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| Volume XV, Spring 2008, Number 1 |
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| Editor's Note |
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"Madness in search of war" seems an appropriate label for Bush administration policy toward the Middle East. This epithet was hurled at the U.S. president by the English-language daily Arab News during the Saudi leg of his recent trip to the region. President Bush was bent on persuading the Arabs, among other things, to isolate Iran. Saudi Arabia has been burned by U.S. policies too often, however, to be amenable to Washington's suggestions. Yet they are expected to fall in line — and also to lower the price of their unique, nonrenewable resource while they're at it. The Market God normally determines commodity prices, but in this instance, the American capitalists would like an exception made. Our responsibility for the Iraq War and for our addiction to gas-guzzling automobiles is to be off-loaded onto the shoulders of others, along with blame for past disasters and any new ones involving Iran, Syria or Palestine.
Despite the obvious U.S. failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, another military adventure in the Gulf actually remains a possibility: a preventive attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Most analysts think the United States has dodged that bullet (see the symposium, page 1), and American voters in recent polls are overwhelmingly negative on the previous war of choice. But radicals often shoot their way out the door when they are losing, and no one can rule out an "October Surprise" if the public's fear of terrorism seems to be aging off. Such a staged event would perhaps assist a McCain victory in November (although the impending trial of the alleged masterminds behind the 9/11 events may suffice). The following question arises: Who would be the most appropriate commander-in-chief? A veteran fighter pilot and tortured POW whose father and grandfather were admirals? Or either (1) a female egghead or (2) a young black man who was 12 when the United States had to airlift its staff from the roof of the American embassy in Saigon? For some voters, the question answers itself.
The next president will have to contend with another potential theater of military operations, the Levant, where both Washington and Tehran have allies. In August 2006, when Israel was locked in unconventional conflict with Hezbollah, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice refused to follow the example of Europe and the rest of the world and call for an early ceasefire. The war dragged on for a month, with unnecessary loss of life on both sides. It was reported later that the bellicose faction in the Bush administration wanted Israel to beat up the Syrians before ending hostilities. Israel took a major hit to its mythic invincibility because of that misadventure, as revealed in the recent Winograd Report, from an investigative panel chosen by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The report let him off the hook, perhaps fearing a worse government should this one fall, but it was a harsh critique of army and government incompetence. Most Israeli analysts are predicting that the shame will have to be expunged by another war against the Hezbollah irregulars (see Sullivan, page 125).
An arsenal of nuclear weapons is not enough to prevent an under-matched opponent from exploiting your weaknesses, particularly an army corrupted by two generations of occupation duty. An early salvo in Israel's comeback effort was perhaps its mysterious recent bombing of a warehouse in Syria. Authorities claimed it was a North Korean-built nuclear facility; unofficial investigations have led to doubts. Reporter Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker has concluded the bombing was meant to warn Tehran (or Washington?) about what might be in store if they persist in nuclear research. It seems, however, that Israel's posture is a version of "Let's you and him fight." Another go at Hezbollah is much more likely. Meanwhile, Gaza is far from a problem solved. There are frequent bloodthirsty calls in the Knesset for harsh reprisals against rockets launched into Israel from the Strip. No one can yet estimate the damage done to the frail Annapolis process by the January breakout of desperate Gazans into Egypt and Israel's retaliatory collective punishment. Few observers are optimistic.
Another report "fell like an atom bomb" on Israel, according to the acerbic Israeli analyst Uri Avnery: the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate saying that it is unlikely Iran is working on a nuclear weapon (see Cordesman, page 19). No one in Israel wanted the threat removed, says Avnery, for then the Israelis themselves would be responsible for diplomacy toward Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Iran. The United States has aided and abetted Israeli policies that have left America vulnerable to worldwide Muslim rage. To build the separation wall, for example, Israel confiscated more Palestinian land than the area occupied by the Jewish settlements in the West Bank. These outrages get little press here, but in the Arab and Muslim worlds they are familiar even to schoolchildren.
Selfcensorship by the U.S. media is rampant on matters that Israeli supporters here find embarrassing. It is a long list. As can be learned from writers in Europe, on the Internet and in a few American periodicals, neo-conservatives and other protectors of Israel police the media in order to silence dissent from the Israel-centric point of view (see Davidson, page 149). And, of course, political figures have to kowtow to the lobby for Israel. A rule that politicians and journalists know well is this: one must not criticize Israel without in the same breath affirming Israel's right to exist and condemning Arab strikes against Israeli civilians. Barack Obama became the target of an e-mail attack by the Republican Jewish Coalition recently when he was quoted in an interview in the French magazine Paris-Match proposing a summit of Muslim heads of state (The Washington Post, January 6, 2008). It did not count that during Israel's bombardment of Gaza he had urged our UN Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad "to veto any resolution out of the Security Council that did not condemn missile attacks on Israel from Gaza." U.S. credibility has taken hits around the world for protecting Israel from criticism, but some of its most powerful supporters fear that "recognition of the damage the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict poses to America would ultimately lead the United States to lean on Israel to end the occupation" (see the heroic M.J. Rosenberg of the Israel Policy Forum at Talking Points Memo). Thus, there can be no truth telling on this subject in the major U.S. media.
American elites had to note an embarrassing landmark on February 5, the anniversary of former Secretary of State Colin Powell's 2003 address to the UN General Assembly. He convinced many of what they wanted to believe: that Saddam Hussein was hiding an arsenal of WMD, some of them nuclear. Later, much later, in January 2008, a CIA operative who had interrogated the former Iraqi dictator at length revealed that Saddam wanted to deter his enemies by making them think he had doomsday weapons. This would be comical if the war in Iraq had not devastated so many lives. It also deprived the "war on terror" of resources. A disturbing new report from London's International Institute for Strategic Studies estimates that there are now 400 active terrorist groups operating around the world, particularly in the border regions of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. The assassins of Benazir Bhutto are alleged to come from this area. They are part of a neo-Taliban movement that is expanding and connecting itself to various global conflicts with the aim of "annihilating the United States and Britain." So, while the Bush administration is promoting the significance of "victory" over al-Qaeda and its spawn in Iraq, the monster has morphed into a new shape we will recognize too late. The Pakistani army apparently cannot take these fighters on overtly; they are protected by the people among whom they live and move, like fish in the sea, to quote Chairman Mao (see Malik, page 116).
Anne Joyce
February 15, 2008
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