Month: August 2006

by David Weigel

Would-be terrorists plan to bomb British planes. British cops catch the plotters before they can act. Support for the government’s anti-terror policies… uh, plummets. The mostly unimpressive UK Conservative party has raced to a 9-point lead over Tony Blair’s Labour government, and the busted bomb plot is fingered as the reason. (Leads don’t mean too much; Elections won’t be held until 2009 or 2010.)

The Tories have gained over the last month while support for Labour has fallen heavily in the wake of the recent alleged terror plot against airlines. An overwhelming majority of voters appear to pin part of the blame for the increased threat on Tony Blair’s policy of intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ministers – including Mr Blair – have repeatedly denied that there is a connection. But 72%, including 65% of Labour voters, think government policy has made Britain more of a target for terrorists. Only 1% of voters believe the government’s foreign policy has made Britain safer, a devastating finding given that action in Iraq and Afghanistan has been justified in part to defeat Islamist terrorism.

A measly 20 percent of Britons think the government is telling the truth about the breaking up of the plot.

The Bush administration hasn’t experienced any popularity dives after a thwarted terrorist threat. The Iraq war has always been more popular and more successfully linked to 9/11 here; in the UK, it was completely seen as a war of choice. But in the last year or so, news of foiled terrorist attacks have given Republicans weaker and weaker bursts of support, like diluted drugs hitting a long time junkie’s bloodstream. Check out the way USA Today spins a post-airplane plot Bush rating of 42 percent as a solid comeback. After Saddam was captured in 2003, Bush spiked from 52 to 58 percent.

(Cross-posted at Hit and Run.)

by Michael J. Totten

The Israeli Prime Minister and the Lebanese Prime Minister both suggested the possibility of peace talks in public.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday that peace talks with Beirut were possible, echoing a similar statement made by Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. "If the Lebanese government continues this way and if Prime Minister Siniora continues with his efforts to bring about a change in Lebanon, I have no doubt that negotiations" with Beirut will lead to formal relations between Israel and Lebanon, he said.

Olmert’s comments came as a fragile truce ending a month-long Israeli offensive on Lebanon entered its second week and followed similar comments by Siniora on Sunday.

"I believe that if Israel uses all its senses and thinks wisely, I think it will be the opportunity," Siniora told reporters.

"The opportunity is how to convert what happened in Lebanon – the calamity that was inflicted on Lebanon – to make it an opportunity to move toward real peace," he said.

It’s no surprise that Olmert wants peace with Lebanon. Not for one day, ever, have Israelis wished to be in a state of cold war or hot war with Lebanon.

But, trust me, it’s huge that Seniora is talking about this even if it is only talk.

When I lived in Lebanon even hinting at peace with Israel in public was crossing a serious political red line. During the so-called “national unity” talks a few months ago, when the disarmament of Hezbollah was on the table, the only thing the various Lebanese factions could agree on was that Israel was the enemy. That was it. That was the lowest common denominator. That didn’t work out very well. Placing Israel in the enemy column is no smarter than placing a suicide bomber’s belt around the waist of your country.

Hassan Nasrallah is considered a hero by the idiots of Lebanon. Fouad Seniora is considered a hero by most of the rest. And by that I mean the majority.

An actual peace treaty won’t likely follow this war. The odds that Hezbollah would accept it are painfully small. They almost certainly will sabotage peace talks if negotiations get started. But the fact that this can even be discussed at all, and by the head of the state, really is something.

I spent a lot of time in Lebanon, and some time in Israel. The people of these two countries are natural allies, with a similar set of values, with a strikingly similar culture, and with the same list of enemies. Lebanon is perhaps the only Arab country that has the possibility of having a warm peace, rather than a cold “peace,” with Israel. It’s not likely to come about soon. But it will happen when Hezbollah surrenders to Lebanon and the world becomes a more intelligent place than it is.

By Michael J. Totten

TEL AVIV — Yo, Ahmadinejad. What‚Äôs the deal? You do remember that today is August 22, NUKE Day, right? It‚Äôs lunchtime already. God, get it over with, dude, or Human Rights Watch is going to write you up for cruelly compounding our angst.

UPDATE: Noah Pollak emails from Jerusalem: Hey Michael, Well, we’re all still here — at least for now. I’m working in my kevlar underwear today, just as a precautionary measure.

