Mark Byron

The Phantom Saboteur

Here's what I wrote on Monday-

The main Iranian nuke facility in Fordo seems to have had a massive explosion. News is spotty; Drudge links to a WND story, but there seems to be little mainstream collaboration. There's shades of the Egyptian-lynching-by-crucifix story that was covered in the anti-Islamist press but never confirmed outside of it; the story's a bit too good to be true, but could be true nonetheless.

As it turned out, my sniffer was right; it was merely a rumor with no basis in fact. There seems to a tendency to take stories that fit an anti-Muslim world-view and run with them if they seem truthy. The fact that broader media doesn't cover it can be written off as "this is stuff they don't want you to know about."

However, there wasn't any good reason for the MSM to cover up bad news about the Iranian nuke program. This news would call off the preventative-strike dogs for a while if the saboteur managed to save Israel a bomber run over look-the-other-way Arab neighbor's territories, so they would have had a vested interested in playing things up rather than downplaying it.

 

A Frodo in Fordo?

The main Iranian nuke faclity in Fordo seems to have had a massive explosion. News is spotty; Drudge links to a WND story, but there seems to be little mainstream collaberation. There's shades of the Egyptian-lynching-by-crucifix story that was covered in the anti-Islamist press but never confirmed outside of it; the story's a bit too good to be true, but could be true nonetheless.

If true, it could save the Israelis a trip into Iranian airspace. The WND piece assumes that Bibi is in a weakened state post-election, but I'm not sure if a new coalition would veto a strike if it was deemed proper; none of the proposed coalition members are particularly pacifist.

Fordo would almost seem like a good stand-in for Mordor from the Lord of the Rings. Ironically, it is a transposed letter from Frodo, the hobbit who melted down the Ring of Power there. Did we have a real-world Frodo earlier today, someone who sabotaged our modern-day Morgoth's road to destructive powers?

Israel sin Synagogue

The Israeli election always seems to have a new party or two show up on radar, and two new ones could factor into the governing equation. Likud has 31 seats and a centrist Yesh Atid has 19; coupled with a Jewish Home pro-settlement party's 11, and the trio has 61 seats, just enough to make a majority.

The interesting aspect of Yesh Atid is their desire to see everyone serve in the military and end seminary exemptions. A lot of the haredi ("ultra-Orthodox" is the common pejoritive for them) men spend most of their lives as Torah-students, living on government stipends and avoiding the otherwise-universal requiment to serve. The secular-leaning folks in Yesh Atid are moving to at least make them do their stint in the military.

That would make them poor matches for some of the religious parties like Shas, who champions the poorer Jews who have Arab-country heritage rather than European/US heritage. A center-right but secular coalition could be free to ignore those parties and make Israel a bit less easy to be a devout rabbi-in-training keeping the world at bay.

It might also have some effect on ongoing issues over accepting non-Orthodox Jews as immigrants and citizens; most American Jews are to the left of the Orthodox leaders in Israel who sign off on whether a person is Jewish enough to immigrate to Israel, which is an friction point between Conservative (center-left) and Reform (hard left) Americans Jews and Israel.

Time to Restock the Missiles, Abdul...We're Just About Out

Hamas and Israel agree on Gaza ceasefire.

Thrown Under the Bus...the Hard Way

Ten people are hurt in a Tel Aviv bus bombing that Hamas is praising. No deaths yet, but three folks are supposed to be in serious condition.

Folks in the Peanut Gallery who are critical of Israel (yes...I'm thinking of my Connexions friends) try reaiming some of your animus towards the real villains of the piece. Israel will frequently have some collateral civilian damage when it goes after Hamas targets in Gaza, but Hamas (or their allies, since there are a variety of hard-cases that don't like Israel) does it on purpose.

Do criticize Israeli excesses and pray for peace on both sides, but Hamas seems to start out excessive in the sense they think each and every Israeli is fair game; the same can't be said of the IDF, or else Gaza would already be a parking lot.

Related articles

The Missiles of November

The Missiles of November

Could we be looking at the first major war involving Israel in four decades? Egypt's new Muslim Brotherhood-led government is backing their Hamas brethren, even sending their PM over to Gaza to give moral support while Hamas exchanges rocket-powered pleasantries with Israel.

Egypt and Israel have come to blows four times, most recently in 1973. After that, a rapprochement created an uneasy peace that saw Israel give the Sinai back to Egypt after grabbing it in 1967 as a buffer. Expect Jimmy Carter, who brokered the Camp David accords that codified that rapprochement, to be back in the news, likely bashing the Likudniks for breaching the spirit of Camp David.

I'm not sure if the Egypian government, having just gotten into power and still working to keep the Mubarak leftovers in check, is up to picking a fight with Israel. Camp David is part of the legacy of the Sadat-Mubarak team, but one that helped Egypt become allied with the US and a bit more prosperous than it otherwise would have been. Officers might well be inclined to drag their feet and not want to go back to the four-wars-in-a-quarter-century that crippled the Egyptian military.

