Right Wing Nut House

Join me this morning from 7:00 AM - 9:00 AM Central Time for The Rick Moran Show on Wideawakes Radio.

Today, we’ll look at Israel’s predicament as well as the almost surreal unreality that surrounds American diplomacy as it relates to both Iraq and Israel. Don’t miss this show - it will be an eye opener!

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The ancients firmly believed in destiny, that fates ruled the affairs of men. These fates, or Moirai, were the daughters of the Goddess of Necessity Themis and spun the thread of an individuals life so that events played themselves out along a predestined string. This placed the hapless mortal in the position of being pulled this way and that by the Gods with no chance of doing anything to affect what happened to him.

In this framework, all the large events of history were explained by a kind of predetermination, unmovable historical forces where man was the captive of events, riding the waves of time unable to change direction while taking part in the drama of history for the amusement of the Gods.

We know better today, of course. Or at least we should. Instead, it appears that the Moirai are alive and well and comfortably ensconced in the editorial offices of the New York Magazine, playing havoc with rational thought and being joined in their revelry by the more modern gods of revisionism and political partisanship.

What makes my critique of their series of “essays” about a world where 9/11 never happened so spiteful is first and foremost the utter waste of a brilliant idea. It is a travesty that such an exciting concept was treated by the participants with a kind of bored cynicism more appropriate to a review of the newest Manhattan Bistro rather than a serious attempt to add anything of value to our cultural understanding of 9/11. In fact, whether by design or not, the only participant in the project who spent more than 5 minutes thinking about the premise was Andrew Sullivan.

Mr. Sullivan should be commended for his effort but skewered for his laughably shallow extrapolation of what a 9/11-less Bush presidency would have been. Indeed, this intellectual conceit appears to have taken on the morphology of a vicious, extraordinarily voracious bug in that it seems to have bitten almost every essayist involved in the project. The exception being author Tom Wolfe who either didn’t understand the directions given to him by the editors or simply gave up on the project and wrote whatever meandering thoughts on our post-9/11 culture that happened to be ready for transfer from mind to pen to paper.

In truth, it is shocking to read some of the reveries by people who are generally considered to be our cultural elites. Perhaps the format - a short essay (and I mean in some cases short!) encompassing thoughts on the subject from the perspective of their interest or expertise - did not lend itself to the kind of serious effort that would have illuminated some larger truths about where we are as a people 5 years after 9/11.

The question I would have then is why bother? Even the historians Doris Kearns-Goodwin and Douglas Brinkley gave responses so banal that they may have been rejected by a high school newspaper. Al Sharpeton’s contribution is incoherent. Frank Rich, who actually made a slight effort to address the question, came up with some pretty off the wall scenarios either trying to be amusing or proving that he’s simply daft.

There are some themes that seem to run through the majority of pieces. George Bush would have been a one term President. We would have continued to sleepwalk through history awaiting a hammer blow by Osama. Saddam would still be in a cage and presumably, children would still be flying kites in his paradise prison camp. Liberals are good, Conservatives are bad.

Am I missing anything? Oh yes, New York is a great town with great people. And, in the strangest of all the essays, the Deputy Mayor of Economic Development and Rebuilding Dan Doctoroff sees 9/11 if not as a godsend then as a fortunate happenstance of history in that all of his pet redevelopment projects for Lower Manhattan that had been languishing in bureaucratic limbo all these years got a serious boost when the yokels in Washington opened the money spigot and billions of dollars began to make their way into the bowels of his bureaucracy.

Always nice when someone can see the silver lining in just about anything.

By far the most egregious sin committed by all the essayists (with a couple of exceptions) was this almost surreal failure to grasp the larger forces of history at work between 2001-2006 of which 9/11 was a symptom and of which George Bush was positioned to manage better than any alternative personality on the political scene. While most of the essayists posited that Bush would have stuck with a domestic agenda and given the issue of terrorism short shrift, it seems obvious that he would not have been vouchsafed the choice.

If, as seems likely, Osama Bin Laden would have attacked us somewhere in the world if 9/11 had failed, the idea that Bush would have continued to ignore terrorism as a threat is belied by the testimony of Condi Rice before the 9/11 Commission. Rice related how Bush was sick of the United States “swatting flies” when it came to striking back at terrorism. An attack on Americans overseas would have initiated a confrontation with Bin Laden in Afghanistan that almost certainly would have involved regime change. In this alternate scenario, Bush emerges as a wartime leader and the 2004 election goes ahead as a battle between Bush and the man the Democrats nominate to counter Bush’s national security credentials; none other than John Kerry.

The point is that you can muck around with history all you want, play virtual history games to your hearts content, but there are larger trends at work that defy any change of direction as the result of one event. In this respect, even a cataclysm like 9/11 only ripples the pond a bit. I believe that going after Osama and Saddam were historical necessities that 9/11 made even more logical. Regardless of how both those military adventures turn out, they were the right choices at the time.

It is tempting to believe that the world would be a much quieter place without George Bush and 9/11. But it seems clear - and is even admitted by some of the essayists - that the forces of Islamic radicalism were not going to leave us alone regardless of who was in the White House or what party controlled Congress. The same Hizbullah that attacked Israel didn’t need George Bush to build up its strength over the years and lie in wait for the right opportunity to strike. The victory at the polls by Hamas was not the result of anything that the United States could have done differently. And the mullahs in Iran, hell bent on getting their hands on nuclear weapons, paid more attention to A.Q. Khan and his black market nuclear bazaar than to anything happening in the United States.

