Monday, April 15, 2002

When Savage Passions Set a Trap for the World "The Middle East has been one of the most flammable parts of the world for many decades, of course. War and near-war have been the norm there for much of the half-century since the end of World War II. But there are good reasons to consider the current crisis not only more severe but significantly different from those in the recent past." "It has potential implications far beyond the Holy Land, indeed far beyond the Middle East — implications for the American war on terror, for the relationship between the United States and its European allies, for India and Pakistan. It could spill over into Syria, which might jump at the chance to confront Israel if Israeli officials follow up on their veiled threats to hit Syrian targets. It could destabilize Jordan, a force for moderation." "Until it is defused, the prospect of significant European or Islamic support for an attempt to oust Saddam Hussein of Iraq is next to nil." "And if an explosion in the Middle East should tempt someone like Mr. Hussein to interrupt oil flows or unleash weapons of mass destruction, the stakes quickly become global, challenging the major powers, even more than they are challenged today, to distinguish what is prudent from what is rash." "In that way, if in no other, the situation today evokes the trap of out-of- control events that history set for Europe in 1914. Then vanity, miscalculation and new weapons and tactics set the stage for military stalemate on a catastrophic scale, and once war started, rigid alliances assured that virtually all of Europe would be involved. Rigid alliances are not the problem today, of course, and Americans seem justifiably confident of their superiority on the battlefield. But broad resentment of the United States — in the third world especially, but in corners of Europe too — could unite other countries in ways that frustrate American faith in an inevitable victory in the long war against terror." "A European diplomat, not at all unfriendly to the United States, commented last week: 'It has become a self-fulfilling prophecy — in the Middle East, terrorism pays.'" "AT a time when the United States boasts the greatest military force in its history, when it is able to project that force around the world, it faces a precipitous decline in its influence in one of the arenas of greatest importance." "Neither the European Union nor the United Nations has any significant influence over Israel, and public opinion in Europe has turned sharply against United States policy in the region. The sweeping support enjoyed by President Bush's anti-terror policy has dissolved on the Continent. European leaders argue that the American president has failed in what they see as his responsibility to rein in Mr. Sharon, on whom they place much of the blame for the current violence." "'I don't remember the last time Europe and the United States looked at an important issue as differently . . . 'Maybe Vietnam.'" "In truth, Europe is still trying to adjust to a world with a single superpower, and it is having a hard time doing so. It sees American military spending that far outstrips its own and worries, but is unwilling to allocate more money to defense. Respect for American military successes in Afghanistan coexists with resentment of American power. They fear being left out of big decisions . . . " ... [more] 2:30:35 PM  Google It!  comment  []

The Bush Doctrine, R.I.P. "President Bush, who once spoke of rigid lines drawn between "good" men and "evildoers," has now been so overrun by fresh hellish events and situational geopolitical bargaining that his old formulations — "either you are with us or you are with the terrorists" — have been rendered meaningless." "Mr. Bush doesn't seem to know that since the routing of the Taliban his moral clarity has atrophied into simplistic, often hypocritical sloganeering. He has let his infatuation with his own rectitude metastasize into hubris. . . . It takes some kind of perverse genius to simultaneously earn the defiance of the Israelis, the Palestinians and our Arab "allies" alike and turn the United States into an impotent bystander." " . . . his seasoned brain trust, the competing axes of power in the left (State) and right (Defense) halves of that surrogate brain have instead sent him bouncing between conflicting policies like a yo-yo, sometimes within the same day." "The goal of stopping Saddam, worthy as it is, cannot be separated from the conflict of the Jews and the Palestinians and never could be. . . . The president has yet to speak publicly about the spillover of the hostilities into Europe, where each day brings news of some of the ugliest anti-Semitic violence seen there since World War II." "To Mr. Bush, these immutable policies are no doubt all doctrines, principles, testaments to his moral clarity. In fact, many of them have more to do with ideology than morality. Only history can determine whether they will be any more lasting than the Bush doctrine on terrorism. . . . 'This is a world with a lot of gray . . . We can choose either to live in an abstract world or choose to engage in the real world. . . . The reality of that has started to set in with this administration.'" ... [more] 2:07:42 PM  Google It!  comment  []