Its still early days but from commentary I've seen so far things are looking pretty good following the Hamas victory in Palestinian elections.

Worst thing that could happen would be Fateh accepting a subordinate position in coalition with Hamas - which appeared to be a real danger since general expectation was a narrow Fateh win followed by coaliion with Hamas in subordinate position.

Instead it looks clear that Hamas will be obliged to form a government and Fateh will become a "loyal opposition".

That is far more likely to clean out the corruption in the PA and at the same time facilitate the re-alignment of both secular nationalist and islamist politics among the Palestinians. Perhaps a left could also emerge though there is still not much sign of it.

Meanwhile the total bankruptcy of zionism is being rubbed in as the mainstream is already moving to openly backing the Palestinian nationalist party Fateh as their preferred "partner" (after previously having adapted to welcoming its co-founder Abu Mazen as preferable to Arafat).


Unilateral Israeli withdrawals from most of the West Bank with loud shouting about determination to unilaterally retain the rest seems to be the most likely outcome for the "road map" (plus more shouting at Iran).

Hamas doesn't have much support for its islamist program and won't be able to implement it against entrenched opposition from both secular muslims and christians etc.


 It was elected because of Fateh's corruption and general disarray and as defiance of the imposed "peace process".


Far more significant than its temporary ascendancy (which will have many negative as well as positive effects) is the explosive effect for the region as a whole.


If Hamas can be elected in occupied Palestine and Fateh can become a loyal opposition aiming to win back power in later elections, why can't the Muslim Brotherhood be elected in Egypt and the most important Arab state become a democracy too?


 Every regime in the region will be shaken to its foundations. And not just shaken.

Ralph Peters has written a piece in the New York Post from a blatantly pro-US perspective which explains how the Hamas victory should be seen as very  positive.

Peters has been a militant advocate of the new US policy in the Middle East, always maintaining that the only option available to US imperialism at this time is to support democracy throughout the world.

I'll paste his article in below because it's a very clear exposition of what he understands about how the US must behave in today's world.

What the pseudo-left still can't grasp is even the possibility that we could be in an era in which it is in US interests to promote democracy wherever it can.  They continue to operate from the assumption that US interests require it to oppose the democratic revolution.  The fervent support for democracy by people who are unashamedly on the side of the US is something that needs to be shoved in front of their faces.

How can they make sense of people like Ralph Peters?    

Here's the article:

KICKING OUT CORRUPTION

By RALPH PETERS

IN Wednesday's Palestinian elections, Hamas, a fundamentalist party that sponsors terrorism and denies Israel's right to exist, won an outright majority. It was a victory for democracy.

While supporting Israel's legitimate security needs, we have to analyze what happened without prejudice: Why did Hamas win? Why did Fatah, the movement that dominated the Palestinian cause for more than a generation, suffer a stunning defeat?

After all, the Palestianian Authority had established a fledgling government - with broad international support. Aid was flowing. Israel left Gaza - and began admit that its West Bank posture is unsustainable

Why did the Palestinian people overwhelmingly vote for terrorists?

They didn't. Fatah lost because of the party's disgraceful corruption and neglect of the practical needs of its constituents. If not all politics are local, most are. Hamas won by providing basic services slighted by the Palestinian Authority and by avoiding the blatant corruption of Fatah's old guard.

Did Hamas's hard line on Israel help it? Yes, with a minority of voters. But most Palestinians voted for a better quality of everyday life, not for a doomsday confrontation with Tel Aviv. Disgust had more to do with the outcome than militancy.

This isn't meant to whitewash Hamas's history of mass murder. On the contrary, the lesson we need to take from this election is one we should have learned years ago: Corruption is the greatest plague on the developing world, opening the door for fanatical movements insightful enough to offer children a semblance of education and to provide the neglected poor with running water.

In country after country, Islamic parties gained power by filling the vacuum left in urban slums by corrupt governments. Westerners made excuses as Turkish, Pakistani, Egyptian, Algerian, Palestinian and an array of African governments looted their national patrimonies, stole aid funds and behaved with utter disdain for their fellow citizens. The bills come due.

No human being likes to live in squalor while his leaders splurge on London real estate. The wretched of the earth - to use that still-valid phrase - simply want their basic needs addressed. Above all, they want hope for their children.

If the desires of the global poor could be summed up in three words, they'd be "work, education, pride." Throw in electricity and sanitation, and you've got a winning electoral program.

Too often, we remain on the side of the corrupt and powerful, instead of standing up for the hurt and humiliated. If America won't defend the poor, who will? Extremist parties with bigoted agendas.

So, what does the Hamas victory mean for us?

First, the era of strong-man rule is ending. Democracy is on the march. Yet, from sheer inertia we often find ourselves on the side of the old, collapsing order - while our enemies grasp the potential of the ballot box better than we do.

Second, we must be far more aggressive in spotting, publicizing and fighting corruption around the world - no matter the short-term costs. Corruption is the most insidious enemy of rule-of-law democracy.

Third, we have to avoid knee-jerk reactions. By reflexively condemning electoral outcomes we don't like, from Venezuela to the Middle East, we only make heroes of our opponents - while sounding like hypocrites ourselves.

President Bush's comments yesterday struck about the right note, accepting the results and praising the positives, while staying noncommital on future relations.

Fourth, democracy requires patience. Whether in Iraq or Bolivia, we can't force voters to make the "right" choices. Electorates need to make their own mistakes - and learn from them.

