Richard Cohen On Middle East Birth Pangs genre: Hip-Gnosis & Just Jihad & Polispeak & Six Degrees of Speculation

Middle East road map

The Washington Post's Richard Cohen has a good article on the situation in the Middle East and the growing concerns that the conflict is far more about ideology than geography. The article points out that the United States and Israel both seem to be struggling to understand the new dynamic of warfare that has taken shape in the region. Read the full article here.

The "birth pangs" are over. This was the term used by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to describe the war between Israel (supported by the United States) and Hezbollah (supported by Iran). If she is right, let us see what has come out: a defeat for the good guys, a victory for the bad guys (the "Islamic fascists" of President Bush's formulation) and some clear lessons. This has been a very hard birth.

But the lesson of Iraq and, now, Lebanon, is that zealots make tough enemies. It was one thing for Israel to fight apathetic and hapless Egyptians, Iraqis, Jordanians, Syrians and Lebanese. Those armies consisted of the indifferent: Sure, these Arabs opposed Israel, but they were mostly unaffected by it and would rather live with it than die fighting it. Even the Palestinians proved to be not much of a battlefield foe. This has not been the case with Hezbollah or, in Iraq, the various groups of fanatics who would blow themselves up for reasons that we could not begin to fathom. Hezbollah is now described in terms once reserved for the Japanese army of World War II. "If you are waiting for a white flag coming out of the Hezbollah bunker, I can assure you it won't come," said Brig. Gen. Ido Nehushtan, a member of the Israeli army's general staff.

The prevailing problem with the U.S. and Israeli strategy is that they continue to rely on military solutions. Despite the fact that both have military superiority over their opponents, they seem to struggle with an understanding of the motivations and mentality of the enemy. With the imposition of force, while one can calculate the physical damages, one must also calculate the psychological impact. Clearly with Iraq and now with Hezbollah, the U.S. and Israel have failed to win the war of minds...perhaps the most important battle.

This zealotry, this ideology, this religious fervor is not something we in the West -- and that includes Israel -- know how to deal with. The sheer scale and number of suicide bombings in Iraq was once considered inconceivable. Iraq, after all, was extolled as one of the more secular Arab states, which was among the reasons why some otherwise sane people predicted an easy U.S. victory followed by the national singing of "God Bless America."

This seemingly abrupt shift to the ideological, to the religious, is the most noteworthy and ominous development of recent times. The fight is no longer over territory -- the West Bank, Gaza -- but over the very existence of Israel. The people who seem to hate Israel most, who will kill to kill it and die for it to die, are not reclaiming ancestral land -- no Iranian pines for his lost orange grove near Jaffa -- but instead cannot abide the very idea of Israel.

Democracies are in a fix. If your enemy will gladly die for his cause while you wouldn't think of dying for yours (not that you even know what it is: freedom? liberty?) then clearly the fight is not to the swift but to the suicidal. The obvious short-term remedy is cold, lethal technology. But the reliance on high-tech stuff has not subdued Iraq, and it utterly failed in Lebanon as well. These are the realities of the new warfare, and if they are the "birth pangs of the new Middle East," then what is being produced is not some cute, babbling democracies but a hideous monster.

Just wait until he reaches for a nuclear weapon.

With each preemptive effort, the U.S. and Israel have sent more and more of the all important moderate individuals into the hands of the ideologues. Each bomb that destroys a bridge creates the path by which more and more citizens find their way into the extreme...a place from which return is very unlikely. Certainly there are times when force is inevitable but unless a diplomatic and humanitarian front is pursued along a parallel path, the battle for sentiment will be lost...leading to more animosity and a greater likelihood for further conflict in a never ending spiral towards ideological polarity.

One is left to wonder if the current efforts aren't simply hastening the unthinkable eventualities that come with ideological desperation. The suicide bombers are abundant...and the motivation to provide them with better weapons is growing exponentially.

Daniel DiRito | August 15, 2006 | 8:45 AM
AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Post a comment


Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry


© Copyright 2024

Casting

Read about the Director and Cast

Send us an email

Select a theme:

Critic's Corner

 Subscribe in a reader

Encores

http://DeeperLeft.com

Powered by:
Movable Type 4.2-en

© Copyright 2024

site by Eagle River Partners & Carlson Design