Incompetence

by DemFromCT

This isn't schedenfreude. And it isn't good.

With each new scene of carnage in southern Lebanon, outrage in the Arab world and Europe has intensified against Israel and its prime sponsor, raising the prospect of a backlash resulting in a new Middle East quagmire for the United States, according to regional specialists, diplomats and former U.S. officials.

Although the United States has urged Israel to use restraint, it has also strongly defended the military assaults as a reasonable response to Hezbollah rocket attacks, a position increasingly at odds with allies that see a deadly overreaction. Analysts think that if the war drags on, as appears likely, it could leave the United States more isolated than at any time since the Iraq invasion three years ago and hindered in its foreign policy goals such as shutting down Iran's nuclear program and spreading democracy around the world.

The WH thinks everything is just going according to plan.

Others are not so hopeful. Outside the White House, the mood among many foreign policy veterans in Washington is strikingly pessimistic, especially as leaders of Hezbollah and al-Qaeda, traditional rivals based in different Islamic sects, began calling for followers to take the fight to the enemy.

Analysts foresee a muddled outcome at best, in which Hezbollah survives Israel's airstrikes, foreign peacekeepers become bogged down, and U.S. relations with allies are severely strained. At worst, they said, Hezbollah and Iran feel emboldened, Islamic radicalism spreads, and a region smuggling fighters and weapons into Iraq fractures further along sectarian lines.

Please, please , please. Where are the grown-ups?

Haass, the former Bush aide who leads the Council on Foreign Relations, laughed at the president's public optimism. "An opportunity?" Haass said with an incredulous tone. "Lord, spare me. I don't laugh a lot. That's the funniest thing I've heard in a long time. If this is an opportunity, what's Iraq? A once-in-a-lifetime chance?"

Save us from Condi and these airheads substituting for foreign policy experts. F-16s make poor diplomacy tools, and not seeing what everyone else in the world did, in terms of the inevitable PR outcome, is just stupid. it actually got to the point where Condi had to make the temporary cessation of airstrikes announcement rather than the israelis to show some "progress''. It may be the only thing her trip accomplishes.

Ladies and gentleman, these are the architects of the war on terror. Do you feel safer yet?

Comments

[general panzer]

Global outrage greets Zionist War Crime in Qana

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060731/ts_afp/mideastconflictlebanonqana_060731073058;_ylt=AqNiz74LpaonP6XMhkQAn2mQOrgF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--

In Lebanon, where the deadlist attack of the 19-day-old conflict killed at least 52 people, more than half of them children, the government accused israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity as thousands of demonstrators attacked the UN headquarters in Beirut.

"These aggressions are crimes against humanity and war crimes in all senses of the words," Lebanese Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said. "It is to hide their failure in achieving their military objectives."

[emptywheel]

I actually would like to see Saturday's and yesterday's chronology. It seems to go like:

Qana strike Siniora refuses to see Condi She cancels to avoid looking rejected (or vice versa) Condi declares pause After Condi visits Israel, Israel confirms pause

Because I do think Israel had its pause imposed on it. ANd I wonder whether the precipitating cause was that Lebanon would no longer allow Condi to continue the masquerade that she was actively seeking peace.

I also wonder whether, if Hezbollah stops the rockets, Israel will be able to resume its bombing runs. That is, if there's not an active sign of war, how can they justify resuming the destruction of a country?

I don't think Israel means to accept a cease fire. But I do think Condi's faction of the US may be getting serious about it (while the Cheney faction wants to know why Syria isn't rubble, too).

[joejoejoe]

This is Hurricane Katrina replayed with politics and violence.

Hurricane Israel = storm of uncontrolled violence against Lebanon
Hezbollah = criminal element in New Orleans blamed for disastrous response of government
Ehud Olmert = Michael Chertoff, 'we told them to get evacuate, it's their fault'
Condi Rice = Michael Brown
Dead Christians in Lebanon screwing up the narrative for the media = dead white New Orleanians
George Bush = George Bush

Unlike New Orleans, I don't think somebody sane and competent like Gen. Honore is showing up in a week.

[DemFromCT]

Condi = less a bad guy than Cheney

but I'd read it as

Condi = over her head in support of bad policy
Cheney = really bad guy
Bush = clueless

The Katrina analogy is certainly there re too little, too late. And it helps to emphasize that there are crimes and there are misdemeanors. Incompetence is usually a misdemeanor except during a crisis (a real one), when it becomes a crime, albeit a different one than the active architects of unbelievably unfortunate policy (which hurts Israel as much as the US, let alone the real hurt in Lebanon). Condi gets no pass just because Cheney is worse.

The anti-Zionist post above is a piece of crap. Using Zionist as a code word will get your post ignored or removed. Reign it in.

[DemFromCT]

By the way, Hezbollah is guilty of lobbing rockets into civilian areas, and that's another place where the Katrina analogy breaks down. That's indisputable and unacceptable (they're not good guys either)... the question is the response, the stragegy and the tactics of what to do about it.

