Piecework

This past week's two beig Middle East developments drew mixed reviews. They also made the Bush administration look like a marginal player in Middle East affairs and its policies toward Lebanon, Hezbollah, Syria, Hamas, Israel and Iran like miserable failures. The agreement that key Lebanese political players signed in Doha, Qatar was a victory primarily for Hezbollah and secondarily for Arab League diplomacy. The agreement resolves for now the political crisis in Lebanon: It commits the parties to a National Unity government in which Hezbollah will have veto power; it agrees to the election of the compromise presidential candidate Gen. Michel Suleiman and calls for certain revisions of the electoral laws that will increase Shiite representation in the Lebanese parliament. These changes correspond to the probable populations of the respective communities and certainly to their respective military strengths, as Hezbollah's recent armed seizure of West Beirut bluntly demonstrated. Through the agreement the government parties averted a coup d'état or civil war, which would have cost them more. The agreement, however, does not address the wider issue of Hezbollah's future character, viz., political party, movement, army; it does not quiet fears in Lebanon of Hezbollah creating a state within a state.

The agreement generally received regional and international applause. Even the United States, which had called upon Lebanon's government to stand up to Hezbollah expressed some satisfaction. Its spin was that Hezbollah's gains, achieved at gunpoint, had cost it its reputation and so political partners among other Lebanese Some skeptics, however, questioned whether the agreement just delayed the collapse of Lebanon into civil or could really defuse the situation. Yet the Arab patrons of the parties -- primarily the Saudis, on one side, Syria, on the other apparently signed off on the agreement. That suggests they have interests in making the agreement work or, put another way, keeping Lebanon from becoming the battleground of a proxy war between the United States and Iran. If so, the politics of the regional system have trumped those of the global system (not that Iran is really a global player). Since the regional politics are traditionally contentious and solidarity weak, the agreement testifies to the extent of the Arab states' disdain for the United States and suspicions of Iran.

Official Israel and Syrian statements that the two countries are indirectly negotiating peace through the Turkish foreign ministry are no surprise since reports of such negotiations have been leaking for the past month. The statements, however, made the countries' respective patrons, the US and Iran, look ineffective, since each had publicly warned its client against such negotiations. Indeed, a New York Times editorial rather imaginatively argued that George Bush's condemnation of appeasers in his May 14 speech to the Knesset was aimed at both Obama and Israelis who want to negotiate with groups to whom the Administration refuses to speak, viz., Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah. Secretary of State Rice said rather coolly that it was okay for Israel to negotiate with Syria. She then claimed that Israel and the Palestinian Authority were making such progress in their US sponsored negotiations that agreements could be signed by the end of the year. Since neither the parties to these negotiations nor any informed observers believe this, Rice is either terribly out of touch or just plain lying. Given her record, it's hard to tell.

Iranian president Ahmadinejad and his circle were reportedly pissed off by the revelation to the point of branding Syria's negotiations a betrayal of its friendship with Iran. Iran's foreign ministry, however, denied the truth of such reports. So Ahmadinejad is likely to soft pedal his opposition while working behind the scenes to block the negotiations.

There is considerable doubt among Israelis that the negotiations can succeed, though arguably both sides can benefit if Israel gives Syria the entire Golan Heights in return for a peace that includes an end of Syria's alliances with Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran. For one thing, earlier negotiations between Syria and Israel failed because the two sides could not agree on the extent and modality of Syria's control of the Golan. Second, Israel PM Olmet is too weak politically to get the Israel public behind such a deal. Indeed many skeptics believe he chose to disclose the negotiations now to deflect attention from a police investigation of his possibly corrupt practices when he was Minister of Industry and Commerce in a previous government. Third, although Israeli governments have tended to look at negotiations as an alternative to negotiations with the Palestinians, the Israel will need some assurance that some peace can be reached with the Palestinians before it will agree to relinquishing all or most of the Golan.

On the Brink or in the Bazaar

Reuters and al-Jazeera report that talks in Doha, Qatar among Lebanese leaders have fasiled to reach any agreement for ending the political crisis in Lebanon. According to al-Jazeera one major disagreement is over proposals concerning the size of electoral districts, particularly in Beirut, with Christians fearing that large sized districts would dilute their representation in Parliament. According to Reuters, the sticking point is Hezbollah's refusal to a compromise proposed by the Qatari hosts that would give Hezbollah 10 ministers in the government cabinet and some say over the appointment of a n eleventh. This would give it close to, but not guaranteed, veto power in the government.