Give Hamas time to discover how much harder it is to govern than to oppose a government. See if the movement evolves - or defaults to violence. In power, Hamas will have to deliver the goods. And better lives for Palestinians can't be achieved through terrorism.

The ball's in Hamas's court. If we don't like their serve, we've got a powerful backhand.

Some other material  by (and about)  Peters:

Stability, America's Enemy

Deadly Stability

Znet's resident expert Gilbert Achar is going into full meltdown mode in his "First Reflections On The Electoral Victory Of Hamas. ...

The truth of the matter is that the electoral victory of Hamas is the outcome that Sharon's strategy was very obviously seeking, as many astute observers did not fail to point out.. ...Contrary to what many commentators have said, the seclusion of Arafat in his last months by Sharon did not "discredit" the Palestinian leader: as a matter of fact, Arafat's popularity was at an all-time low before his seclusion, and regained in strength after it started. Actually, Arafat's leadership has always been directly nurtured by his demonization by Israel and his popularity rose again when he became Sharon's prisoner. This is why the U.S. and Israel's nominee for Palestinian leadership, Mahmud Abbas, was not able to really take over as long as Arafat was alive. This is also why both the Bush administration and Sharon would not let the Palestinians organize the new elections that Arafat kept demanding as his representativeness was challenged very hypocritically in the name of "democratic reform."...... The electoral victory of Hamas is a resounding slap in the face of the Bush administration. As the latest illustration of the sorcerer's apprenticeship that U.S. policy in the Middle East has so spectacularly displayed, it is the final nail in the coffin of its neocon-inspired, demagogic and deceitful rhetoric about bringing "democracy" to the "Greater Middle East." It is, of course, too early to make any safe prediction at this point regarding what will happen on the ground. It is possible, however, to make a few observations and prognoses.....

(incoherent ruminations leading to conclusion below omitted)......


The catastrophic management of U.S. policy in the Middle East by the Bush administration, on top of decades of clumsy and shortsighted U.S. imperial policies in this part of the world, has not yet born all its bitter fruit.....

Thus Sharon's strategic aim of seeking an electoral victory for Hamas by nurturing Arafat's popularity through demonizing has succeeded in preventing the Palestinians from holding elections which have dealt a resounding slap in the face of the Bush administration and its neocon-inspired, demagogic and deceitful rhetoric.

No wonder it is unsafe to make "any prediction at this point"!


Except of course that things will continue to go from bad to worse!

But Achar will never reach the heights of Chomsky whose linguistic training enabled him to easily surpass this in his analysis of Iranian nuclear weapons:

No sane person wants Iran to develop nuclear weapons. However, it’s hard to disagree with the conclusion of one of Israel’s leading military historians, Martin van Creveld, that Iran would be insane not to develop them, surrounded by hostile and threatening nuclear powers, including the global superpower—which ... has a history in Iran that Iranians are unlikely to sweep under the rug as is done here.

 "No sane person wants Iran to develop nuclear weapons and Iran would be insane not to develop them." (!!)

These guys are quite simply nutters.


We have to focus on the mainstream conservatives......

keza: You keep insisting that:

What the pseudo-left still can't grasp is even the possibility that we could be in an era in which it is in US interests to promote democracy wherever it can. They continue to operate from the assumption that US interests require it to oppose the democratic revolution. The fervent support for democracy by people who are unashamedly on the side of the US is something that needs to be shoved in front of their faces.

However you do not present any evidence for that view. Not only Ralph Peterson but also President Bush are shoving it in their faces fairly effectively these days. It was our job to demonstrate that when the US leadership was trying to conceal it. But its not our job now.

Most people with any sort of "left" politics did indeed fail to grasp that possibility. A big factor is that they were already largely passive and not thinking about politics, and with no leadership to "do their thinking for them". Another big factor was that the US initially went all out to conceal a democratic agenda and encourage illusions about a resurgent US global hegemony (with the pseudos actually providing some convenient assistance in meeting US tactical requirements).

This web site was named "lastsuperpower" partly to contrast the idea that the US is the "last" superpower in rapid decline and engaged in a strategic retreat as a result of failed policies with the then dominant idea deliberately spread by the neocons and widely believed by most "opinion leaders" that the US is the "only" superpower engaged in a program of domination. That was several years ago.

Failure to grasp that possibility resulted in an overwhelming majority of people with any sort of "left" politics opposing the mobilization for war in Iraq and participating in the mass demonstrations against it - which were twice the size of the largest demonstrations during the anti-Vietnam war movement.

That does not make these people "pseudo-left". It just makes them thoroughly confused. That is confirmed by the fact that the anti-war movement collapsed almost immediately - as soon as it became obvious that something different from what they thought was going on (and obvious to the conservative mainstream that their protests were ineffective).

The pseudo-left is quite different. It uses "left" rhetoric in support of conservative and reactionary politics. We characterized that literally decades ago.

Since left rhetoric includes "democracy" and since conservative and reactionary politics these days is opposed to the US supporting the spread of democracy in the middle east, naturally the pseudo-left has to claim that the US remains opposed to the spread of democracy in the middle east. (Some of them still insist the US is about to overthrow many elected Latin American governments too). Most of the conservative and reactionary opposition is now quite straight forward about denouncing the "dangers" of democratic revolution - only the pseudos are tied in knots about it.

There is now open convergence between the pseudo-left and Osama bin Laden who is also adopting more and more "left" rhetoric alongside the islamist rhetoric.

Checkout his latest speech carefully. Its so blatant that some of the fuckwits are claiming the tape is a CIA/neocon forgery to frame Michael Moore et al.

