FDD

Is the Bush Doctrine Dead? (CM)

Not according to Norman Podhoretz, it isn't.

He writes:

So far as the implementation of this new strategy goes, it is still early days--roughly comparable to 1952 in the history of the Truman Doctrine. As with the Truman Doctrine then, the Bush Doctrine has thus far acted only in the first few scenes of the first act of a five-act play. Like the Truman Doctrine, too, its performance has received very bad reviews. Yet we now know that the Truman Doctrine, despite being attacked by its Republican opponents as the "College of Cowardly Containment," was adopted by them when they took power behind Dwight D. Eisenhower. We also know now that, after many ups and downs and following a period of retreat in the 1970s, the policy of containment was updated and reinvigorated in the 1980s by Ronald Reagan (albeit without admitting that this was what he was doing). And we now know as well that it was by thus building on the sound foundation laid by the Truman Doctrine that Reagan delivered on its original promise.

It is my contention that the Bush Doctrine is no more dead today than the Truman Doctrine was cowardly in its own early career. Bolstered by that analogy, I feel safe in predicting that, like the Truman Doctrine in 1952, the Bush Doctrine will prove irreversible by the time its author leaves the White House in 2008. And encouraged by the precedent of Ronald Reagan, I feel almost as confident in predicting that, three or four decades into the future, and after the inevitable missteps and reversals, there will come a president who, like Reagan in relation to Truman in World War III, will bring World War IV to a victorious end by building on the noble doctrine that George W. Bush promulgated when that war first began.

His Commentary essay is here.

For more notes & comments see this week's e-newsletter.

What Do Most Lebanese Think? (CM)

Michael Béhé writes in The New Republic:

The Security Council's Resolution 1559--that demanded that our government deploy our army on our sovereign territory, along our international border with Israel and that it disarm all the militia on our land--was voted on September 2, 2004.We had two years to implement this resolution and thus guarantee a peaceful future to our children, but we did absolutely nothing. Our greatest crime--which was not the only one!--was not that we did not succeed, but that we did not attempt or undertake anything. And that was the fault of none else than the pathetic Lebanese politicians. …

All those who assume public and communicational responsibilities in this country are responsible for this catastrophe. Except those of my colleagues, journalists, and editors, who are dead, assassinated by the Syrian thugs, because they were clearly less cowardly than those who survived. …

And when I speak of a catastrophe, I do not mean the action accomplished by Israel in response to the aggression against its civilians and its army, which was produced from our soil and that we did strictly nothing to avoid, and for which we are consequently responsible. Any avoiding of this responsibility--some people here do not have the minimal notions of international law necessary to understand!--means that Lebanon, as a state, does not exist. …

Each Irano-Syrian fort that Jerusalem destroys, each Islamic fighter they eliminate, and Lebanon proportionally starts to live again! Once again, the soldiers of Israel are doing our work. Once again, like in 1982, we are watching--cowardly, lying low, despicable, and insulting them to boot--their heroic sacrifice that allows us to keep hoping. To not be swallowed up in the bowels of the earth. …

Like the overwhelming majority of Lebanese, I pray that no one puts an end to the Israeli attack before it finishes shattering the terrorists. I pray that the Hebrew soldiers will penetrate all the hidden recesses of southern Lebanon and will hunt out, in our stead, the vermin that has taken root there. Like the overwhelming majority of Lebanese, I have put the champagne ready in the refrigerator to celebrate the Israeli victory …

[The Israelis] are also fighting for our liberty …And in the name of my people, I wish to express my infinite gratitude to the relatives of the Israeli victims--civilian and military--whose loved ones have fallen so that I can live standing upright in my identity. They should know that I weep with them.”

More here.

More notes & comments are available in this week's e-newsletter.

Youssef Ibrahim on Lebanon (CM)

We should view the events now unfolding not as a local battle for Lebanon but as a larger fight for the future of the entire Arab nation. For two decades, this nation of 350 million has been hijacked by a bizarre collection of Neanderthals, pseudo-revolutionaries, illiterate imams, and "Mad Max"-style Palestinian Arab terrorists of every hue, all united only in their desire to pillage in the name of a religion they expropriated.

Their manifest failure, which we hope will be delivered in resounding military terms, should come as a hard knock on the head of any Arab drifters. Cynics and cowards are already shouting "Enough!" but we know it will only be enough when the madman of Hezbollah, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, and all the other turbaned, bearded bats of the night are found, nailed down, and killed, and the whole Hezbollah movement in Lebanon — as well as Hamas and the other freelance Palestinian Arab factions — is convincingly discredited.