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It's Friday morning; where are the Islamic rabble going to be roused today? Somehow, I expect something American to be trashed over the current unpleasentness in Gaza, since their isn't anything Israeli to be trashed in most Arab countries other than a Israeli flag to be burned in effigy. Friday is always a prime day for that, since it's go-to-mosque day and a good Jew-bashing sermon will get the rabble roused.

Flying the Unfriendly Skies

I remember a Ron Silver story from the Clinton innaugual in 1993; as a good liberal, he had a bit of disdain towards the military after 12 years of GOP rule and military build-ups. When some planes flew over Washington in a salute, he stated that "they're our planes now."

That vignette came to mind when I read this story about the Syrian civil war-

Pity the Syrian people. They had been given to believe that fighter jets in the arsenal of the state - those Russian-made MIGs they once viewed with pride - were there for the stand-off with Israel.

Now they know better. The runs over Aleppo, the bombings of Idlib, have laid bare the truth. It is no accident that the founder of this regime, Hafez al-Assad, emerged from the ranks of the air force, which is not often an incubator of coup-makers. There would come a day, the masters of this minority regime doubtless knew, when fighter jets would be used at home.

The planes seemed to be "theirs" when the threat was an assertive Israel making sure they stayed put on their southwestern border. However, government power doesn't just extend to external enimies, especially when it is a dictatorship unbounded by consitutions and elections.

That use of force brings to mind the libertarian disdain of the military, knowing that all that hardware and training could be turned on them if they were on the wrong side of a power-hungry government who was willing to play nasty. That's where the checks and balances of American government come into play, along with a long-standing standard against using the military in a domestic setting, whether it be border mainanance or disaster-relief.

Taking it to the Arab Street

I'm of two minds on how to handle Egypt and other emerging Arab democracies. The first is the hopeful, small-d democrat side, that wants to see folks have an honest shot at picking their leaders rather than dictating from the outside who those leaders can and can't be.

Here's a role-reversal that comes to mind; would we stomach seeing the Europeans and Japanese cutting off relations with a Romney administration because he's too culturally conservative, too Christian for civilized people to deal with? Would we tolerate outsiders saying that our leaders had to not be religious conservatives?

That's how some of the rhetoric from some quarters of the right would sound like to Abdul Q Public. If you tell him he has to vote for either the Mubarak leftovers or some egghead who spent more time in London and Palo Alto than in Cairo, that's not going to go over well.

What will a Muslim Brotherhood government look like? I'm not sure that it won't devolve into an Iranian style bounded-democracy, where you have to be approved by the Islamic powers that be to run and with civil rights only applying if you're what passes for a good Muslim. If it does, then plan B kicks in, but trying to do some Cold-War style coup and installing Mubarak 2.0 right now won't quite work.

Plan B could well look like making Islam the enemy if the bodies politic of enough Arab countries become radicalized and elect governments actively hostile to Western Civ. However, that's not how America rolls when it's on the side of the angels; the "he's a SOB but he's our SOB" school is best avoided.

 

 

To the Shores of That Other Tripoli

Interesting spillover of the Syrian civil car into Lebanon, where Sunni and Alawite factions are shooting it out in Tripoli, north of Beirut. That translates to anti-Assad and pro-Assad, since the Assads are Alawite.

The ruling government in Lebanon doesn't have a dog in the fight on ethnic grounds, since they are Shia (Hezbollah is their main party) with some pro-Syrian Christians thrown in; the rival Sunnis and heterodox Alawites aren't liked by the Shia, thus it's a bit like Catholics looking on while Protestants and Mormons have at it. To the extent that Syria is pro-Shia in Lebanese politics, the Shia like Assad, but it's possible that they are keeping their distance from things in order to be on the good side of whoever emerges out of the Syrian mess.

The prime minister is a Sunni, but that's because he has to be per Lebanon's constitution; however, he's likely politically on board with the Shia-dominated government.

Lebanese troops have moved in along what might become Tripoli's Green Line between the factions. How much effort they do to keep them apart remains to be seen.

Israel, the Insult Dog

An old joke that has made the rounds asks what the first car in the Bible was. The classic but wrong answer is a Honda, since the disciples were all in one Accord. Other folks think it was a Dodge-"I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my Fury."

Then there was David with an after-market muffler; his Triumph was heard throughout the land.

The most notable Triumph of modern days is Triumph the Insult Dog, who just went on a surprise Middle East tour and gotten a certain Twelver hot and bothered.

Israel's existence is an "insult to all humanity," Iran's president said Friday in one of his sharpest attacks yet against the Jewish state, as Israel openly debates whether to attack Iran over its nuclear program.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said confronting Israel is an effort to "protect the dignity of all human beings."