Also checkout "Rogue State" - its a largely accurate leftist account of failed US policies enthusiastically promoted by both the pseudos and bin Laden as a substitute for analysis of the current situation.

The logical conclusion of your program to just continue shoving stuff endlessly in the faces of completely insignificant fuckwits is to enlist as supporters of the US leadership in the struggle for bourgeois democracy rather than maintain independence and initiative with our own revolutionary communist goals and tactics.

That is deeply uninspiring. Since you cannot defend it in argument and are not particularly inspired by it yourself, all you can do is keep reproducing stuff from people whose politics you are adapting to.

At least Ralph Peterson was writing to a mass audience in the New York Post. You aren't even shoving anything in the faces of the pseudos as you propose, but huddling in a corner, away from the public debate, reproducing mass media propaganda without your own analysis.

We're bound to get some things wrong in the course of digging ourselves out of the hole the left is currently in. But we have to start digging and that requires actually developing our understanding through debate with both our enemies and ourselves. You may feel more comfortable avoiding that and just repeating what you already know - but its exactly the same comfortable passivity that got the left into its current state in the first place.

No I don't know what positive program to put forward at the moment or how to do it. Yes I do find that uncomfortable. But I'd much rather be uncomfortable than smug.

What I'd really like though would be to be developing together with comrades in a common struggle. If you want to develop you have to struggle, not just radiate smugness.

In an indignant email keza sums up:

If you don't want to do your part, that's your choice. But undermining what others are doing, deliberately trying to reduce morale and spread pessimism and a sense of hopelessness and inadequacy is reactionary.

You are really fucking me off.

That goes well beyond mere "smugness".

As for the rest of that email and its attachments and links I'll leave it keza to choose what she wants to say publicly and I'll continue to say what I choose to say publicly whether she likes it or not - and without getting distracted from the political issues I am trying to raise into a personal bunfight more than is necessary to simply point out the attempted distraction.

Hopefully at some stage keza (and/or others) will actually choose to engage in political debate - which leads to development. Meanwhile I (smugly) think indignation and being really fucked off is at least an improvement on smugness.

I doubt that any sense of pessimism, hopelessness and inadequacy will be relieved by just continuing to avoid public discussion or attempting to distract from it.

I contributed a topic on "Hamas and Egypt" which attempted to go very slightly beyond the level of discussion in the mass media by highlighting the implications for the rest of the region and in particular the fact that the Egyptian regime has been relying on fear of the Muslim Brotherhood (who are no worse than Hamas) as the main justification for their dictatorship.

Since the site is so dead I expected the usual defeaning silence and corresponding reduction in morale. Not particularly surprised by the oblivious response of simply repeating the sort of line from Ralph Peters that I was trying to get a bit beyond.

Morale really went down on seeing that the only analysis accompanying Ralph Peters piece was a fatuous repetition of this bogus claim that "the pseudo-left still can't grasp is even the possibility that we could be in an era in which it is in US interests to promote democracy wherever it can. They continue to operate from the assumption that US interests require it to oppose the democratic revolution".

I've challenged that analysis often enough, pointing out that the conservatives and reactionaries fully understand that the Bush administration is promoting democracy and opposing that "unrealistic" policy as "catastrophic" while the pseudo-left essentially echoes them. If I'm wrong it should be straight forward to reply to that instead of simply ignoring it and repeating the same old bullshit.

But that would require thinking and acknowledging that there is a difference in perspective worth discussing - while remaining oblivious and simply repeating dogmatic assertions without argument goes well with smugness and deadness.

Now that I'm being less polite about challenging publicly, my morale is improving. Who knows, keza's morale might improve by repling publicly too.

I agree with Arthur that the Hamas victory in the occupied territories is a positive. It's a great tribute to the spirit of the Palestinian people and their will to resist oppression. Is it a victory for democracy in the middle east and we should express outrage that the US government is threatening reprisals against the palestinians for exercising democracy.

 

As to Egypt my understanding is that the Muslim Brotherhood restricted the number of seats they contested so as not to embarass the government with a Hamas like victory, there by bringing further repression apon themselves. Now if the Muslim Brotherhood won would they suffer US reprisals? For that matter if there was democracy in Lebanon Hezbolah would have a good chance of sweeping to power. How do you think Bush would react to democracy in Lebanon?

 

Nuke Gindrich has been doing the interview rounds Fox news has touted him as a possible Presidential candidate. His reaction to the Hamas victory was to suggest that the problem could be settled by Egypt absorbing the Gaza strip and Jordan absorbing much of the West Bank.

 

PS Arthur Ive always found Kesa to treat people at this site with respect even when sorley tested so I think you could cut her some slack. I understand how frustrating it can be when you set out to do a seemingly simple task like turning up to a demo and distributing a leaflet. Failure is a sign of the low level of organisation rather than a personal failure. Having tried for many years to organise small groups into seemingly simle levels of activity it never failed to amaze me as to how hard this really is.  

Steve (owenss): "Expressing outrage" is precisely what the pseudo-left is about. Why not celebrate the collapse of US and Israeli policy over the last few decades?


The "threatened reprisals" are a carefully calibrated and orchestrated ploy to distract attention from the fact that current US and Israeli policy is to retreat from their previous policy of actively supporting tyranny in the region.  Because democracy leads to communism, they  instead support a "controlled" transition to democracy as the only viable option.