[manapp99]

You all make it sound like there was a time when the foreign policy in the Mid East actually worked. There has been no peace in the region since...well ever. Look at the history. Carters helplessness with Iran and the hostage crises, Reagan cut and ran from Beruit, Bush senior and "not going all the way to Baghdad to get Saddam" to world criticism, Clinton and the failed Mid East talks of the 90's (also when Bin Laden grew up and attacked several times), Bush junior "going all the way to Baghad to get Saddam" to world criticism. The world has to get a handle on who the bad guys are here because they are getting stronger all the time.

[DemFromCT]

manapp99, you're missing the concept of "it could always be worse". Maybe this time it will be.

If talking doesn't solve problems permanently but diminishes violence, it's still a tool worth using judiciously. In hindsight, Clinton, Carter and Bush I all look like diplomatic and foreign policy geniuses.

[AlanDownunder]

Of course it's incompetence. The White House is occupied by errorists.

[Nell]

DemfromCT: The sequence of events in the latest conflagration is:

2000-2006: Two or three Hezbollah rocket attacks a year. Resulting civilian death toll in northern Israel since 2000: 6.

June: Three Israeli assassination strikes in Gaza that each killed multiple civilians (none of the targets killed) and an IDF raid that took two men prisoner. Late June: Hamas wing takes IDF soldier Gilad Shalit prisoner in attack on mil unit in Israel, takes him to Gaza and demands prisoner exchange. IDF responds with massive attack on infrastructure, bombing.

Hezbollah attacks IDF unit at Israel-Lebanon border, takes two prisoners. IDF responds with massive bombardment of Lebanese infrastructure, Lebanese army base, and factories, as well as naval blockade and "targeted" bombings of buildings in southern Beirut and throughout south Lebanon. Refugees' vehicles fired on as well as vehicles attempting to bring in aid.

Hezbollah responds by starting daily firing of many rockets at northern Israel. Israeli civilian death toll: 18 so far.

Lebanese death toll: close to 500.

This carnage was not instigated by a barrage of Hezbollah rockets.

There are no "good guys" in this war, as indeed there are not in most wars.

[emptywheel]

manapp99

Yes, this region has always been volatile. But the events you describe all took place after we became utterly dependent on it for our oil. Take oil out of the equation, and we've got the means to negotiate and or punish. But with oil as part of the equation ...

[Mimikatz]

I watched the first half of the CNN Presents show last evening about the Lebanon Civil War and the bombing of the Beirut Marine barracks (Hizbullah, according to most) with a terrible sense of deja vu. First we sent in the "peacekeepers," then they were fired upon, then they wanted to fire back, then we were in the middle of the civil war, then the barracks were bombed. Oh, and the Embassy was bombed 6 months earlier.

(I also remember Juan Cole saying years ago that Iraq would end up like Lebanon.
Now Lebanon is going to end up like Iraq.)

Barry Goldwater thought (before the bombing) that we should pull our troops out. "Just let them all kill each other." Or words to that effect. It is irresponsible, but also an irresistible reaction, and I think that is where we are headed for the majority of Americans.

[Dismayed]

Bush = Clueless. Yes indeed. This man was never intended to be president, only to be the front man for the Cheney administration. The dark evil Cheney administration. EW - I've long felt the best thing we could do for the world, on so many levels, and for ourselves, is to move past oil. I fear humanity will pay the ultimate price for the thirsts of our dark lords. Lebanon is yet another example in how little human life is valued against the current power construct. Oh, how we need change in November.

[joejoejoe]

My analogy to Katrina is definitely imperfect. I tried to blame Hezbollah for being violent criminals just as there was some crime during the flood of NOLA. It's just that the crime and reports of crime were no excuse for the government inaction.

The biggest flaw is that bad weather is beyond control and many of the central players (IDF, Cheney, Nasrallah, Condi) are all acting as though something has been set in motion that is beyond control. You can just stop. Just repeating the 'status quo ante' is unacceptable doesn't actually MAKE it unacceptable. Most nations clearly see the status quo was far better than the present situation and are unwilling to trade the lives of more Lebanese and Israeli civilians for a more volatile and deadly future. Iraq is a case study that only fools and the Bush Administration care to repeat.

Hezbollah is the terrorist wing of a political party, just like Sinn Fein and the IRA only both wings are named Hezbollah. Lebanese Shia were occupied for 18 years by Israel. In Lebanon they get 1/2 of the representation they should in the allotment of parliamentary seats by religion and are denied the office of PM and President positions. Hezbollah are filled with terrorists but the Lebanese Shia have a history of getting the short end of the stick and are tolerant of someone who will finally fight for their interests.

I've got no answers and I'm not trying to excuse Hezbollah's rocket attacks on civilian targets in Israel or unprovoked attacks on IDF troops. I just want it to stop.

[catastrophile]

This seems to be another example of how administration policies become more necessary the more they mess things up. Another example of them dragging their feet until their preferred solution is the only viable one?

manapp99: "There has been no peace in the region since...well ever. Look at the history. Carters helplessness with Iran . . ."

Sounds like you're saying "since we started kicking over governments to protect our economic intersts."

[DemFromCT]

joejoejoe, understood, and agree.