeply about, like community action programs.” Talk about “suckered into stupid.”
Remember O’s “Dumb” war comment? “I don’t oppose all wars…what I am opposed to is a dumb war.” Well, I’m not against all budgetary cuts. I’m just against the stuck-on-stupid ones that would further erode underfunded social safety nets that I care deeply about–especially at precisely the moment where the margins of society need those social safety nets the most. By all means, cut back spending on unnecessary things. I don’t know about you, but war+untruth and military aid toward a sham peace process all sound pretty darn unnecessary to me.
The president paid lip service to “ordinary people” before he closed, but here are some more words missing from Obama’s speech: Egypt, the Palestine Papers, Citizens United ruling, Modern day slavery, Mental health, Childhood cancer, Hexavalent chromium, NASA privatization/layoffs (though Obama sure Sputnik’d us in a way that is a most unfortunate turn of that phrase), Atheist (yet for no discernible reason, he tacked Christian, Jewish, Hindu, and Muslim in front of his two-second mention of the DADT repeal), Texas School Board of Education and textbooks, CREDO study on charter schools, Peterson/Lastra-Anadón (their study gave Race to the Top winners poor marks), Smith-Lipinski, Paycheck Fairness Act (not the same thing as the Lilly Ledbetter Act), Income inequality, Rise in Multi-generational American households due to unemployment and foreclosure, Food stamps, Stem cell research, Dickey-Wicker, Public option/Medicare for All, Elizabeth Edwards.
I miss Elizabeth’s voice (from an August 2007 interview): “It’s the continuing inequity. We still have a middle class that lives on a razor blade. So sometimes when you say poverty, you neglect a large portion of the population about whom he’s deeply concerned. It’s the two-income trap. It’s more likely in America that your parents will file for bankruptcy than divorce. We think of divorce as so prevalent, but we all know that happens because somebody moves out of the house. But when bankruptcy happens, they stay there, they close up, and you don’t feel what’s going on. But what that means is we have all these families under stress, constantly. And then we have the people who are trying to get out of dire distress. You hear that thirty-seven million people in this country live in poverty, and fifteen million people—fifteen million— live in deep poverty, which is $7,800 for a family of three.”
Now, that’s a State-of-the-Union-as-inherited-from-Bush-and-the-GOP speech.
I miss so many voices on the domestic policy front.Like Bobby Kennedy: “It is not realistic or hardheaded to solve problems and take action unguided by ultimate moral aims and values, although we all know some who claim that it is so. In my judgment, it is thoughtless folly. For it ignores the realities of human faith and of passion and of belief — forces ultimately more powerful than all of the calculations of our economists or of our generals.”
We are witnessing the power of those forces in the Middle East. Not in a glossy Shepard Fairey poster, but out in the streets. Genuine conviction. Genuine passion. The hope of a people demanding policies that put the interests of the public trust ahead of the pseudo-pragmatic. As Hillary said in her 2009 Human Rights speech at Georgetown: “Of course, people must be free from the oppression of tyranny, from torture, from discrimination, from the fear of leaders who will imprison or ‘disappear’ them. But they also must be free from the oppression of want – want of food, want of health, want of education, and want of equality in law and in fact.“
There is nothing more pragmatic or more “innovative” than a domestic and foreign policy agenda driven by a human rights agenda to free people from the oppression not just of tyranny but also of want. It is the only agenda that pays lasting progress forward.
We need a freeze on the idiocracy that suggests otherwise.
So, what stories are you following today? And, what’s on your list of words missing from the SOTU? Have at it in the comments.
This has been an extraordinary week. What follows is a remarkable story I’ve done my best to unpack and requires a lot of investment on your part. I don’t claim this is perfectly packaged, but I’ve done the very best I can on a story I think is historic, including news late last night that Egypt had left the Internet, as well as flummoxing for U.S. leaders.
The cables, which cover the first year of the Obama presidency, leave little doubt about how valuable an ally Mr. Mubarak has been, detailing how he backed the United States in its confrontation with Iran, played mediator between Israel and the Palestinians and supported Iraq’s fledgling government, despite his opposition to the American-led war. Privately, Ambassador Scobey pressed Egypt’s interior minister to free three bloggers, as well as a Coptic priest who performed a wedding for a Christian convert, according to one of her cables to Washington. She also asked that three American pro-democracy groups be granted formal permission to operate in the country, a request the Egyptians rejected. – Cables Show Delicate U.S. Dealings With Egypt’s Leaders
The Obama administration needs to up its game. Al Jazeera is watching and broadcasting to a region that is convulsing with freedom pangs in the era of transformative media access through Wikileaks, Twitter and Facebook that empowers people held in bondage by brutal regimes, which we often bankroll, including $1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt yearly.
When Al Jazeera English became available in parts of the U.S., like the Beltway, it was a seminal event as far as I am concerned. It’s the most important channel not enough people are watching, a tiny part of that because it’s not available everywhere. It’s the first successful channel to connect the Arab world while blasting what is happening into America, which the U.S. media ignores at our peril and they do so because it doesn’t pay and we’re such a navel gazing country most don’t understand the repercussions of our own ignorance. It’s also why too many Americans accept Beck-Palin-Rush stereotypes of the people whose countries we are occupying and the regimes we continue to bolster, even against what the people want.
The first post I did on the beginnings of the Arab eruptions this week, on Monday, was centered around Al Jazeera’s prominent role in the Palestine Papers. This story revealed Sect. Clinton allegedly saying the Palestinians are “always in a chapter of a Greek tragedy,” with Al Jazeera reporting the U.S. as anything but an honest broker. Watching the Palestine Papers unfold on Al Jazeera English, as well as on Twitter, was stunning, all of which came on the wave of what happened in Tunisia.
Today, Friday, the New York Times writes in more detail what I began covering on Monday, which is that Al Jazeera is at the center this story as much as anything else. (My tweet below mirrors what others tweeting that day were also witnessing on Al Jazeera English, which the New York Times confirms today, the “finally” meaning they finally woke up.)
On Tuesday afternoon, as the street protests in Egypt were heating up, Al Jazeera was uncharacteristically slow to report them, airing a culture documentary, a sports show and more of its “Palestine Papers” coverage of the leaked documents.
Many Egyptians felt betrayed, and Facebook and Twitter were full of rumors about a deal between Qatar — the Persian Gulf emirate whose emir, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, founded Al Jazeera in 1996 — and President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, who visited the emir in Doha last month. Within a day, Al Jazeera was reporting from the streets in Cairo in its usual manic style.
Al Jazeera’s freewheeling broadcasts have long made it the bête noire of Arab governments, and in some earlier instances they have succeeded in reining it in.
In 2007, the channel received orders to soften its blunt coverage of Saudi Arabia after Qatar and the Saudis mended a smoldering political feud. That remains a weak point for Al Jazeera — as for most of the pan-Arab press, which is largely owned by Saudi Arabia.
Yet for all its flaws, Al Jazeera still operates with less constraint than almost any other Arab outlet, and remains the most popular channel in the region. To many Arabs, Al Jazeera’s recent exposé on the Palestinian Authority documents — sometimes called “Pali-leaks” — is of a piece with its reporting on protests against autocratic Arab regimes.
The story continues to widen with Vice Pres. Joe Biden’s unhelpful statements to PBS last night, the latest foreign policy fodder to be subject to Twitter and Facebook responses and relays that ricochet.
JIM LEHRER: Has the time come for President Mubarak of Egypt to go, to stand aside?
JOE BIDEN: No, I think the time has come for President Mubarak to begin to move in the direction that — to be more responsive to some of the needs of the people out there. These are — a lot of the people out there protesting are middle-class folks who are looking for a little more access and a little more opportunity.
