Monday, May 31, 2004
Losing Hungary
The Budapest Sun reports that Hungarian public opinion is running strongly in favor of withdrawing Hungary's troops from Iraq and the opposition Fidesz party has also called for it. The poll, finding 77% in favor of a withdrawal, was conducted before the Abu Ghraib scandal broke.
Opponents to the presence of Hungarian troops don't speak from a deep well of anti-Americanism but simply state that it seems apparent that the fight in Iraq is not linked to terrorism and that Hungary is merely supporting US interests in Iraq. This may be persuasive enough, though the government is not yet budging on its position in favor of the deployment.
Hungary is important because it stands among our more solid allies - among the more pro-American states of Eastern Europe. It is probably more representative of the region than Poland, which is regarded as the most pro-American country on the continent. If we lose a country like Hungary, efforts to internationalize the effort will be severely staggered.
One thing worth noting - Hungary has EU elections coming up. A strong verdict for the Fidesz opposition might translate into a shift on Iraq.
The Budapest Sun reports that Hungarian public opinion is running strongly in favor of withdrawing Hungary's troops from Iraq and the opposition Fidesz party has also called for it. The poll, finding 77% in favor of a withdrawal, was conducted before the Abu Ghraib scandal broke.
Opponents to the presence of Hungarian troops don't speak from a deep well of anti-Americanism but simply state that it seems apparent that the fight in Iraq is not linked to terrorism and that Hungary is merely supporting US interests in Iraq. This may be persuasive enough, though the government is not yet budging on its position in favor of the deployment.
Hungary is important because it stands among our more solid allies - among the more pro-American states of Eastern Europe. It is probably more representative of the region than Poland, which is regarded as the most pro-American country on the continent. If we lose a country like Hungary, efforts to internationalize the effort will be severely staggered.
One thing worth noting - Hungary has EU elections coming up. A strong verdict for the Fidesz opposition might translate into a shift on Iraq.
The Gore Factor
Having contained and defeated Howard Dean - and also having apparently enlisted him in the key project of containing the Nader factor - John Kerry must also concern himself with a perhaps greater challenge: keeping Al Gore on message.
Gore's public addresses over the last few years have gotten increasingly angry and irate. Perhaps this is the "real Al Gore" coming to the fore. If so, it's a pity because I like the pre-2000 Gore more. The new Gore has the same strategic inability as the old Gore, but his ability to make poor choices is further abetted by the increased absence of internal checks. Gore is currently going on a head-hunt, accusing the administration of creating a gulag system and being behind the Abu Ghraib abuses. Since he was speaking to the MoveOn choir, Gore felt free to cut loose and demand the resignation of pretty much the entire Bush national security team (for more than simply the Abu Ghraib abuses).
These demands for mass resignations - articulated not only by Gore - strike me as a distraction from the main event. Obviously they're not going to happen, not least because the Bushies do not admit that they are wrong. More to the point, voters will want to hear the Democratic plan for America, instead of the Democratic plan to get the Bush administration to field second-stringers in national security positions for the next 7 months during - it should be said - a time of increased threats from terror groups. This just looks like a head-hunting expedition. It muddles the party's message and mires it in attack politics.
Gore gives this agenda a powerful avatar, which is why he needs to be contained. He has appallingly bad political judgement. Let us count the ways: prematurely conceding Midwestern states like Ohio in 2000 (which he lost by only 4 points), needlessly bashing Bill Bradley in such a way as to alienate Bradley supporters and create an opening for Nader, then underestimating and ignoring the Nader threat, failing to counter Bush's rhetoric about being a compromiser, failing to attack the Republican Party for its partisan attacks during the impeachment (the most effective way to undermine the "Bush-as-compromiser" thread), allowing his petulant grudge toward Bill Clinton to deny him the services of the Democratic Party's most effective campaigner, campaigning for a nakedly selective recount in Florida rather than a total remedy of a statewide manual recount or revote. If this Faulknerian summation seems to be missing something, consider his remarkably arrogant endorsement of Howard Dean. Gore did so to circumvent the primary process, based on the bizarre notion that the Democrats didn't have the luxury of electorally choosing a candidate. We call it democracy Al, not a luxury. His deplorable failure to give Joe Lieberman the slightest notification has been noted here and elsewhere. The depletion of Gore's political capital by this debacle may be the biggest boon of the Dean loss.