The compromise proposal evidences Hezbollah's strength and indicates how out of touch with reality is the Bush administration in thinking, as Bush's Security Adviser Stephen Hadley puts it, the talks are an opportunity for the Lebanese government to clip Hezbollah's wings.

Fighting Words

In considering a comment on Crusader-in-Chief George Bush's speech yesterday to the Knesset, I recalled the contradictory advice of Proverbs 26: 4-5:

Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.
Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.

Since Bush does not read this blog and much has already been written about his gratuitous, attack on Obama, McCain's hypocritical follow on and the Democrats' replies, I thought it better to focus on the Israeli response to the speech.

1. It was warm. Most Israelis were predisposed to applaud whatever he said. They think they owe him. On their view, the invasion of Iraq removed a threat to Israel, albeit an overrated one, and the occupation has created so much chaos in Iraq that another threat cannot arise from there for decades.
   
2. They found nothing wrong in what he said and a lot to their liking. Right wing Israelis could ignore his mention of a Palestinian state in a vague future, because they know in the present Bush ignores the building of settlements in the West Bank and does not even support his Secretary of State's demand to remove checkpoints. Israelis centrists could applaud the vacuous words that demanded nothing of them -- no flexibility in negotiations with Palestinians -- while congratulating Israel for comprising with the United States the moral center of the universe. Left wing Israelis could join with the others in applauding Bush's pledge to keep Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. While many Americans view Iran's president Ahmadinejad as a scruffy, contemptible, little man, almost all Israelis see him as a an existential threat and even leftists do not want to relinquish Israel's nuclear monopoly in the Middle East.
3. Israelis felt honored that Bush attended the 60th anniversary celebration. Although Bush has disgraced the presidency and the United States, Israelis still regard the United States like an older brother, a friend and protector. With its leader present, along with several other foreign dignitaries, Jewish gliterrati from the Diaspora and a few goyisch celebrities, the Israelis could briefly feel relaxed and triumphant rather than kvetchy and apprehensive.
   

Well not entirely. An editorial on the speech in the supposedly dovish Haaretz applauded Bush's pledge on Iran, but worried that it would not bind his successor. No problem if McCain is elected, but if Obama becomes the next president... In that case, the editorial suggested, Bush should take military measures against Iran in the months between the election and the inauguration. He could be assured that Israel's military would willingly assist in such operations. The editorial was likely written by Yossi Melman, one of the newspaper's military correspondents. Melman has been extremely hawkish on Iran, but he often directly reflects what his IDF and Mossad sources tell him. So the editiorial might signal to the world that Israel's security establishment is running out of patience with and trust in the United States over Iran. That is scary.

The Only Place He is Loved

Following upon the allegations that an American Jewish entrepreneur bribed Israel PM Ehud Olmert when Olmert was Minister of Commerce and Industry, Israel journalist gadfly Gideon Levy wrote a column asking American Jews to stop intervening in Israel politics. While Levy acknowledged the present case was somewhat different, it was pointed to the perversion and corruption of Israel politics and policies by American Jewish money. In particular, Levy took issue with American funding of the numerous settlements in the territories and the various settlers' movements. Without the more than $100 million which American Jews have contributed, these efforts would have failed. And the settlements and settlers, Levy argues, are the major obstacle and opponents to finding peace with the Palestinians.

Levy, I believe, is right. Over Israel's 60 years, especially since 1967, the money and political support raised by American Jews has relieved Israel of the need to seek seriously accommodation and peace with the Palestinians. The settlement policies and activities, in particular, have further Israel's relations with them, pushing farther off a peaceful two-state solution. Moreover, this support, like that given by most Christian evangelicals, was given to fulfill the donors' fantasies, such as revenge on the goyim, rather than out of consideration for Israel's best interests.