And the two things we have been saying here, Jim, is that violence isn’t appropriate and people have a right to protest. And so — and we think that — I hope Mubarak, President Mubarak, will — is going to respond to some of the legitimate concerns that are being raised.
JIM LEHRER: You know President Mubarak.
JOE BIDEN: I know him fairly well.
JIM LEHRER: Have you talked to him about this?
JOE BIDEN: I haven’t talked to him in the last three days.
I — last time I — actually, I haven’t talked to him in about a month. But I speak to him fairly regularly. And I think that, you know, there’s a lot going on across that part of the continent, from Tunisia into — all the way to Pakistan, actually. And there’s — a lot of these countries are beginning to sort of take stock of where they are and what they have to do. [...] [...]
JIM LEHRER: The word — the word to describe the leadership of Mubarak and Egypt and also in Tunisia before was dictator. Should Mubarak be seen as a dictator?
JOE BIDEN: Look, Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things and he’s been very responsible on, relative to geopolitical interests in the region: Middle East peace efforts, the actions Egypt has taken relative to normalizing the relationship with Israel.
And I think that it would be — I would not refer to him as a dictator.
When asked about Pres. Mubarak being a “dictator,” Biden’s first response even in the face of what has been covered on Al Jazeera just this week, was to talk in terms of our “geopolitical” relationship that in the 20th century was the way people talked about foreign policy, before it became as multidimensional as it is today.
I also cannot figure out why, considering Biden knows Mubarak “fairly well” and speaks to him “fairly regularly,” he hasn’t spoken to him “the last three days.”
The State Dept.’s spokesman P.J. Crowley went down a similar road on Al Jazeera, as I wrote about yesterday and it was ugly.
Others may disagree with me, but all of this combined with the Wikileaks cables on Egypt that has us saying one thing privately about human rights, then in public making statements that might aid Mubarak while Al Jazeera is broadcasting reality, add in the Palestine Papers revelations, makes for potentially vulnerable geopolitical ramifications Biden seems not to have considered.
There is no way we can survive humiliation through our current 20th century thinking in a world now connected via Twitter and Facebook and with Al Jazeera beaming into homes across the Arab world, especially now that we can also see what the Arab world is seeing.
The contagion since Tunisia is proof, regardless of whether “governments topple,” something Biden at least had the humility to admit he could be misjudging.
I have no opinion on this, because I don’t think anyone knows what the new media platforms working in synchronicity with the people driving them at once can achieve today.
But it’s simply none of the U.S.’s business to declare whether Mubarak is a “dictator,” a nice word for what he’s leveled on his own people, or say he should or should not step down. Not even our financial investment or geopolitical alliance gives us this right and that we still think it does is one of the problems of our foreign policy in this converging new media century.
After Sect. Clinton’s very first meeting with Pres. Mubarak at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheik, March 2009, which the cables at the top of this post reference, Clinton was reported to have said something much more tuned in than what she initially said this week. Back in 2009, on a question on Egypt’s human rights, Hillary responded as follows, emphasis added.
“We hope that it will be taken in the spirit in which it is offered, that we all have room for improvement,” Mrs. Clinton said, adding that Mr. Mubarak and his wife, Suzanne, were friends of her family, and that it was up to the Egyptian people to decide the president’s future.
Yet her first response on Tuesday, like Biden ridiculously stating Mubarak wasn’t a “dictator,” however his splitting hairs definition defines it, was to bolster the Egyptian government and describe it as “stable.”
Clinton’s first statement looked even worse when ElBaradei landed in Cairo yesterday, with CNN’s Ben Wedeman tweeting his message from Cairo: ElBaradei at airport says the point of no return has been reached must be peaceful change govt must stop using violence.
Much earlier Thursday, so it was leaked on Wednesday at some point, it was reported that an anonymous administration official was saying Pres. Obama was “poised to intensity U.S. criticism of Egypt’s Mubarak.”
So what to make of V.P. Joe Biden’s interview on PBS Thursday night? From where I sit it was a serious and embarrassing misstep from a foreign policy veteran, but also the Administration, who hasn’t caught up with how world events are zipping around the globe on multiple and converging media platforms that everyone can see.
Pres. Obama didn’t address what’s been happening in Egypt publicly until yesterday. That may have been good for his time table, but it was woefully late considering Tunisia and what happened this week.
Once upon a time not so long ago, in a century that now seems so far away where communication, media and social platforms are concerned, the Obama administration might have caught a break.
It’s been the week that Al Jazeera has been waiting for, coming on the heels of Wikileaks, as Twitter and Facebook continue to rock the globe, with Pres. Obama and his administration still not quite getting what they’re up against, the most challenging of which may yet be to come.
Pres. Obama talked about the people first, stressing the importance that there be no violence. He stressed the important relationship with Egypt, stating reforms must be made, which he relayed to Mubarak. Backs Mubarak, but strongly leans towards the people and once again reiterated that it’s up to the people of Egypt. Importantly, Pres. Obama finished by saying we’ll know more in the morning. It clearly stated to me that after the Egyptian people digest what Mubarak said we’ll see if the protests continue and what the govt. does about opening up the communication gateway. Pres. Obama transmitting the real dangers in the situation and walking very, very carefully, as he should. This is a long play not a one act. It will be developing for a while.
UPDATE 6:30 pm: Waiting for Pres. Obama to speak. Via Chuck Todd he finally spoke to Pres. Mubarak and the conversation reportedly lasted 30 minutes.
UPDATE 5:19 pm: Mubarak saying demonstrations representative of “freedoms” offered by Egypt through his presidency. Will “always adhere to the right of freedom…” Mubarak then sacks his whole government, but he continues on. Outside the protesters continued to yell “Down, down with Mubarak.” Via CNN’s Nic Robertson, chants “We don’t want him” rising. Mubarak obviously has gotten assurances from Egyptian military. We’ll see what develops when the Internet and communications are switched on again. Nothing in Egypt will ever be the same.
UPDATE 3:15 pm: Gibbs after being challenged about his words (3:54 pm): “I’m not tempering one word or one syllable of one word. .. we’ve reached a point where grievances have to be addressed.” Robert Gibbs: “We will be reviewing our assistance posture based on events now and in the coming days.” Chip Reid: Has he tried to reach Mubarak? Gibbs: “Not that I’m aware of.” MESSAGE SENT TO EGYPT. Why isn’t the President standing where you’re standing? Not much to say on that one, so Gibbs vamps. At top, Gibbs invoked “legitimate grievances” people have must be addressed by Egyptian gov. “immediately,” emphasizes it, including communication. Gibbs rightly points story back to the Egyptian people, “this will be solved by the Egyptian people.” Again stresses “grievances” re Mubarak. Never been a fan of Gibbs, but this is one of his best moments and it comes at a critical time for Pres. Obama & the US govt. Chuck Todd: Has anyone condemned house arrest of ElBaradei? Gibbs: “a Nobel Laureate… type of activities gov has responsibility to change.”
UPDATE 2:55 pm: picture via Mike Memoli.
UPDATE 12:56 pm: STILL WAITING FOR MUBARACK TO SPEAK. Marc Lynch on Twitter: Mubarak’s silence is increasingly becoming the story. Egyptians continue to defy curfew.
UPDATE 12:14 pm: Sect. Hillary Clinton just spoke condemning internet shutdown and urging govt to address “grievances” of people. She made a shift towards people (finally), putting them before government. The trouble is that though the US is powerless here, our govt. props up Mubarak against the people’s will. A very sobering moment for the US.
Picture above is the NDP in flames. Egyptian’s National Museum is near.