I think your post is constructive in opening up discussion both on our low level of organization and on the situation in the middle east. I'll respond to the organizational issue in the previous thread "Howard Made Me Do It which I will also mention in the current central topic "Socialism in an age of waiting.".
Unfortunately just collecting together the links necessary to keep that topic organized has taken me several hours (though that also involved time well spent, which I recommend to others in reviewing earlier postings). So I'll use that as an excuse for keeping this response curt. A longer response would probably be just as sarcastic because that's just the way I am and the way I write when confronted with people not seeing the blindingly obvious.


Others should respond to postings like yours more patiently explaining things for people who can't see the blindingly obvious. You say:

Nuke Gindrich has been doing the interview rounds Fox news has touted him as a possible Presidential candidate. His reaction to the Hamas victory was to suggest that the problem could be settled by Egypt absorbing the Gaza strip and Jordan absorbing much of the West Bank.

 Isn't it blindingly obvious that that  was once upon a time the proposed solution to the Palestinian question but it isn't seriously on the agenda now?


From 1948 to 1967 Egypt did rule the Gaza strip and Jordan did rule the Gaza strip. The crushing defeat of the old Arab nationalism in the 6 day war led to Israeli rule over both those areas.


The problem remained - Palestinians need their own state. They are now getting one because Israel is withdrawing from the West bank as well as Gaza,  in a humiliating defeat for US imperialism and zionism.


Isn't it blindingly obvious that the US is "threatening reprisals" such as refusing to provide aid for a Hamas government precisely to give you something a bit more plausible to "express outrage" about and something to distract zionists about?



The only way to prevent the Palestinians establishing their own state is to militarily occupy them. That hasn't worked so they are now going to get one.


Not giving direct US funds to their government isn't going to stop them. What it does do is simply demobilize the zionist lobby by distracting attention from the fact that rather large sums of aid are going to have to be provided by both the US and other Western governments, by various indirect means to help clean up the mess their previous support for Israeli zionist expansionism has caused.


Isn't it blindingly obvious that both Israeli and US public opinion is now successfully completing its transition from being willing to expend blood and treasure on military suppression of the Palestinians to the sort of mere impotent whining that characterizes all losers (including the pseudo-left)?


Sharon's party isn't proposing re-occupation. Nor is the rump remaining of Likud. Nor is the Israeli Labor Party. They are all blowing off steam while psyching themselves up for carrying out the next phase of unilateral withdrawal.


Isn't it blindingly obvious that the Bush administration, unlike the Clinton and earlier administrations, has refused to continue funding the Israeli occupation and has instead substituted loud mouthed embrace of Sharon as a "man of peace" whose life long dream of two states living side by side has been frustrated by the evil vicious Palestinian terrorists?


Isn't it blindingly obvious that by making the central focus "an end to Palestinian terrorism" Bush was conceding the main point - since the terrorism is easily ended by allowing the Palestinians to establish their own state?


 Isn't it blindingly obvious that that would distract attention from US defeat in exactly the same way that Nixon distracted attention from the US defeat in Vietnam by escalating the war but making it a war for return of US POWs easily "won" by allowing Saigon to become Ho Chi Minh city?



 No, I guess it isn't blindingly obvious or there would be no point in bourgeois politicians having to engage in bourgeois politicking at all! It does successfully confuse people.



But surely what wasn't obvious when Bush started embracing Sharon so passionately a few years ago is bloody obvious now. Surely its pretty obvious that by merely shouting insults at Hamas (and rather mildly at that), Bush is making the Egyptian dictatorship's whole raison d'etre completely untenable?


You are wondering whether if the Muslim Brotherhood won free elections in Egypt there would be US reprisals. The answer is as loud and clear as Gorbachev's answer to the question of whether the Soviet Union would send tanks to defend the police state in Poland against "Solidarity".


The answer is "no" and as that answer became understood,  all the regimes of Eastern Europe collapsed as all the regimes of the middle east are now collapsing.


You also ask how Bush would react to democracy in Lebanon.


If you were paying any attention you would have noticed that the last elections brought Hezbollah into the gocernment of Lebanon, while retaining its arms, and that the US prepared the way for what is now happening in Palestine and will soon be happening in Egypt in much the same way as now.


By shouting a lot at Hezbollah for old times sake while in fact encouraging the transition from the old regime to one based on open free elections. I discussed that at the time it was happening in the comments at "Past v Future in Lebanon"


 Note that I also referred back then to the influence of future events on the present,  when pointing out how the US was deliberately preparing public opinion for a similar relaxed attitude to Hamas entering the Palestinian Authority.


I take some pride in being able to analyse events before they happen - and especially at having pointed out that the US would have no choice but to put forward a program for democratic revolution throughout the region at time before the war in Iraq when Bush was still successfully distracting attention from that by talking exclusively about "disarming Sadaam".


But when things have already happened and you still can't see it! I think it is more appropriate to be contemptuous of wilful blindness rather than imagining that I have some special insight.

Some other links to my comments at Harry's Place on the process still unfolding can be found at "the opposition strikes back," "reg's angry successors," "middle east old-think," "SWP and Hezbollah"and "region change"

There's also a lot of other relevant stuff linked from those.

Hi Arthur

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my posing and yes I am willfully oblivious to the blatantly obvious because I disagree with your analysis.

 

As to your point that I should pay attention that Hezbollah have joined the government this is beside the point. The point was what do you think the US position would be to Hezbollah sweeping to victory in a Lebaneese democracy. We still havent overcome the colonial heratige where Lebanon was detached from Syria given an anti democratic constitution in an effort to make it a poor mans Israel. (a French influenced enclave as opposed to the British influenced enclave just to the south)

 

Is Israel heading towards a resolution of the Palestinian Question?