But there's still a lot of campaigning left to do, and Gore will try to make his impact. Kerry will need to be concerned about what the former VP will be saying. Gore remains a huge figure within the party. He will most certainly be speaking at the convention. If he is allowed to shove campaign rhetoric in a direction that satiates his own anger, it will be to Kerry's detriment. Don't believe me? Consider the title of a recent National Review piece by Byron York: "Republicans Love It When Gore Gets Mad: The more screaming, the better." York cites an anonymous GOP strategist who says:
Let's ensure that 2000 remains the last election blown by Al Gore.
Having contained and defeated Howard Dean - and also having apparently enlisted him in the key project of containing the Nader factor - John Kerry must also concern himself with a perhaps greater challenge: keeping Al Gore on message.
Gore's public addresses over the last few years have gotten increasingly angry and irate. Perhaps this is the "real Al Gore" coming to the fore. If so, it's a pity because I like the pre-2000 Gore more. The new Gore has the same strategic inability as the old Gore, but his ability to make poor choices is further abetted by the increased absence of internal checks. Gore is currently going on a head-hunt, accusing the administration of creating a gulag system and being behind the Abu Ghraib abuses. Since he was speaking to the MoveOn choir, Gore felt free to cut loose and demand the resignation of pretty much the entire Bush national security team (for more than simply the Abu Ghraib abuses).
These demands for mass resignations - articulated not only by Gore - strike me as a distraction from the main event. Obviously they're not going to happen, not least because the Bushies do not admit that they are wrong. More to the point, voters will want to hear the Democratic plan for America, instead of the Democratic plan to get the Bush administration to field second-stringers in national security positions for the next 7 months during - it should be said - a time of increased threats from terror groups. This just looks like a head-hunting expedition. It muddles the party's message and mires it in attack politics.
Gore gives this agenda a powerful avatar, which is why he needs to be contained. He has appallingly bad political judgement. Let us count the ways: prematurely conceding Midwestern states like Ohio in 2000 (which he lost by only 4 points), needlessly bashing Bill Bradley in such a way as to alienate Bradley supporters and create an opening for Nader, then underestimating and ignoring the Nader threat, failing to counter Bush's rhetoric about being a compromiser, failing to attack the Republican Party for its partisan attacks during the impeachment (the most effective way to undermine the "Bush-as-compromiser" thread), allowing his petulant grudge toward Bill Clinton to deny him the services of the Democratic Party's most effective campaigner, campaigning for a nakedly selective recount in Florida rather than a total remedy of a statewide manual recount or revote. If this Faulknerian summation seems to be missing something, consider his remarkably arrogant endorsement of Howard Dean. Gore did so to circumvent the primary process, based on the bizarre notion that the Democrats didn't have the luxury of electorally choosing a candidate. We call it democracy Al, not a luxury. His deplorable failure to give Joe Lieberman the slightest notification has been noted here and elsewhere. The depletion of Gore's political capital by this debacle may be the biggest boon of the Dean loss.
But there's still a lot of campaigning left to do, and Gore will try to make his impact. Kerry will need to be concerned about what the former VP will be saying. Gore remains a huge figure within the party. He will most certainly be speaking at the convention. If he is allowed to shove campaign rhetoric in a direction that satiates his own anger, it will be to Kerry's detriment. Don't believe me? Consider the title of a recent National Review piece by Byron York: "Republicans Love It When Gore Gets Mad: The more screaming, the better." York cites an anonymous GOP strategist who says:
- We're delighted by it, because what you see now is a coalescing of the 'blame America first' wing of the Democratic party that has been largely absent from the stage since 1984. It was an anger-filled speech before an angry audience belonging to an angry group. All these things are a turnoff to people.
Let's ensure that 2000 remains the last election blown by Al Gore.
Sebastian Mallaby of the Washington Post writes of a valuable, half-implemented program responsible for economic growth in Africa, which the U.S. Senate is likely to axe.