News flash, Mahmoud-ring. I read the end of the book, and our insult dog wins.

Run-DMZ

After the Camp David accords, the Sinai has been largely a demilitarized zone, since Israel has been fearful of having too many Egyptian troops close to its border; UN troops kept the sides apart for decades. However, that has left a vacuum where Gaza gun runners and local goons can operate without fearing a major armed backlash from the authorities, especially after the Arab Spring ditched Mubarak last year.

That has changed; with Israel's blessing, the Egyptian army is moving back in.

Hundreds of troops in armored cars drove out of the town to hunt Islamist militants blamed for killing 16 Egyptian border guards on Sunday, the biggest spike in violence which has been growing steadily since last year's overthrow of Hosni Mubarak.

The gunfire in al-Arish, the nerve centre of the government's otherwise shaky control of the North Sinai region, showed how difficult it will be for Egypt to impose order. It followed attacks on checkpoints in the town on Wednesday.

Israel has welcomed Egypt's offensive while continuing to express worries about the deteriorating situation in Sinai, home to anti-Israel militants, Bedouin tribes angered by neglect by Cairo, gun-runners, drug smugglers and al Qaeda sympathizers.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Egypt was acting "to an extent and with a determination that I cannot previously recall".

It also puts new President Mursi in an awkward spot; Hamas is a Muslim Brotherhood offshoot, so he'd be going against some spiritual allies in cracking down on the smuggling of military goodies into Gaza. However, if Mursi is going to have any credibility with the west as an Islamic democrat, keeping Hamas at a distance and Israel as a peaceful neighbor would require such a crack-down.

That bode watching, for if Mursi can pull that off, there might be hopes for some form of housebroken Islamic democracy; the "Christian Democrats" of Europe come to mind as a bloc that is religious but not authoritarian. It would be a bit of a feat to see an Islamic Democrat when Islamic doctrine leans toward a church-state fusion.

Clubbed Med

I've been a bit under the weather over the weekend, so it's catch-up time.

Greece-postponing the crash that needs to happen; I don't see the Greeks making the cuts needed to balance things especially with the establishment parties that are now in charge. The second election surprised me, as their mainstream conservative New Democracy party got an expanded plurality, enough to patch together a majority with the mainstream socialist PASOK.

I was kinda rooting for the hard-left Syriza to win, since they'd give the ECB and IMF the MDS (middle digit salute) and get back to normal sooner, if normal includes nationalizing the banks.

_________

Egypt-Have Murci! Mohammed Mursi, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, beat out the general's choice 52-48. The next question is how much authority the generals will let him have and whether they'll make their autocoup throwing out the parliamentary elections stick. Neither option seems all that palatable and Israel is seeing their Sinai border get more problematic; whatever happens in Egypt will have spillovers to the east, especially if the MB start to back their sister-movement Hamas.

___________

Syria-the Russians are sending a gator freighter there. The cover is to allow for the evacuation of Russian nationals, but it also give a shield to Assad and friends if the west does want to intervene; they might have to shoot at Russians to do so.

Coup of Grace?

The Egyptian analogue to the Supreme Court just declared the Muslim Brotherhood-led parliament unconstitutional and disbanded it, giving power back to the military interim government. That's bad news for democracy, but might be good geopolitics for the US and Christians in the region.

The court is made up of Mubarak appointees, so they have something of a vested interest into the pre-2011 status quo. What we're seeing is something akin to Turkey, where the military there has stepped in to toss governments that look too un-secular, although the current government seems to have escaped that fate as it tries to give Muslims more room to maneuver in the public square.

That sounds good from a freedom-of-religion standpoint, but it has also resulted in a less-pro-western government in Turkey, as they have ditched previously friendly relations with Israel. A MB government in Egypt will be more anti-Israel and more pro-Hamas than the current one, which leaves small-d democrats rooting for the MB and conservative foreign-policy types rooting for the Mubarak holdovers.

Adding to the mix is the Coptic Christians in Egypt who weren't exactly best buddies with Mubarak but were treated with some deference; the more radical Muslims in the new parliament might be inclined to put severe restrictions on the Copts if not forcing them underground. A similar dynamic is going down in Syria, where the Assads, religious minorities themselves as a Muslim analogue to Mormons (if I can take some poetic license; the Alwaitis are looked at as apostate by Shia and Sunni alike), treat their Christians much better than the opposition would; part of Russia's backing of Assad could well flow from an honorable looking after fellow Orthodox churchmen in Syria.

Thus, conservatives would have some things to be happy about if the military stays in power in Egypt, except that the neocon vision of spreading democracy around the world takes it in the chops. One could see the Pat Buchanans in the realm cheering but the Weekly Standard crowd being of mixed thoughts.