 

Is dismantling settlements a precursor to peace?

 

When Sharon demolished settlements in the Sinai many people stated the blindlingly obvious that this was a step towards middle east peace instead it turned out to be a tactical move shoring up Israels south so that it could invade to the north.

 

Todays blindingly obvious often becomes tomorrows joke

Steve,  how about suspending your belief for a minute as to what you think is really going on in the Middle East and thinking about this.

IF we were right (just "if", remember) and the US was in the position of having to retreat from its old policies, how would it go about this?

Would it just announce "we have been forced to retreat" or would it try to keep people convinced that there was no retreat involved?  How would it go about maintaining it's superpower image? Or would it just give up?

Try thinking about it from their perspective? How would it make sense for them to behave?  what sort of image would you try to present if you were in their position?

Steve: The problem is not that you disagree with my analysis but that you simply haven't made any analysis nor studied any issue in a way that could help you do so.

Your rhetorical question about what the US would do if Hezbollah swept the polls in a Lebanese election indicates that you know nothing about either Hezbollah or Lebanon and have not bothered to read any of the links provided. (Granted some may have been mangled before you could have looked but enough are still working that your questions would be differently expressed if you had actually read them - also you could delete the %20 from the end of those URLs that lead to error paes to get the right page if it hasn't been fixed by the time you see this).

Hezbollah is currently the largest party (though far from the only significant one) among the largest (Shia) minority in Lebanon. It has negligible support outside the Shia and no possibility of sweeping any polls. It is however the largest party in Lebanon and was previously excluded from participating in government by the rigged clan based political system maintained since French rule - largely for the benefit of the Christian minority.

It is now part of the government as well as a major party in parliament and the old constitutional arrangements are being re-negotiated in a situation where Hezbollah is armed to the teeth and nobody with an interest in starting a civil war to prevent full democracy can expect foreign backing. (Both the Syrians and Israelis intervened, with US support to prevent democracy by backing Christian fascist parties against Sunni and Druze - that simply isn't on the table now).

You have also ignored the obvious implications of the fact that the US has in fact accepted Iraq's closest equivalent to Hezbollah, the Dawa party, leading the last Iraqi government with the position of Prime Minister. Details of the close connection between the main party now governing Iraq and Lebanon's Hezbollah were provided in those links.

You asked the questions and ignored the answers precisely because you wilfully refuse to see what has already happened in Palestine right in front of your nose.

You in fact know that the Israeli bluff pretending that they cannot pull out unless Fateh starts a civil war by suppressing Hamas has now been completely smashed. Since facing that and actually thinking through the implications would force you to admit that you had completely misunderstood what was going on while we had not, you prefer to simply not think about it, not read about it, and ask pointless questions.

Your questions are as incoherent as Znet's "answers" cited earlier. Nevertheless I'll respond one more time before expecting you to do some actual thinking.

Is Israel heading towards a resolution of the Palestinian Question?

Yes. A large majority of Israelis now know that they will have to accept a Palestinian State in the West Bank with Jerusalem as its capital. Many of them are still kidding themselves they can hang on to East Jerusalem and significant parts of the West Bank near the 1967 border. But only a minority are prepared to actual fight for them and that minority cannot hope to do so without US support which the majority now knows isn't there. The fundamental transition of Israeli attitudes has been remarkably swift.

Is dismantling settlements a precursor to peace?

Yes and no. Depends what you mean by settlements, precursor and peace.

Only minor settlements in the West Bank have been dismantled so far. Sufficient to call the bluff of the Israeli minority threatening civil war, too few for the majority to openly admit that the war to conqueor the Palestinians is lost but enough for the majority to know deep down that the war is lost.

Actual dismantling of the main settlements may be the precursor to a formal peace agreement like that between Britain and the Irish Free State or it may just be a long term armistice as between North and South Korea. Either way there will still be "troubles" as there were in Northern Ireland until there is actually a democratic state rather than a jewish ethnic state ruling over the Arabs remaining on the Israeli side of the border. Most Israelis still aren't willing to accept Palestinians as equals with a "right of return" - which precludes full peace.

Either way there will at least be sufficient peace for both peoples to resume normal development just as the partitions of Ireland and of Korea was "peace" compared with the war raging immediately before them.

When Sharon demolished settlements in the Sinai many people stated the blindlingly obvious that this was a step towards middle east peace instead it turned out to be a tactical move shoring up Israels south so that it could invade to the north.

It was blindingly obvious that Camp Daid was a tactical move. Some people didn't see it (not many) because some people are blindly taken in by declarations instead of making an independent analysis of strategic realities. I certainly wasn't among those who missed what was blindingly obvious then. Camp David didn't so much "turn out" to be a tactical move - it was openly hailed as a tactical move securing US, Egyptian and Israeli interests against the Palestinians.

Incidentally many more people were taken in by Oslo than by Camp David - but again, I wasn't among them. It was a real and significant concession to the Palestinians but in no way intended as a step towards peace - merely an attempt to make Israeli domination less intolerable.

One feature of what's happening now is that there is a near unanimous chorus that the "peace process" is either dead or gravely threatened. Since listening to the chorus is what you do instead of analysis it is easy for you to miss the blindingly obvious.

Think about keza's suggestion. Would you be saying something different from what the chorus is saying if you wanted to minimize the impact of a humiliating withdrawal that you knew to be inevitable?