A growing chorus of experts, African and American, has told the world that the continent needs increased access to Western markets, not aid packages. We seem to be trying not to hear. Domestic industries and interest groups are just too powerful and tend to drown out weak foreign voices.
But free trade is more than an abstract good. Employing poor people in Africa and investing countries in exports to the United States allows economic development and, with it, the development of political institutions. Terrorism may not stem from poverty, but terrorists love to work in poor countries - poor or collapsed societies provide an excellent viral media for them. Denying these poor countries hard-sought income will increase the likelihood that they will remain unable to deal effectively with terrorism. The fact that both political parties have flirted with such protectionism and the absence of support for trade with Africa is disquieting.
A growing chorus of experts, African and American, has told the world that the continent needs increased access to Western markets, not aid packages. We seem to be trying not to hear. Domestic industries and interest groups are just too powerful and tend to drown out weak foreign voices.
But free trade is more than an abstract good. Employing poor people in Africa and investing countries in exports to the United States allows economic development and, with it, the development of political institutions. Terrorism may not stem from poverty, but terrorists love to work in poor countries - poor or collapsed societies provide an excellent viral media for them. Denying these poor countries hard-sought income will increase the likelihood that they will remain unable to deal effectively with terrorism. The fact that both political parties have flirted with such protectionism and the absence of support for trade with Africa is disquieting.
Saturday, May 29, 2004
Very scary news: Libyan Nuclear Devices Missing
Read something like this if you need to be reminded why this country takes WMD seriously, and why the ambiguities about Iraq's program seemed so ominous in March 2003.
Read something like this if you need to be reminded why this country takes WMD seriously, and why the ambiguities about Iraq's program seemed so ominous in March 2003.
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
The The New York Times offers an interesting piece on the electoral map, indicating that more states are in play in this election than prior contests.
Kerry's reported determination not to concede states that Gore didn't fight for is appropriate. But the risk he runs is spreading himself too thinly. He will have more resources than Gore in some areas - fundraising, perhaps. But there's only one of him. Tradeoffs will inevitably happen. His choice of a running mate should say a lot about which region he wants to focus on.
Kerry's reported determination not to concede states that Gore didn't fight for is appropriate. But the risk he runs is spreading himself too thinly. He will have more resources than Gore in some areas - fundraising, perhaps. But there's only one of him. Tradeoffs will inevitably happen. His choice of a running mate should say a lot about which region he wants to focus on.
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Could Reuters have given this story a more insensitive, tasteless headline? Stupid gits.
The administration's actions against Syria are an appropriate measure in response to Damascus' entrenchment in Lebanon, its support of anti-Israel terrorism, and its failures to control its Iraq border.
The United States is, at this point, the only country willing to raise the question of the occupation of Lebanon. This is an occupation incompatible with the Middle East we seek to build. And, for that matter, holding countries responsible for harboring Hamas is a real step toward peace in the Middle East, though if the EU doesn't do it, this will remain a largely symbolic gesture. Europe talks a great game in this department, but has shown a real reluctance to take a hard look at its friends in the region.
The United States is, at this point, the only country willing to raise the question of the occupation of Lebanon. This is an occupation incompatible with the Middle East we seek to build. And, for that matter, holding countries responsible for harboring Hamas is a real step toward peace in the Middle East, though if the EU doesn't do it, this will remain a largely symbolic gesture. Europe talks a great game in this department, but has shown a real reluctance to take a hard look at its friends in the region.
Sunday, May 09, 2004
State-by-state, Bush and Kerry are tied at 205 electoral votes apiece (if current state-level trends bear out), with 14 states undecided.
I prefer state-level polling to national polling. Saying that Bush leads Kerry 48-46 nationwide tells us very little - a.) because of the margin of error; b.) because this isn't a national race but 50 separate state races. Kerry won't care about running up his totals in California or New York as much as he will about getting an extra 3% in New Hampshire or Nevada. I'm surprised that nationwide polls get as much emphasis as they do.
