Saving Face

So NOW the President needs a cease-fire and an international force. And suddenly the UN is relevant again. This comes a day after what appeared to be an open call for war with Iran because of their connection to Hezbollah.

Regarding a Middle East policy, is there any "there" there?

Could this all be because the Arab world is completely inflamed and we gotta keep those oil pumps a'flowin'?

Now, with hundreds of Lebanese dead and Hezbollah holding out against the vaunted Israeli military for more than two weeks, the tide of public opinion across the Arab world is surging behind the organization, transforming the Shiite group’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, into a folk hero and forcing a change in official statements.

The Saudi royal family and King Abdullah II of Jordan, who were initially more worried about the rising power of Shiite Iran, Hezbollah’s main sponsor, are scrambling to distance themselves from Washington.

An outpouring of newspaper columns, cartoons, blogs and public poetry readings have showered praise on Hezbollah while attacking the United States and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for trumpeting American plans for a “new Middle East” that they say has led only to violence and repression.

The Saudis and Jordanians are being forced to respond to their population. When you lose them, forget it. Having Saudi Arabia and Syria (remember when) in the 1991 Gulf War coalition made that action a success. Now we can't even keep our actual allies together, as the Rome cease-fire talks proved. And instead of bending the world to our will, we're being forced to go along with the prevailing opinion.

Anytime you lead off with "a new Middle East" that's going to rattle everyone in power in the old Middle East. And any time you hold out for a "sustainable cease-fire" you admit that you couldn't care less about those dying today. So the strategy is to hold the entire Middle East in utter comtempt and once again force democracy through the barrel of a gun. See Iraq for how that ends up working.

Whatever happened to speaking softly and carrying a big stick? The threat of violence is often more effective than the violence itself. Haaretz has the article I've basically been writing over and over again about Ehud Olmert:

The security policy-making process is in fact the domain of the Israel Defense Forces and the defense establishment. In the absence of non-IDF national security planning bodies, the major part of the planning - not only operational and tactical planning but also strategic and political planning - is done within the army.

The result is that military considerations have often become more dominant than political ones. Thus, Israel's foreign policies have come to be based on an essentially belligerent perception that favors military considerations over diplomatic ones. Violence is seen not only as a legitimate instrument in international affairs, but almost as the only means that can bring positive results.

As a result, the chief of staff in Israel is afforded power that exceeds that of his counterparts in other Western armies. He is the one to decide on the policy recommendations that will be presented to the prime minister and his ministers. This, of course, gives him great political power [...]

The current events followed the exact same pattern. The abduction of the soldiers in the north gave rise to a need "to do something." The prime minister and his government had only army assessments, intelligence the army presented to them, and the ready war plans before them. In fact, they had no other alternative but to approve what the IDF suggested for there is no other body or mechanism that can come up with suggestions for a policy in Lebanon.

Olmert didn't drive this policy, the generals who wanted to play with their shiny new toys did. That dynamic has been playing out ever since WWII in this country. When the military is nominally in charge, every solution is necessarily a military solution. Until the solution fails. THEN it's time for diplomacy.