Or are you still so totally convinced of the invincibility of US imperialism and Zionism that even now you do not believe that a humiliating withdrawal is inevitable.

Or are you still so totally convinced of the stupidity of the Israeli and US Governments that you believe you can see what is inevitale but they cannot and they are therefore making declarations on the assumption that they won't have to pull out?

Or is it simply as I originally suggested that you share the pseudo-left perspective that politics is simply about "expressing outrage" without expecting or attempting or even being interested in understanding any actual changes in the real world?

My appologies Arthur

 

You are quite right I know nothing of Hezbollah or the politics of Lebanon. In my defence I was really trying to make a point about US politics (rather than Lebonese politics) and what their reaction would be, (seeing that no official census has been taken in Lebanon since 1932) I should have said what would the US do if there was democracy in Lebanon and a party such as Hezbollah came to power.

 

Keza I did the thought experiment but got nowhere with it because I believe that any change in policy could be presented in many ways. If I was Bush or Nixon or Lincon I imagine I'd do what they did and or do and that is to present my objectives however I thought would be most palatable to my constituents. i.e. When Lincon suggested Liberating the slaves and then moving them all to Central America was this his real policy or a gambit or an attempt to place a foot in two camps. Was Lincon really an abolitionist? At times he would deny it and at times he would confirm it. He famously stated that he would support slavery if it would hold the Union together and oppose it if that would hold the Union together. So what's my point? My point is that it's impossible to understand people from what they say but some insight can be gained by observing what they do. Im still clinging to my old ideas about the USA because they have yet to do something that I didn't expect.

 

As to why the lurkers wont express themselves beats me.

 

I am still amazed that you think the peace process is going anywhere. Last night I was looking at  maps of the west bank and what it will look like after the completion of Sharon's wall its scary what the Israeli's have in mind for Palestine.

 

Tonight I was listening to an interview of a Palestinian chap who stated that living in the Occupied Territories was like living in an open prison

Steve: Its certainly better to focus on what people do than what they say. Lincoln is an excellent example and studying Marx's writings on The American Civil War is helpful in understanding why the neocons keep referencing Lincoln's civil war tactics. Marx was initially highly critical of Lincoln's equivocating posture (while of course enthusiastically rallying the First International in support of a yankee victory against the slaveowners) but later acknowledged that Lincoln had been been forced to follow a policy of never taking a step until its necessity was obvious by the depth of Northern ruling class support for a compromise restoration of the old union and the need to maneuver when following a policy actually aimed at a new union without slavery all along.

You say:

Im still clinging to my old ideas about the USA because they have yet to do something that I didn't expect.

My guess is that the opposite is in fact true. You fail to analyse what the Bush administration is doing because it never fails to confuse you by saying things you expect it would say if it was doing what you assume it will do.

For example Bush launched the war entirely on the basis that "Sadaam must disarm". Like most people you realised that there must be some other actual motive for war. You knew that the US wasn't even pretending its aim was to establish democracy and you certainly wouldn't have believed Bush if he had said it was. The US made it utterly clear it was only interested in getting a government willing to comply with US demands (allegedly on WMDs but you would have seen through that and assumed "oil").

So you expected that the US would install a puppet administration as usual. As a result you failed to notice that it had made that impossible by immediately dissolving the only forces that could maintain such an administration - the Baath party and its armed forces - and instead appointed Ambassador Bremer as civil governor who did not even speak Arabic and was therefore obviously temporary.

You expected the US to continue supporting zionist control over Palestinians in the West Bank and Bush feeds your expectations by embracing Sharon as passionately as possible while denouncing Arafat as a terrorist. So you fail to notice that Bush has redefined the issue from maintaining zionist control over the West Bank and preventing a Palestinian State into ending terrorism.

Of course I can only speculate as to what you expected and how the US lived up to your expectations by saying things you expected to hear in the light of those expectations rather than actually doing things you would expect it to do.

But there's an easy test instead of arguing about what you really thought and what really happened.

How about stating in verifiable terms what you expect the US will do in the near future regarding specific events so we can review later whether what it actually did was consistent with your expectations.

For example, from your citation of "Nuke Gingrich" one might think you expect, or at least would be able to say "I told you so" afterwards, if instead of a Palestinian State, the West Bank was to come under Jordanian rule and the Gaza strip under Egyptian rule within say the next 2 years.

I wouldn't expect you to commit yourself to something as silly as that. I think it was just a throw away line because you actually don't know what to expect - except that it will be bad news.

But perhaps you could be willing to commit yourself to something equally specific that you really do expect over the next year.

For example I expect that more Israeli settlements on the West Bank will be dismantled over the next year with a reduction in the total number of settlers. That is what I would call "doing".

Would you be prepared to commit yourself to expecting that the total number of settlers in the West Bank will instead increase over the next year?

That seems a simple matter you could commit yourself to saying "I got it wrong" or "I told you so" on a verifiable basis.

In addition to that challenge to state some verifiable expectation about actions rather than words I'll also put the same questions you haven't answered to you again, more politely.

1. Do you believe that the Palestinians will eventually succeed in establishing their own State not under Israeli or US domination?
2. If so, do you believe that the Bush administration knows that too?
3. If not, what are your reasons for believing that a situation you agree is totally unjust and intolerable will continue regardless of your opposition and that of many other people to it and what is the purpose of your "expressing outrage" about things you believe cannot be changed?

Hi Arthur

 

Thanks for your time and patience boy am I a fool or what?

