Sorry, WGH, but the Middle East was fairly peaceful up until WW1.
I myself have been thinking about this mess for the past two weeks and all I can say is that George better find the right thing to do damn quick or we may be looking at the third Big One in a little while.
and it’s called a ‘peace process’, because to date, there’s not been ‘one’ solution found that was totally acceptable to both sides, with changing leaders, and other intervening events.
Peyote Coyote is correct WGH, before WWI when the Ottoman empire ruled with an iron fist, it was pretty damn quiet down there in Palestine.
Erek
mswas: I don’t mean to imply that it was paradise, but instead wished to point out that the current Mideast problems are rooted in events about 100 years old, not some conflict centuries and millenia long. Jews and Moslems have managed to co-exist peacefully in the Mideast before. Hell, I think some Jewish factions allied with Moslems against Christians during the Crusades.
As someone with an undergraduate degree in the poli sciences and an emphasis in international relations, I think that the answer to the question of nuance is obvious: of course they do, that is why everything is working out so well.
I never expected GW to have any ability to do IR. He had never been overseas before becoming president, and had never studied the matter. I am stunned, however, at the hamhandedness of Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld, all of whom should know better, or at least not be so damn offensive to those outside the U.S. Powell seems to have some far more diplomatic skills than the others, but he is clearly a weak good cop in an administration of powerful diplomatic bad cops. Our foreign policy is the laughingstock of the whole world and ill serves us.
It seems that none of the current crop have read Machiavelli, or absorbed his lessons. And I don’t just mean The Prince. Machiavelli created the nation state in The Discourses and was a farsighted figure. He understood that if a powerful leader abandons power, there is an enormous vacuum that others will try to take advantage of. (This was also the lesson of King Lear for those not politically minded.) Like it or not, post WWII earth has been either a stage for the struggle of the Cold War, or Pax Americana. As annoying as Pax Americana is to those whose feelings are tread upon and those whose rights are somehow not equal, it has always been better for everyone than any previous era of history where it was dog eat dog. As much as people were exploited, exploitation for business was far better than destruction in war or use as a pawn in a Great Power game. The U.S., for better or worse, is by far the biggest kid the block has ever seen, and was content fight only commies and do buisess on favorable terms. Had any other country tried the same (China, Japan, Germany, Britain, Rome, Athens, etc. had in the past) with a similar level of hegemony, it would be a heck of a lot uglier.
But after half a century of keeping the smaller kids on the block in line, the neo-isolationist Bush II cadre (Cheney and Rice primarily) decide to take their purist ideals and apply them outside the ivory tower, academic and partisan journal pages to the real world. The problems of places like Ireland and the Middle East are ultimately not ours to solve. But if we ignore them, they are going to boil over uncontrollably. And that is bad for the people that live there, bad for business, and bad for us in gas prices and the loss of prestige that we need for ourselves when something like 9/11 happens. By abandoning our desire to influence international events because of a neo-isolationist fashion, we lose an enormous amount of influence. Now as much as some people don’t like foreign aid and the cost of diplomatic efforts, they are a very, very tiny fraction of the cost of waging war, particulaly a war without allies already lined up.
Now the nonsense that Clinton’s effort to make peace “caused” the current uprising is nonsense. Had he taken an eight year approach along the lines of what Bush II and the neo-isolationists want, the Middle East and most of the world would now be a charred cinder. Despite impossible odds, he kept at it, and the parties believed that they had some incentive to keep a lid on it. Now, neither side believes that it is in their best interest to even consider peace. The Palestinians are tired of living in refugee camps with awful conditions and have even their small areas bulldozed by tanks. The Sharon government sees no reason to stop incursions as long as the Palestinians are making war against innocent civilian populations. The Arab League states believe that the United States has abandoned its role as mediator and has spent all week dissing the U.S. Secretary of State who is now viewed as not only a Johnny Come Lately, but as one without the President’s ear, or rather the Vice President’s ear. The President clearly doesn’t have the attention span to care about the conflict. And when GW does demand Sharon immediately pull out, Sharon says he will, says he won’t and keeps on doing it. GW looks like a weak and ineffectual leader when he has to repeat himself and is still ignored.
Frankly I’m appalled at the complete lack of sophistication of the Bush insider leadership on foreign policy. It would be nice to have the luxury of working isolationism. But we are not New Zealand. The United States represents more than half of the military power in the entire world, is the economic powerhouse and the supposed leader of the world. That requires leadership, not shirking of responsibility. But shirk seems to be the motto of this administration. If there isn’t something in it for them or their donors directly, they aren’t much interested. As P.J. Rourke, a conservative commentator, says, Republicans are the party that believes that government doesn’t work, and every time they get elected, they prove it.
I love freedom of speech. I love the way we can sit here and criticize and not even consider the extreme likelihood that there might be facts out there that we don’t know about.