I prefer state-level polling to national polling. Saying that Bush leads Kerry 48-46 nationwide tells us very little - a.) because of the margin of error; b.) because this isn't a national race but 50 separate state races. Kerry won't care about running up his totals in California or New York as much as he will about getting an extra 3% in New Hampshire or Nevada. I'm surprised that nationwide polls get as much emphasis as they do.
Friday, May 07, 2004
And, depending on who you believe, Kerry is either trailing 50-38 or winning 46-40 in Wisconsin
Wednesday, May 05, 2004
Raze Abu Ghraib, or make it a museum
Something in my last post is worth discussing alone: we as liberators should not, absolutely not, be using Saddam's prisons as our prisons. Too much horror is associated with them. It's not quite as bad as was using Nazi or Japanese research on unwilling human beings, but there is a real taint that rubs off on us from using the dictator's prisons.
Either they need to be razed or turned into museums.
We have contractors and money. Clearly we'll need prisons, but what better way to mark the discontinuity of the new Iraq from the old Iraq than saying that the grounds occupied by the old prisons is too bloodstained to use as anything other than a memorial? Abu Ghraib may be an Iraqi Ground Zero (well that and Halabja). It's time we think about how the new Iraq is going to remember the national nightware it just exited.
Something in my last post is worth discussing alone: we as liberators should not, absolutely not, be using Saddam's prisons as our prisons. Too much horror is associated with them. It's not quite as bad as was using Nazi or Japanese research on unwilling human beings, but there is a real taint that rubs off on us from using the dictator's prisons.
Either they need to be razed or turned into museums.
We have contractors and money. Clearly we'll need prisons, but what better way to mark the discontinuity of the new Iraq from the old Iraq than saying that the grounds occupied by the old prisons is too bloodstained to use as anything other than a memorial? Abu Ghraib may be an Iraqi Ground Zero (well that and Halabja). It's time we think about how the new Iraq is going to remember the national nightware it just exited.
Tuesday, May 04, 2004
Sparring again - if only we were debating a point of importance.
Golly, I didn't think I made an argument against sticking to our ideals. In fact I didn't. I'm just acknowledging that the path toward attainment of our ideals will inevitably be marred by serious misdeeds. Acknowledging that these are going to happen is quite distinct from "resigning" oneself to it and certainly from countenancing any abandonment of our goals or ideals. Cops will tell you that they expect crime to occur, even as they undertake every active measure to prevent it. To tell them that they have resigned themselves to crime is to insult them. The only great distinction here is that the criminals in this case were not civilians.
Nor was I making the case that this is the consequence of the ugliness of war, and I do wish my post had been read more closely. I was making the more basic argument that any army is going to have people in it who are capable of this kind of barbarity. In wartime or in peacetime. US troops over in Okinawa are under no fire whatsoever, but there still have been numerous rape cases attributed to them. It's a grim and ugly fact. I support our troops as much as anyone, but no army can ever be entirely composed of saints. Not in this era.
By all means, prosecute them to the fullest extent and investigate every goddamn prison we have there. Actually, raze Abu Ghraib to the ground and put a city park there - that we were using it at all is really distasteful, like setting up a postwar prison camp at Treblinka. Ensure that our soldiers know what is proper, what isn't, and what the penalties are. Tighten the penalties if need be. But have a plan for dealing with cases where the precautions failed. Not planning for the worst case scenario got us into this mess. I see no reason why we should repeat that error. Understanding basic human fallibility will get you a lot closer to attaining your ideals than assuming otherwise.
Golly, I didn't think I made an argument against sticking to our ideals. In fact I didn't. I'm just acknowledging that the path toward attainment of our ideals will inevitably be marred by serious misdeeds. Acknowledging that these are going to happen is quite distinct from "resigning" oneself to it and certainly from countenancing any abandonment of our goals or ideals. Cops will tell you that they expect crime to occur, even as they undertake every active measure to prevent it. To tell them that they have resigned themselves to crime is to insult them. The only great distinction here is that the criminals in this case were not civilians.
