ISRAEL - IRAN - SYRIA - HAMAS - HEZBOLLAH - WWWIII?

Here's how brazen Mr. Rumsfeld was when he invoked Hitler's appeasers to score his cheap points: Since Hitler was photographed warmly shaking Neville Chamberlain's hand at Munich in 1938, the only image that comes close to matching it in epochal obsequiousness is the December 1983 photograph of Mr. Rumsfeld himself in Baghdad, warmly shaking the hand of Saddam Hussein in full fascist regalia. Is the defense secretary so self-deluded that he thought no one would remember a picture so easily Googled on the Web? Or worse, is he just too shameless to care?

Mr. Rumsfeld didn't go to Baghdad in 1983 to tour the museum. Then a private citizen, he had been dispatched as an emissary by the Reagan administration, which sought to align itself with Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war. Saddam was already a notorious thug. Well before Mr. Rumsfeld's trip, Amnesty International had reported the dictator's use of torture ?- "beating, burning, sexual abuse and the infliction of electric shocks" ?- on hundreds of political prisoners. Dozens more had been summarily executed or had "disappeared." American intelligence agencies knew that Saddam had used chemical weapons to gas both Iraqi Kurds and Iranians.

Islamo-fascism" certainly sounds more impressive than such tired buzzwords as "Plan for Victory" or "Stay the Course." And it serves as a handy substitute for "As the Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down." That slogan had to be retired abruptly last month after The New York Times reported that violence in Baghdad has statistically increased rather than decreased as American troops handed over responsibilities to Iraqis. Yet the term "Islamo-fascists," like the bygone "evildoers," is less telling as a description of the enemy than as a window into the administration's continued confusion about exactly who the enemy is...

The Year of Living Fearfully
Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has gone from being an obscure and not-so-powerful politician to a central player in the Mideast, simply by goading the United States.
By Fareed Zakaria
Newsweek
Sept. 11, 2006 issue

It's 1938, says the liberal columnist Richard Cohen, evoking images of Hitler's armies massing in the face of an appeasing West. No, no, says Newt Gingrich, the Third World War has already begun.

Neoconservatives, who can be counted on to escalate, argue that we're actually in the thick of the Fourth World War. The historian Bernard Lewis warned a few weeks ago that Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, could be planning to annihilate Israel (and perhaps even the United States) on Aug. 22 because it was a significant day for Muslims.

Can everyone please take a deep breath?

To review a bit of history: in 1938, Adolf Hitler launched what became a world war not merely because he was evil but because he was in complete control of the strongest country on the planet. At the time, Germany had the world's second largest industrial base and its mightiest army. (The American economy was bigger, but in 1938 its army was smaller than that of Finland.) This is not remotely comparable with the situation today.

Iran does not even rank among the top 20 economies in the world. The Pentagon's budget this year is more than double Iran's total gross domestic product ($181 billion, in official exchange-rate terms). America's annual defense outlay is more than 100 times Iran's. Tehran's nuclear ambitions are real and dangerous, but its program is not nearly as advanced as is often implied. Most serious estimates suggest that Iran would need between five and 10 years to achieve even a modest, North Korea-type, nuclear capacity.

Washington has a long habit of painting its enemies 10 feet tall?-and crazy. During the cold war, many hawks argued that the Soviet Union could not be deterred because the Kremlin was evil and irrational. The great debate in the 1970s was between the CIA's wimpy estimate of Soviet military power and the neoconservatives' more nightmarish scenario. The reality turned out to be that even the CIA's lowest estimates of Soviet power were a gross exaggeration. During the 1990s, influential commentators and politicians?-most prominently the Cox Commission?-doubled the estimates of China's military spending, using largely bogus calculations. And then there was the case of Saddam Hussein's capabilities. Saddam, we were assured in 2003, had nuclear weapons?-and because he was a madman, he would use them.

One man who is greatly enjoying being the subject of this outsize portraiture is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He has gone from being an obscure and not-so-powerful politician?-Iran is a theocracy, remember, so the mullahs are ultimately in control?-to a central player in the Middle East simply by goading the United States and watching Washington take the bait. By turning him into enemy No. 1, by reacting to every outlandish statement he makes, the Bush administration has given him far more attention than he deserves. And so now he writes letters to Bush, offers to debate him and prances about in the global spotlight provided by American attention.

Ahmadinejad strikes me as less a messianic madman and more a radical populist, an Iranian Huey Long. He has outflanked the mullahs on the right on nuclear policy, pushing for a more confrontationist approach toward Washington. He has outflanked them on the left on women's rights, arguing against some of the prohibitions women face. (He wants them to be able to attend soccer matches.) Almost every week he announces a new program to "help the poor." He uses the nuclear issue because it gives him a great nationalist symbol. For a regime with little to show after a quarter century in power?-Iranian standards of living have actually declined since the revolution?-nuclear power is a national accomplishment.

