The president's first reaction on Thursday to Hamas' electoral triumph constituted, perhaps, the most addled response of any US leader in history to a portentous event. He alternately praised "the power of democracy", claiming that Palestinians had voted for better education and health care, but warned that demanding the destruction of one's negotiating partner while maintaining an armed wing does not bode well for peace talks.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Saturday rejected as "blackmail" Washington's threats to stop financial aid to the Palestinian Authority. That neutralizes Washington's only means to influence the new Palestinian government, short of shooting. In fact, Hamas will get money from Iran, and blackmail the Saudis for more. The Israeli-Palestinian problem has become de facto a second front in Washington's confrontation with Tehran.
What will Washington do now? Professor Angelo Codevilla some years ago suggested "using military force to kill the regimes - the ruling classes - of countries that are in any way associated with terrorism", noting that "the dictatorial regimes of the Arab world consist of some 2,000 men". This sort of talk made Codevilla a pariah among the enlightened statesmen of the West, who expressed outrage over the Israelis' occasional assassinations of terrorist cadre. Now, instead of a few thousand deaths, we now will have a bloodbath. Washington, as I often have warned, [1] has created a monster. Wars long delayed usually are the most devastating (see In praise of premature war, October 19, 2004).
The American public appears more decided than the Bush administration. A January 27 poll taken by Bloomberg News and the Los Angeles Times found that 57% of Americans favor military action to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, against only 33% opposed. The same poll found that 53% of Americans did not think the Iraq war was worth the while. Seventy-six percent of Republicans supported the use of force, as well as 49% of Democrats, and Democratic politicians are rattling sabers as vigorously as the administration. European leaders, as I observed last week, already have endorsed the use of force should negotiations fail. MORE
Another quagmire
By Spengler, Asia Times
Fight a dictatorship, and you must kill the regime; fight a democracy, and you must kill the people. Two years ago I called George W Bush a "tragic character" (George W Bush, tragic character, November 25, 2003) who "wants universal good, but will end up doing some terrible things". Now we have begun the third act of his tragedy, which shatters the delusions that led him to the edge of disaster. President Bush met Nemesis in the form of Hamas, whose election victory in Palestine last week makes clear that democracy can empower the war party as well as the peace party.
The president's first reaction on Thursday to Hamas' electoral triumph constituted, perhaps, the most addled response of any US leader in history to a portentous event. He alternately praised "the power of democracy", claiming that Palestinians had voted for better education and health care, but warned that demanding the destruction of one's negotiating partner while maintaining an armed wing does not bode well for peace talks.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Saturday rejected as "blackmail" Washington's threats to stop financial aid to the Palestinian Authority. That neutralizes Washington's only means to influence the new Palestinian government, short of shooting. In fact, Hamas will get money from Iran, and blackmail the Saudis for more. The Israeli-Palestinian problem has become de facto a second front in Washington's confrontation with Tehran.
What will Washington do now? Professor Angelo Codevilla some years ago suggested "using military force to kill the regimes - the ruling classes - of countries that are in any way associated with terrorism", noting that "the dictatorial regimes of the Arab world consist of some 2,000 men". This sort of talk made Codevilla a pariah among the enlightened statesmen of the West, who expressed outrage over the Israelis' occasional assassinations of terrorist cadre. Now, instead of a few thousand deaths, we now will have a bloodbath. Washington, as I often have warned, [1] has created a monster. Wars long delayed usually are the most devastating (see In praise of premature war, October 19, 2004).
The American public appears more decided than the Bush administration. A January 27 poll taken by Bloomberg News and the Los Angeles Times found that 57% of Americans favor military action to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, against only 33% opposed. The same poll found that 53% of Americans did not think the Iraq war was worth the while. Seventy-six percent of Republicans supported the use of force, as well as 49% of Democrats, and Democratic politicians are rattling sabers as vigorously as the administration. European leaders, as I observed last week, already have endorsed the use of force should negotiations fail. MORE
Posted by Ted Belman at January 30, 2006 01:48 PM