UPDATE 11:26 pm: Pictures from AJE… Iconic imagery now. Huge plumes of deep black smoke rising from NDP (National Democratic Party) headquarters & complex of buildings, which is the ruling establishment of Mubarak, going back to ’80s.
BREAKING… MUBARAK TO SPEAK SOON. CURFEW NOW IN EFFECT… loud cries still being heard. People are not leaving the streets. Egyptian state media says Pres. Mubarak has ordered the Egyptian State Army on to the streets.
UPDATE 10:27 a.m.: Curfew now imposed in Egypt, which is 30 min. away.
UPDATE III: A very important point by media expert on Al Jazeera, Kevin Anderson, correctly reporting that in Egypt the “overlap betweeen internet activists and activists is almost complete. The activists in Egypt have long been using the internet.” Primarily from blogging, with Egyptian political bloggers well known.
“Egypt has enjoyed a long history of internet activism,” Kevin Anderson continues. “Now they have a very sophisticated way of not just using FB & Twitter… but also SMS and mobile networks, which have also been effective in this clampdown.”
ElBaradei has already criticised the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, for describing the Egyptian government as stable and he stepped up his calls for the rest of the world to explicitly condemn Mubarak, who is a close ally of the US.
“The international community must understand we are being denied every human right day by day,” he said. “Egypt today is one big prison. If the international community does not speak out it will have a lot of implications. We are fighting for universal values here. If the west is not going to speak out now, then when?”
…I’m skeptical too. But I found it unsatisfying to settle for such skepticism as I watched the massive demonstrations unfold in Egypt on my Twitter feed while moderating a panel discussion on Tunisia yesterday (I plead guilty). As I’ve been arguing for the last month, something does seem to be happening at a regional level, exposing the crumbling foundations of Arab authoritarianism and empowering young populations who suddenly believe that change is possible. There are strong reasons to expect most of these regimes to survive, which we shouldn’t ignore in a moment of enthusiasm. But we also shouldn’t ignore this unmistakable new energy, the revelation of the crumbling foundations of Arab authoritarian regimes, or the continuing surprises which should keep all analysts humble about what might follow. – Marc Lynch
Tunisia… Lebanon… the Palestine Papers… now Egypt. The status quo George W. Bush held on to for so long after 9/11 is unraveling and Barack Obama ignoring it in his State of the Union is nothing new. He released a statement just moments after the speech was in the can that no one noticed, which was the point.
Last night’s State of the Union seemed to be unfolding in an alternate universe. As often happens to presidencies, while domestic issues dominate, somewhere in the world something happens to bring the president of the moment into collision with the events he can’t ignore.
This raises a thorny question for the U.S.: If tens of thousands take to the streets – and stay on the streets – what will it do? The U.S. is the primary benefactor of the Egyptian regime, which, in turn, has reliably supported American regional priorities. After Iraq, Afghanistan, and Israel, Egypt is the largest recipient of U.S. assistance, including $1.3 billion in annual military aid. In other words, if the army ever decides to shoot into a crowd of unarmed protestors, it will be shooting with hardware provided by the United States. As Steven Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations points out, the Egyptian military is “not there to project power, but to protect the regime.” – After Tunisia: Obama’s Impossible Dilemma in Egypt
American navel gazing is our country’s permanent pastime. But as the Dow hits 12,000 up from around 7,000, where it was when Obama took over, it solidifies the richest among us don’t have much to worry about, while economists warn that the austerity the Republicans are talking about might risk another recession. So why is Obama even catering to them, while not uttering one of the most important words in our financial insolvency: foreclosures?
Our politicians want a quick fix, which always has to happen right now, while offering prescriptions that won’t work, because we didn’t get here overnight and we won’t get out fast either. That’s mainly because Pres. Obama’s determined to keep spending in Afghanistan and no one has the spine to carve out what’s needed at the Pentagon now. The President even had the unmitigated gall to say last night that the top 2% tax cuts for the wealthiest had to go after he just caved on them in December and hailed that move in his SOTU speech as “working together.” Obama, Ryan, Bachmann, you name it, our politicians are clueless.
“Government spending restraint is vital to addressing our long-term fiscal problems. It just shouldn’t start in 2011,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, who has advised both Republicans and Democrats on economic issues. Zandi said cuts of the magnitude Republicans are discussing probably would not invite a new recession. But they could push unemployment back into double digits, he said, “taking a very significant risk with this fragile economy.” – Analysis: President, GOP lawmakers agree on austerity, but will it create jobs?
Meanwhile, governments backed by the U.S. are being challenged by the people they hold in bondage. Blake Hounshell, managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine, wrote a post today defending Hillary and Obama, You’re so vain, you probably think these protests are about you. Then he rebuts his own headline in the post, which I responded to in a tweet. But Egyptians tweeted their displeasure at Sect. Clinton’s first statement: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says Egypt’s government is stable despite the largest anti-government demonstration in the country in years.
Something’s happening on the Arab streets and it could come to matter more to Obama’s presidency and our country than all the word salads and austerity jump balls in the world.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
January 25, 2011 (AFTER STATE OF THE UNION) Statement by the Press Secretary on Egypt
As we monitor the situation in Egypt, we urge all parties to refrain from using violence, and expect the Egyptian authorities to respond to any protests peacefully. We support the universal rights of the Egyptian people, including the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly. The Egyptian government has an important opportunity to be responsive to the aspirations of the Egyptian people, and pursue political, economic and social reforms that can improve their lives and help Egypt prosper. The United States is committed to working with Egypt and the Egyptian people to advance these goals.
More broadly, what is happening in the region reminds us that, as the President said in Cairo, we have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and free of corruption; and the freedom to live as you choose – these are human rights and we support them everywhere.
The big news around the sphere is Pres. Obama’s State of the Union speech tonight. But not around here, as something serious is brewing in Egypt… and so far no one is covering it, but that won’t last long.
Just a few moments ago (6:45 pm EST)…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Protests have brought Cairo to a standstill this week as thousands have poured into the streets, shouting “Down with Mubarak” and clashing with riot police. The demonstrators are calling for an end to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s nearly 30 years in power and were inspired by the Tunisian uprising that ousted President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali on Jan. 14. The protests were organized on Facebook and Twitter, though reports are now surfacing that Twitter is being blocked in Egypt. – Washington Post
From the Washington Post (translation enabled): We didn’t block twitter – it’s a problem all over Egypt and we are waiting for a solution.less than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhoneVodafone Egypt
RT @cnnjill: Clinton on Egypt: “Egyptian govt is stable/looking for ways to respond to legitimate needs/interests of people.” (Cue laugh track)
bencnn benwedeman by MideastChannel: Hillary Clinton on #Egypt unrest: “we urge all parties to exercise restraint” That’s usually what they say before the storm hits. #jan25
stevenacook Steven A. Cook: Troops moving in. Lots of commotion “mubarak go to Saudi” unclear how many
LaraABCNews Lara Setrakian: People are still out on the streets, going strong in Cairo. Some police throwing stones at protesters, others running away from them #Jan25
Cairo – Well, today was the big day…January 25th…National Police Day…and Egypt’s Day of Rage.
It began for me at 230am when I was wandering back to my hotel from Bab el Luq. I found myself on Falaky Street near the Interior Ministry. It was already flooded with police.
Later this morning it was extremely quiet going through Midan Tahrir (Liberation Square). Loads of Central Security Forces soldiers and two trucks with water canons atop waiting.