This strange obeisance to the fates when liberals talk and write about George Bush is one of the strangest outgrowths of Bush Derangement Syndrome. As if the thread of the Bush presidency could have been glimpsed 6 years ago and that everything that has happened since - including 9/11 - was predictable. Dahlia Lithwick of Slate.com uses this theme to show how evil George would have pushed through draconian law and order measures regardless of whether or not 9/11 happened. Tom Friedman writes if not Osama, it would have been China as Bush’s “obsession.”

I suppose this attitude is inevitable given the dangerous and frightening times we live in. But to have so much of it appear in one place and defined by so many people who should know better makes it all the more mystifying.

GLENN REYNOLDS SAYS: I’D RATHER LINK TO ANDREW SULLIVAN THAN THIS DORK.

Sometime early this evening, my sitemeter will turn over and register the one millionth visitor to enter The House.

Thems a lot of right wing nuts.

Of course, many of you are nothing of the sort. Some of you are spambots. Some of you are lefties. And when I can figure out the difference, I’ll let you know.

Come to think of it…there really isn’t that much difference between them. Both are annoying. Both are full of gibberish. And both make grandiose claims without supplying a shred of proof. I suppose one could detect a difference between a spam trackback that promises me a satisfying sexual experience with a young, nubile golden haired woman covered from head to toe in olive oil and a comment by some liberal about Shrub. But you’d have to look real hard and suspend belief equally between the two.

(C’Mon fellas. You had to expect a little dig in honor of this milestone. You know I really don’t mean everything I say about liberals.)

In all seriousness, I am in awe. There are so many people who have helped along the way with advice and encouragement that I know if I start a long list, I will forget some important people.

Let me just say that without my blogmama Cao and all my friends at Wideawakes Blog and now Wideawakes Radio, I never would have gotten into blogging in the first place.

Pat Curley was the one of the first bloggers to link to me and put me on the Kerryhaters blogroll.

The Watcher honored me by picking me for the prestigious Watchers Council whose alumni include some of the best bloggers around. The Council has given my writing a wide distribution among other bloggers and allowed me the privilege of making friends with bloggers like Dymphna and Dave Schuler.

Tom Lifson at American Thinker has been a friend as well as being very supportive of my writing by editing and publishing my articles in his E-Zine.

The Commissar has been enormously helpful and has shared his love and fascination of science with me on more than one occasion.

Scott Johnson at Powerline has linked me many times and offered his advice and encouragement with a generous spirit.

Ed Morrissey - a true Christian gentleman - has been a supporter of this blog almost from the beginning. I’m not the only one who has found inspiration at Captains Quarters.

Allahpundit is another long time supporter of this site whose good humor and generosity is always much appreciated.

Michelle Malkin has always taken the time to read anything I’ve sent her and has been generous in her support of this site.

To those I’ve mentioned and those I haven’t, thanks from the bottom of my heart for everything you do to make blogging so much fun and fulfilling.

Join me this morning from 7:00 AM - 9:00 AM Central Time for The Rick Moran Show on Wideawakes Radio.

Today I’ll be all over the map - The war on terror, the Middle East, Iran, blogs, and anything else I can think of. Be prepared for anything!

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When I first read this, I wasn’t sure whether the government of Lebanon was being serious or whether Prime Minister Siniora was starting a second career as a stand up comic:

Hizbullah will not hand over its weapons to the Lebanese government but rather refrain from exhibiting them publicly, according to a new compromise that is reportedly brewing between Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Seniora and Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

The UN cease-fire resolution specifically demands the demilitarization of the area south of the Litani river. The resolution was approved by the Lebanese cabinet.

In a televised address on Monday night, Nasrallah declared that now was not the time to debate the disarmament of his guerrilla fighters, saying the issue should be done in secret sessions of the government to avoid serving Israeli interests.

“Refrain from exhibiting” their weapons? What the hell does Siniora think this is? Some kind of modern art show where the prima donna artist needs to be coaxed into cooperating?

This is farce. And if the United Nations lets Lebanon get away with this transparent attempt to circumvent Resolution 1701, then only the most willfully self deluded lefty popinjay could possibly find any continued usefulness for this miserable excuse of a world body.

Of course, Israel won’t let Hizbullah get away with this nonsense which means a resumption of hostilities. And I would not be surprised to see the UN twist itself into logic knots trying to blame the Jewish state for its attempt to enforce the UN’s own resolution. Lebanon is trying, we’ll be told. All that is needed is a little more negotiation, a little more rope that they can hang us with. I’m sure we can come up with a better fig leaf than this. Perhaps we can put a sign up at the Israeli-Lebanese border “Pay no attention to those weapons behind the curtain.”

Or maybe we can alter Hizbullah’s designation from “terrorist militia” to something more catchy, like:

“Nasty Nasrallah and his Travelling Band of Prestidigitators and Puppeteers.
Featuring the World Famous Disappearing Weapons Trick!
Now You See ‘Em. Now you Don’t!.
Out of Sight! Out of Mind!
Performed Before all the Cracked Heads of Europe!

The irrelevancy and impotence of the United Nations in the face of Islamic fanaticism embodied in groups like Hizbullah and Hamas and countries like Iran should be obvious to even the most doe-eyed, peace-at-any-cost, why-can’t-we-all-just-get-along liberal loon out there. And to ask any country caught in Islamisms crosshairs to rely on the world body to protect it or to depend on it to somehow moderate the fanatic’s pernicious effects on human civilization is stupidity.

There is nothing new in Resolution 1701 as it relates to Hizbullah’s disarmament or the necessity of having the terrorist group allow the Lebanese government full sovereignty over its own territory. The very same strictures against Hizbullah were contained in UN Resolution 1559 passed in 2004. One wonders if Hizbullah fails to abide by this latest resolution if another will be forthcoming. And then another. And another, and another until the paper piles up so high that perhaps the UN expects to bury the terrorists under wads and wads of useless, pious, platitudinous, peace loving compositions better used to wipe one’s bum than try and rein in the murderous thugs who mock them.

