It's Our War (Neo-cons are dancing to the beat of war in the Middle East)

[ProSense]

It's Our War

Bush should go to Jerusalem--and the U.S. should confront Iran.

by William Kristol
07/24/2006, Volume 011, Issue 42

WHY IS THIS ARAB-ISRAELI WAR different from all other Arab-Israeli wars? Because it's not an Arab-Israeli war. Most of Israel's traditional Arab enemies have checked out of the current conflict. The governments of Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia are, to say the least, indifferent to the fate of Hamas and Hezbollah. The Palestine Liberation Organization (Fatah) isn't a player. The prime mover behind the terrorist groups who have started this war is a non-Arab state, Iran, which wasn't involved in any of Israel's previous wars.

What's happening in the Middle East, then, isn't just another chapter in the Arab-Israeli conflict. What's happening is an Islamist-Israeli war. You might even say this is part of the Islamist war on the West--but is India part of the West? Better to say that what's under attack is liberal democratic civilization, whose leading representative right now happens to be the United States.

An Islamist-Israeli conflict may or may not be more dangerous than the old Arab-Israeli conflict. Secular Arab nationalism was, after all, also capable of posing an existential threat to Israel. And the Islamist threat to liberal democracy may or may not turn out to be as dangerous as the threats posed in the last century by secular forms of irrationalism (fascism) and illiberalism (communism). But it is a new and different threat. One needs to keep this in mind when trying to draw useful lessons from our successes, and failures, in dealing with the threats of the 20th century.

Here, however, is one lesson that does seem to hold: States matter. Regimes matter. Ideological movements become more dangerous when they become governing regimes of major nations. Communism became really dangerous when it seized control of Russia. National socialism became really dangerous when it seized control of Germany. Islamism became really dangerous when it seized control of Iran--which then became, as it has been for the last 27 years, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

more...

http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/433fwbvs.asp

[mmonk]

1. Their dreams are a step closer.

We unfortunately are closer to chaos and major decline.

[bloom]

2. It interesting to know what Kristol is saying.

"It's Our War" - I guess it's no surprise - considering PNAC.

[Kagemusha]

3. Geez, he really believes toppling states solves all problems.

He doesn't understand life without a state. It's called tribalism. It's not bleeping new to the Middle East.

[charlyvi]

4. Okay. Question.....

Where in hell does bullheaded Billy think the troops are going to come from to fight all these wars? They won't institute a draft, and the soldiers in Iraq are at their breaking point. Do any of these neocon assholes EVER think of the actual human beings that have to fight in these grandiose conflicts they want to "bring on"? I dont suppose any of Kristol's family would deign to enlist....they do the "thinking". Others do the dying.

[JI7]

5. Chickenhawk

[applegrove]

6. Just like they are dancing to the beat of Joe Lieberman's troubles.

[ProSense]

7. People will say anything when they want war!

All Talk and No Strategy: The limits of diplomacy

by Michael Rubin
Weekly Standard
July 24, 2006

Poorly timed dialogue is often worse than no talk at all. Lebanon once looked like a potential Bush administration success story. On April 18, Bush welcomed Lebanese prime minister Fouad Siniora to the White House. "We took great joy in seeing the Cedar Revolution. We understand that the hundreds of thousands of people who took to the street to express their desire to be free required courage, and we support the desire of the people to . . . truly free," Bush said.

How unfortunate, then, that during her first trip to Lebanon as secretary of state three months later, Condoleezza Rice chose to meet the pro-Syrian president Emile Lahoud, against whom the pro-democracy forces had rallied. Her aides may have counseled talk, but the timing and symbolism deflated the Cedar Revolution. Her meeting was out of place with the vision both she and the president had pledged to promote. Foggy Bottom's subsequent unwillingness to press demands that the Lebanese government disarm Hezbollah demonstrates that the price of dialogue can be high indeed.

Rice's most recent outreach to Iran was hardly timed to succeed. The Iranian leadership had heard Rep. John Murtha and Sen. John Kerry's declarations of defeat in Iraq. It felt emboldened. And it understood Rice's May 31 offer of negotiations as a sign of weakness. Less than a week later, on June 4, Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei declared, "In Iraq, you failed. . . . Why do you not admit that you are weak and your razor is blunt?" Engaging overconfident adversaries leads to entrenchment. That adversaries rebuff offers of concessions with more violence should not surprise.

more...

http://www.meforum.org/article/976

This was Bush's argument when he lied to invade Iraq.

[killbotfactory]

8. Yes, let's give these idiots even more wars to fuck up!

Iraq and Afghanistan just weren't enough!

[Cleita]

9. Kristol, the founder of the PNAC. How many of his military aged

relatives have signed up to go?