My twitter feed began lighting up around noon. Sporadic reports of protests on Ramses Street, clashes in front of the Lawyers Syndicate, and hundreds?, 1000s?, 10,000s? moving toward Tahrir Square. I was atop the Marriott Hotel at the time looking downtown. Traffic was moving well. Still, Twitter was reporting lots of action downtown. People are demanding change. No reports of violence. …
Republicans are jumping on the leak, as expected, because transparency scares the bejeezus out of the Right. Rep. Pete Hoekstra using hyperbole to say what allies might ask, “‘Can the United States be trusted? Can the United States keep a secret?’”
Americans have grown accustomed to being kept in a state of permanent stupid on foreign policy. That’s how Iraq happened, but it’s also how dangerous moves in the Middle East towards Iran can be sanctioned through a simple sound bite.
Few news organizations bother to cover the Mideast, which is one reason I hailed Al Jazeera English when it came available in the Beltway area some time ago. Years of covering Israel without any way objectivity, along with Iran, has left Americans with a stilted view of American foreign policy. What’s worse is that the collective American ignorance about other countries and our involvement in their inner workings has given neoconservatives and traditional hawks the playing field, because our foreign policy is always presented as militaristic movements being strong, diplomacy is weak. When you have people like Rep. Eric Cantor making religious based Middle East foreign policy pronouncements, as well as people like Sen. Jon Kyl inventing the Cold War 2.0, circa 21st century, it shows just how vulnerable our foreign policy is to tilts in presidential domestic power, especially when Democrats don’t fight on their own ground.
There was little surprising in Mr. Barak’s implicit threat that Israel might attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. As a pressure tactic, Israeli officials have been setting such deadlines, and extending them, for years. But six months later it was an Arab leader, the king of Bahrain, who provides the base for the American Fifth Fleet, telling the Americans that the Iranian nuclear program “must be stopped,” according to another cable. “The danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it,” he said.
His plea was shared by many of America’s Arab allies, including the powerful King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who according to another cable repeatedly implored Washington to “cut off the head of the snake” while there was still time.
… The cables also contain a fresh American intelligence assessment of Iran’s missile program. They reveal for the first time that the United States believes that Iran has obtained advanced missiles from North Korea that could let it strike at Western European capitals and Moscow and help it develop more formidable long-range ballistic missiles.
The Right is making a lot of ruckus about the Saudi comments while pointing fingers at Arabists utilizing the See Even Saudi Arabia Wants To Strike Iran. The Right’s anti Arabist sentiment is what scuttled Chas Freeman’s possible appointment. However, the Shia v. Sunni dynamic has been an amped up challenge ever since Pres. Bush let the neoconservatives run things, which began with the disastrous preemptive attack on Iran that altered the balance of power in the region. With shifts in Lebanon, the Shia state rising has as its most important godfathers George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, intended or not, something that has been forgotten. But the dynamics being used right now to make the case for Iran action aren’t a sudden revelation with these leaks, though that’s what’s being talked about on the Right.
¶ A dangerous standoff with Pakistan over nuclear fuel: Since 2007, the United States has mounted a highly secret effort, so far unsuccessful, to remove from a Pakistani research reactor highly enriched uranium that American officials fear could be diverted for use in an illicit nuclear device. In May 2009, Ambassador Anne W. Patterson reported that Pakistan was refusing to schedule a visit by American technical experts because, as a Pakistani official said, “if the local media got word of the fuel removal, ‘they certainly would portray it as the United States taking Pakistan’s nuclear weapons,’ he argued.”
¶ Thinking about an eventual collapse of North Korea: American and South Korean officials have discussed the prospects for a unified Korea, should the North’s economic troubles and political transition lead the state to implode. The South Koreans even considered commercial inducements to China, according to the American ambassador to Seoul. She told Washington in February that South Korean officials believe that the right business deals would “help salve” China’s “concerns about living with a reunified Korea” that is in a “benign alliance” with the United States.
¶ Bargaining to empty the Guantánamo Bay prison: When American diplomats pressed other countries to resettle detainees, they became reluctant players in a State Department version of “Let’s Make a Deal.” Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if it wanted to meet with President Obama, while the island nation of Kiribati was offered incentives worth millions of dollars to take in Chinese Muslim detainees, cables from diplomats recounted. The Americans, meanwhile, suggested that accepting more prisoners would be “a low-cost way for Belgium to attain prominence in Europe.”
¶ Suspicions of corruption in the Afghan government: When Afghanistan’s vice president visited the United Arab Emirates last year, local authorities working with the Drug Enforcement Administration discovered that he was carrying $52 million in cash. With wry understatement, a cable from the American Embassy in Kabul called the money “a significant amount” that the official, Ahmed Zia Massoud, “was ultimately allowed to keep without revealing the money’s origin or destination.” (Mr. Massoud denies taking any money out of Afghanistan.)
¶ A global computer hacking effort: China’s Politburo directed the intrusion into Google’s computer systems in that country, a Chinese contact told the American Embassy in Beijing in January, one cable reported. The Google hacking was part of a coordinated campaign of computer sabotage carried out by government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws recruited by the Chinese government. They have broken into American government computers and those of Western allies, the Dalai Lama and American businesses since 2002, cables said.
¶ Mixed records against terrorism: Saudi donors remain the chief financiers of Sunni militant groups like Al Qaeda, and the tiny Persian Gulf state of Qatar, a generous host to the American military for years, was the “worst in the region” in counterterrorism efforts, according to a State Department cable last December. Qatar’s security service was “hesitant to act against known terrorists out of concern for appearing to be aligned with the U.S. and provoking reprisals,” the cable said.
¶ An intriguing alliance: American diplomats in Rome reported in 2009 on what their Italian contacts described as an extraordinarily close relationship between Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian prime minister, and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister and business magnate, including “lavish gifts,” lucrative energy contracts and a “shadowy” Russian-speaking Italian go-between. They wrote that Mr. Berlusconi “appears increasingly to be the mouthpiece of Putin” in Europe. The diplomats also noted that while Mr. Putin enjoyed supremacy over all other public figures in Russia, he was undermined by an unmanageable bureaucracy that often ignored his edicts.
¶ Arms deliveries to militants: Cables describe the United States’ failing struggle to prevent Syria from supplying arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon, which has amassed a huge stockpile since its 2006 war with Israel. One week after President Bashar al-Assad promised a top State Department official that he would not send “new” arms to Hezbollah, the United States complained that it had information that Syria was providing increasingly sophisticated weapons to the group.
¶ Clashes with Europe over human rights: American officials sharply warned Germany in 2007 not to enforce arrest warrants for Central Intelligence Agency officers involved in a bungled operation in which an innocent German citizen with the same name as a suspected militant was mistakenly kidnapped and held for months in Afghanistan. A senior American diplomat told a German official “that our intention was not to threaten Germany, but rather to urge that the German government weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the U.S.”
Pres. Obama is up against it politically right now, no doubt about it. His reelection map, with his support in the industrial Midwest wiped out, leaves him vulnerable in ’12, though no one should count him out. When Americans hear the Right saber rattling once again it will correctly make them revisit memories of Bush-Cheney and their disastrous foreign policy. But starting in the New Year the difficulty of Obama’s battle is immense compared to anything he’s ever faced before.
When you read about the leaked documents then think about a Republican in office, the possibilities on what could happen with a reflexive neoconservative in the White House should be a sobering thing to contemplate. If that person is a neophyte on foreign policy, which includes everyone running except Newt Gingrich, the dangers for this country jump exponentially. Just listen to the comments you’re hearing on Fox News, which is foreshadowing of more to come as the 2012 campaign on the Right revs up.
