RE: Peace in our time - some perspective Contributed by Zero Ponsdorf
An Op-Ed from Haaretz no less?
Israel has been cautious in Lebanon, fearing not only
for the lives of its soldiers, but also that an overly aggressive
military campaign will alienate world opinion and force its hand
diplomatically at the UN. However, Israeli leaders ought to worry more
about a different scenario, one in which American policymakers,
analyzing the Israel Defense Forces' failure to defeat Hezbollah after
30 days effort, lose their faith in Israel's ability to "get the job
done" on issues of shared strategic interest.
Should the IDF
lose its aura of invincibility in American eyes, Israel's perceived
value as an ally could decline sharply. This reassessment in
Washington, when combined with a continuing and even heightened
determination by Arab states and jihadists to destroy Israel, would be
catastrophic for its security.
...
The fact that the United States has spent major
diplomatic capital providing Israel with an unprecedented window of
opportunity to deal with Hezbollah, facing down both its European
allies and the Arab League, and complicating efforts to launch
multilateral sanctions against Iran, makes matters even worse.
This
is especially true when U.S. domestic political developments are taken
into account. In the past, Israel could depend upon a basic consensus
among both Republicans and Democrats that it was a valuable, indeed
indispensable, ally that occupied the moral high ground. The political
sands, however, are shifting. Anti-Israeli sentiments are rife among
Democrats - 59 percent want the U.S. to be more "evenhanded" in the
Middle East - some of whom appear to be convinced that the Bush
administration's deposition of Saddam Hussein was masterminded by
"neo-conservatives" in Israel's interest.
Senator Joseph
Lieberman's August 8 loss in the Connecticut primary, and the evident
triumph of the Democrats' neo-McGovernite wing, signal trouble ahead.
I have no idea how accurate the authors' assesment might be, but it certainly is food for thought. Underlying all this is an undercurrent I can't quite put my finger on. However, no one, most certainly not Hezbollah/Iran/Syria, is likely to see this ceasefire as victory for Israeli/U.S. interests.
I'm not foolish enough to judge events before they're played out, and there's little doubt that things are going on in 'backrooms' around the world that might change everything overnight, but the hard fact is that perceptions can become a sort of reality.
Read more at
Contributed by Zero Ponsdorf on August 12, 2006 at 04:35 PM in , , , , |