Even Ahmadinejad's most grotesque statement, implying the annihilation of Israel, is likely part of this pattern. Iran is seeking leadership in the Middle East, and what better way to do so than by appropriating the core grievance of the Sunni Arabs: Israel. By making his dramatic statements, he is taunting the regimes of the Arab world, using rhetoric they dare not, for fear of Washington. His rhetoric is not so new; the Iranian "moderate" Ali Hashemi Rafsanjani said similar things. The real shift that has taken place in the Middle East is that 30 years ago most Arab regimes would have made statements like Ahmadinejad's. Today his "rejectionism" stands alone.

Iran is run by a nasty regime that destabilizes an important part of the world, frustrates American and Western interests, and causes problems for allies like Israel. But let's get some perspective. The United States is far more powerful than Iran. And, on the issue of Tehran's nuclear program, Washington is supported by most of the world's other major powers. As long as the alliance is patient, united and smart?-and keeps the focus on Tehran's actions not Washington's bellicosity?-the odds favor America. Ahmadinejad presides over a country where more than 40 percent of the population lives under the poverty line; his authority is contested, and Iran's neighbors are increasingly worried and have begun acting to counter its influence. If we could contain the Soviet Union, we can contain Iran. Look at your calendar: it's 2006, not 1938.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14640262/site/newsweek/

Brought to you by the American Committees on Foreign Relations ACFR NewsGroup No. 764, Monday, September 4, 2006

[I'm not aware of where this originally appeared. I was sent it by a virulently pro-Palestinian organization. KMJ]

Consequences of the War on Terror
by George Soros

The failure of Israel to subdue Hezbollah demonstrates the many weaknesses of the war-on-terror concept. One of those weaknesses is that even if the targets are terrorists, the victims are often innocent civilians, and their suffering reinforces the terrorist cause.

In response to Hezbollah's attacks, Israel was justified in attacking Hezbollah to protect itself against the threat of missiles on its border. However, Israel should have taken greater care to minimize collateral damage. The civilian casualties and material damage inflicted on Lebanon inflamed Muslims and world opinion against Israel and converted Hezbollah from aggressors to heroes of resistance for many. Weakening Lebanon has also made it more difficult to rein in Hezbollah.

Another weakness of the war-on-terror concept is that it relies on military action and rules out political approaches. Israel previously withdrew from Lebanon and then from Gaza unilaterally, rather than negotiating political settlements with the Lebanese government and the Palestinian authority. The strengthening of Hezbollah and Hamas was a direct consequence of that approach. The war-on-terror concept stands in the way of recognizing this fact because it separates "us" from "them" and denies that our actions help shape their behavior.

A third weakness is that the war-on-terror concept lumps together different political movements that use terrorist tactics. It fails to distinguish between Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda or the Sunni insurrection and the Mahdi militia in Iraq. Yet all these terrorist manifestations, being different, require different responses. Neither Hamas nor Hezbollah can be treated merely as targets in the war on terror because they have deep roots in their societies; yet there are profound differences between them.

Looking back, it is easy to see where Israeli policy went wrong. When Mahmoud Abbas was elected president of the Palestinian Authority, Israel should have gone out of its way to strengthen him and his reformist team. When Israel withdrew from Gaza, the former head of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn, negotiated a six-point plan on behalf of the Quartet for the Middle East (Russia, the United States, the European Union and the United Nations). It included opening crossings between Gaza and the West Bank, an airport and seaport in Gaza, opening the border with Egypt, and transferring the greenhouses abandoned by Israeli settlers into Arab hands.

None of the six points was implemented. This contributed to Hamas's electoral victory. The Bush administration, having pushed Israel to allow the Palestinians to hold elections, then backed Israel's refusal to deal with a Hamas government. The effect was to impose further hardship on the Palestinians.

Nevertheless, Abbas was able to forge an agreement with the political arm of Hamas for the formation of a unity government. It was to foil this agreement that the military branch of Hamas, run from Damascus, engaged in the provocation that brought a heavy-handed response from Israel - which in turn incited Hezbollah to further provocation, opening a second front. That is how extremists play off against each other to destroy any chance of political progress.

Israel has been a participant in this game, and President Bush bought into this flawed policy, uncritically supporting Israel. Events have shown that this policy leads to the escalation of violence. The process has advanced to the point where Israel's unquestioned military superiority is no longer sufficient to overcome the negative consequences of its policy.

Israel is now more endangered in it existence that it was at the time of the Oslo Agreement on peace. Similarly, The United States has become less safe since President Bush declared war on terror.

The time has come to realize that the present policies are counterproductive. There will be no end to the vicious circle of escalating violence without a political settlement of the Palestine question. In fact, the prospects for engaging in negotiations are better now than they were a few months ago. The Israelis must realize that a military deterrent is not sufficient on its own. And Arabs, having redeemed themselves on the battlefield, may be more willing to entertain a compromise.