It is time Israel realized that it has obligations to the United States, as well as the United States to Israel, and that it become far more careful about the extent to which it test the limits of U.S. patience and exploits the support of American Jews. This does not mean taking a single action that undercuts Israeli security, but it does mean realizing that Israel should show enough discretion to reflect the fact that it is a tertiary U.S. strategic interest in a complex and demanding world. – Israel as a Strategic Liability?, by Anthony Cordesman
It’s getting louder and coming from all quarters.
You don’t have to go back further than Lebanon 2006 (though you could), then walk forward.
Gaza attack without end, followed by an unending continuing humanitarian crises.
Settlements… continuing, then announced yet again when V.P. Biden is in Israel.
That’s before we even get to a shared Jerusalem.
The recent flotilla raid was just too much for many. This isn’t about IDF soldiers. Tzipi Livni is right. It’s about the Netanyahu government giving the order and knowing the situation, but doing it anyway and falling into a trap that has ensnared us all.
The are many reasons for not revisiting history. It’s just not helpful. Everyone realizes the horrible violence that has been delivered on Israel by bombs and attacks. But it now stands as backdrop to what we’re seeing happening in the present, especially in Gaza.
Andrew Sullivan proves the point about history today. Richard Cohen’s column from 2006 is Sullivan’s starting point.
The greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake. It is an honest mistake, a well-intentioned mistake, a mistake for which no one is culpable, but the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims (and some Christians) has produced a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort we are seeing now. Israel fights Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south, but its most formidable enemy is history itself.
Sullivan’s recent essays, beginning with his “Israel Derangement Syndrome,” illustrate the cumulative cost of Israel’s actions during recent historical times. Israel may have provoked another point of no return with the Gaza flotilla fiasco. Sullivan today:
I’m not going to go into the long and awful history of the way in which the Arab world has treated Israel from the get-go, but I am saying that to add to the original proposition an ongoing, unstoppable colonization of a further swathe of land won in wartime is obviously against the interests of the Jewish state, and compounds and deepens the resentment from 1948 and 1967 and 1974. Not to see this context, indeed to claim that any and all grievances against Israel’s existence – and, much more significantly, ongoing expansion – are entirely a function of Jew-hatred is to lose any nuance in diplomacy or human relations.
That’s where the Israelis have lost me and some others. It was revealed first by how petulantly even the Kadima-led government responded to Obama’s election. The Gaza war, conceptually defensible, was practically gruesome (Hamas and Israel share that blame), but the unapologetic, almost triumphalist and revengeful manner in which it was conducted and defended was and is shocking, as is the contempt for the wounded and dead on the Mavi Marmara. When your heart is hardened against the corpses of children buried in rubble, it is hardened too much. And the job of a real friend is to point this out, not to enable it.
There is no longer one side against the silent. There are two sides, both wanting to save Israel from herself, but it’s getting increasingly hard to do. Because if you’re friends can’t tell you when you’re screwing up so that you’ll listen and change, it’s likely your enemies will let you know in a way you won’t soon forget.
We’re entering a new moment in political analysis and rhetorical criticism where Israel is concerned and they brought it on themselves. We won’t see any courage in Congress for a while, but eventually that rock will be moved. The times and circumstances have changed and demand it.
The first action should be transparent declaration of Israel’s nuclear arsenal. You can’t have a nuclear-free Middle East, let alone hold Iran accountable, if a major player in the region is held to a different standard.
Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands’ sexual demands, despite international outrage over an earlier version of the legislation which President Hamid Karzai had promised to review. – Afghanistan passes ‘barbaric’ law diminishing women’s rights
Brown said her first task was to determine how much gear — including thousands of vehicles, weapons and housing units — needed to be shipped out and to understand how the Iraqi security forces could help with the move. Using her calculations, division and brigade commanders are being given targets and deadlines to identify equipment and personnel to send home.
“That’s a big task,” she said.
Nasrallah commemorates Lebanon war victory over Israel: Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah on Friday addressed a mass rally in Beirut to mark three years since the Shi’ite organization’s “victory” over Israel in the 2006 Second Lebanon War…
A radical Muslim sheikh called Friday for the creation of an Islamic emirate in Gaza, sparking clashes with Hamas forces that left 13 people dead, Hamas sources tell CNN.
Armed members of the radical Islamist group Jund Ansar Allah surround a group representative in Rafah on Friday.
The clashes ended after several hours, after Hamas forces blew up the home of Sheikh Abu al-Nour al-Maqdessi, leader of the Salafist jihadist group Jund Ansar Allah, or Soldiers of the Partisans of God, the sources said.
Al-Maqdessi escaped, they said, and Hamas security forces were searching for him.
As Sect. Clinton finishes up her grueling Africa trip, a report on the Bureau of African Affairs unloads. The assistant editor for Foreign Policy Elizabeth Dickinson has a piece up at The Cable on AF. It’s pretty dishy, as diplomatic things go.
Aljazeera English has a great video up on the Afghan election (seen here). There’s a debate on Sunday. Brian Katulis is on his way to Afghanistan for the election.
Rachel Maddow will be on “Meet the Press” this Sunday as part of the panel. I tweeted David Gregory saying I might actually watch. I’m so fed up with wingers and few women that if Maddow’s on it actually might be worth our time. Dick Armey will be on too. Off topic, but because of the health care flap he’s left his firm over the Freedom Works kerfuffle.
Coming after Netanyahu calling Emanuel and Axelrod both “self-hating Jews,” the latest salvo from another prominent Israeli is not as insulting, but certainly as obtuse. Ignoring that Pres. Obama has already met with PM Netanyahu, Mr. Benn’s argument today sounds alarmingly like a spoiled brat having a tantrum.
So far, Israelis have embraced Mr. Netanyahu’s message. A Jerusalem Post poll of Israeli Jews last month indicated that only 6 percent of those surveyed considered the Obama administration to be pro-Israel, while 50 percent said that its policies are more pro-Palestinian than pro-Israeli. Less scientifically: Israeli rightists have — in columns, articles and public statements — taken to calling the president by his middle name, Hussein, as proof of his pro-Arab tendencies.
“More pro-Palestinian than pro-Israel” because Pres. Obama has put a condition of no new settlements in Israel. To give you an idea how outlandish the Netanyahu response has been to Obama’s U.S. policy, look no further than his Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who demanded a photo of a prominent Palestinian leader sitting with Hitler be distributed to embassies after the latest clash over another settlement. Allan Dershowitz, as if on cue, used the opportunity to take to a new slanderous low, even for him. A little coordinated incitement, Allan? What Matt Duss wrote.
Now comes Aluf Benn, the editor at large of Haaretz, whose op-ed in the New York Times today illustrates just how counterproductive U.S. policy has been in the Middle East throughout the Bush-Cheney years. Mr. Benn is opining and moaning about Obama not personally talking to Israel. It matters not to the Israelis that Obama met with Netanyahu, or how many envoys have been in their country. They want Obama to change what he’s said and speak to them directly to tell them so. Given the breadth and lack of common ground revolving around the settlement issue, it’s a good thing he has not.
What went wrong? Several explanations come to mind.
First, in the 16 rosy years of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Israelis became spoiled by unfettered presidential attention. Memories of State Department “Arabists” leading American policy in the Middle East were erased. The White House coordinated its policy with Jerusalem, and stayed out of the way when Israel embarked on controversial military offensives in Lebanon and Gaza. This approach infuriated America’s Arab and European allies, which blamed Washington for one-sidedness — something they were willing to forgive of Bill Clinton but not of George W. Bush.
Mr. Obama came to office determined to repair America’s broken alliances in Europe and the Middle East. One way to do this — to prove that he was the opposite of his predecessor — was to place some distance between Israel and himself.