By Michael J. Totten

TEL AVIV — We‚Äôre still here in Israel, even though it‚Äôs DOOM Day, August 22. I slept all through the night. The megatons haven‚Äôt yet landed. We‚Äôll see if I can make it through breakfast.

By Michael J. Totten

TEL AVIV — It may be Monday, August 21, for those of you in the slow time zones. But here in Israel it‚Äôs BOOM Day, August 22.

The end of the world will be blogged. Or not. I’m going to bed. Hope I wake up!

by Ana Marie Cox

The most wanted man in the world’s most wanted:

OSAMA bin Laden has more on his mind than just the destruction of the United States – the world’s most wanted terrorist is obsessed with Whitney Houston..  But bin Laden’s murderous side also emerged in his fantasies about the pop superstar. "[He would say] how beautiful she is," Boof claims, "what a nice smile she has, how truly Islamic she is but is just brainwashed by American culture and by her husband – Bobby Brown, whom Osama talked about having killed, as if it were normal to have womens’ husbands killed.

"In his briefcase, I would come across photographs of the Star [magazine], as well as copies of Playboy. It would soon come to the point where I was sick of hearing Whitney Houston’s name," Boof writes.

There’s not really a way to make fun of this except that it does suggest our Guantanamo interrogation techniques are not as sophisticated as we thought:

Almost every interviewee stated that yelling and the use music were used for interrogations at GTMO… Interrogators that cultural music would be played as an incentive. Futility technique included the playing of Metallica, Britney Spears, and Rap music.

by Michael J. Totten

The Arab bar for military victory is set so low that anything short of annihilation is considered a “win” by fools who start doomed-to-fail wars. There is no such thing as a partial defeat, a standstill, or even a Pyrrhic victory.

So Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran are gearing up to go another “victorious” round.

Hizbullah, Iran, and Syria are working feverishly to rearm Hizbullah ahead of the next round. A senior officer of the Revolutionary Guard in Tehran said that huge quantities of weapons – including weapons of various sources – reached Damascus during the last three weeks, and are waiting to be transferred to Lebanon.

According to London based Arabic daily al-Sharq al-Awast, the Revolutionary Guard formed an emergency committee on logistics in Damascus, which will be responsible for supplying Hizbullah’s military needs.

A senior figure in the Iranian foreign ministry also said his country was preparing to provide aid for areas destroyed in Lebanon, despite claims by Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah and other sources, according to which Hizbullah is not receiving money from Iran for recovery efforts in Lebanon.

Abu Kais, himself a Shia from South Lebanon, speaks for most Lebanese when he says Hezbollah lost the war and that Iran’s Shia farm must be shut down, and its residents set free.

by Michael J. Totten

Beirut, Lebanon, where I recently lived.

Tel Aviv, Israel, where I am now.

by David Weigel

It’s really beating a path through the blogosphere today, but torgive me if I find this Washington Post feature on "conservative pundits renouncing Bush" incredibly silly. It makes sense for a paper covering the beltway to count the number of words Norman Podhoretz, George Will and the White House strategic initiatives office have churned out in an intra-movement Super Soaker fight. It makes less sense to impart great lessons from the tenor of the debate in DC.

Bush aides were bothered by a George F. Will column last week mocking neoconservative desires to transform the Middle East: "Foreign policy ‘realists’ considered Middle East stability the goal. The realists’ critics, who regard realism as reprehensibly unambitious, considered stability the problem. That problem has been solved."

The White House responded with a 2,432-word rebuttal — three times as long as the column — e-mailed to supporters and journalists. "Mr. Will’s kind of ‘stability’ and ‘realism’ — a kind of world-weary belief that nothing can be done and so nothing should be tried — would eventually lead to death and destruction on a scale that is almost unimaginable," wrote White House strategic initiatives director Peter H. Wehner.

What a waste of the White House’s (by extension, taxpayers’) time and money. Bush doesn’t need pundits’ votes to hold onto Congress. He needs the votes of disaffected moderates and Republicans who are fed up with the Iraq War and the entire situation in the Middle East. They’ll never see a two-and-a-half grand rebuttal to George Will. They’re paying attention to army and National Guard units being shipped overseas to referee conflicts between (as they see it) ungrateful, violent factions. I’m sure the WH press shop is giggling at Pat Buchanan’s latest brimstone deposit, but I guarantee if they ripped his message off wholesale they’d get further than they’re getting with their War on Pundits.