It might well be worth letting one of these popularly-elected Islamist government actually be allowed to govern and see if they can coexist with the rest of the world. If they can coexist, that will take a lot of the steam out of al Qaeda and their ilk if we can give would-be jihadis a political outlet to change corrupt systems rather than forcing them to arms to get their way. If the powers that be keep pulling the plug when they win, they'll stop being part of the political process and take up arms or bombs.

There is an election coming up for president, pitting a MB guy versus a Mubarak leftover; the winner would be in position to move things in their direction, although a MB president going up against the military might result in a civil war far bloodier than we saw last year.

Going Forward

President Obama and PM Netanyahu might not agree on much, but Forward seems to be popular with both of them. It's the theme of the Obama reelection campaign; if I can borrow from the old Nixonian acronym, they'll CREEP Forward, which makes more progress than MSNBC's "Lean Foward" or Newt's Lean Six Sigma.

Over in Israel, Netanyahu was seemingly all set to call early elections when he instead brought Kadima, Arial Sharon's old centrist party, into the fold; Kadima means Forward in Hebrew, the Forward is also the name of a noteworthy Jewish-American magazine.

Surpringly, Sharon's still with us, but just barely. I hadn't recalled an obit; that's because he's hanging in there in a mostly vegged state, with enough there to not pull a Shaivo on him. The party he created is on shaky turf as well, as they're expected to lose ground in the next election when it is held.

However, Kadima's blend of hawk and dove would be a good cover for Bibi as he goes forward, especially as they mull a preemptive move against Iranian nukes. If Kadima is on board with a strike, it will gives him some street cred in diplomatic circles, as Kadima often tries to cast itself as the good cop opposite Bibi's bad cop.

Bay of Halal Pigs?

The Syrian civil war is taking interesting turns, as we saw an amphibious raid by rebels; I can't recall seeing that anywhere in my adult lifetime, which has to go back to the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by dissidents with US help for a matching reference. Somehow, using "Bay of Pigs" in a battle between Muslim factions has a bit of irony.

Syrian rebel gunmen in inflatable dinghies have attacked a military unit on the Mediterranean coast, with deaths on both sides, state media report.

It is thought to be the first rebel assault from the sea. Separately, Lebanon says its navy has seized weapons destined for the rebels.

Clashes between security forces and deserting troops left heavy casualties near Damascus and Aleppo, reports say.

The issues are beginning to take a regional angle, as the rebels have support in northern Lebanon, where Tripoli's Sunni majority is often at odds with its Alawite minority; that enmity might well extend to fighting the Alawite Assad clan running Syria. The containers of arms was heading to Tripoli and thence to the rebels, something that the pro-Syrian Lebanese government would like to stop.

The good news for the fans of the rebels is that support is getting in. The bad news is that the Lebanese government is trying to stop things, which might wind up turning the fight into an international one.

When Doves Cry

A bit of sniping in Israel, were some former intelegence officials are questioning the wisdom of an anti-nuke attack on Iran. The headliner in this BBC piece is former Shin Bet boss Yuval Diskin, making critiques that echo the post-Iraq war debates in the US; Dishin thinks such an attack would backfire and make an Iranian nuke more likely and is accusing the current regime of making up things and being "messianic."

There may well be a hawk-dove divide with Diskin being a dove. Diskin's Wikipedia has him doing a stint as advisor to then-Mossad boss Meir Dagan. Dagan was a Arial Sharon appointee who was kept on by Sharon's successor Ehud Olmert; Sharon was on the dovish side in his latter days, as was Olmert. Dagan had a falling out with PM Netenyahu and has been critical of his Iran policy for the last year and a half since leaving his Mossad post.

Just like Paul tells us to test the spirits, we need to test expert opinions; folks of the left can be right on the follies of war, but they can also give too rosy a view of human nature, espcially those who aren't interested in playing nice. Of course, the BBC will eat such stuff up, so take it with the proper grains of salt.

Mecca for Post-Moderns

I recall the end of a current ad where the head of the household is in the process of eating his daughter's goldfish as sushi. When the fishies turn up AWOL, the dad says "whadya gonna do?"

We're much in the same predicament as the tweenager in the ad with Iran right now. There isn't a lot that can be done about the attempted assassination attempt on the Saudi ambassador. Any diplomatic solution by the US seems trite and any military solution seems overkill.

The best solution might come from the Saudis themselves. They have something that Iranians are keenly interested in... Mecca. Were the Saudis to declare the Haj off limits to Iranians, it would get the Iranian's attention in a hurry. It would inflame Sunni-Shia relations in hot spots like Iraq and Lebanon and possibly result in at least one civil war breaking out or resuming.

There are a lot of interesting sub-plots here if this isn't just an Amateur Night sting of a Iranian would-be spy. If the Iranians were actually thinking of recruiting the Zetas as hit men, it might start a major US intervention in Mexico, as the drug war and the "War on Terror" get a quick and dirty merger.