More here.

More notes & comments are in this week's e-newsletter.

Media Roundup

Claudia Rosett discusses the U.N.'s reaction to the crisis in the Middle East.

Andy McCarthy argues that Israel's war is part of America's 'war on terror.'

Krauss & Pham argue that the current U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon,Tte U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNFIL), has turned into a very convenient and high-profile human shield for terrorists.

Cliff's weekly notes & comments are in this week's e-newsletter.

Where Does This Conflict Leave Prospects for a Palestinian State? (CM)

The Hudson Institute’s Mey Wurmser writes:

We are witnessing the collapse not only of the Road Map and the Disengagement and Convergence concepts but of a paradigm which emerged in 1994 during the Oslo process. That paradigm was grounded in the idea that the best solution to the Palestinian problem was the creation of a third state along with Israel and Jordan within the League of Nations mandatory borders of interwar Palestine. Until Oslo, Jordan, Israel and the United States all publicly repeated that an independent Palestinian state was dangerous to their national interests.

From September 1970 until September 1993, it was universally understood in Jordan, in Israel and in the West that the local Palestinian issue was best subsumed under a Jordanian-Israeli condominium to isolate the issue from being exploited by broader regional forces that sought to trigger Arab-Israeli wars that were convenient diversions or vehicles for imperial ambition.

Since 1994, rather than focus on creating out of the territories a system of increasing personal freedoms and stability, Israel sought to wash its hands of the Palestinian problem by creating an independent Palestinian status. That emerging entity has again become the vehicle for regional despots and extremists. ..

[T]he goal of a Palestinian independent state should be either put on hold or even surrendered until the region's politics enter a calmer phase. The goal should now be the construction of Palestinian political structures. These should not be independent but instead operate under a Jordanian-Israeli condominium and be anchored to personal freedom and liberal values. This was implicit in the President's June 24 speech, where he conditioned his offer to the Palestinians to support their enterprise only if it exorcised the demons of terror and corruption. The sooner the illusion of independence at this stage is abandoned, the faster will the Palestinian issue cease being a constant source of regional violence.

More here.

For more notes & comments see this week's e-newsletter.

Media Roundup

Claudia Rosett continues to cover Tongsun Park's trial for NRO.  Park is "charged by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York with having acted as an unregistered agent of the government of Iraq under Saddam Hussein."

Andy McCarthy argues that the Hamdan decision "sounds the death knell for the National Security Agency’s Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP)," in today's NRO.

Michael Kraus and J. Peter Pham question if Israel's disengagement from Gaza is a mistake in today's NRO.

Cliff's Notes & Comments are available in this week's e-newsletter.

Muslim Perspectives (CM)

Daniel Pipes, analyzes a new Pew poll and concludes that Muslim alienation is strongest "in those countries where Muslims are either the most or the least accommodated, suggesting that a middle path is best - where Muslims do not win special privileges, as in the UK, nor are they in an advanced state of hostility, as in Nigeria."

His column is here.

For more notes & comments, see this week's e-newsletter.

The Difference (CM)

Kevin Ferris of the Philadelphia Inquirer:

The allegations about Marines killing civilians in Haditha last year are bad enough. But what's worse is that one possible incident of abuse so easily overshadows the efforts of U.S. forces who struggle daily to prove we are not the Great Satan.

Certainly innocents are being killed in this war, and unlawful behavior should be punished, but recognize the difference:

Our highly disciplined troops are fighting under rules of engagement designed to protect and defend innocents, to minimize the loss of life. They regularly save lives.

The enemy has no rules. They kill as many innocents as possible, as horrifically as possible, every day. They murder outright, or attempt to spark revenge killings among rival factions, or launch attacks while among civilians, hoping that any return fire by U.S. or Iraqi forces will cause casualties.

More here.

For more notes & comments see this week's e-newsletter.

Cliff's Comments

ZARQAWI'S END: He liked to cut off the heads of his screaming victims while the video tape rolled. He sent suicide bombers out to murder Iraqi students applying for jobs and women shopping for their families' dinners.

He attempted to spark a civil war between Iraqi Muslims. He arranged for the murder of an American diplomat in Jordan -- before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, when he was living in Iraq, under an arrangement with Saddam Hussein.

He was a foreigner in Iraq. Nevertheless, in much of the mainstream media he was respectfully described as "Iraq's most prominent insurgent leader."