To say that we “stayed out of the way” when Israel laid waste to parts of Lebanon in 2006 is a joke. Bush rushed weapons to Israel’s side. This disastrous war also infuriated many Americans (myself included, writing about it extensively), but also including Jewish Americans, which brings me to another point from Benn’s op-ed.
Third, Mr. Obama seems to have confused American Jews with Israelis.
On the contrary. Israelis like Mr. Benn seem to have confused Obama’s job with doing whatever Israelis want, even when his own constituents support his current policy. Mr. Benn obviously believes in the theory of continuing to do the same thing through policies that haven’t worked hoping for a different result.
It’s called madness.
Mr. Obama’s stop at Buchenwald and his strong rejection of Holocaust denial, immediately after his Cairo speech, appealed to American Jews but fell flat in Israel. Here we are taught that Zionist determination and struggle — not guilt over the Holocaust — brought Jews a homeland. Mr. Obama’s speech, which linked Israel’s existence to the Jewish tragedy, infuriated many Israelis who sensed its closeness to the narrative of enemies like Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.
I mean, really. But if you think that’s bad…
Fourth, as far as most Israelis are concerned, Mr. Obama has made a mistake in focusing on a settlement freeze. For starters, mainstream Israelis rarely have anything to do with the settlements; many have no idea where they are, even when they’re a half-hour’s drive from Tel Aviv.
More important: in the past decade, repeated peace negotiations and diplomatic statements have indicated that larger, closer-to-home settlements (the “settlement blocs”) will remain in Israeli hands under any two-state solution. Why, then, insist on a total freeze everywhere? And why deny with such force — as the administration did — the existence of previous understandings between the United States and Israel over limited settlement construction? There is simply too much evidence proving that such an understanding existed. To Israelis, the claim undermined Mr. Obama’s credibility — and strengthened Mr. Netanyahu’s position.
Inside Israel, Netanyahu’s position may be stronger than before. If Obama’s credibility inside Israel has been “undermined,” it’s because people like Mr. Benn refuse to see the Palestinian side of this story. That’s what’s been wrong with the push for “peace,” what we call equilibrium around here, for a very long time. No one has been willing to stand in the middle and look both ways.
There are two sides to the story on a two-state solution. Settlements are a line in the sand that Obama has drawn, which has broad support, though not in Israel. Obama’s already talked to Netanyahu when he was in Washington, laying this out. The ball is actually in your court, Mr. Benn.
UPDATE: Obama officials respond to Benn’s article via Jeffrey Goldberg. The Administration’s responses are dead on and illustrate just how petulant Benn and other Israelis in that camp are being. Obama will at some point talk to Israel, of which no one should doubt. But the groundwork being laid by his envoys is also providing him invaluable information on where he can go and what he should focus on and how it should be said.
These two senior officials — sorry, those were the ground rules — made the plausible argument that the Cairo speech was, in fact, directed at Israelis as much as it was directed at Arabs. “The President went before a Cairo audience in a speech co-sponsored by Al-Azhar with Muslim Brotherhood members in the audience and spoke of America’s strong, unshakable support for Israel,” one of the officials said. “He could have gone to a million different venues to say this, but he went to Cairo, and it wasn’t exactly an applause line. Isn’t it more important to say this to the Muslim world than it is to say it to an audience of Israelis or American Jews?”
These two officials pointed out something that I forgot about the speech, which is that it contained strong condemnations of the cynical Arab ploy to use the Palestinian issue as a diversion (in other words, to keep the focus of unhappy Arabs on Israel and not on the weaknesses of their own anti-democratic, corrupt governments), and of course it contained an unequivocal denunciation of terrorism committed in the name of resistance.
Iranian elections are heating up, with Ahmadinejad coming at Mousavi using his wife just last week. I’ll be going to a forum today where pre-election polling out of Iran will be released. I’ll liveblog it if opportunity permits.
Meanwhile in Lebanon, huge voter turnout over the weekend handed a victory to Saad Hariri, the son of Lebanon’s slain leader, and his March 14th coaltion.
Preliminary results reported on Lebanese television showed the alliance, known as the March 14 coalition, had managed to preserve its majority in Parliament. If those results are confirmed, they would represent a significant and unexpected defeat for Hezbollah and its allies, Iran and Syria. Most polls had showed a tight race, but one in which the Hezbollah-led group would win.
… If Hezbollah’s alliance had emerged victorious, it would have represented another step in the evolution of a once parochial Shiite militia that started as a guerrilla force fighting Israeli occupation of the south into a national institution that slowly has defined the identity of the state.
Hezbollah has said that it would work to build what it called a “culture of resistance,” and define the enemy of Lebanon as Israel and the United States. It also said it would make it a high priority to build a strong national military. …
March 14 consists of a section of the Sunni Arabs, led by Saad Hariri, who is supported by Saudi Arabia and who has unsuccessfully attempted to develop his own militia with Saudi funds. Another component is Walid Jumblatt’s constituency among the Druze minority (an esoteric, folk offshoot of Shiite Islam). Jumblatt is notoriously mercurial and had been anti-American before 2005, and cannot be relied on to remain in the March 14 Movement. Then there is the Lebanese Forces, which is a revival of a rightwing Christian group that played a very sinister role in the Lebanese civil war and after, led by Samir Geagea,who was convicted of terrorism. (BTW, Geagea’s Wikipedia entry is pro-Geagea propaganda and an example of why wikipedia is worthless when it comes to controversial subjects).
Gen. Aoun would be preferable to Geagea politically on virtually any dimension a normal person could choose.
But anyway, March 14 is the majority and will form the government, though it may be a national unity government that includes Hezbollah and its allies.
Cole also slams the Obama administration’s “blatant interference in another country’s election.” Of course, Juan is referring to Vice President Joe Biden’s trip to Lebanon, as well as other comments made by Obama administration officials, including Sect. Clinton.
So, it’s good news from Lebanon. Now if Ahmadinejad could just lose.
You read that right — Judge Sotomayor said that her experience as a person of a particular sex and ethnic background will make her a better judge than a person of another sex and a different ethnic background!
When did that view become acceptable?
If Civil War, suffrage, and Civil Rights are to mean anything, we cannot accept that conclusion. It is simply un-American. There is no room on the bench of the United States Supreme Court for this worldview.
To cleanse the Sunday palate of that disgusting item, Pres. Obama took the First Lady to a Broadway show, a place that’s been very hard hit by the recession. Mrs. Obama’s dress was drop dead gorgeous. As a serious supporter of all things Broadway, I applaud the date night choice.
And it seems Netanyahu is pining over the Bush-Cheney days, wishing for their return. Israel is “disappointed” that Obama is not playing fairy godfather to their fondest wishes.
Hezbollah isn’t happy. Joe Biden’s surprise visit is causing them indigestion. It’s the most senior U.S. official sent to Lebanon in 26 years, which comes too close to the June 7th election for Hezbollah’s comfort.
Biden said he had come to show U.S. support for Lebanon’s sovereignty, which “cannot and will not be traded away.”
“I do not come here to back any party,” he said after talks with President Michel Suleiman, but added that future U.S. aid to Lebanon would depend on the nature of the next government.
“The election of leaders committed to the rule of law and economic reform opens the door to lasting growth and prosperity,” Biden declared. “We will evaluate the shape of our assistance program based on the composition of the new government and the policies it advocates.”
It’s a perfect time to remind everyone of what’s going on at The Hague, with the investigation into Lebanon’s beloved leader Former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri’s assassination soon coming to a head. The results could have a real outcome in the region, as high level Syrians are reportedly going to be implicated, which would likely have a wide ranging impact on Israeli-Palestinian equilibrium deliberations, depending on how they are presented. (Thus all the caveats purposefully written into that last sentence.) Something to remember when we think of Lebanon and Syria, but stability in the region as a whole.