Nor was I making the case that this is the consequence of the ugliness of war, and I do wish my post had been read more closely. I was making the more basic argument that any army is going to have people in it who are capable of this kind of barbarity. In wartime or in peacetime. US troops over in Okinawa are under no fire whatsoever, but there still have been numerous rape cases attributed to them. It's a grim and ugly fact. I support our troops as much as anyone, but no army can ever be entirely composed of saints. Not in this era.
By all means, prosecute them to the fullest extent and investigate every goddamn prison we have there. Actually, raze Abu Ghraib to the ground and put a city park there - that we were using it at all is really distasteful, like setting up a postwar prison camp at Treblinka. Ensure that our soldiers know what is proper, what isn't, and what the penalties are. Tighten the penalties if need be. But have a plan for dealing with cases where the precautions failed. Not planning for the worst case scenario got us into this mess. I see no reason why we should repeat that error. Understanding basic human fallibility will get you a lot closer to attaining your ideals than assuming otherwise.
Good news from Iraq: the Shiite cleric leadership is urging Sadr to cease and desist and withdraw from Najaf and Karbala. This has been well-played by the coalition, which has avoided actions that would let this egomaniac further his pretensions of being a modern prophet. Now he just looks like an irresponsible hothead who risked Shiite holy places to further his own narrow ambitions. If we continue the pressure - and leak details of the indictment against him - we could truly reduce him to insignificance and maybe to a position where he can be quietly arrested.
Al Gore to buy NewsWorld cable and launch liberal network
Hmmm . . . can anyone picture Al Gore as a liberal talk radio host? This sounds like material ready-made for Darrell Hammond.
Hmmm . . . can anyone picture Al Gore as a liberal talk radio host? This sounds like material ready-made for Darrell Hammond.
I take a very grim view of these torture allegations in Iraq. They do appear to be ghastly and true. And of course in utter contravention of what we're there for. And we clearly need to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law and give these people the maximum penalties if the evidence holds up (which it will do no doubt).
But this sort of thing is bound to happen. Any army - even an army from a democratic state such as ours - is going to have vicious or depraved people in it. Ours is probably the best and most professional fighting army in the world, but this sort of thing is bound to happen. That it's happened at the worst possible time in the worst possible place is just shitty luck.
And the damage - well it was easy to predict. It could have been one soldier one time, it could have been six or seven, it could have been seven hundred. The spinning of this was utterly predictable. The same people who predicted that we'd never take Baghdad, who defended Saddam as a leader of his people, who actively hope for the failure of US efforts to reconstruct the country are taking this and running for the end zone. Some of these people now deploring the torture (in the Al Jazeera TV market) probably reacted to the mutilations in Fallujah with unfettered glee. The sorry fact is that we're under a microscope in Iraq. We're going to be damned for the bad things we do and a lot of the bad things we didn't do. And I can't see a way to avoid that. Grim but true.
But this sort of thing is bound to happen. Any army - even an army from a democratic state such as ours - is going to have vicious or depraved people in it. Ours is probably the best and most professional fighting army in the world, but this sort of thing is bound to happen. That it's happened at the worst possible time in the worst possible place is just shitty luck.
And the damage - well it was easy to predict. It could have been one soldier one time, it could have been six or seven, it could have been seven hundred. The spinning of this was utterly predictable. The same people who predicted that we'd never take Baghdad, who defended Saddam as a leader of his people, who actively hope for the failure of US efforts to reconstruct the country are taking this and running for the end zone. Some of these people now deploring the torture (in the Al Jazeera TV market) probably reacted to the mutilations in Fallujah with unfettered glee. The sorry fact is that we're under a microscope in Iraq. We're going to be damned for the bad things we do and a lot of the bad things we didn't do. And I can't see a way to avoid that. Grim but true.
Monday, May 03, 2004
The UN descends further into self parody:
Sudan Assured Seat on U.N. Rights Commission
Shit, it's a good thing Josef Stalin isn't still alive. The UN Human Rights Commission might otherwise have invited him to deliver a speech.
Sudan Assured Seat on U.N. Rights Commission
Shit, it's a good thing Josef Stalin isn't still alive. The UN Human Rights Commission might otherwise have invited him to deliver a speech.