The Zetas are likely smarter than that; being caught helping the Iranians would make them Public Enemy #1 in the US and bring a US response that would militarize northern Mexico beyond the flawed run at Villa in the 1910s. Thankfully for them, it was a US agent posing as a Zeta.

Not Yo' Promise Anymore

Here's an interesting flak going on between Israel and Arab Catholics. I'm not sure how much of this is Catholic doctrine and how much of it is convenient application of hermeneutics-

Archbishop Cyril Salim Bustros, head of the commission which drew up the statement, went one step further, saying: "The theme of the Promised Land cannot be used as a basis to justify the return of the Jews to Israel and the expatriation of the Palestinians."

"For Christians, one can no longer talk of the land promised to the Jewish people," the Lebanese-born head of the Greek Melkite Church in the United States said, because the "promise" was "abolished by the presence of Christ."

That sounds a bit like Replacement Theology, where the modern Church takes over the role of Israel in prophecy. Either that, or you have an amillennial approach that throws any future role for Israel out the window.

Or, it's just bad theology where Jew-bashing is the coin of the realm. A lot of folks on the left wing of the Church are pro-Arab to the point of being anti-Israel as Israel becomes seen as a colonial menace; that's going to be heightened by having Arab churchmen playing to the crowd back home.

I don't think that's Vatican doctrine. Both popes John Paul II and Benedict have been polite towards both Jews and Israel, so there will likely be some feather-unruffuling between Rome and Jerusalem.

"But what will we do after lunch?

That's the punchline of an old IDF joke where one soldier proclaims "Today, we take [fill in neighboring capital]!"

However, they are literally talking like that about Lebanon after a border scuffle earlier this month-"Israel was ready to implement a plan to destroy within four hours all Lebanese military infrastructure, including army bases and offices, should a similar confrontation occur in the future."

Yes, that does fall short of actually wrapping up Beirut by noon, but give us some poetic license.

Veiled Threats

Veil-banning countries now include France, Belgium and... Syria? It is worth a statist chuckle to note that is was the higher education minister of the Syrian government that announced the ban of veils in college classes- over here, we question whether we need a federal education department, and there it gets broken into more than one free-standing agency.

One of the things that people forget about Syria is not just that the government is secular and nationalistic in nature, the Baathists that gave us Saddam Hussain and company in Iraq, but that the Assad clan is part of the heterodox Alawi branch of Islam. While the Alawi are moving back towards a more orthodox view of Islam, a move towards a more radical Islam might turn their attention to their half-infidel leaders.

Israeli Jew Review

Here's some interesting legislation in Israel that could have a major impact on US-Israel relation, especially with American Jews. The Knesset is looking at a law that would give the chief rabbinate authority over determining whether a conversion to Judaism is valid.

The problem with that, from an American standpoint, is that the rabbinate is skewed to the theological right. The vast majority of Israeli Jews are Orthodox, even though many, if not most, aren't all that observant; thus you have those devout rabbis who oversee things labeled "ultra-Orthodox" by less devout folks.

However, Orthodox Jews only make up about 20% of the Jewish landscape, with Reform and Conservative branches making up the majority. If the Orthodox can be compared with Evangelicals in their small-o orthodoxy, Conservatives are moderate main-liners and Reformed are your liberal mainliners.

Like many evangelicals looking down their noses as "nominal Christians" in the mainline denominations, Orthodox Jewish Israelis tend to dismiss their Reform and Conservative counterparts as fake Jews and not entitled to Israeli citizenship. That will make relations between American Jews of the center-left and Israel and may make US foreign policy interesting, as Evangelical Christians might be more pro-Israel than liberal Jews.

Meanwhile, the politics of Israel might be driving things. A number of devout Orthodox parties, including the Shas party catering to Sephardic Jews of Arab origin, make up the swing vote in the current coalition. This might be a way for their more secular kin of throwing Israel's religious right a bone, but it is one that American Jews might wind up choking on.

Time to Deep Six NATO

The current flap over Hamas fans trying to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza has shown a major geopolitical problem for the US- Turkey is not helpful on that issue. They are taking the Hamas-fans side of the story to the point of talking about sending Turkish warships to escort the blockade-runners.

That would essentially destroy NATO, for the US government would have to tell the Turks that they take on the Israelis at their own peril and that we'd not have their back. If anything, we'd be rooting for the Israelis on that one.

Blogger Andy Jackson proved to be right about the Turkish government; they are more nastily Islamic than I thought as it plays out in anti-Jewish thought. That might not lose points with people in Europe, but it will in the US.

This will make getting Turkey into the EU harder and might be the final straw of NATO. Without a major Russian threat to fend off, NATO has little purpose in the 2010s other than being a non-UN way to get the developed-world's armies to band together for an international project. When a NATO member is this close to getting shot at by Israel, it's time to pull the plug, even if it makes Iraq a bit more problematic without Turkish airfields.

Net a Yahoo?

