Sunday, July 16, 2006
The first Jihadi-Israeli war
David Brooks' column this morning, which is locked up behind the TimesSelect separation fence, suggests that Brooks has been this blog. Or that great minds think alike. Fair use excerpt:
Why is this Middle East crisis different from all other Middle East crises? Because in all other Middle East crises, Israel's main rivals were the PLO, Egypt, Iraq and Syria, but in this crisis the main rivals are the jihadists in Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and, most important, Iran. In all other crises the nutjobs were on the fringes, but now the nutjobs in Hamas and Hezbollah are in governments and lead factions of major parties.
In all other crises, the Palestinians, thanks to Yasir Arafat's strenuous efforts, owned their own cause, but now the clerics in Iran are taking control of the Palestinian cause and turning it into a weapon in a much larger struggle.
In all other crises there was a negotiation process, a set of plans and some hope of reconciliation. But this crisis is different. Iran doesn't do road maps. The jihadists who are driving this crisis don't do reconciliation.
In other words, this crisis is a return to the elemental conflict between Israel and those who seek to destroy it. And you can kiss goodbye, at least for the time being, to some of the features of the recent crises....
Iran has conducted a semi-hostile takeover of what used to be known as the Arab-Israeli dispute. Iran has deepened and widened its support for its terrorist partners. Iran and the Islamists are fueled by the sense that the winds of history are blowing at their back. They pushed the Soviets out of Afghanistan, the U.S. out of Lebanon, Israel out of Lebanon and Gaza and they seem on the verge of pushing the U.S. out of Iraq. After centuries of Muslim humiliation, these people know how to win.
So Hamas and Hezbollah audaciously set the pace of confrontation....
You can also kiss goodbye to the land-for-peace mentality. In all other crises there was the hope that if Israel ceded land and gave the Palestinians a chance to lead normal lives, then tension would ease. But this crisis follows withdrawals in Lebanon and Gaza, and interrupts the withdrawals from the West Bank that were at the core of Ehud Olmert's victory platform.
Israel's main enemies in this crisis are not normal parties and governments that act on behalf of their people. They are jihadist organizations that happen to have gained control of territory for bases of operations. Hamas and Hezbollah knew their kidnappings and missile launches would set off retaliation that would hurt Gazans and Lebanese, but they attacked anyway -- for the sake of jihad. They answer to a higher authority and dream of genocide in his name.
Commentary
It is the first jihadi-Israeli war. "First"? Because it will only be the last if it escalates far beyond its current borders to the states that support the jihad, particularly Iran. While that remains possible, the prospect of that escalation is so frightening that most of the major players will struggle to avoid it. That fact condemns Israel to fight this war again.
The war in Israel and Lebanon is very much part of the struggle that the United States calls the "global war on terror," or the war on "Islamic extremism." That explains why the Bush administration has refused to "rein in" Israel (although it has pressured Israel to calibrate its attacks to minimize the damage to Lebanon's delicate water, power and communications infrustructure), and has pinned the blame squarely on Hezbollah. It also explains why criticism from the conservative Arab regimes has been extremely muted, and why the Saudis have pointed the finger explicitly at Hezbollah.
Probably for reasons of space, Brooks does not explore the scariest sentence in his essay, that "Iran and the Islamists are fueled by the sense that the winds of history are blowing at their back." That sense of inevitability is impossible to defeat moderately or cheaply. It can be destroyed in a horrific hot war, such as the war against fascism between 1931 and 1945, or by a long, cold, expensive "shadow war," such as the war against Communism, 1945-1993. Either way, it will not end until the enemy's ideology has lost all credibility and he no longer feels the winds of history at his back. If September 11 did not wake some Western denialists up, and if it is easy for most people to dismiss Iraq as Bush's folly, the first jihadi-Israeli war puts the crisis in stark relief. It is 1949 all over again, and the sooner we realize that the better the war will go for the good guys.