Sunday, May 02, 2004
Al Franken is considering a run for Minnesota's Senate seat in 2008. Oh dear. He lives in New York City. He'd be running against a strong incumbent. Granted they ran Walter Mondale the last time out, after Wellstone's plane crash, but is the Minnesota Democratic Party really in such sad shape?
Muslims kill Christians and Muslims and they blame . . .
Saudi crown prince Abdullah "warned again after attacks that left at least five Westerners dead that authorities would crush terrorists, who he said were manipulated by 'Zionism.''
"Your country is targeted... Zionism is behind what is happening. This has become clear"
Maybe that Nigerian governor won't be getting a phone call after all.
Saudi crown prince Abdullah "warned again after attacks that left at least five Westerners dead that authorities would crush terrorists, who he said were manipulated by 'Zionism.''
"Your country is targeted... Zionism is behind what is happening. This has become clear"
Maybe that Nigerian governor won't be getting a phone call after all.
A Belated Response
Coming back to the question of the Sharon Plan, which a fellow blogger and I have been hashing out, here are some more thoughts.
My core argument is that this is a step that could lead to peace, but it is not a peace plan. It's certainly not an agreement. Holding it to the criteria of a peace plan misreads it. This is a wartime action premised first and foremost on security. Sharon may be giving the Palestinians a state without a government, but he could not give them a government in any case. Sympathetic EU well-wishers couldn't give the Palestinians a government either for that matter. Israel is too jaded to believe in the possibilities of nation-building on Jordan. Arafat may be a lesser evil to Hamas, but no responsible Israeli could trust him at this point. From a counterterrorist perspective, forcing Hamas to come out into the open makes it more vulnerable as an organization, and it has taken a number of body blows lately. To the extent that the PA has cultivated and encouraged Hamas - from timely prisoner releases in the fall of 2000 to the increasing Islamist bent of PA media - the distinction between the two is thinning.
One would certainly anticipate, in the event of Palestinian movement toward statehood an effort to vest the Palestinian people with the infrastructure for it - after all that sideline boosterism, the Arab states and EU are probably good for it. Nonetheless, the division of Gaza and the West Bank will remain until someone builds a highway. I doubt that their economies had much to do with each other even in the pre-2000 time frame. Gaza is an economic deadweight and a basket case. It may be better for the West Bank to run its own affairs than to subsidize a mini-Somalia before serious reconstruction can improve the situation in Gaza.
The settlements have deeply complicated the process of solving this, but at this point they do exist. And, if Israel has little reason to think that a Palestinian partner will act responsibly, retaining them becomes rational. They give Israel greater strategic depth - some do anyway. In the days of Oslo, anticipating the political storm that removing them would entail, Barak was willing to compensate the Palestinians with other chunks of land. That may be a possibility. But again, in the absence of real measures to curb terror by the PA, it would be unrealistic to expect any freebies from Israel. One can talk about the injustice of the more recent expulsions of Palestinians from the West Bank and reasonably demand that Israel freeze construction and make restitution in individual cases (one can also reflect on the fact that the status quo 1949-67 period, which Palestinian advocates want to restore was a deep historic anomaly, since it is the only time in modern history when the West Bank was fully Judenrein - and that any Palestinian state will reap the dividends of Jordan's own wartime acts of illegal expulsions).
It may be unrealistic to expect someone evicted 2 years ago not to want to return, but here my colleague is choosing his example. What of instances where settlements were built on largely unoccupied land? What if they were built 25 years ago? A fair measure might be to insist upon the restitution of all West Bank property seized post-Oslo (1993).
And finally and peripherally: Israel's complaint agains terror attacks isn't that they are efforts to alter the peace process. Israel is condemning them as barbaric actions - it gave up on the peace process in the fall of 2000 and little that has happened since has restored any rational faith in it. Until there is reason to think that a partner exists, expect Israel to take actions premised firstly and lastly on its own security needs.
Coming back to the question of the Sharon Plan, which a fellow blogger and I have been hashing out, here are some more thoughts.