That's the question before the movers and shakers in Israel. The Obama administration might be nervous about a Netanyahu government, preferring that they net a yahoo before he screws up the peace process. I'm reminded of a 2002 post:

There is always a call for an extra round of diplomacy, even when neither side is ready to talk. We haven't "exhausted all diplomatic options" yet, even if those options aren't going to get up anywhere, as diplomats will always want to "do something" before letting the generals have their way. Diplomacy's dead for now, but no one wants to face up to it.

"Give him an enema!"

"Ma'am, the man's dead. An enema wouldn't help."
"It wouldn't hurt!"

Just like Dubya grabbed for the saline solution bag in 2002 (I forgot to throw this blog a seventh birthday party last month), Obama's looking to give that dead man a liquid goosing.

However, it looks like Bibi will get another whack at being prime minister. Here's the BBC's breakdown of Knesset seats.

Kadima's in at 28; that's the center-right party that Ariel Sharon set up before going down for the count with a stroke; foreign minister Tzipi Livni (sorry, her name looks like two bad Scrabble racks; well, one good and one bad, since you can do Ziti and Zip out of her first name) is the current Kadima leader.

Likud, from which Sharon bolted, is in at 27; they're the traditional party of the secular right. Even though they're in second, both are very far away from the 61 seats that would make up a majority.

In the second tier, we have secular hawks Yisrael Beiteinu with 17, Labor (their traditional party of the left) with 13 and Shas with 11. Shas caters to devout Sephardic (Jewish folks from Arab countries) voters, who have traditionally been poorer than the Ashkenazi (Jews of European descent); that often makes Shas very pork-driven (in the political sense; they wouldn't touch unkosher pork or other pig meat), siding with the factions that will direct more government aid to Sephardic neighborhoods.

Thus, you could get to a grand coalition with Kadima, Likud and one of the second-tier parties. Labor is not interested in a coalition; they just had their clock cleaned and need to be in the opposition to get their sea legs back. So, such a three-way coalition would either include Shas or Yisrael Beiteinu, both of whom would me more interested in a PM Netanyahu than a PM Livni. Once the election rhetoric dies down, you could see Foreign Minister Livni figure that hanging onto her job in a Likud-led government beats leading the opposition; the leader of the junior partner generally gets the foreign portfolio.

That would give a moderate face to a not-so-moderate government, selling a more unilateral implementation of a two-state solution to the rest of the world. YB is open to a Palestinian state but would like to move a lot of Arab communities in Israel proper over to the the new state and annex Jewish parts of the West Bank; Livni might wind up being the sales rep for that package.

What if there's too much bad blood for a Likud-Kadima coalition? There isn't a clear center-left package for Kadima to head. Arab parties snagged 11 seats and the socialist-leaning Meretz bagged 3, which would bring the coalition to 42, well short of a majority if Labor holds to its pledge of being on the outside. Even with Labor, a coalition of the left would need to pry one of the parties of the right over.

For Likud, a majority without Kadima is feasible. A Likud-YP-Shas package gets them to 53 seats; they would need two of three Ashkenazi religious parties (United Torah-5 seats, National Union-4, Jewish Home-3) to get to 61. However, such a coalition would be rather unwieldy, with YP wanting a separate Palestinian state and a more Arab-free Israel and the smaller religious parties wanting to annex the West Bank and encourage the Arabs there to leave. Also, YP is rather secular and may lock horns with the religious parties.

Thus, a Likud-YP-Kadima package seems the most viable. It will take a few days for Kadima to understand that despite their plurality, they'll be junior partners in the next government.

A Two-State Solution?

Bangladesh doesn't come to mind too often, but it did just now as Hamas has effectively assumed control of Gaza.

When colonial India was divided up into Pakistan and India, largely along religious lines, the original Pakistan had both east and west sides divided by India proper; the east side declared independence, with Indian help, as Bangladesh in 1971, with the west side soldiering on as Pakistan. The failure of the Pakistani government to recognize a Bengali-majority government elected in 1970 was cited as one of the triggers of the move to independence.

I didn't remember that part of history about the unrecognized election, but it has echoes here. Hamas has essentially been denied leadership after winning elections last year, and now has taken matters into their own hands. Gaza and the West Bank are separated by Israel, and it may well be natural for the two segments to be separate countries.

Israel may well be in favor of a two-state solution finally, two Palestinian states, with a somewhat moderate Fatah-led West Bank government that they can talk to and a Hamas-led Gaza government that they can bomb back into the Stone Age if needed. The sites of interest to Israelis are in the West Bank and little historical roots lie in Gaza, so a partition of Palestinian territory would suit Israel just fine.

Taking it to the Streets

We're seeing some interesting brinkmanship in Palestine. President Abbas has announced new parliamentary elections which Hamas, the current majority in parliament, has vowed to boycott. Tony Blair is cheering Abbas on.