However, I would Levy to ask that Israeli Jews return the favor. He should tell them to stop intervening in American politics and, in particular, to stop their ridiculous support of George W. Bush. One might argue whether the U.S.'s invasion of Iraq, its threats to Iran and its acceptance of Israel settlements were in Israel's best interests. According to the prevalent short-sighted Israel analysis, they were. But clearly the Israelis who cheer Bush for these steps have no concern for what they have cost the American people. They express no concern for the American lives and money wasted in Iraq, the U.S.'s moral stature shrunk by the administration's torture policies nor the administration's violations of its own citizens' civil liberties. Perhaps they are use to similar conduct by their own governments, army, security agencies and police similarly rationalized in name of security.

Even many of the best are filled with such dispassionate intensity. The supposedly liberal newspaper Haaretz in an editorial urges the United States to attack Iran. The editors know the American army is stretched thin in Iraq and Afghanistan, so it kindly advises the use of planes, missiles and naval ships. Its Washington correspondent Shmuel Rosner, who apparently has not heard of Katarina or seen the last five years of incompetence in Iraq, extols Bush as hard at work every day for the good of the world. Supposedly wise Israel president Shimon Peres, interviewed in the Washington Post, praises Bush for having toppled Saddam Hussein, for otherwise Israel would have to contend with both Iraq and Iran. He ignores that the revulsion through the Middle East, with the exception of Israel, to the occupation of Iraq has strengthen Iranian influence throughout the region. And it has strengthened the grip and audacity of the hardliners in Iran.

If Israelis lack the curiosity to ask why 72% of the American public disappove of Bush, if they are indifferent to costs other bear for their free ride, they might at least spare us the fawning over Bush.

Sowing the Wind

The cunning of history, Hegel's term for unintended consequences coming back to bite political actors, might be in the works in the country formerly known as Burma [Myanmar]. The Iriwaddy delta is devastated, 35,000 to 100,000 people (depending on whose estimate) have already died, another 1.5 million are without food, potable water, shelter and are vulnerable to disease. Yet the generals who rule Myanmar have limited the influx of aid from outside, diverted resources from relief efforts for a referendum to rubber stamp their rule and even prevented rich Burmese from providing money and aid to the cowevne's victims. They are suspicious that any collective actions, self-organization or outside intervention, which is not under their control, can become politically charged and weaken their grip on power. Such suspicions are frequent among leaders or authoritarian governments and even democracies, when facing or contemplating the aftermath of disasters.

The generals, however, may not have considered that a regime's refusal or inability to alleviate the suffering of its subjects after a disaster erodes whatever legitimacy it might have. Thus the Iranian government's incompetence in organizing effective relief for earthquakes in 1977 and 1978 fueled popular opposition to the Shah and hastened his downfall. Of course all such failures do not have such a result. The mullarchy in Iran has been no more effective in responding to earthquakes since the Shah, Stalin did not suffer for letting the Ukrainian peasants starve in the 1930s and George W. Bush is still president, despite his administration's miserable failure in responding to the devastation of Hurricaine Katrina.

But Christian Science Monitor's David Montero reports from Bangkok that observers expect the regime to lose some power as a result of its inaction. "This is an opportunity for opposition groups to make limited gains," says Thitinan Pongsudhirak, head of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University. "There will be mounting pressures on the government because of its inadequacies. Opposition groups have the upper hand."

In contrast to the Burmese generals, Chinese authorities appear to be effectively handling the aftermath of today's devastating earthquake in Sichuan province. NPR's Melissa Block reports from the provicial capital Chengdu that cranes were on the scene in a few hours to remove debris of flattened buildings in desperate searches for survivors. Perhaps this contrast will finally convince Chinese officials that the Burmese generals do not merit China's support -- a conclusion that the Burmese dissidents and their supporters have long been pressing China to reach.

More on the Chinese response to the earthquake from James Fallows, an old China hand and editor of the Atlantic Monthly:

Most of the channels on the (state controlled) CCTV are running the normal game shows, Olympic warmups (especially torch-relay updates), teen music shows, etc. But the CCTV-1 news channel is having all-out coverage of the earthquake in Sichuan province. Brief cultural notes:

- The coverage included a long segment of premier Wen Jiabao reading a speech about his deep concern for the people of Sichuan, from aboard an airplane en route to the disaster scene. Background: after the country was paralyzed by unexpected snow storms in February, the leadership was criticized for a Katrina-like slowness in dealing with the problem. Prominent coverage now of the main officials responding immediately to this disaster.