Not all politicians in Lebanon have lost their courage:

Lebanon’s industry minister, Pierre Jemayel, a member of a majority anti-Syrian bloc in parliament, told Al-Siyassah daily, “Hizbullah has to deliver its weapons to the Lebanese army, and its light weapons to the police.”

“Its fighters are welcome to join the military force and the state will then quickly regain control of all Lebanese territories.”

“I’m not telling Hizbullah to surrender its weapons to Israel, or to the international community,” Jemayel told the daily. “(I am telling it) to surrender them to the Lebanese army.”

A reasonable request from a reasonable man. Unfortunately, the time for reason may have passed in Lebanon.

In fact, it may be time for the Lebanese democrats, those brave souls who poured into the streets last spring in order to take their country back, to carefully re-examine the question of whether or not they really want to be a free and independent state. How badly do they want it? Is it worth fighting for? Worth dying for?

Of course this would mean civil war. And it would be impossible to keep outside actors from the fray so that Syria, Iran, Israel, and the United States would all be meddling by supplying weapons to the various militias. But the meddling will occur whether or not there is civil war anyway. The question is could the same coalition that came together last March 14th of Christians, Druse, Sunnis, and secular Shias unite in arms to throw Hizbullah into the sea? This would be a different line-up of forces than the faction-ridden bloodletting of the 1975-90 conflict. It would be a war for Lebanon’s soul.

I don’t expect it. And I can certainly understand why so many would be reluctant to even entertain the idea. Of course, Hizbullah takes advantage of this. They are perfectly willing to fight anyone - including their own countrymen - for their goal of establishing another outpost of radical Islam modeled after their patrons in Iran. And realizing the reluctance of the state to enforce its will and sovereignty over the whole country not to mention Siniora’s fear of provoking the terrorists into battling his weak and ineffective government in the streets, Hizbullah can act with impunity in Lebanon, secure in the knowledge that since no one wants another civil war, they can do as they please.

In the meantime, the US frets, Israel smolders, and the UN dithers. Round Two of this war may be coming sooner than anyone thinks.

Shmuel Rosner, Chief US Correspondent for Haaretz took a shot at listing the winners and losers in the war, both nations and people. Never one to think of an original idea when a perfectly good thought is sitting right in front of me begging to be stolen, I have taken the liberty of coming up with my own list of victors and vanquished. Or, if not vanquished, certainly on the ropes.

Give the precarious nature of the cease fire, the ratings on this list may change drastically if hostilities start up again, especially before any meaningful international presence augmenting the UNIFIL force shows up. But as it stands now, here are my thoughts. I have tried to rank the participants with the biggest winners first tailing off to the biggest losers last.

WINNERS

HIZBULLAH

Pathetically, Hizbullah will be seen as a winner despite the fact that they lost 10 fighters for every IDF soldier killed, their infrastructure is a mess, and they’ve been kicked out of their base in southern Lebanon, at least for a while.

Why in Gods name are they a winner then?

The J-Post reports “At least 50 newborn babies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been named after Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah over the past month, sources in the Palestinian Authority Health Ministry told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.”

It makes you wonder how many babies in Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria, and other Arab countries are also being named for the terrorist leader. And it isn’t just the personality of Nasrallah that excites the Arabs so much. Hizbullah is seen as the most successful Arab army in nearly 1000 years. Young Egyptians marched in Cairo on Saturday waving the Hizbullah flag and carrying pictures of Saladin, the last great Arab conquerer.

It matters not to the Arabs that Hizbullah launched more than 3500 rockets into Israeli towns and villages attempting to murder as many innocents as possible. What matters is that their fighters didn’t run away and that they killed Israelis. All of the above plus it appears that no one is going to be able to disarm them. In the Arab world, that is enough to make Hizbullah the biggest winner in the war.

IRAN

Finishing a close second are the Iranians who may or may not have started the war but who certainly exploited every propaganda opportunity the conflict offered while making it clear that Hizbullah and Iran are joined at the hip. Their prestige and that of their President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have been enhanced enormously. Despite the fact that most Arabs hate the Iranians, what makes the Iranian victory so worrisome is that the differences between Arabs and Persians seems to have been subsumed by the recognition that Iran’s sponsorship of Hizbullah is the major reason for this victory. Haaretz’ Yoel Marcus said it best: “Neither a political accord nor a military victory will change the situation as long as Iran is around, controlling the height of the flames.”

In effect, Iran has emerged as Terrorist Central - not just for Shia terrorism but for most of the rest of the Muslim world as well. And no, they were not quite there before the war. But you can now expect every Israeli and American hating jihadist from the West Bank to Indonesia showing up at Iran’s door looking for assistance. And given that the mullahs are awash in petrodollars at the moment, they will be only too happy to oblige.

SYRIA

Not quite as big a winner as some others, Syria nevertheless got a shot of much needed prestige for backing Hizbullah.

Humiliated following their retreat from Lebanon and isolated internationally as a result of their suspected complicity in the assassination of ex-Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri of Lebanon, President Assad emerged as a player in the Arab world because the UN came to him hat in hand asking for his help with Hizbullah. His role may not have been decisive, but expect the United States to start talking with Syria again very soon in order to see if they can pry Assad away from the Iranian apron strings he’s attached to.

Assad may be willing given the uneasy nature of his relationship with the radical Shias in Iran. His secular Baathists (Sunni) were forced into this marriage of convenience as a result of a process of elimination. There simply wasn’t anyone else to align Syria with to counter the American military sitting next door in Iraq. Talking to Assad may be a winning strategy for both Assad and the United States.