My core argument is that this is a step that could lead to peace, but it is not a peace plan. It's certainly not an agreement. Holding it to the criteria of a peace plan misreads it. This is a wartime action premised first and foremost on security. Sharon may be giving the Palestinians a state without a government, but he could not give them a government in any case. Sympathetic EU well-wishers couldn't give the Palestinians a government either for that matter. Israel is too jaded to believe in the possibilities of nation-building on Jordan. Arafat may be a lesser evil to Hamas, but no responsible Israeli could trust him at this point. From a counterterrorist perspective, forcing Hamas to come out into the open makes it more vulnerable as an organization, and it has taken a number of body blows lately. To the extent that the PA has cultivated and encouraged Hamas - from timely prisoner releases in the fall of 2000 to the increasing Islamist bent of PA media - the distinction between the two is thinning.
One would certainly anticipate, in the event of Palestinian movement toward statehood an effort to vest the Palestinian people with the infrastructure for it - after all that sideline boosterism, the Arab states and EU are probably good for it. Nonetheless, the division of Gaza and the West Bank will remain until someone builds a highway. I doubt that their economies had much to do with each other even in the pre-2000 time frame. Gaza is an economic deadweight and a basket case. It may be better for the West Bank to run its own affairs than to subsidize a mini-Somalia before serious reconstruction can improve the situation in Gaza.
The settlements have deeply complicated the process of solving this, but at this point they do exist. And, if Israel has little reason to think that a Palestinian partner will act responsibly, retaining them becomes rational. They give Israel greater strategic depth - some do anyway. In the days of Oslo, anticipating the political storm that removing them would entail, Barak was willing to compensate the Palestinians with other chunks of land. That may be a possibility. But again, in the absence of real measures to curb terror by the PA, it would be unrealistic to expect any freebies from Israel. One can talk about the injustice of the more recent expulsions of Palestinians from the West Bank and reasonably demand that Israel freeze construction and make restitution in individual cases (one can also reflect on the fact that the status quo 1949-67 period, which Palestinian advocates want to restore was a deep historic anomaly, since it is the only time in modern history when the West Bank was fully Judenrein - and that any Palestinian state will reap the dividends of Jordan's own wartime acts of illegal expulsions).
It may be unrealistic to expect someone evicted 2 years ago not to want to return, but here my colleague is choosing his example. What of instances where settlements were built on largely unoccupied land? What if they were built 25 years ago? A fair measure might be to insist upon the restitution of all West Bank property seized post-Oslo (1993).
And finally and peripherally: Israel's complaint agains terror attacks isn't that they are efforts to alter the peace process. Israel is condemning them as barbaric actions - it gave up on the peace process in the fall of 2000 and little that has happened since has restored any rational faith in it. Until there is reason to think that a partner exists, expect Israel to take actions premised firstly and lastly on its own security needs.
Saturday, May 01, 2004
This just in:
Zamfara Governor Orders Demolition of All Churches
Zamfara is the latest Nigerian state to adopt sharia law. Seems the governor, Ahmed Sani thinks he's been given a divine mandate to fight "unbelievers." Nigeria being about evenly split between Christians and Muslims, this is the sort of thing that could lead to the most disastrous kind of civil war: a religious war. Actually, this isn't the sort of thing that would stop at national borders.
I'd be surprised if the policy actually gets enacted - Sani might get a few firm telephone calls from Saudi Arabia and desist - but this sort of thing just underscores the religious fault lines that divide most of Africa. Long term trends do not give any real ground to hope that this is just an isolated event, or that the chances of disaster are remote.
Zamfara Governor Orders Demolition of All Churches
Zamfara is the latest Nigerian state to adopt sharia law. Seems the governor, Ahmed Sani thinks he's been given a divine mandate to fight "unbelievers." Nigeria being about evenly split between Christians and Muslims, this is the sort of thing that could lead to the most disastrous kind of civil war: a religious war. Actually, this isn't the sort of thing that would stop at national borders.
I'd be surprised if the policy actually gets enacted - Sani might get a few firm telephone calls from Saudi Arabia and desist - but this sort of thing just underscores the religious fault lines that divide most of Africa. Long term trends do not give any real ground to hope that this is just an isolated event, or that the chances of disaster are remote.