There are strong voices arguing that Israel must never negotiate from a position of weakness. They are wrong. Israel's position is liable to become weaker the longer it persists on its present course. Similarly Hezbollah, having tasted the sense but not the reality of victory (and egged on by Syria and Iran) may prove recalcitrant. But that is where the difference between Hezbollah and Hamas comes into play. The Palestinian people yearn for peace and relief from suffering. The political - as distinct from the military - wing of Hamas must be responsive to their desires. It is not too late for Israel to encourage and deal with an Abbas-led Palestinian unity government as the first step toward a better-balanced approach. Given how strong the U.S.-Israeli relationship is, it would help Israel achieve its own legitimate aims if the U.S. government were not blinded by the war-on-terror concept.

George Soros, a financier and philanthropist, is author of the new book "The Age of Fallibility: Consequences of the War on Terror."

Gleaning from today's e-mail:

The Truth

Regardless of your feelings about the crisis between Israel and the
Palestinians, Lebanon, and other Arab neighbors the next two sentences really say it all:

* If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more
violence.

* If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel.

Foxfyre wrote:

Gleaning from today's e-mail:

The Truth

Regardless of your feelings about the crisis between Israel and the
Palestinians, Lebanon, and other Arab neighbors the next two sentences really say it all:

* If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more
violence.

* If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel.

If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence, but there would still be the status quo in which Israel discriminates and oppresses the Palestinian people.

If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel, but this statement begs the question, why should a discriminatory and oppressive regime be allowed to exist in the first place?

Israel is, by far, the least discriminatory and oppressive regime in the Middle East. I am sure that it ranks high for this in the world.

InfraBlue wrote:

If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel, but this statement begs the question, why should a discriminatory and oppressive regime be allowed to exist in the first place?

You mean like Iraq under Saddam Hussein?

l. The enemy of my enemy is my friend( FOR THE TIME BEING)

If this struggle for theological supremacy were the only factor in understanding Iran's approach to Iraq, then it probably would only be of interest to academics who are fascinated by Shi'a intrigues. However, there is an additional, and for the US and UK very threatening element that has to be considered regarding Iran's presence in Iraq. This is the often overlooked fact that it is Iran, not the US, and certainly not the UK, that is the most influential ?'external' power in Iraq today, with an unparalleled ability to affect stability and security across most of the country.

There exists a very real possibility that, if the US attacks Iran, then Iran will inflict a devastating defeat upon the US in Iraq, and also take the fight to the US across the Middle East. Even now, the Multinational Force is struggling to influence political developments in the south and central Euphrates regions of Iraq, where there is a predominantly Shi'a population, and the Arab Sunni insurgency continues to be a deadly presence inflicting catastrophic losses upon the nascent Iraqi security forces and their US backers. These situations could be magnified by Iranian intervention, to the point that the coalition might conceivably be forced to evacuate Iraq, leaving Iran not only as the undeniable formative force in Iraq, but also as the undisputed hegemon in the Gulf.

Advocate wrote:

Israel is, by far, the least discriminatory and oppressive regime in the Middle East. I am sure that it ranks high for this in the world.

This assumption does not negate the fact that Israel is a discriminatory and oppressive state.

Some of the left wing., like those who are brain dead because of hypoxia( casued by insufficient blood to the brain due to closing of the heart's arteries), attempt to show that Rumsfeld's hand shake with Saddam in 1983 shows that the US policy with Middle Eastern Ruler is misguided.

That is supremely ridiculous.

Those who know how to count know that Rumsfeld's handshake came seven ( SEVEN) years before Desert Storm.

Those who have not forgotten their history because of brain blockages, know that during the humiliating failure by Jimmy Carter to save our citizens, held hostages by the madmen in Iran, in 1980. led to our support of Iraq against Iran.

Idiots, on the brink of mycardial infarctions, do not remember, since their brains are addled that our allies in World War II were the Soviets. FDR gave Eastern Europe to Joe Stalin at Yalta in return for Soviet support against the Japanese. The war ended in 1945-THE SAME YEAR THAT YALTA took place.

ONLY THREE YEARS LATER

ONLY THREE YEARS LATER

in 1948, the Soviets blockaded Berlin and the Cold War began in earnest.


I am strongly suggesting that any reference to Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam in 1983 be accompanied by a complete recital of FDR sitting next to Joe Stalin at Yalta.

It took seven years for the reversal of Iraqi intentions toward the USA-

1983-1990

It took only three years for the Soviets to stab us in the back in Berlin

1945-1948.

Left wingers who know nothing about Diplomacy and/or Realpolitik do not realize that:

l. The enemy of my enemy is my friend( FOR THE TIME BEING)

Addle brains who should be in nursing homes caring for their premature senile dementia caused by heart problems, either don't know this or have forgotten it!