Should it be the policy of the US to fight terrorism wherever and whenever it occurs in the world? How does this square with the military strategy of narrow objectives?
How is this not “mission creep?”
Peacekeepers are good for inspecting cease fires between armies, not for preventing an 18 years old suicide bomber from blowing up in Tel Aviv.
Just some quick thoughts :
- Peace-keepers are supposed to be just that. Not terrorist-hunters (and especially not targeting one side rather than another and hunting down a particular brand of terrorists). If this is the goal, they aren’t “peace-keepers”.
2)Israel is totally opposed to the presence on peace-keepers on its territory, and have clearly refused it many times in the past. They don’t want to give anybody else any authority concerning what’s happening in Israel.
- Though at the contrary, the Palestinians have many times supported/requested the presence of peace-keepers, I somehow doubt they would be delighted by Us-only peacekeepers. Rather, I would suspect thay would perceive them as Israel’s mercenaries, and not as an independant and impartial peace-keeping force.
3)On what ground exactly would the US, being an individual nation, would have the authority and mandate to organize a legitimate peace-keeping mission? The only case I could think of would be if both sides (palestinians and Israelis) would agree on this and request an american peace-keeping force. As I just wrote, I think that nor the Israelis, nor the Palestinians would agree.
But alternatively if the PA requested US or some other international help in taking on Hammas, enforcing its authority and delivering on its promise of stopping the terror … that would be something different. As clair says, a US force would likely not be acceptable to the PA, but some other force that includes US troops or expertise might be. Perhaps sponsered by both the quartet and the other Arab nations?
What Lugar is suggesting don’t appear to be peacekeeping troops. In any case, peacekeeping troops are supposed to keep both sides away from each other, but wouldn’t really be effective in Israel and the OT. Peacekeeping troops would be able to keep out the Israeli army, but would not be able to catch terrorists, which are the main “troops” of the Palestinian “army”.
No way. Israel should be solely responsible for its self-defense, and we do not want to risk American lives there.
And another thing - are we then going to send American troops to the Western Sahara? Nepal? Taiwan? Sri Lanka?
Bad idea. We wouldn’t be seen as separating the two. We would be seen as defending Israel.
As dubious as the case for Iraq was, at least there the putative (though not necessarily very credible) bases for intervention did include an alleged threat to U.S. security and sovereignty, and the possibility (again, now discredited) of WMD proliferation that would redound to the imminent injury of U.S. citizens. Here, you’re dealing with a conflict that is entirely internal to Israel/Palestine, and with (on Hamas’s side, at least) about the most low-tech weaponry available.
Unless the U.S. does indeed have a worldwide mandate to eliminate “terrorists” (even those whose operations are entirely regionally contained), or to enforce the peace at large, it’s difficult to imagine what the constitutional or political basis for such intervention would be, except for some circular argument that the U.S. has an ipso facto strategic interest in intervening in any part of the world in which there is unrest.
BTW, the characterization of Hamas as a purely regional group is subject to change if, e.g., the U.S. starts sending in troops to the sovereign soil of [Israel or Palestine, depending on whom you believe, but certainly not the sovereign soil of America] to crush Hamas. Then I think we can be pretty sure we’ll see jihadi martyrs on the N train in Brooklyn.
I can’t even think what the putative Realpolitik reason for this could be. On the one hand, as noted, Israel might not be too interested in having others’ troops in or around Israeli-claimed territory (accepting weapons systems and aid from the U.S. is different as it preserves the independent options of Israel’s military/security apparatus). On the other hand, if Israel were willing to accept U.S. military intervention, what could the U.S. accomplish militarily that Israel can’t already accomplish with its own U.S.-supplied weaponry? In past weeks Israel has shown itself willing and able to act aggressively against Hamas targets; I don’t think it’s a lack of firepower that has kept them from targeted assassinations of more suspected Hamas types, but rather political constraint and the need to stop short of Draconian measures such as purging all young Palestinian men. Is this recent suggestion effectively that the U.S. should assume some of the Hamas-targeting burden in order to deflect Arab rage from Israel and toward America? Would this work, and if so, would it accomplish anything for the U.S. (or Israel)? I don’t get it.
Nope. The PA isn’t in any position to ask a third party to send troops in. It would obviously require Israel’s agreement. The kind of help which could be offered in taking on Hamas would be advisors from foreign intelligence services providing training and advice, plus some monetary help. But it’s already done. There are such advisors from several foreign countries working with the PA. Including US ones.
As I already wrote, the PA would accept such a force. It has been proposed several times in the past. But Israel’s government is totally opposed to this concept and has clearly stated there was no way it would accept it.
Just to add that I fully agree with ** Huerta 88 **. What exactly US troops would be able to achieve that Israel can’t? Us troops wouldn’t even have the benefit of being perceived by the Palestinians at large as a neutral third party, since the US is considered as fully supporting Israel.