For more notes & comments see this week's e-newsletter.

Self-criticism (CM)

From this insightful editorial in the London Times:

Smugness is one of Europe’s great contemporary exports. We may all think that we know America, its music, its culture, its self-confident exceptionalism. We tend to forget that Americans fight only with extreme reluctance. We overlook their penchant for agonised self-criticism; everything bad we know about the US, we know because Americans inexhaustibly rehearse their society’s shortcomings. There has never been greater transparency, whether than on the battlefield or the boondocks, and there has never been more open debate about the country’s virtues and vices — the internet has transformed the quantity and, at times, the quality of the conversation.

Better than most, Muslims understand why Islamist terrorism is war at its unholiest, an existential threat to societies. Iraqis may resent occupation, but they fear a weakening of US resolve. Their fears should be ours. Were it to become politically impossible for a president to keep America’s forces engaged from its shores, then the backbone of international security would be broken. America-bashing may be a popular sport, but its adherents prefer not to contemplate its consequences.

For more notes & comments please see this week's e-newsletter.

Think Again (CM)

"A New York rally by the Islamic Thinkers Society outside the Israeli consulate yesterday featured chants of "The mushroom cloud is on its way! The real holocaust is on its way!'

"The demonstration by the Queens-based group was monitored by the Investigative Project on Terrorism whose members noted signs including 'Islam will Dominate' and a picture with an Islamic flag flying over the White House."

More here.

For more notes & comments see this week's e-newsletter.

Cliff's Clicks

Laurie Mylroie on new intelligence from Iraq.

Eli Lake on Columbia University's conference on Libya.

And for Cliff's comments, see this week's e-newsletter.

Ajami on Iraq (CM)

Fouad Ajami writes that “time is the critical commodity that this war aches for. Our enemies there have plenty of it, while the American expedition is under pressure to force history's pace.”

He adds:

The burden of this war is that its costs are so easy to see while its gains in Iraq--and in neighboring Arab lands--are infinitely harder to pin down. The truth is that a better Iraqi polity is within reach and that the American presence in Iraq has launched a wider campaign of reform in Araby. To be sure, the American presence has not rid the Arab world of its political malignancies. But there have been gains in Afghanistan and Lebanon and in the Arabian Peninsula. A notice has been served, after the abdication of the 1990s, that a price will be paid by rogues and paymasters of terrorism who run afoul of American interests. It seems like ages ago--American memory is so incredibly short--that our special forces flushed Saddam Hussein out of his "spider hole." An unmistakable message was sent to despots in Syria and Libya, and to more sly rulers nearby who winked at terrorism: America was done with appeasement. …

We can't quit Iraq quite yet. We must, instead, recall the mix of fears and interests that brought us there and the threats that had us look for an Arab setting where we could make our stand.

The rest of his essay is here.

More notes & comments are in this week's e-newsletter.

Annaqed (CM)

"Annaqed," Arabic for "the critic," is a web site you should know about.

It is intended for Arabs in the United States. Its goal is "to work as a catalyst to their minds, educating them about the importance of loving this great country, by criticizing the wrong and the wrong doers whatever and whomever they might be."

Its editor says that "most Arabic publications in the United States are nothing but propaganda tools for Arabic regimes. The remaining few ones are mainly business-minded and would not publish anything that could affect the relationships with their advertisers and consequently, the income that is understandably an important element for their survival."

It's here.

More notes & comments available in this week's e-newsletter.

Cliff May's Weekly Notes & Comments

THE LONG WAR: An officer briefing FDD's Eleana Gordon and me at CENTCOM (Central Command) in Tampa the other day said: "It's important to understand: The Jihadis take a one-hundred year view. If it takes them a century to win this war, they are prepared for that. Very few people in the West think in such terms."

What he did not say but might have: Most politicians can't think or plan beyond the next election.

Read more Notes & Comments in this week's e-newsletter.

CLIFF MAY: Weekly Notes & Comments

IRAN'S THREAT: Last week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed to wipe Israel "off the map." So now, there can be no doubt: The Islamist-Fascist dictators of Iran are intent on genocide.

Scholar Michael Ledeen notes that while this may be frightening it is hardly new. The father of the Iranian Revolution, the Ayatollah Khomeini, made the same promise back in 1979 after he left France (where his hosts did their best to make him comfortable) and took power in Tehran. I was reporting from Iran at the time. I remember.

Read more Notes & Comments in this week's e-newsletter.