HASSAN NASRALLAH

As many people in Lebanon who look upon him with pride, there are probably almost as many who wish to see him humbled. This doesn’t mean that the Israelis come up smelling like roses, not by a long shot. But Nasrallah’s personal popularity probably didn’t increase very much. And in some quarters, he is now seen as a legitimate threat to the fragile democratic process that has been set back as result of this war.

As the dust settles in Lebanon, there may be a lot of bitterness directed towards Nasrallah by the March 14th Forces. And if the Hizbullah leader starts to throw his weight around by maneuvering for power, there is a chance that the Christians especially would take up arms against him.

Nasrallah is a winner outside of Lebanon but could end up being a loser inside his own country. If he doesn’t abide by the cease fire and refuses to disarm, it could precipitate a crisis in both the government and the streets. In that event, he would be a sure loser.

UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL

Who woulda thunk it? If the cease fire holds, there will be much self congratulation and back patting among the world elites who will be able to point to this betrayal of Israel as a singular moment of success in UN history.

The fact that everyone over the age of three who knows better will have to listen to this drivel sickens me. And the fact that the cease fire makes it that much harder to deposit this international outpost of anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism on the garbage heap of history will be seen by historians as another indication of the myopia and pure cynicism of the people of the world in this epoch.

That is, unless the historians are radical, fundamentalist Muslims in which case the UN will be lionized for their foresight and courage.

THE ARAB LEAGUE

The who? That’s right, the Arab League comes out a winner in this conflict thanks to the French. The League’s Foreign Ministers came to New York last week and showed France the way to stick it to the Americans. The French abandoned the idea for an independent international force with rules of engagement that would have allowed them to disarm Hizbullah which France was on the verge of agreeing to last weekend for the current plan that adds 15,000 toy soldiers to UNIFIL supplemented by the Lebanese “army.” This will insure that Hizbullah is not disarmed and will be able to resume their attacks on Israel at any time.

The fact that the League was able to find its way to New York probably makes it a winner alone. But by playing messenger for Hizbullah and then having France accede to most of the terrorists demands, the Arab League comes out looking pretty good.

LOSERS

GEORGE BUSH

I may have a little different take on how Bush comes out of this than most others but to my mind, the President’s rating here should almost be a “push.”

In the end, he caved in and aligned the United States with what I consider to be a betrayal of the interests of Israel. But I think that was a direct result of his standing fast for 30 days while the entire world ganged up on the United States. By giving Israel a green light for a month, the President lost a lot of influence that we could have wielded at the United Nations. In the end, France abandoned us as did the Arab world (despite their own misgivings about Hizbullah).

Some will ascribe it to stubbornness, but I think it took courage to run interference for an ally as long as he did. For that alone, I hate to put him on the losing side but feel I must as result of what happened in the Security Council.

FOUD SINIORA

The Lebanese Prime Minister is a clear loser although he doesn’t come out as badly as some other Lebanese politicians whose days on this earth may be numbered for coming out strongly against Hizbullah for starting the war. He generally got high marks from the Lebanese people for leadership in a poll taken last week. And his appeal to the Arab League for diplomatic assistance did some good.

But his utter weakness in the face of Hizbullah will hurt him in the long run. In fact, his days as Prime Minister may be numbered if Nasrallah has anything to say about it. In the end, Siniora was reduced to being Nasrallah’s messenger boy, giving the terrorist veto power over any cease fire proposals.

CONDI RICE

By some accounts, Rice was a hindrance to the Israeli war effort. She apparently insisted on the temporary truce following the Qana tragedy and reportedly advised against any massive incursion by the IDF into southern Lebanon. For this, she was widely criticized in the Administration; so much so that her deputy handled the shuttle diplomacy between Beirut and Tel Aviv following Qana and she was marginalized to the point of being banished to the UN to work on the cease fire resolution.

We know how that turned out.

Rice lost prestige in the Administration because she has temporarily lost the trust of the President. And that makes her a big loser.

IDF

If you’re talking about the individual and small group performance of the Israeli army, no blame can befall them. But if you want a loser in this war, look no further than Chief of Staff Dan Halutz.

Very late in the game, when it was apparent that there would be post war inquiries regarding the sub-par performance of the army, Halutz cynically sent his Deputy to replace Northern Commander Udi Adam which scrambled his command and made Adam and his staff livid. They felt that Halutz was trying to deflect criticism from himself.

The first IAF man to be Chief of Staff, his reliance on air power to take out the rocket launchers that were pounding northern Israel proved in the end to be a colossal blunder. And He apparently failed to pass along General Adam’s plan for an offensive in the middle of July that was eventually used just prior to the cease fire.

He will not survive in his position much longer.

EHUD OLMERT

Olmert was the anti-Midas in this war; everything he touched turned to crap. He was timid, indecisive, and squandered the overwhelming support given to him by the Israeli people with his hesitant prosecution of the war. Everything he did, he did late. From initiating ground operations to calling up reserves, he was always one step behind. And in the meantime, he left his friend George Bush swinging in the international wind, bearing the brunt of his incompetence.

Olmert may survive only because there is no real apparent successor. But if the post war inquiries by the Knesset reveal more stupidity, Kadima may have no choice but to replace him. Or, there’s an outside chance new elections may be called in which case he would almost certainly be supplanted as party leader.

UNITED STATES

Finishing third as the biggest loser in the war is the United States. Thanks to Israel’s inexplicable lethargy in prosecuting the war, our influence and prestige dribbled away week by week until our only choice in the end was to capitulate to the French and Arabs at the United Nations while trying to change the cease fire resolution at the margins. In this, we were only successful in preventing the UN from ordering a humiliating retreat by the Israelis from Lebanon.

