The war game (David Hirst's account of the Arab-Israeli conflict)

[IndianaGreen]

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The war game

David Hirst's account of the Arab-Israeli conflict, The Gun and the Olive Branch, caused a storm 25 years ago. In this edited extract from his new and updated edition he offers a personal and highly controversial view of the current crisis in the Middle East

Sunday September 21, 2003
The Observer

By the summer of 2002, George Bush had firmly set his new course: 'regime change' and reform in the Muslim and Arab worlds, and, where necessary, American military intervention to achieve it. Hitherto, it had been assumed that the US could not go to war in one of the two great zones of Middle East crisis - Iraq and the Gulf - before it had at least calmed things down in the other, older and more explosive one, Palestine. But the American administration's neo-conservatives had a very simple answer to that. The road to war on Iraq no longer lay through peace in Palestine; peace in Palestine lay through war on Baghdad.

It was all set forth, in its most comprehensive, well-nigh megalomaniac form, by Norman Podhoretz, the neo-cons' veteran intellectual luminary, in the September 2002 issue of his magazine, Commentary. Changes in regime, he proclaimed, were 'the sine qua non throughout the region'. They might 'clear a path to the long-overdue internal reform and modernisation of Islam'.

This was a full and final elaboration of that project, 'A Clean Break', which some of his kindred spirits had first laid before Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu back in 1996. It was the apotheosis of the 'strategic alliance', at least as much an Israeli grand design as an American one.

Under the guise of forcibly divesting Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction, the US now sought to 'reshape' the entire Middle East, with this most richly endowed and pivotal of countries as the lynchpin of a whole new, pro-American geopolitical order. Witnessing such an overwhelming display of American will and power, other regimes, such as Hizbollah-supporting Syria in particular, would either have to bend to American purposes or suffer the same fate.

http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,6761,1046646,00.html

[bemildred]

1. Good read.

He goes just a touch off the deep end here and there,
but the subject seems to make people do that somehow. Even
Mr. Van Creveld gets a bit hyperbolic.

Witnessing such an overwhelming display of American will
and power, other regimes, such as Hizbollah-supporting Syria
in particular, would either have to bend to American purposes
or suffer the same fate.

The most interesting question, to my mind, now is: What will be
the reaction of these states to seeing the US fall flat on it's
face in Iraq? In other words, if the display of will and power
is not up to snuff, what then?

[Equinox]

2. bemildred,

That question could could have catastrophic answers.

[bemildred]

4. That's why its the interesting one.

Catastrophic for who?
Things could be good for some, if we learn a bit of humility.

One can also see a renewed confidence in the less developed
nations in their dealings with the bullies, e.g. the WTO
collapse and the recent independence of judgement of our friends
in Latin America.

[Equinox]

3. Wow...

What a scary three paragraphs:

That would very likely be a time when Israel itself is already in dire peril. And if it were, then America would very likely discover something else: that the friend and ally it has succoured all these years is not only a colonial state, not only extremist by temperament, racist in practice, and increasingly fundamentalist in the ideology that drives it, it is also eminently capable of becoming an 'irrational' state at America's expense as well as its own.

The threatening of wild, irrational violence, in response to political pressure, has been an Israeli impulse from the very earliest days. It was first authoritatively documented, in the 1950s, by Moshe Sharett, the dovish Prime Minister, who wrote of his Defence Minister, Pinhas Lavon, that he 'constantly preached for acts of madness' or 'going crazy' if ever Israel were crossed. Without a 'just, comprehensive and lasting' peace which only America can bring to pass, Israel will remain at least as likely a candidate as Iran, and a far more enduring one, for the role of 'nuclear-crazy' state.

Iran can never be threatened in its very existence. Israel can. Indeed, such a threat could even grow out of the current intifada. That, at least, is the pessimistic opinion of Martin van Creveld, professor of military history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. 'If it went on much longer,' he said, 'the Israeli government lose control of the people. In campaigns like this, the anti-terror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing. I regard a total Israeli defeat as unavoidable. That will mean the collapse of the Israeli state and society. We'll destroy ourselves.'

[bemildred]

5. The "crazy guy" ploy isn't new.

It's been popular for a long time to keep unpopular leaders
in power, the USA has not been above using it now & then.

Mr. van Creveld is an interesting guy with interesting things
to say, far from the impacted, not to say constipated, and stylized
rhetoric that is most of what one sees on this subject.

A couple examples:

http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/stories/s511530.htm
http://www.counterpunch.org/creveld1116.html

And a longer deeper theoretical discussion:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1992/FKM.htm

This last one ties in with ideas one will find in Gwynne Dyer ("War")
and Johnathan Schell ("Unconquerable World") on why conventional
arms are becoming infeasible as a political instrument.

[Equinox]

6. Thanks, bmildred,

I just emailed those links to my work so when I get there, I'll have something to do!

:evilgrin:

[Muddleoftheroad]

7. Nuclear crazy?

So, Israel is supposed to be a potentially nuclear crazy state for wanting to protect itself against beging destroyed? Odd reasoning that.

[bemildred]

8. That isn't what it says.

It says that certain people have advocated that Israel ACT
crazy in order to intimidate its opponents, a variation on the
"iron wall" approach.

[Muddleoftheroad]

9. It says:

"Without a 'just, comprehensive and lasting' peace which only America can bring to pass, Israel will remain at least as likely a candidate as Iran, and a far more enduring one, for the role of 'nuclear-crazy' state."

My comment stands.

[bemildred]

10. What do you think the word "role" means?

And why is 'nuclear-crazy' in quotes?

More to the point, it doesn't say anything about Israel being
"nuclear crazy" for wanting to defend itself.

The entire paragraph:


The threatening of wild, irrational violence, in response to political
pressure, has been an Israeli impulse from the very earliest days.
It was first authoritatively documented, in the 1950s, by Moshe
Sharett, the dovish Prime Minister, who wrote of his Defence
Minister, Pinhas Lavon, that he 'constantly preached for acts of
madness' or 'going crazy' if ever Israel were crossed. Without a
'just, comprehensive and lasting' peace which only America can
bring to pass, Israel will remain at least as likely a candidate as
Iran, and a far more enduring one, for the role of 'nuclear-crazy'
state.