And I love the way we can talk about how people like Condi Rice (Provost at Stanford at age 17 or whatever) are just complete idiots, and that we know so much more becuase we have…
But I suppose humility isn’t interesting reading.
On the other hand, there’s a growing number of analysts and pundits that believe that Bush is engaging in a rope-a-dope strategy against Arafat. Did you notice that Powell is taking the long way around to get to Israel on this ‘emergency’ mission? So far, his route to Israel has taken him through Morocco and Spain.
But once Bush announced that Powell was heading to the middle east, the commotion about Israel died down. In other words, Bush may just be buying time for Sharon to get his job done, at which point the American demand to withdraw gives him the political cover HE needs to withdraw the troops and not anger his supporters. In the meantime, the U.S. comes across as an appeaser in the middle east, which calms them down a bit and gives the U.S. the time to rebuild munitions and gain more intelligence before the next phase of the war.
If that’s the way this is playing then it is VERY nuanced diplomacy.
Well Furt, I’m certainly not as naive as Condi Rice, who I had been hoping would bring some practicality to the office. I am sorely disappointed. And yes, I do have a degree in the subject, and apparently you don’t. But please, don’t let that stop you, share your wisdome and extensive knowledge with us. We won’t look down on you.
As for me not knowing all the facts, I’ll confess to that. Show me someone who does and I’ll show you someone who only thinks they do.
The neo-isolationists are getting their comeuppance. Unfortunately the rest of us are too. It seems unfortunate that the deep thinking people who promote utter disengagement do just that when they have the opportunity.
So rope-a-dope = VERY nuanced diplomacy???
… and you don’t think the rest of the world (Arab or not) might not see that for what it is?
To broker a ceasefire I think it’s helpful to be seen as neutral. The hawks seem inclined to burn every card Powell has to play.
If they are are looking for simple solutions, this one is ever more likely to boil down into a simple choice between which does the US want more Saddam or cheap oil.
You are learning, young Jedi. 
And this hasn’t gone unnoticed by the radical Muslems in the Middle East, which will only sow the seeds for future 9/11-esque attacks.
OTOH Clinton was deeply engaged in the Middle East. How effective was that approach in preventing 9/11 and the suicide bombers?
Well, lessee (to toss some self-serving arguments back in the current admin’s face):
The recession began on Clintons watch (so it must be his fault).
And 9/11 happened on who’s watch…?
Kidding aside:
december, both you and rjung are barking up the wrong tree. 9/11 happened because Bin Laden & evil compatriots were pissed at the Saudis for letting Americans set up bases in the Holy Land (let’s ignore BL’s own self-serving garbage about helping Palestinians and a million Iraqi children). Solving the Israeli/P conflict wouldn’t have made a difference one way or another for 9/11.
I must agree that the Bushies’ early isolationism has certainly not helped the current I/P problem and may indeed have made it worse than it might have been.
Wasn’t it Bush I who stationed troops in the Holy Land? The sins of the father are visited on the son.
All kidding aside, it’s not provable either way whether or not who was president during 9/11 had an affect on their decision so do the deed. Certainly the men were in the US during Clinton, but didn’t do the job then, but maybe they weren’t read yet? who knows.
The OP wasn’t about preventing 9/11, it was about the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of the Dubya Administration to deal with Middle East issues. Which, currently, features seventeen rounds of Sharon vs. Arafat as the title bout. And as I said earlier, Bush’s “we’re not gonna do anything” policy has been IMO a major blunder.
Probably not, but the truth is that the ranks of al qaeda are filled largely with folks who think of the United States as an opportunistic oppressor – and Israel is Exhibit A in their delusion. It’s therefore not unrealistic to theorize that things might be somewhat different if the United States hadn’t given Israel such a free rein as it has for the last 20 years (and no, I’m not saying the US should stop backing Israel all together).
I was responding to yours and december’s specific comment about the ability of current or past policy towards Isreal/Palestine to deter 9/11s. I stand behind my assertion that there was/is not a direct connection, and that this finger-pointing is pointless.
however:
Agreed. I also thought DPWhite’s remarks were quite well taken.
I somewhat agree, but with misgivings. The gulf war events and the I/P conflict seem largely unconnected, but you make a good point regarding regional sympathies. I agree that a bit of PR is a good thing, especially if the US can be seen as a “peacebringer” to the region, and this can tone down other conflicts. But I have misgivings that if I/P was well then everything else in the mideast would be all rosy (or at least rosier). This seems like a stretch.
The other obvious misgiving is that, at least for OBL, the ‘we stand fast with the palestinians’ stance is reputedly a convenience, as others have noted in media reports (I can dig up some cites if you dispute this). But I don’t (and can’t, and neither can you) know what the rank-and-file Al Quaida Bob thinks about all this or how the US’s stance in the region would affect/deflect his/her/its suicidal mentality. And I’d darned sure like to know what can be done to affect it.