ISRAEL

Is Israel any safer than it was a month ago? Is their prestige enhanced? Were they successful in achieving any of their war aims? (It remains to be seen how long Hizbullah is prevented from moving back into their positions in southern Lebanon). Was Hizbullah disarmed? Is there the prospect that anyone will do so? Did they eliminate or even seriously degrade the ability of Hizbullah to fire rockets into northern Israel? Did they get their captured soldiers back?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, I’ve got some good bottom land in Florida you might be interested in buying.

LEBANON

Their country is in ruins. Their politics a mess. The government is being held hostage by a terrorist fanatic who could lead them back into war at any moment (or initiate another ruinous civil war). Their army is a joke. They are being pulled every which way from Sunday by Iran, Syria, the west, the Israelis, and the Arabs. And their prospects for the future are bleak.

I would say that makes Lebanon the biggest loser of all - unless you count those dwindling numbers of us who still believe that defeating Islamism is the most important task facing civilization today.

Anything that makes the terrorists stronger and the rest of us weaker is a huge loss. And at this moment, it’s hard to see where a victory in this war will be coming from.

UPDATE

Karol Sheinin (blogging at Malkins while Michelle is on vacation)can be put in the “gloom” column about the outcome of the war:

It’s interesting to apply this lesson to the Iraq war: if we leave too early, without finishing the job, and the country is once again turned over to thugs and terrorists, how can we tell the families of dead American soldiers that they fought with good reason, that their sacrifice was not in vain, that the cause was noble, but we just couldn’t stomach seeing it through to completion?

Was Osama right? Do we not have the stomach for taking on he and his fanatical cohorts for the long haul?

I can’t believe that. I don’t want to believe it.

But is it true?

Join me this morning from 7:00 AM - 9:00 AM Central Time for The Rick Moran Show on Wideawakes Radio.

Today we’ll look at winners and losers in the Israeli-Islamist war as well as get a glimpse of post war politics in Israel. We’ll also discuss the fallout from Reutersgate and how the mainstream media is responding.

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Is Nasrallah about to pull Prime Minister Olmert’s chestnuts from the fire? Or is he angling to bring down the Lebanese government?

If this report in the J-Post is true, Nasrallah may be making a huge mistake:

A critical Lebanese Cabinet meeting set for Sunday to discuss implementation of the cease-fire between Israel and Hizbullah was postponed, a move that was likely to delay the dispatch of the Lebanese army to the south and an end of the fighting.

A top aide to Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said the meeting had been indefinitely postponed but would give no reason. Published reports said the Cabinet, which approved the cease-fire unanimously Saturday night, had been sharply divided over demands in the cease-fire agreement that Hizbullah surrender its weapons in south Lebanon.

That disagreement was believed to have caused the postponement of the Sunday meeting that was to have taken up the dispatch of some 15,000 troops to the south.

It was always thought that Nasrallah would be able to finesse any stipulation to disarm. And in fact, the cease fire resolution left the question of Hizbullah disarmament for a later date, to be discussed with Israel in the context of a far ranging agreement with the government of Lebanon over a host of issues including prisoner exchange and the Shebaa Farms question.

My own opinion that this tactic by Nasrallah is his first post-war move in what is sure to be a contentious period of domestic Lebanese politics. I would not be surprised if in the next few hours, the 5 Shia ministers in Siniora’s cabinet resign. That would effectively bring down his government although he will probably be given an opportunity to form another one. The Prime Minister will find this very difficult because for all intents and purposes, the entire Shia block is under the control of Nasrallah.

Could Nasrallah manuever himself into a position of greater power as a result of the fall of the Siniora government? There is no major office open to him due to the power sharing arrangements mandated by the constitution. The Prime Minister’s office is reserved for Sunnis so it is extremely doubtful that Nasrallah would be given that office. However, he could very well put himself in the position of being a kingmaker, with ultimate veto power over any cabinet ministers named by Siniora. Needless to say, this would make Hizbullah disarmament even more remote.

Ed Morrissey thinks that Olmert manipulated the cease fire deliberately:

Does anyone not believe that this crisis has been precipitated by Hezbollah’s refusal to leave southern Lebanon and disarm? The cease-fire proposal put the onus on them to cease their attacks on Israel and to dismantle their military wing. I warned earlier that such a requirement would eliminate the need for Hezbollah at all; their entire raison d’etre for the Lebanese people has been as a shield against the Israelis. If the Lebanese Army took that function away from them, they just become another terrorist militia, a construct of which the Lebanese have rightly tired.

Nasrallah knew this. He signaled his approval yesterday of the cease-fire but objected to the arms embargo and the disarming of his organization. Perhaps he thought the Israelis would reject it, but when the Israeli Cabinet adopted it unanimously, it looks like Nasrallah had his bluff called.

This is certainly a valid analysis although as I pointed out, there is no immediate requirement in the cease fire agreement for Hizbullah to disarm. And I also think Ed is ascribing too much wit and wisdom to Olmert who has stumbled his way through this war. Only now has the IDF begun to make good progress against Hiz positions in the south. I think Olmert was taking the best deal he thought he could get and that the kind of subtlety Ed is crediting to Olmert doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

As I have written many times over the past month, in a military sense, Israel has smashed Hizbullah. This summation by IDF spokesman Daniel Oren speaking to Michael Totten is a partial accounting:

“Look at Nasrallah today,” Michael said. “In 2000 he did his victory dance in Bint Jbail. He can’t do that this time. His command and control south of Beirut is completely gone. We killed 550 Hezbollah fighters south of the Litani out of an active force of 1250. Nasrallah claimed South Lebanon would be the graveyard of the IDF. But we only lost one tenth of one percent of our soldiers in South Lebanon. The only thing that went according to his plan was their ability to keep firing rockets. If he has enough victories like this one, he’s dead.”