7 Comments:
By 
K. Pablo, at
Sun Jul 16, 10:20:00 AM:
The scariest sentence in David Brooks' essay echoes Osama bin Laden's observation about how people naturally support the "strong horse". As William F. Buckley pithily observed, "Why is Islam burning bright? What on earth do they have that we don't get from Christ our King? If what they want is a religious war, are we disposed to fight it?" The article outlines some of the reasons mutant Islamists might use to justify a sensation of having the wind at their backs.
Although one can disagree that it is a Christian vs. Muslim conflict, the larger context is that Classical Liberalism (or whatever you want to call the banner under which we in the civilized world oppose mutant Islamism) does not nearly animate our side with the same ferocity and single-mindedness driving al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, and their ilk. I am disheartened to think that the situation would have to become much more dire before the frivolous collaborationist/pacifist Left realizes the danger.
By Sissy Willis, at
Sun Jul 16, 11:41:00 AM:
It sounds like Bill Kristol has been smart enough to read this blog too:
What's happening in the Middle East, then, isn't just another chapter in the Arab-Israeli conflict. What's happening is an Islamist-Israeli war. You might even say this is part of the Islamist war on the West--but is India part of the West? Better to say that what's under attack is liberal democratic civilization, whose leading representative right now happens to be the United States.
It's Our War
Or maybe it's something in the water. :)
By John Hinds, at
Sun Jul 16, 11:55:00 AM:
A hot war is more likely to result in a decisive victory. Communism is still a very real threat and is one facet of this hydra headed evil monster that the forces of good must utterly destroy. To answer Mr. Buckley's questions truth and liberty spread their light in their own way and were we not bereft of effective political leadership in the United States things would perhaps proceed at a faster pace. It may be another generation before such leadership emerges. Depends on how much we are made by the mortal enemies of liberty to feel the pressure. Our people are of a mind, I believe, to answer a call to arms. What is missing is someone to give adequate voice to that call. We need a Churchill when what we seem to have is a Chamberlain.
By Diane Wilson, at
Sun Jul 16, 12:51:00 PM:
This war has a dual context, which makes it harder to classify.
One one level, it's a war within Islam for control of Islam. It's not merely Islamists vs. moderates, but multiple Islamists groups, each of whom would like to be the winner who takes all. In this context, none of the Islamists groups have any qualms about using any other religion, country, or ethnic group as their proxies.
On the other level, it is Islamists vs. the world. Al Qaeda as well as the Islamic Republic have been very clear about this.
Perhaps their biggest weak point is their tendency to cast the entire war in terms of tribal conflict. It weakens their coordination (and in battle, their command and control). It keeps them thinking in terms of symbolic victories, rather than total war. It blinds them to what their enemies might do if fully roused. It blinds them to their own weaknesses.
I'm not sure that I would call it the first Jihadi-Israeli war. It's the first one in which Israel has responded in a truly war-like manner. The intifadas differed only in motive.
By 
, at
Mon Jul 17, 08:18:00 AM:
Human nature needs an enemy. Because of technological advancements (communication mainly) in the 21st century there is a place for eventually only one big confrontation in the globe. This confrontation is the one between the haves and have nots. Because of arbitrary starting conditions, the haves will be Christian (Judo), and have nots mainly Muslim. Israel is "conveniently" placed right at the fault line of this global confrontation. For Arabs, Israel represents the west.
By , at
Wed Jul 19, 01:39:00 AM:
Americans owe a lot to the Israelis because right now this small country is bearing the brunt of a war that we should also be fighting.
As an American, I dance in the street when the Israelis bomb the hell out of the stinking, scum-sucking Iranian proxies. I dance in the street looking forward to the USAF bombing and strafing Tehran.
Three cheers to Israel!!
By Dennis Lyda, at
Fri Jul 28, 09:05:00 AM:
You can banter all manner of rhetoric about, but one indisputable fact emerges: The US government is supplying radio-active cluster bombs and bunkerbusters which have as their purpose the indescriminate slaughter of innocent civilians.