 

I stated that the US had done nothing that I didnt expect. What a foolish and overblown statement well what I should have said was the much more modest claim that they did nothing that surprised me. They do heaps that I dont expect for instance when they attacked Iraq I expected them to issue a directive to civil authority to keep to their posts and maintain order along the line of how they managed the transition from the Imperial Japanese Army to Allied control.

 

As to predictions I dont have a bad record and some of my past predictions can be verified by Patrick. He can confirm that I predicted a short war like Panama followed by a mess like Somalia. I predicted that Americas heavy handling would make the situation worse and that WMD would probably not be found. I argued at the time that the war was not about WMD and that the oil argument was simplistic although I argued that you can never take oil out of any middle east equation. At worst I argued that "oil" was a metaphor for national interest. I was quite proud that I was the first on this site to call for support of the elections called for by Sistani. If you look back at those arguments a regular contributor descibed this call for elections as premature. 

 

Predictions about Palestine

I know you think that things are on the move but I believe that there will be stalemate for a long time.

I dont argue that  the Gaza withdrawl is progress as for years Ive argued that I couldnt see the point of Israel attempting to hold it. As the Palestinian rep at Oslo stated You give us Gaza but what do we get in return.

Steve: Your more modest claim that the US has done nothing that surprised you is entirely plausible.

However it is equally consistent with my hypothesis that you interpret events through your preconceptions rather than by analysis of facts. It may well be that nothing that happens ever could surprise you because you are not engaged in any attempt to understand the world in order to change it but merely adhere to a world view that requires regularly "expressing outrage" and prohibits ever "expressing surprise".

Such a world view would of course strictly prohibit making verifiable predictions in advance. (Predictions afterwards would of course be permitted for reasons explained by Yogi Berra).

For my part the US has done several things that surprised me. On the positive side I was surprised that the war was launched with the 4th infantry division still stuck in the East Mediterranean. That contributed to the invasion going so smoothly without destruction of oil fields etc.

On the negative side I expected they would find some WMDs - not because that was what the war was about but because they had chosen to put so much on the line by pretending it was about WMDs and it wouldn't make sense to do that in such an "over the top" unqualified way if they weren't damn sure of finding some to allow people to continue to believe they weren't just lying.

Likewise I thought they'd have enough sense to avoid something like Abu Ghraib.

Whether the current situation is a "mess like Somalia" and whether Sistani's call for immediate elections was premature at the time or whether the subsequent transitional period was too long are matters about which we may disagree without either of us being able to force the other to say "I got that wrong".

Hence my proposal for a simple verifiable test where we can just look up some objective statistics to see who should be surprised.

You have avoided my suggestion by talking about Gaza instead of the West Bank and speaking vaguely instead of making a verifiable prediction in your last paragraph that claimed to be a prediction.

Everybody knows that Israel doesn't actually want to keep Gaza long term so surrendering it could in itself either be a token gesture (and consolidation to a more defensible perimiter) or preparation of public opinion for further withdrawals. In my view Bush's insistence that at least 4 West Bank settlements be included in the same withdrawal was intended to clarify that issue without making the clarification unambiguous but there's no point us arguing about that. (BTW I think you'll find the suggestion about "what do we get in return for accepting Gaza" was from Ilan Halevi - looks like the suggestion was eventually taken up).

Surely whatever your pessimistic understanding of what the US and Israelis are up to at the moment may be, it would be inconsistent with a reduction in the settler population of the West Bank over the next year and you ought to be able to make a firm prediction that the opposite will occur.

If you aren't prepared to commit yourself to saying "I'm surprised" if the settler population is reduced, by making such a prediction or propose some alternative equally verifiable test of your capacity to be surprised I think you will have adequately confirmed my hypothesis that it is your world view that prevents you being surprised rather than your understanding of what is happening.

You also haven't answered the 3 questions I posed, two of which only required a simple "Yes" or "No". Could you at least try such a simple exercise or is the only way you can avoid thinking prohibited thoughts that conflict with your world view to avoid those questions too?

You appear to have at least thought about them. Hence your "prediction" of a long term stalemate rather than a movement in either direction. That suggests you got stuck on question 1 - you aren't even willing to say whether or not you think the Palestinians are bound to win.

Answering that with a "Yes" would confront you with question 2 which leads into either wondering why the US and Israeli leaders cannot see what is obvious to you or how their words and deeds are consistent with their interests given what they do know will be the outcome

Answering with a "Yes" leads into the even more perilous waters of question 3 and your own raison d'etre.

Hence you can only remain as unsurprised as a sheep by avoiding an answer to any thought provoking questions and sticking with the "safe" assumption pushed by the pseudo-left that "nothing ever changes".

"Long term stalemate" wasn't a prediction. Its your world outlook in a nutshell.

Hi Kerry aka Keza

 

I really loved the Ralph Peters Stability, America's Enemy although I can't not mention some glaring bits. I love his aggressive retelling of history but at crucial moments he goes missing. He wants an independant Kurdistan he nominates the countries that will loose teritory to the new entity but fails to name Turkey. He gives a rant about "the over-hasty imposition" of democracy without indicating where he means or to mention Iraq at all. He seems to loose his focus (stability the enemy) when he states that America's "greatest contribution to global instability" is "our insistance on instant democracy"

 

I'm in complete agreement with him when he states that "The middle east defies solution"( I know I'll cop a bit of stick for that)

 

The best bit in our context is when he revises the history of Afghanistan and claims that the Soviet invasion was the progressive side of the conflict.