Nasrallah should have studied his Sun Tzu:

Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across.

If he doesn’t stop fighting tomorrow, he will have given Olmert at least a partial victory what with the IDF overrunning the south. Every day that the Israelis fight on makes him weaker. And anything that makes him weaker destroys his invincibility mystique.

The next 48 hours should be very interesting…

“Hold fast to dreams. For if dreams die. Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly.”
(James Langston Hughes)

The resolution passed by the United Nations mandating a cease fire between Israel and the terrorists of Hizbullah was approved unanimously by the Lebanese cabinet yesterday with “reservations:”

Lebanon’s Cabinet late Saturday unanimously accepted the UN cease-fire plan to halt fighting between Israel and Hizbullah fighters, moving the deal a step closer to implementation, the prime minister said.

“It was a unanimous decision, with some reservations,” Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said in announcing Lebanon’s acceptance of the resolution after a four-hour Cabinet meeting.

Hizbullah’s Mohammed Fneish, minister of hydraulic resources, said the two Hizbullah members expressed reservations, particularly over an article in the resolution that “gives the impression that it exonerates Israel of responsibility for the crimes” and blames Hizbullah for the month-long war.

“We will deal with the requirements of the resolution with realism in a way that serves the national interest.”

Will they? Will Hizbullah “serve the national interest?” Or do they have something more sinister in mind?

“We believe that the resolution that was taken last night was unfair,” Nasrallah said. “But if there is an agreement on the cessation of hostilities between the Lebanese government and the enemy, we will observe it without delay.”

He said that Hizbullah would support any decision by the Lebanese government to end the war. “We will not be an obstacle to any decision that it finds appropriate, but our ministers will express reservations about articles that we consider unjust and unfair,” he said.

Nasrallah also expressed his support for plans to deploy Lebanese army and additional UNIFIL troops in southern Lebanon. “Regardless of our reservations and political positions, we will cooperate when the Lebanese soldiers and UNIFIL forces are deployed,” he said.

Nasrallah described the decision to dispatch Lebanese soldiers to the south of the country as an “achievement” for Hizbullah and Lebanon, saying it resulted from the steadfastness of the Lebanese people and the “heroes” of his organization.

Nasrallah is pushing himself away from the table and will be able to carry off most of his winnings thanks to the inexplicable timidity of the Israelis and the myopia of the Security Council. If his only reservation to the cease fire is that he is uncomfortable with the idea of being blamed for the war in the first place, he has indeed won a great triumph.

The question on the minds of most Lebanese today is what he will do with this victory. Nasrallah demonstrated by starting the conflict that he not the government controlled the destiny of Lebanon. Indeed, treating Prime Minister Siniora like an errand boy, a middleman in negotiations with the UN, the Hizbullah leader demonstrated that he had veto power over any and all decisions made by the Lebanese cabinet having to do with the cease fire.

He forbade the Prime Minister from accepting any cease fire that would have placed an independent foreign force on Lebanese soil, seeing quite rightly the potential that such a force could force him to accept the stipulations in Resolution 1559 that called for the disarmament of the terrorists and the loss of his autonomy in the south.

Instead, he got exactly what he wished for; an augmented UNIFIL force along with the Hizbullah-friendly and incompetent Lebanese army standing between he and Israel. Nasrallah correctly believes that such a force will not be able to keep him from returning to his bases in the south, much less “disarm” him in any meaningful way. In a few months, he will be able to marginalize this force as easily as he intimidated UNIFIL. At that point, his victory will be complete.

Meanwhile, Lebanon bleeds:

Lebanon today lies ravaged, its inhabitants suffering the consequences of Hezbollah’s hubris and Israel’s terrible, wanton retribution. Since July 12, when party militants abducted two Israeli soldiers and killed three on the Israeli side of the border, Lebanon has been under a virtually complete Israeli blockade. At the time of writing, nearly 1,000 people have been killed, mostly civilians. Predominantly Shiite areas in the south, Beirut’s southern suburbs and the northern Bekaa Valley have been turned into wastelands; Beirut seems empty. Businesses, when they do open, close early; store owners have cleared out their showrooms. The mood is one of ambient disintegration. Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of refugees have moved into the capital, even as many of its residents have headed for the mountains. The economy, already precarious before the conflict started, lies in shambles, as does public confidence in the country’s future.

Michael Young is opinion editor at the Daily Star of Lebanon. His piece quoted above in the New York Times Magazine is an absolute must-read if you wish to understand the history of Hizbullah and the cultural and political reasons it plays such a large role in Lebanese society.

The post war situation in Lebanon looks bleak. Nasrallah ascendant, a massive rebuilding task facing the government, continued Syrian and Iranian meddling that led to the war in the first place, and the unthinkable prospect that once again the factions will take up arms and engage in a ruinous civil war.

The dream of a stable, prosperous, and free Lebanon embodied in the ideas of the “Cedar Revolution” are now shattered, its promises broken on the jagged shoals of cynicism and self interest. It is hard to see how the Lebanese democrats can retrieve the situation given the growing influence of Hizbullah in the councils of government. Because Nasrallah’s men still have their guns and with little or no prospect that anyone will be able to take them away, there is the real possibility that the Hizbullah leader will be able to hold the government hostage indefinitely.