Hamas has no good move but to boycott the election. If they run and win, we're back to an untenable square one. Abbas needs Hamas to vow to play nice with Israel in order to get US and European help, and Hamas is genetically incapable of doing so. Like the Croc in Pearls Before Swine, their primary platform is Keel Joos, which they seem unlikely to alter.

If they run and lose, they lose street cred. If they run and win, they don't get to govern. Why bother running?

Hamas is more than just a terrorist machine; they also have a formidable charitable arm that buys support on the street. They don't need to be in government to have support. In fact, a impotent government gives them more power, for their charity doesn't have to compete with government aid.

Their next move is to make life miserable for Abbas and whoever wins the Hamas-free elections. If they can keep Abbas from taking control and getting significant US aid, they can become a de-facto government on-the-street without a capital that the IDF can bomb or raid. If they can keep Abbas from getting effective control, then Hamas can run in the next presidential election and win, or merely seize power as the Abbas government becomes a non-entity.

If Abbas is going to run an effective government that can become a coherent Palestinian government that can co-exist with Israel, some sort of civil war with Hamas seems likely. The problem is, I don't like Abbas' chances right now. A Hamas-Fatah civil war will be very messy and has a high probability of Hamas winning.

If Hamas wins, the Palestinian Civil war merely becomes the semi-final for an ultimate IDF-Hamas final, with the strong possibility that the US might weigh in with Israel if Hamas is getting significant outside help.

If Abbas wins, we'll have a shot at a two-state solution that a center-left Israeli government could live with. The question remains whether such a government will be around when the dust settles; we could very well see a center-right hawkish government in a year or so.

We live in interesting times.

Where's My Robust Peace?

Fragile is the word of the day. The BBC headline is "Fragile Truce Holding in Lebanon" while CNN has "Fragile peace, skirmishes holding in Lebanon."

You're not likely to have a robust truce in that fight. Hezbollah's raison d'etre is to wipe Israel off the map, and Israel's not likely to take up the comic's suggestion to relocate to the western US and create Jewtah. Somethin' gotta give here.

It's unlikely that a Lebanese-UN force has the muscle and desire to disarm Hezbollah; the UN's track record of forging peace where the locals don't really want it isn't good. Cambodia is one rare example of UN success, but most of the parties were tired of fighting and wanted to go back to normalcy.

The UN's like the addled Boy Scout; it's hard to help an old lady across the street when the old lady doesn't want to go. Hezbollah really doesn't want to go across Disarmament Street. It would take a rather buff Scout to pick that old lady up and frog-march her over to the opposite curb. Sorry, but these scouts don't spend near enough time in the gym.

This peace isn't shalom. Not yet. If things stay quiet through Labor Day, I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Peace in our Time?

There's two good pieces of news on my TV this evening. The first is the Lions offense; they're up 10-0 early in the second quarter against Denver, as Martz's Greatest Show on Turf seems to have translated into Honolulu blue and silver, as both Kitna and Orlovsky were doing great Kurt Warner imitations. Yes, I hear from the back of the Peanut Gallery, one quarter of pre-season shouldn't say much, but it's the best offensive quarter I've ever seen the Lions have in ages.

However, the bigger news comes from the UN this evening; both Lebanon and Israel have verbally signed off on a peace framework. The UN Security Council just passed it 15-0. The framework will have a 15K UN force go into southern Lebanon with the Lebanese army, disarm Hezbollah and keep them disarmed. Israel will hold fort until they come in.

The kicker here is whether that UNIFIL-on-steroids will have the mandate and the will to kick butt and take names with Hezbollah. If not, what went down in New York just now will be as worthless as Neville Chamberlain's trip to Munich in 1938, as my title alludes to.

It is possible to put together a can-do peace-making force with an attitude; however, it's not been the UN's strong suit, especially in south Lebanon. As I was working the remote earlier, O'Reilly was grilling Tony Snow on that point, and Snow was trying to assure Bill that the force would be tough enough to do the job, that the President wouldn't sign off on anything less.

This is put-up-or-shut-up time for the UN. Kofi Annan can drone sanctimoniously about peace, but can he oversee a force that can actually kick butt and take names in south Lebanon. Will he throw a cagey touchdown pass like Orlovsky threw to start the second quarter, or lob up an interception like Orlovsky did on the next possession (the offense looked a bit less stellar as I've been writing this)?

His track record leans to the latter, but if the Bush team and their allies (and they do have them) keep Annan's feet to the fire, we might actually see a functional UN. Otherwise, they might as well build their new digs in Geneva, for the US won't be interested in supporting a joint that is all talk and no helpful action; Annan might sound real dignified, but he needs to show that he can make the world a better place rather than just a better-sounding place.

Chicago-on-the-Med

It might sound trite, but the current Israel-Hezbollah war reminds me of that Sean Connery line from The Untouchables.