Read more on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's call for the destruction of the democratic state of Israel here.

CLIFF MAY: Weekly Notes & Comments

KA-CHING! KA-CHING! Bloomberg reports that Saudi Arabia is "likely to generate $163 billion of oil revenue this year, the most in more than two decades."

How much of this money do you think will go to fight poverty and AIDS in Africa?

How much will go to helping the residents of the West Bank have decent housing and build farms and factories that will provide jobs, goods and services?

How much will go to terrorists? How much will go to fund propaganda justifying and inciting terrorism?

There's more here. Hat tip: Anne Korin.

Read more Notes & Comments in this week's e-newsletter.

CLIFF MAY: Weekly Notes & Comments

IRAQ THE VOTE: Here's what one Iraqi, the blogger Hammorabi, has to say: "This is the first time for the Iraqis to vote for their own constitution. It is indeed the first time in the Middle East especially the Arab countries. ...This is a historic day and the political process moving forward in spite of the efforts of all of the evils to disable or delay it. ...how nice it is to be free." More from him here.

Read more Notes & Comments in this week's e-newsletter.

CLIFF MAY: Weekly Notes & Comments

CUTTING OFF HEADS IS ONE THING -- BUT NO HOLDING HANDS! From the London Times: "A vision of an Islamic society that bans mixed dancing and sternly disapproves of homosexuality has been given by Mahmoud Zahar, the most senior leader of Hamas in Gaza. After controversies when a Hamas-led council halted a dance festival and Islamist gunmen stopped a rap band performing in Gaza, Dr. Zahar defended the enforcement of a strict interpretation of Islam. 'A man holds a woman by the hand and dances with her in front of everyone. Does that serve the national interest?'"

You get it now? The problem with suicide bombing is that it can lead to dancing.

The rest of the London Times story is here.

Hat tip: Andrew Stuttaford.

Read more Notes & Comments in this week's e-newsletter.

CLIFF MAY: Latest Notes & Comments

AMERICA'S DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL: What will it take to end it? Start with Flexible Fuel Vehicles (FFVs). The technology is already available and the additional cost only about $150 per car. Second, begin filling American cars with fuel made from Caribbean sugar and domestic garbage. That technology is already available, too.

To encourage the transition, why not get rid of all taxes and tariffs on the petroleum substitutes that can be used in FFVs? What -- or who -- is holding up this common sense solution? Read More.

CLIFF MAY: Latest Notes and Comments

CATASTROPHE: In recent days, a flood of almost biblical proportions eclipsed news of the global war against Militant Islamism. But battles continued to be fought.

The most dramatic was in northwestern Iraq where 5,000 American and Iraqi troops swept into Tall Afar -- the largest urban assault since the siege of Fallujah last November.

Tall Afar had been taken a year ago but after sweeping out foreign insurgents, U.S. troops withdrew. By so doing, they violated "the ink spot" strategy -- the idea that to defeat insurgent forces it is necessary to take and hold key areas and then spread out from those bases over time. [Read More]

CLIFF MAY: Latest Notes and Comments

IGNORING ABU GHRAIB: Film-maker Don North has produced two films about some of the most despicable abuses to take place at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. But PBS and other MSM (mainstream media) outlets refuse to air them. Why? Perhaps because the abuses he has focused on -- the amputations of the right hands of Iraqi merchants -- were carried out while Saddam Hussein was still in power. Such barbarity evidently fills the MSM with ennui.

Want to bet that if Don had made films about abuses at Abu Ghraib while U.S. forces were running the place -- even such lesser abuses as scaring prisoners with barking dogs -- there'd be plenty of film at 11? Read More.

CLIFF MAY: Latest Notes & Comments

DISENGAGEMENT: I paid a visit to Israel in the days leading up to the withdrawal from Gaza. Without question, Israelis are divided over an exodus that its enemies are celebrating as a victory for terrorism.

On the other hand, it was remarkable how life goes on in Israel: The streets of Israel's cities bustle with the Middle East's most diverse population -- Jews, Christians and Muslims, whites, browns and blacks. The restaurants and nightclubs are full. The economy is booming. The journalism and politics of this democratic nation are more than energetic.

This episode severely tested Israelis. Now it is the turn of the Palestinians. Are there a sufficient number of Gazans willing to do the hard work necessary to build a decent society in the territory that has been turned over to them? Or will Israel be blamed for every failure while terrorists take control and pursue their agenda of death and destruction? Read More.

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