Michael Young sees some signs for hope:

[The] starting point is the assumption that Lebanon really must be governed through mutual concessions and dialogue. Amid the general sectarianism, this may sound absurd. The ideal of Lebanon as a mosaic of separate but collaborating communities has been shattered so many times that it is difficult even to know what collaboration might mean. But it is also true that grounds for hope exist. Over the past half-century, the once-marginalized Shiites have steadily integrated themselves into Lebanese politics and society. While Shiites today largely accept Hezbollah’s claim to be their representative and protector, in the future new forms of Shiite politics and expression may emerge — must emerge.

Even before the war, the cynicism of factionalism reared its ugly head on more than one occasion. As far back as the parliamentary elections last year, Druse leader Walid Jumblatt actually aligned his party with several pro-Syrian politicians in order to counter the strength of Christian leader and former anti-Syrian Prime Minister Michel Aoun. This angered some of his allies in the revolution, especially in Saad Hariri’s Future Party. Aoun himself then showed how cynical politics in Lebanon could get by signing a Memorandum of Understanding with Hizbullah about disarmament discussions taking place only in the context of the National Dialogue, a roundtable of Lebanese leaders charged with solving the thorniest problems in Lebanese society.

Aoun allowed his personal ambition to be President to override both his natural anti-Syrian inclinations as well as common sense. Making common cause with Hizbullah - a group who wishes to establish Lebanon as an Iranian style theocracy - seems the height of stupidity for a Christian Maronite like Aoun. But when Lebanon’s parliament was constituted, Aoun found himself on the “outs” with the largest bloc of democratic reformers. By allying himself with the second largest bloc in parliament - the Hizbullah-Amal alliance - he found a vessel for his ambitions.

So in a sense, when the war came along, the leaders of the revolution had already failed in many respects to unite in a meaningful way in order to take on Hizbullah and re-establish Lebanese sovereignty over the entire country. They are now paying for their disunity and weakness. Michael Young explains:

Meanwhile, Siniora also had to handle relations with Hezbollah. Five of the ministers in his cabinet were Shiites, either members of Hezbollah and Amal or named by them. Members of the parliamentary majority affirmed their desire to see Hezbollah integrated into the armed forces and to see the state regain control over all the national territory — meaning Hezbollah must no longer rule over the border with Israel. But desiring Hezbollah’s disarmament was one thing; achieving it, another. When it came to such matters, the parliamentary majority was reluctant to act like a majority. Hariri was especially diffident, probably because his Saudi sponsors advised him to avoid precipitating any Sunni-Shiite showdown that might boomerang in the kingdom. But the chief obstacle, of course, was Hezbollah itself. The militia realized that without its weapons, it would lose its reason to exist as a militant movement, lose its élan and lose its value to Syria — as well as its ties to its main financier and advocate, Iran.

I have pointed out on numerous occasions that Nasrallah simply cannot afford to give up his guns. Without them, he is head of a minority party in a secular government, not a good jumping off position to precipitate his Islamic revolution.

With no one willing to disarm him, Nasrallah could be emboldened to strike back at the Christians, Druse, and Sunnis who heaped criticism on he and his group at the outset of hostilities with Israel. In an interview with al-Jazeera that went largely unnoticed in the west but which sent chills down the spines of several Lebanese politicians, Nasrallah threatened payback against those who didn’t support him:

As the violence continues, retribution is in the air. Israel has focused its attacks on Shiites, leaving Sunni, Christian and Druse areas (though not their long-term welfare) relatively intact. Amid all the destruction, many a representative of the March 14 movement has denounced Hezbollah’s ‘‘adventurism,’’ provoking Shiite resentment. As one Hezbollah combatant recently told The Guardian: ‘‘The real battle is after the end of this war. We will have to settle score with the Lebanese politicians. We also have the best security and intelligence apparatus in this country, and we can reach any of those people who are speaking against us now. Let’s finish with the Israelis, and then we will settle scores later.’’

This essentially repeated what Hassan Nasrallah told Al Jazeera in an interview broadcast a week after the conflict began: ‘‘If we succeed in achieving the victory . . . we will never forget all those who supported us at this stage. . . . As for those who sinned against us . . . those who made mistakes, those who let us down and those who conspired against us . . . this will be left for a day to settle accounts. We might be tolerant with them, and we might not.’’

It goes without saying that the assassination of Mr. Hariri, Mr. Jumblatt or other prominent politicians who opposed Nasrallah’s war could set off another round of sectarian blood letting:

Meanwhile, the country has sunk into deep depression, and countless Lebanese with the means to emigrate are thinking of doing so. The offspring of March 8 and March 14 are in the same boat, and yet still remain very much apart. The fault lines from the days of the Independence Intifada have hardened under Israel’s bombs. Given the present balance of forces, it is difficult to conceive of a resolution to the present fighting that would both satisfy the majority’s desire to disarm Hezbollah and satisfy Hezbollah’s resolve to defend Shiite gains and remain in the vanguard of the struggle against Israel. Something must give, and until the parliamentary majority and Hezbollah can reach a common vision of what Lebanon must become, the rot will set in further.

The continued powerlessness of the government in the face of Hizbullah’s brazen independence does not bode well for the future. And unless the sides are willing to fight it out once again in the streets, it seems unlikely that there will be any attempt to rein in Hizbullah and set a steady course for national reconciliation.

How far the politicians go to avoid a civil war will determine how much power Nasrallah will be able to exercise. And given the trauma the last conflict engendered, it would seem that the current government will go very far indeed before fighting the terrorists in their midst for control of the country.

The state of Israel awoke this morning to the realization that their world has suddenly become a lot more dangerous.