You wanna know how you do it? Here's how, they pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way, and that's how you get Capone!

Richard Cohen managed to get it right for a change and pointed out that the charge of disproportionality is not fair, since the response to a terror attack isn't to merely return the favor and lob a few missiles back into southern Lebanon.

The dire consequences of proportionality are so clear that it makes you wonder if it is a fig leaf for anti-Israel sentiment in general. Anyone who knows anything about the Middle East knows that proportionality is madness. For Israel, a small country within reach, as we are finding out, of a missile launched from any enemy's back yard, proportionality is not only inapplicable, it is suicide. The last thing it needs is a war of attrition. It is not good enough to take out this or that missile battery. It is necessary to reestablish deterrence: You slap me, I will punch out your lights.

However, Israel has unleashed a can of worms in this one. They'll need to severely cripple Hezbollah before they turn things over to some sort of international peace-making force (not just peace-keeping but with the teeth to go after Hezbollah if they start to re-militarize southern Lebanon) or else we'll be right back here in a few months or few years. The part of the Connery line that preceeds that paragraph I cited above is informative-

Malone: You said you wanted to get Capone. Do you really wanna get him? You see what I'm saying is, what are you prepared to do?
Ness: Anything and everything in my power.
Malone: And then what are you prepared to do? If you open the can on these worms you must be prepared to go all the way because they're not gonna give up the fight until one of you is dead.
Ness: How do you do it then?

How? They fire a Katusha, you take over a village. They fire a missile at Haifa, you send ten planes to southern Beirut. That's the IDF way, and that's how they get Hezbollah.

It's not quite as simple of 10x quids for each pro quo; they have to work at hitting Hezbollah military targets and hold the collateral damage to a minimum, but given the blending of civilian and military, that's going to be an inexact science. They'll also have to know that there's a big hunk of the Shiia population that likes them and won't take kindly to their presence.

Nonetheless, the days of proportional whack-a-mole are over. The Bush team seems to be looking not for a cease fire but shalom, a lasting peace. "I support a sustainable ceasefire that will bring about an end to violence... Our mission and our goal is to have a lasting peace, not a temporary peace." Quite a few folks will find their way to morgues before everything's over; pray that it be done, but with a minimum of carnage.

Shake, Saniora

Somehow, I had the Harry Belafonte song from the last scene from Beetlejuice stuck as an earwig when I saw today's news of Condi's trip to Beirut to meet with PM Saniora. I'm not sure I agree with the take of the AP writer who said that Señorita Rice was there "in a show of support for that country's weakened democracy, which is struggling to contain the fighting between the Hezbollah militia and Israel."

Frankly, outside of feeble squawks to stop fighting, the Lebanese government hasn't done squat to get between the two camps or to actively oppose either of the two combatants. The reason Israel's in there is because there's little the Lebanese government can do about Hezbollah without a civil war, so Israel's doing the civil war for them.

The democracy in Lebanon should be strengthened when all is said and done; it's weakened only as in a patient on an operating table is weakened while undergoing surgery. However, that metaphor of Hezbollah as a cancer ignores the fact that the "cancer" has the support of a big hunk of the Shiia community in Lebanon as a political party, social-service provider, and paramilitary bad-boy all in one. Thus, it's not just a matter of cutting out tumors (bases, weapons caches, etc); there will need to be cultural/spiritual chemotherapy for decades to truly rid the joint of the hostility built up within that community.

I'm not quite sure what all Israel's up to; not everything seems to be playing the role of oncologist. However, I'm not a cultural oncologist, either; I only play one on TV. For now, the Bush team seems to be right in letting things run their course for the moment; it's bringing one of Iran's proxies down multiple pegs.

This Cain't Be Good

At least not in the short term. Things are looking rather dicey in Lebanon; Israel is going after Hezbollah and the Shiite hard cases are returning the favor. Israel bombed Hezbollah HQ and the leader's apartment, while Hezbollah managed to come up with a remote-control plane and bombed an Israeli ship off of Beirut. "Open War" is the Hezzie motto of the day.

On the upside, if Israel does manage to run Hezbollah and Hamas out of business, things will be better for that neck of the woods in the long run. The short run's going to be a she-dog.

Oil's hit record highs, since there's a non-trivial chance that Iran could be in on the mix before all's said and done. Israel hasn't had a full-scale army-vs-army war in a third of a century (Yom Kipper '73) and we might just be staring one in the face if Syria and Iran step in to aid Hezbollah.

This might not turn into WWIII, but it may well turn into the nastiest slugfest in a generation; a Israel/US versus Syria/Iran tag-team death-cage match will have a clear winner on the battlefield, but with a lot of economic losers, especially if Persian Gulf oil goes off-line for months in the process. We're about one or two bad moves by Syria of seeing that happen.

Even if gas hits $3/gallon, top off the tank, 'cause it will probably get higher before it gets lower.