Month: January 2009

Marc Lynch’s take on Gaza:

However this round of violence ends — and it’s hard to see any scenario in which it produces remotely positive results for anyone involved — the outcome at the regional level will likely be to further exacerbate these conflicts and to undermine the chances for the incoming Obama administration to make early progress.

While Arab regimes will almost certainly survive the latest round of popular outrage, the regional atmosphere may prove less resilient. Syria has reportedly broken off its indirect peace talks with Israel, for instance. A bloody Hamas retaliation against Israelis seems highly likely, and if Abbas is seen as supporting the Israeli offensive against his political rivals then Hamas may well emerge from this even stronger within Palestinian politics. The offensive is highly unlikely to get rid of Hamas, but it will likely leave an even more poisoned, polarized and toxic regional environment for a new President who had pledged to re-engage with the peace process. Obama has scrupuously (and wisely) adhered to the "one President at a time" formula in foreign policy up to this point… but you have to wonder how long he can sit by and watch the prospects for meaningful change in the region battered while the Bush administration sits by and cheers.

Ross catches up on Christmas blogging.

A reader writes:

Very interesting piece – but the core argument, that this is somehow about neutralizing Iran, really is a stretch.  As the Israelis know better than anyone, there is no way they can cleanly or decisively dismantle Hamas with this invasion.  The foreseeable results are: (1) inconclusive withdrawal without fundamentally damaging Hamas; (2) permanent re-occupation; or (3) the elimination of Hamas with such horrific loss of civilian life that they lose even the Sunni regimes’ tacit support (and garner world condemnation).

It’s tempting to tie this to a wider geopolitical strategy (just as it was to tie the proposed Iraq invasion to a resolution of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict), but I don’t think the Israelis are as delusional as our own neocons.  I still think it has more to do with domestic Israeli politics than anything else.

Yaacov Lozowick tries to answer the question:

What’s the end game? It could be weeks of sifting through the city of Gaza until Hamas has effectively been disarmed. I expect, however, that it’s more likely that Israel itself will now speed up the diplomatic process, starting with the visit this evening of Sarkozy: You want a cease fire, all you folks out there? You want to avert weeks of slow house-by-house searches as the populace suffers? So do we. So let’s all agree on the mechanisms that will ensure that Hamas never regains its military capacities, and you, the international community, will help ensure the mechanisms stay in place; once that’s been arranged we’ll leave Gaza and hope never to return again. Sometime in the next 12 months elections need to take place, and perhaps the Palestinian voters will choose peace over strife this time. Ironically, all this violence is making it likely the next Israeli government will be eager to cooperate with the Obama administration on seeking ways towards a just peace.

A mite over-optimistic, if you ask me. But who can say?

A reader writes:

I have found your posts on the conflict in Gaza fascinating, in particular the most recent one on whether Israel’s actions meet the criteria of a just war.  But I have a concern.

With hindsight, I imagine that most people would agree that it would have been better for everyone and therefore morally preferable if Britain had been able to take military action against Nazi Germany sooner than they did – either in response to the annexation of the Sudetenland or to the remilitarisation of the Rhein-Ruhr.  If Germany had been checked at that early stage, Hitler might have been deposed before he had a chance to launch total war in Europe and the Holocaust.

I also imagine that most people would now agree that it would have been better for everyone and therefore morally preferable if the first President Bush had deposed Saddam Hussein after the first Gulf War, or if Bill Clinton had taken bolder military action against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. But I cannot see how any of those actions would have passed your criteria for a just war, because at the relevant points the damage inflicted on Britain/the West was not ‘lasting, grave and certain’ and ‘all other means of ending Hitler/Saddam/Al-Qaeda’s aggression’ had not been shown to be ‘impractical or ineffective’.  A moral theory which cannot provide a basis for the essential strategy of ‘nipping bad things in the bud’ is fundamentally flawed, surely?