 

Thanks for providing the link it's a good read

 

On links Arthur your link on Marx and the American Civil war(again appreciated) only takes his writtings up to Nov 1862 while the war went to 1865. Marx is very clear about why the war must be fought. I recently came across a description of the war as a pre emptive counter revolution which helps break the hold Shelby Foote has over me with his war of northern aggression (thats a joke but you still cant but love Shelby)

Steve: On the American Civil War I was particularly struck by a comment by Marx appraising Lincoln after his death which acknowledged the tactical constraints Lincoln was operating under and his adroit handling of them. That helped me gain an appreciation of the subtleties of the Bushies approach. Unfortunately it wouldn't be in the date range mentioned and I don't have a reference handy.

That is also relevant to both your agreement with Ralph Peters that "the middle east defies solution", the odd loss of focus in his references to "instant democracy" and the absurd focus only on "corruption", omitting reference to the failure to win anything much from the Israelis as the reasons for Fateh's electoral defeat by Hamas in his article keza copied in full in this topic.

The fact is that the Bushies and neocons could not openly declare that their program involves both instability and the replacement of friendly pro-American tyrannies by more overtly hostile islamist regimes based on popular elections any more than Lincoln could openly declare that his program required the abolition of slavery in the South.

Public discussion about Israel and Palestine is particularly constrained in the US as the zionist lobby requires out maneuvering rather than head on confrontation. Its amazing the New York Post published Peters' item on Hamas even without any more "provocative" mention of the failure to deliver anything to Fateh by the US and Israel.

The article keza linked on Stability - America's Enemy was indeed a fascinating read. Note that it was published as a "maverick" view in the US Army War College journal immediately after 911 and long before the invasion of Iraq.

If the Bushies had announced that approach then there was no possibility of Congress approving the invasion of Iraq.

To understand the mentality the Bushies are still up against, take a look at some other articles in that "maverick" Army journal.

Here's a recent one calling for a "realistic" program to gradually reform the Saudi regime Realism and idealism - US policy towards Saudi Arabia from the Cold War to today

Note the explicit contrast with the implications of Bush's "ambitious pronouncement" (and of recent events in Palestine).

Critiquing that sort of stuff would be far more useful than highlighting the deficiencies in Peters article on Stability. Although "realism" towards the Saudis is now a "maverick" view in the Pentagon its still so dominant elsewhere as to remain official "declaratory policy" and a sensitive enough issue that I couldn't easily find intelligible discussion of it in the open literature.

I agree that his reference to the Soviets being a force for progress in Afghanistan is nonsensical - they were the force whose imperialism plunged Afghanistan into warlordism and the Taliban by invading. But his main point was that the Americans actually backed the warlords and then the Taliban instead of supporting progress there when opposing Soviet imperialism.

Couldn't find any reference to only Arab regimes being hostile to independent Kurdistan. I think you may have misread a sentence about Arab regimes being opposed to removing Sadaam after the Kuwait war, which immediately followed a separate sentence about Kurdistan. Certainly Peters is acutely aware of the Turkish problem. I vaguely recall him trying to pressure the Kurds to be more restrained for fear of provoking Turkey.

There's nothing surprising about a US strategic thinker openly admitting how disasterously reactionary US policies have been in the past. Nor is it surprising that he does so from a "progressive imperialist" and nationalist perspective.

What I do find surprising is how refreshingly "radical" and even "revolutionary" he sounds compared not just with the pseudos but even this web site.

Arthur: "How about stating in verifiable terms what you expect the US will do in the near future regarding specific events so we can review later whether what it actually did was consistent with your expectations."

 

Here is a prediction:  recent ham-fisted activities and plans like lobbing missiles in allies' territories (Pakistan) in order to blow up civilians, or bombing slum areas like Sadr City will take a back seat.

IRAN, IRAN, IRAN. Their President recently attacked Israel. And American foriegn policy in the Middle East is totally focused on Israel. Every zionist, or christian-zionist, with any pull out of Washington has been doing the rounds lately in places in China, Russia, and India, twisting arms and bribing to get their way. America will be single minded on this one.

Unless Iran totally caves in, a`la Libya, it will be IRAN, IRAN, IRAN.

bpors: Ok, at least you are trying whereas Steve still hasn't even tried.

Nevertheless, "IRAN" isn't a prediction, it's a country. And lots of generally shouting about "IRAN, IRAN, IRAN" isn't a prediction either since it is already happening (which is what enables you to "predict" it).

Let's try for something more concrete.

I would expect that the US will adopt, and encourage other countries to adopt, a formal policy of "regime change" in Iran (as was done by the Clinton administration for Iraq long before the invasion) and seriously carry out that policy by effective support to Iranian democrats seeking to overthrow their government (as was not done for Iraq). The Iranian government is widely hated by its people and has run out of steam so that policy should be effective.

I would not expect and would be surprised by any actual (as opposed to threatened) military attack by the US on Iran.

I would not rule out a token Israeli strike against Iran if they desperately need a diversion from their pullout from the West Bank, but I would not expect it either and it would certainly only be damaging to the coming Iranian revolution.

Are you prepared to predict that the US will:

a) Militarily attack Iran?

b) Invade and occupy Iran?

If not, what precisely are you "predicting"?

BTW would you rather have the Zionists and Christian-Zionists with any pull in Washington "defending Israel" by shouting about Iran or by mobilizing to stop the withdrawal from the West Bank?

On Steve's 'predictions'