Judgements of Histories

On the eve of the US invasion of Iraq, I remembered Thucydides's account of Athens's catastrophic expedition to Syracuse. Daniel Mendelsohn's brilliant New Yorker review of an annotated edition of Herodotus's Histories suggests to me that other Greek historian (and Thucydides's predecessor) had a better template for the Iraq expedition. In Mendelsohn's reading, Herodotus's point was not to gossip or celebrate Greek courage, but to recount the rise and fall of the great Persian empire. The empire fell because of a rash ruler's effort to expand it beyond its natural limits. That puts a nice socio-biological twist on hubris, the motor of Greek tragedy, and echoes Dirty Harry's line that "a man should know his limitations." In concluding his review, Mendelsohn lays the template thickly over the present case:

Then, there is the story itself. A great power sets its sights on a smaller, strange, and faraway land—an easy target, or so it would seem. Led first by a father and then, a decade later, by his son, this great power invades the lesser country twice. The father, so people say, is a bland and bureaucratic man [Darius], far more temperate than the son; and, indeed, it is the second invasion that will seize the imagination of history for many years to come. For although it is far larger and more aggressive than the first, it leads to unexpected disaster. Many commentators ascribe this disaster to the flawed decisions of the son[Xerxes]: a man whose bluster competes with, or perhaps covers for, a certain hollowness at the center; a leader who is at once hobbled by personal demons (among which, it seems, is an Oedipal conflict) and given to grandiose gestures, who at best seems incapable of comprehending, and at worst is simply incurious about, how different or foreign his enemy really is. Although he himself is unscathed by the disaster he has wreaked, the fortunes and the reputation of the country he rules are seriously damaged. A great power has stumbled badly, against all expectations.

Max Rodenbeck, the Economist's Middle East correspondent, also uses a book review to deliver a similar judgement of the Iraq expedition's effect on the American empire. He finds much wrong with Robin Wright's Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East, especially her assuming that Middle East societies can easily adopt civic culture and democratic values. However, he agrees with her that the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath helped put an end to such efforts earlier in this decade.

As numerous interlocutors in the region tell her, not only did the debacle promote extremism and further isolate pro-Western liberals, it alerted people to the terrible risks of toppling tyrants. The Iraq adventure, in Wright's view, may have been the biggest American policy failure of all time. It could yet prove to mark the end of an imperial America's influence in the region, much as France and Britain's catastrophic invasion of Egypt in 1956 demolished the colonial powers' standing and dangerously boosted the fortunes of Egypt's reckless leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser. That is surely a sound judgment.

Too Short Views

Israel's quick rejection of Hamas's truce offer reflects too short a view. A spokesman from the Prime Minister's office dismissed it as an attempt to buy time for Hamas to regroup and rearm. Put another way, Israel believes it has Hamas at bay and sees no gain in callling off the chase now. That is consistent with zbang ve-gamarnu, the Israeli version of "shock and awe," those crushing displays of power which are supposed to reduce populations to acceptance, but never seem to work as planned. The problem for Israel is that treating Hamas and its supporters only as targets and objects, rather than as a political player and people will not make them disappear, just more obstinate and vengeful. Israel will never reach an effective, durable agreement with the Palestinians, without admitting Hamas at some point, in some capacity to the discussions for it. So if Israel wants an accord, it should respond more encouragingly to any signs of reasonableness from Hamas.

Hamas's alter ego PA President Mahmut Abbas (Abu Mazan) fared no better with George Bush. He came to Washington with the hope of getting Bush to tell Israel to stop building settlements on the West Bank, a requirement of the "road map" and, on the Palestinian view, a very major obstacle to peace. Instead his meeting was just another opportunity for Bush to display his lack of reality regarding the Middle East. He ignored the settlements issue, saying that he wanted to focus on the big picture "how to define a state that is acceptable to both sides," as if he were writing a term paper for a first year course in political science. If Abu Mazan was disappointed by Bush, he was angered by Secretary of State Rice, who is supposed to know something about the Middle East, the interests of the Palestinians and facts on the ground. In his discussion with her, she did not include the 1967 borders as part of the context for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The Administration's was saying to him, in other words, "Take what we give you and shut up about the particulars."

So he returns home less confident about reaching an agreement with Israel whenever and probably less confident about his having a home.