I also doubt the value – and even the true morality –  of a moral theory which cannot take the likely political consequences of an action into account. A peace settlement which creates a viable Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel is the only way that peace can be brought to Israel/Palestine.  The only way that there is any prospect of any settlement of this kind in the next 5 years is if Kadima and Labour win a mandate to negotiate with the Palestinian Authority and if the Palestinian Authority has the power and legitimacy to negotiate such an agreement.  The intervention in Gaza has a chance of weakening both the main opponents of a two-state solution (Likud and Hamas) and of bolstering its main supporters (Fatah, Kadima and Labour.)  Surely, a useful moral theory has to be able to look forward and assess the wider political implications of an act not just the immediate physical consequences of the act?

These are excellent points, especially if you consider the Israeli action under the light of the center-left’s domestic attempt to forestall Full Netanyahu Jacket. I wish I could see that scenario panning out. But it’s not impossible. As to Hitler and Saddam, the analogy rests on the unknowable assumption that Hamas represents as great a threat to Israel as Hitler did to France in 1936. That’s not a serious proposition. It may be one day. The point of just war theory is that it assumes the default position is peace. But what if the default position is an eternal war for survival?

A mashup of Billboard’s top 25 songs from 2008:

Petra Marquardt-Bigman notes what the term means for Jihadists:

Of course we often hear that there are also more pragmatic leaders in Hamas — but being more pragmatic than Rayyan doesn’t necessarily mean much. Currently, the more pragmatic Hamas leaders make sure that they stay out of harm’s way, but it is also clear from their conduct over the past one-and-a-half years since Hamas took control of Gaza that pragmatism for Hamas means first and foremost trying to tighten their hold on power over the coastal strip and its 1.5 million residents — irrespective of the consequences for the welfare of the people of Gaza.

Way, way better than Brennan, and, significantly, detached from the torture regime and its apparatus in a way that anyone involved in the CIA in the last eight years would not be. As my colleague Marc Ambinder just said, the man who has had every job in Washington now has the most thankless task in Washington. But this appointment and Johnsen’s are extremely encouraging for the restoration of Constitutional order after the Bush-Cheney protectorate. Then this:

How did we transform from champions of human dignity and individual rights into a nation of armchair torturers? One word: fear. Fear is blinding, hateful, and vengeful. It makes the end justify the means. And why not? If torture can stop the next terrorist attack, the next suicide bomber, then what’s wrong with a little waterboarding or electric shock? The simple answer is the rule of law. Our Constitution defines the rules that guide our nation.

It was drafted by those who looked around the world of the eighteenth century and saw persecution, torture, and other crimes against humanity and believed that America could be better than that. This new nation would recognize that every individual has an inherent right to personal dignity, to justice, to freedom from cruel and unusual punishment.

We have preached these values to the world. We have made clear that there are certain lines Americans will not cross because we respect the dignity of every human being. That pledge was written into the oath of office given to every president, "to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution." It’s what is supposed to make our leaders different from every tyrant, dictator, or despot. We are sworn to govern by the rule of law, not by brute force.

We cannot simply suspend these beliefs in the name of national security. Those who support torture may believe that we can abuse captives in certain select circumstances and still be true to our values. But that is a false compromise. We either believe in the dignity of the individual, the rule of law, and the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, or we don’t. There is no middle ground.

We cannot and we must not use torture under any circumstances. We are better than that.

This is a good day for America’s soul.

"Here is a partial answer to my own question of how should we behave, directed especially to the next president and members of his or her administration but also to all of use who will be relieved by the change: We must avoid any temptation simply to move on. We must instead be honest with ourselves and the world as we condemn our nation’s past transgressions and reject Bush’s corruption of our American ideals. Our constitutional democracy cannot survive with a government shrouded in secrecy, nor can our nation’s honor be restored without full disclosure," – Dawn Johnsen, the new head of OLC.

It looks as cool as this.