The last U.S. vice president to visit Lebanon was George H.W. Bush under President Ronald Reagan. He came in October 1983, days after a massive suicide truck bombing destroyed the U.S. Marine base at Beirut airport, killing more than 240 members of the U.S. military. – AP
There’s an old saying in the Middle East, compliments of Henry Kissinger. You can’t go to war in the region without Egypt; and you can’t have peace there without Syria.
If ever Pres. Obama was waiting for his moment, he gets one this week. It’s a chance to negate the clamor over torture photos, as well as military commissions. To catapult over questions of his Supreme pick. A moment where he can walk around the every day conflicts and stand apart from the pettiness that’s so choking. He simply needs to tell Prime Minister Netanyahu that the primary goal on his agenda is the two-state solution. The world is holding its collective breath.
“I think this president gets it, in terms of the suffering of the Palestinians,” said Charles W. Freeman Jr., a former United States ambassador to Saudi Arabia. “He gets it, which is already light years ahead of the average elected American politician.”
Now’s the time to prove it.
“I think that Barack Obama, on this issue as well as many other issues, brings a fresh approach and a fresh background,” Mr. Levy said. “He’s certainly familiar with Israel’s concerns and with the closeness of the Israel-America relationship and with that narrative. But what I think might be different is a familiarity that I think President Obama almost certainly has with where the Palestinian grievance narrative is coming from.”
If Obama falls short the Middle East will revert back to the negativity that’s already begun to spread, simply because hopes are so high and nothing’s happened yet.
As usual, Jeffrey Goldberg is continuing to draw the Iran argument out, recently more concerned with Old Testament points of reference and Israel’s fears, ignoring what is in America’s interest.
Nevertheless, the prime minister’s preoccupation with the Iranian nuclear program seems sincere and deeply felt. I recently asked one of his advisers to gauge for me the depth of Mr. Netanyahu’s anxiety about Iran. His answer: “Think Amalek.”
“Amalek,” in essence, is Hebrew for “existential threat.” Tradition holds that the Amalekites are the undying enemy of the Jews. They appear in Deuteronomy, attacking the rear columns of the Israelites on their escape from Egypt. The rabbis teach that successive generations of Jews have been forced to confront the Amalekites: Nebuchadnezzar, the Crusaders, Torquemada, Hitler and Stalin are all manifestations of Amalek’s malevolent spirit.
Goldberg continues his preoccupation with explaining Netanyahu’s fears and goals, which is important to understand, but mustn’t guide Pres. Obama’s strategic planning on the Mideast.
In fact, what Goldberg misses is that at present, Israel’s Amalek is actually Israel. Obama must keep the Israeli leader form continuing to be his own worst enemy. Whether in Lebanon in 2006, or recently in Gaza, with Israel continually building new settlements, their leaders don’t seem to grasp that this is their last moment, our last moment to help our friend.
Tough love, Mr. President. You’ve not spent any capital on anything vital, anything big, a national security imperative that could change the game for the U.S., as well as the whole Mideast region, bringing Arab states on board with energy that could ripple through the Mideast and beyond, to Pakistan. Because don’t kid yourself, Mr. Netanyahu cannot afford to fail.
You’ve got the capital, Mr. President. Spend it all. If you don’t you’ll lose it.
Earth to Saudis, get a grip. Oh, but not on your woman.
Arab News, a Saudi English-language daily newspaper based in Riyadh, reported that Judge Hamad Al-Razine said that “if a person gives SR 1,200 [$320] to his wife and she spends 900 riyals [$240] to purchase an abaya [the black cover that women in Saudi Arabia must wear] from a brand shop and if her husband slaps her on the face as a reaction to her action, she deserves that punishment.”
Women in the audience immediately and loudly protested Al-Razine’s statement, and were shocked to learn the remarks came from a judge, the newspaper reported.
Regular readers know about the conference I attended on US/Saudi relations recently. An attempt to begin to get a clue about the most important Arab leaders in the region, though as a modern American woman it’s tough, very, very tough.
After the conference I talked about the importance of the Saudis when it comes to Middle East talks and trying to get to equilibrium. The challenge being that Saudi pr in the United States is awful and it’s not just about 9/11. In fact, I talked to Lucien Zeigler of the Committee for International Trade (Council of Saudi Chambers of Commerce & Industry), who sponsored the conference along with the Saudis (and the New America Foundation), about their pr problem, particularly among one specific group of voters who aren’t going to give the Saudis a pass for obvious reasons. It’s one thing to have religious differences that make customs diametrically opposed to our nation. It’s quite another to condone violence against women, which the Saudis clearly do.
This is my pet peeve with the Saudis, even as they step up in the Middle East. They set themselves up for failure, which can blow back on Obama at a cost. Not the least of which is because a leading demographic in this country think they’re no good. Part of the Saudi story lies buried because many in the U.S. don’t want to hear it, which is understandable. Gates on the Saudis:
“The relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia has been one of the mainstays of stability in the Middle East for more than 60 years,” he said at the Eskan Village military base outside the Saudi capital.
“Saudi Arabia continues to be an important partner for the US in counter-terrorism and a range of other issues.”
How the Saudis hope to get credit or support for anything they do in the Middle East as long as stories like the wife slapping come out of Saudi Arabia is beyond me. You’d think the Saudis would look at the bigger Middle East picture when these stories come out of Arabia. It won’t help us solve issues in the Middle East.
If we don’t the region is headed for another war, as King Abdullah of Jordan has said before, but reiterated again in an interview with The UK Times.
The Obama Administration is pushing for a comprehensive peace agreement that would include settling Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians and its territorial disputes with Syria and Lebanon, King Abdullah II told The Times. Failure to reach agreement at this critical juncture would draw the world into a new Middle East war next year. “If we delay our peace negotiations, then there is going to be another conflict between Arabs or Muslims and Israel in the next 12-18 months,” the King said.
The Saudis are so incredibly tone deaf on pr they never move fast enough on stories like the one above making any U.S. partnership, even for the good of the Middle East, impossibly complicated for Obama. How can Americans who only think of Saudi Arabia in terms of 9/11 possibly cut them slack, even when they’re doing good? They can’t and won’t, because the Saudis are just too easy to hate.
Why do I care?
Because women matter in the Middle East. Like the reality of Arab Israeli women, who can’t work and have no independence, as Knesset Member Jamal Zahalka said on a media conference call I was on recently when I asked about the challenges of Arab Israeli women: “… the main problems for Arab-Israeli women is participation of work for them, which ‘is very, very low. … Without work you can’t have independence.’” They stand beside Afghan women, who stand in front of Saudi women, who stand in front of Pakistani women… not to mention Egyptian, Iranian… As women are treated in countries, so goes that country’s stability, which is very much an American interest, especially in the Middle East.
The top military spokesman in Baghdad, Maj. Gen. Qassim Atta, said he was filing a lawsuit seeking to close the Baghdad office of Al Hayat, one of the most prominent newspapers in the Arab world, as well as the satellite signal of Al Sharqiya, a popular Iraqi television channel that has been a strong critic of the government. The lawsuit was announced on the Web site of the Baghdad Operations Command, which coordinates Iraqi security forces in the capital.
Marc Lynch explains the possible motives for banning Al Hayat, but also al-Sharqiya. But the message and eventual outcome is the same if this isn’t stopped. An Iraq thugocracy.
Congressional members will weigh in on cuts, because of the jobs side of what Gates is proposing, to name one issue. As everyone knows there’s a lot of politics in defense spending.