And that’s saying something. Given that their country is surrounded by enemies that wish to annihilate them, it is hard to imagine how their precarious situation could have gotten any worse. But the sad fact is that the forces representing anti-modernism, anti-Semitism, and genocide are in the ascendancy today over those who represent freedom, tolerance, and civilization.

Welcome to the new Middle East, a place where purposefully ordering the launching of thousands upon thousands of lethal rockets into towns and villages with the sole and exclusive goal of killing as many civilians as possible makes one a hero to the overwhelming majority of its people rather than a monster to be stoned in the street on sight. It is also a tactic that has been green lighted by the United Nations in that they have given these gleeful, murderous, rocketeers the opportunity to start their bombardment all over again just as soon as the international community loses interest and moves on to the next outrage that the world body also will be unable to do anything to stop.

A true United Nations, one that would live up to one tenth of the noble sentiments contained in its charter, would have voted to join with Israel to destroy Hizbullah. In fact, their actions have now enabled the terrorists to look forward to round two in their genocidal war against the Jews.

For make no mistake, this “cease fire” is nothing of the sort. It is a pause in Hizbullah’s undeclared war on the Jewish state that has been going on since Israel voluntarily left southern Lebanon in 2000. The aggression from Hizbullah didn’t start with their incursion into Israel’s territory on July 12. It has been going on for more than two years with nary a peep from this same international community that now seeks to dictate to Israel how it should best defend itself. Where was the outrage when Hizbullah carried out unprovoked attacks on IDF outposts? Where were the tears from these slobbering humanitarians when Hizbullah infiltrated suicide bombers across the border in order to kill Israeli children?

To those who truly wish for a just and peaceful international order, that kind of world just became much more remote with the shameful capitulation to the tactics of terror that the United States, the United Nations, and the rest of the international community agreed to in this cease fire resolution. It will come back to haunt all who worked for expediency over substance, all the while pretending that a “solution” to Hizbullah’s murderous designs on the Jewish state could be “negotiated” - as if the terrorists cared one whit about anything except their own survival as well as the killing of more Jews which is now guaranteed thanks to both the incompetence of Israeli leadership and the world’s timidity in the face of outright savagery.

The conduct of France in this affair has been one dizzying change of direction after another. Evidently, the French believed that if they kept churning their legs fast enough on the treadmill of international diplomacy, they would eventually get someplace. Beginning with a near agreement with the Americans on the need for a strong international force with a robust mandate to check and disarm Hizbullah, the French ended up groveling before the Sheiks of Araby by accepting their formulation of using an expanded United Nations force that has proven to be about as effective at stopping Hizbullah from attacking Israel as any United Nations force of its kind - which is to say it has failed utterly and completely.

In fact, I’m sure Hizbullah was overjoyed to hear that UNIFIL outposts would be augmented. It means they now have that many more locations to place their rocket launchers, safe and secure in the knowledge that no one will do anything to stop them from placing their Vergeltungswaffe next to locations that proudly fly the UN flag. (Funny thing about that flag. There don’t seem to be too many people willing to die for it although there is no lack of goons, thugs, and terrorists willing to use it for their own nefarious purposes. In that respect, it is something of an anti-flag.)

In this new Middle East, an emboldened Iran will be able to continue to thumb its nose at the international community as they go about the task of building their very own “Final Solution to the Jewish Question.” No need to bother with gas chambers and death camps this time around. Those crude instruments of mass extinction have been made obsolete both by science and the willful blindness of a world community that actually believes that if they pretend hard enough, ignore the extinguishing rhetoric emanating from Tehran, and blame Bush and the “Neo-Cons” in a loud enough voice, that the horror will either go away or only haunt them in their dreams and not be realized in the flesh.

Maybe they’ll be proven correct. Maybe Ahmadinejad is a rational actor and only wants to live in peace. Maybe all of his talk about the return of the 12th Imam is for domestic consumption. Maybe he really didn’t say that he’d “wipe Israel off the map” or that he didn’t really suggest transplanting the state of Israel onto European soil.

Maybe. Or maybe he means everything he says to the very core of his being in which case maybe someone should stop him before he carries out his threats.

But in order to stop Ahmadinejad, someone somewhere is going to have to stand up to his aggression. Israel tried and was slapped down for their effort. And since everyone knows that the only reason America would do anything to try and stop the Persians is to steal their oil, that leaves the fate of Israel and probably the world in the hands of those who preach “collective security” but in practice, carry out “collective surrender.”

Much has been made in conservative circles recently about events occurring now being reminiscent of events in the 1930’s and that mirror Hitler’s march to war. It is always problematic to try and graft one historical period onto another to glean “lessons from history” so that we don’t make the same mistakes again. I believe that kind of thinking dangerously simplistic and overwrought. Iran isn’t Nazi Germany. And America is not Great Britain or France. We see these parallels largely because of the nauseating anti-Semitism raising its ugly head not just in the Middle East but in Europe and America as well. That and the seeming paralysis of the world when confronted with the evil designs of evil men makes the simile an easy reach, almost a writer’s shorthand to explain it all in two paragraphs or less.

The differences between then and now are profound and obvious - so much so that I am not going to list them. But I would agree that the lessons from that time of world turmoil should never be forgotten regardless of whether there are historical connections to be made between the two epochs. Nations like Iran will not be deterred by diplomatic give and take. They will not be “contained” in any meaningful way by sanctions (especially the kind of sanctions being discussed at the UN Security Council).

They must be defeated. And by allowing their proxy Hizbullah to literally get away with terrorist murder, the UN has made the monumental mistake of legitimizing Hizbullah tactics while punishing Israel for exercising its right of self defense.

If there is a worse signal the world body has ever sent in its entire, miserable existence, I can’t think of one.