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Earlier today, Tim Blair laughingly reported on a senior Pakistani shi’ite cleric falling victim to a suicide bomber – presumably fielded by his sectarian rivals. The manner of this man’s demise carries a strong element of poetic justice, considering he allegedly supported Hamas and Hezbollah – both terrorist groups not unfamiliar with “martyrdom operations”. However, I do not feel as jolly about this cleric’s death as many of the commenters on the linked Blair thread. Certainly, when a prominent Hamas and Hezbollah supporter gets his comeuppance in the so-very-appropriate form of a zealot with a bomb strapped to his gut, one could be forgiven for revelling in schadenfreude. Trouble is, such an event is precisely the sort of thing that could trigger a large-scale Islamist movement that overthrows Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf, or adds further impetus to ongoing efforts to assassinate him.
The Economist’s recent article on Pakistan is a timely reminder that the West’s current alliance with that nation is conditional in the extreme – and almost wholly reliant on Musharraf – whose death could not come soon enough for a large number of people he rules over. If he is assassinated, the General’s successor might well be cut from a far more fundamentalist cloth. If this circumstance arises, a nuclear-armed Pakistan becomes an even more alarming prospect; raising the stakes over Kashmir and making nuclear weapons proliferation more likely. The risk of a nuclear weapon being detonated in a Western city is proportionate to the greenness of Musharraf’s replacement.
If the Pakistani leadership was to fall into fundamentalist hands, this would represent a massive setback in the global struggle against international Islamic terrorism. The mission in Afghanistan would be deeply complicated, for a start. Then there’s the problem of Pakistan becoming an even greater hub for Islamofascists. I will stop there; the list of conceivable heinous consequences could fill many pages. Unfortunately, “our boy” in Islamabad has made a lot of bitter enemies during his rule, and – according to the Economist article linked above – has also governed in a way that makes a post-Musharraf Pakistan a very ugly prospect indeed. Musharraf’s removal or death would likely be catastrophic to the interests of those nations struggling against Islamofascism.
Certainly, the Pakistani cleric copped it most aptly. However, any gloating at the nature of his death may well be overshadowed by wider consequences relating to it.
I am still unconvinced of the isolationist argument vis Iraq that would have had Western militaries – and probably as a result civilians – quit the entire Middle East, and leave Saddam to wreak havoc as he has before, but my goodness, the case for non-interventionist foreign policy has never looked so good at the moment as the insurgency in Iraq gets worse. Jim Henley sums up the “do as little as possible” school of libertarian foreign policy as well as anyone:
If a war is worth years of struggle, billions squandered and thousands or tens of thousands of dead on both sides, why isn’t peaceful change worth as much? Why is it a “bold initiative” to announce a “generational struggle” to transform a region of the world through a war that might or might not achieve its ends, but preemptively absurd to launch a generational struggle to transform the same region through nonintervention, to instill liberalism and justice by exemplifying it? Because people might get killed? People get killed the other way. Because it might not work? Look around you. The other way isn’t working now.
My main problem with Jim’s argument is that setting an example to the dictatorships, thugocracies etc of that region would strike me as a fairly drawn-out, if not rank impossible, endeavour (that’s putting it politely, ed). We are talking about a process that might last thousands of years. And I am afraid that in the meantime, the various despots in that region might not quite get with the Enlightenment programme and develop a continued fondness for blowing infidels up. At best, I would say that such folk might, even at their craziest, be deterrable, which is why I think the libertarian world-view – if I can presume to call it that – should focus on deterrence, and forswear the temptations of what folk called pre-emptive action. But again – and Jim and others have to answer this question – does observing the niceties of national sovereignty always trump other considerations? For me, one of the clearest-cut examples of justified and smart pre-emption was the Israeli airforce’s bombing of the Iraqi nuclear facilties in the early 1980s. No doubt some libertarian “leave-well-alone” foreign policy commenters fulminated about that event at the time, in a way that may have echoes now in what is being written about Israel’s actions in Lebanon (see the posts below).
What to do?