…Of course, if even a few of the Gates “cuts” are serious, a pork-crazed Congress will go nuts. The big challenge will then become making any serious decisions stick. To do so, President Obama will have to back Gates to the hilt, and both will need to be extraordinarily tough, refuse any stupid compromises (many will be proposed), and fight to the end, including – very definitely – a veto of any defense bill that turns the cuts into hash.
To win that huge fight, Gates and Obama will have make it clear to the public that the “pro-defense” position is to eliminate these high cost, low performing weapons, and inefficient defense spending (jobs-wise) is a drag on the economy. If they fail to win those points for their side, they will lose to the porkers in Congress, and the Obama administration will be a sad replay of the Clinton administration on defense issues where business as usual will predominate and our defenses will continue to shrink and age and become even less ready to fight at increasing cost.
The decisions have three principal objectives: • First, to reaffirm our commitment to take care of the all-volunteer force, which, in my view represents America’s greatest strategic asset; • Second, we must rebalance this department’s programs in order to institutionalize and enhance our capabilities to fight the wars we are in today and the scenarios we are most likely to face in the years ahead, while at the same time providing a hedge against other risks and contingencies. • Third, in order to do this, we must reform how and what we buy, meaning a fundamental overhaul of our approach to procurement, acquisition, and contracting.
[...] Our contemporary wartime needs must receive steady long-term funding and a bureaucratic constituency similar to conventional modernization programs. I intend to use the FY10 budget to begin this process. 1. First, we will increase intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) support for the warfighter in the base budget by some $2 billion. This will include: • Fielding and sustaining 50 Predator-class unmanned aerial vehicle orbits by FY11 and maximizing their production. This capability, which has been in such high demand in both Iraq and Afghanistan, will now be permanently funded in the base budget. It will represent a 62 percent increase in capability over the current level and 127 percent from over a year ago. • Increasing manned ISR capabilities such as the turbo-prop aircraft deployed so successfully as part of “Task Force Odin” in Iraq. • Initiating research and development on a number of ISR enhancements and experimental platforms optimized for today’s battlefield.
2. We will also spend $500 million more in the base budget than last year to increase our capacity to field and sustain more helicopters – a capability that is in urgent demand in Afghanistan. Today, the primary limitation on helicopter capacity is not airframes but shortages of maintenance crews and pilots. So our focus will be on recruiting and training more Army helicopter crews.
3. To boost global partnership capacity efforts, we will increase funding by $500 million. These initiatives include training and equipping foreign militaries to undertake counter terrorism and stability operations.
4. To grow our special operations capabilities, we will increase personnel by more than 2,800 or five percent and will buy more special forces-optimized lift, mobility, and refueling aircraft. We will increase the buy of Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) – a key capability for presence, stability, and counterinsurgency operations in coastal regions – from two to three ships in FY 2010. Our goal is to eventually acquire 55 of these ships.
5. To improve our inter-theater lift capacity, we will increase the charter of Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV) ships from two to four until our own production program begins deliveries in 2011.
6. We will stop the growth of Army Brigade Combat Teams (BCT) at 45 versus 48 while maintaining the planned increase in end strength of 547,000. This will ensure that we have better-manned units ready to deploy, and help put an end to the routine use of stop loss. This step will also lower the risk of hollowing the force. [...] continued reading
Asking isn’t getting. So no matter the cuts Secretary Gates wants we’ll still see some of the programs he advises to be axed continue on. Unless, off course, Obama surprises and digs in on Gates’ recommendations, pushing Congress harder than any other president has done to date. I don’t see that happening.
Another related aspect pertains to a story running today, which draws out the importance of the Lebanon-Israeli war in ’06 in the discussion we’re having about U.S. military priorities and spending today.
President Barack Obama’s administration will engage in “direct diplomacy” with Iran, the newly installed U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said Monday.
Not since before the 1979 Iranian revolution are U.S. officials believed to have conducted wide-ranging direct diplomacy with Iranian officials. But U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice warned that Iran must meet U.N. Security Council demands to suspend uranium enrichment before any talks on its nuclear program.
[...] We look forward to engaging in vigorous diplomacy that includes direct diplomacy with Iran, as well as continued collaboration and partnership” with the other four permanent members of the Security Council, Britain, China, France and Russia, plus Germany, Rice said. “And we will look at what is necessary and appropriate with respect to maintaining pressure toward that goal of ending Iran’s nuclear program,” she said.
UPDATE: Transcript of President Obama’s interview on Al Arabiya. Some highlights: engage early on the Middle East (responding to a question re: Mitchell); start by listening, not dictating; Israelis or the Palestinians are “going to have to make some decisions”; Palestinian-Israeli conflict requires thinking in “terms of what’s happening with Syria or Iran or Lebanon or Afghanistan and Pakistan.” He is going to keep to his promise to “address the Muslim world from a Muslim capital,” and he walked away from the “war on terror” talking point purposefully, yet again. Obama stressed the importance of talking to Iran: “…if countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us.”
“…These things are interrelated. And what I’ve said, and I think Hillary Clinton has expressed this in her confirmation, is that if we are looking at the region as a whole and communicating a message to the Arab world and the Muslim world, that we are ready to initiate a new partnership based on mutual respect and mutual interest, then I think that we can make significant progress. – President Barack Obama
Jeffrey Goldberg has written a sobering op-ed today. Out of the latest war begun by Israel on the alter of stopping the rockets from Hamas thugs in Gaza, a righteous goal founded on an impossible premise that it can be done via military aims alone, we are getting more writing outlining how hopeless it all is until Arab moderates lead and we all help Fatah in the West Bank.
In the Palestinian civil war, Fatah, which today controls much of the West Bank and is engaged in intermittent negotiations with Israel, had become Mr. Rayyan’s direst enemy, a party of apostates and quislings. “First we must deal with the Muslims who speak of a peace process and then we will deal with you,” he declared.
…“Hezbollah is doing very well against Israel, don’t you think?” I asked. His face darkened, suggesting that he understood the implication of my question. At the time, Hamas, too, was firing rockets into Israel, though irregularly and without much effect.
“We support our brothers in the resistance,” he said. But then he added, “I think each situation is different.”
How so?
“They have advantages that we in Gaza don’t have,” he said. “They have excellent weapons. Hezbollah moves freely in Lebanon. We are trapped in the Israeli cage. So I don’t like to hear the sentence, ‘Hezbollah is the leader of the resistance.’ It’s a very annoying sentence. They are heroes to us. But we are the ones fighting in Palestine.” [...]
I’m finding myself on the other side of many progressives these days, whether it’s my neutrality in finding both Israel and the Hamas militants in Gaza equally guilty, or on Afghanistan, where I’m one of the only ones supporting Obama’s strategy for adding limited forces into Afghanistan. I’m comfortable as progressive contrarian, which solidified when I backed Hillary for president.
How anyone can tout Friedman or his definition of terrorism after he made the case Israel won over Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006 is beyond me, but Glenn makes the case. You can be the judge. Friedman is still defensively arguing it today, with this beaut causing me to do a double take and a double read:
Has Israel seen its last conflict with Hezbollah? I doubt it. But Hezbollah, which has done nothing for Hamas, will think three times next time. That is probably all Israel can achieve with a nonstate actor.
The irony is that Hezbollah likely isn’t worried right now about next time, because what they achieved last time elevated them in Lebanon, and with their Iranian benefactors, sufficiently.
The last pargraph of Goldberg is hard to argue, so read the last paragraph. It won’t move the newly metastasized blame Israel contingent, especially those making good points, but it is the beginning of the walk away, no matter where you stand on the issue.
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