I take a more equivocal view of the current military actions in Lebanon than Dale. I strongly question the wisdom of dislocating communications and infrastructure in the non-Hezbollah controlled parts of the country, i.e. punishing people who are, if not natural allies of Israel (though some are), at least not currently Israel’s enemies.
And yet…
We cannot pretend that Lebanon is a normal nation-state. The Lebanese government does not in reality control Lebanon, or more correctly, it controls Lebanon’s various regions at the sufferance of the local factional leaders. Clearly just as the Lebanese government is not responsible for the actions of Hezbollah within Lebanon, they cannot then claim their sovereignty has been violated when Israel attacks Hezbollah within Lebanon: they cannot have it both ways. If they are responsible, then the Lebanese state must stop Hezbollah. As they clearly cannot do that, they cannot reasonably object to Israel doing so. But similarly Israel should be very discriminating upon whom they drop their munitions.
I cannot really complain about Israel hammering Hezbollah anywhere they can be found (and I do mean anywhere). Hezbollah must be destroyed in the most literal sense of the word. Moreover the people in Syria and Iran who make Hezbollah possible must also be destroyed, again quite literally… and political posturing, UN resolutions and negotiations will not achieve those objectives. To this end right now Israel should be striking targets in Iran and Syria in retaliation for Hezbollah activities. In short, whilst I am very unhappy to see Israel attacking the airport in Beirut, I would have little problem with them doing exactly that to Tehran or Damascus. I think they are ‘sharing the pain’ with the wrong people.
It is easy to point the finger at Israel (I am certainly not reflexively pro-Israeli myself and Lord knows they can be pretty arrogant and unsympathetic), but in truth I have yet to hear any workable alternatives to what they are doing being offered up by the critics. Hezbollah’s actions are intolerable and so why should Israel tolerate them? If not this then what should Israel do? Methinks this is not an easy question to answer.
The air attack on the Beirut airport in Lebanon has put me in an unusual position: I must condemn Israel’s act as one of egotistical stupidity of the highest order. it is in no one’s interest to push a newly liberated and tentatively democratic Lebanon back into the throes of barbarism and chaos from whence it so recently came. I cannot help but imagine this attack has solidified even the most open minded of the Lebanonese population into a common distaste of their southern neighbor. Should this cause violence amongst factions with Lebanon to flare again, it will be an open invitation for Syria to once more crush Lebanon under its dictatorial tank treads.
Their action is about as negative to American and British strategic interests as it is possible to get. I am certain they are getting exceedingly harsh and less than diplomatic words behind the scenes words from Condileeza Rice and from Tony Blair’s envoys as well.
The damage this has done to Israel’s cause is almost inestimable.
You have lost an awful lot of friends guys. Actions have consequences.
Remember not so long ago?
My thanks to Jonathan Schwarz over at Slate for pointing out that various Islamic terrorist organisations including Hamas and Al Qaeda include of all things Rotary Clubs amongst their lists of anti-Islamic organisations that they believe are waging crusades on them. From the Hamas charter, for instance
…you can see [the enemies] making consistent efforts by way of publicity and movies, curriculi of education and culture, using as their intermediaries their craftsmen who are part of the various Zionist Organizations which take on all sorts of names and shapes such as: the Free Masons, Rotary Clubs, gangs of spies and the like. All of them are nests of saboteurs and sabotage.
My first thought is to almost wish it were true: if my local Rotary club was in fact on organisation of saboteurs fighting the Jihadis, I might almost want to join. It sounds quite exciting. My second thought, however, is I think the sort of uneasy thought that Group Captain Mandrake gets in Dr Strangelove when Gen. Ripper explains to him that he has just launched a nuclear attack on Moscow to fight fluoridation of drinking water. In this war one occasionally feels that the enemy does not need to be fought so much as it needs to be medicated, and this is one of those times.
Then again, I suppose this makes no more or less sense than blaming the Jews.
The Guardian headline states that President Ahmadinejad’s support in Iran is “soaring” although there are no political polls to provide any firm evidence. Cue the quote from a Professor of political science at the University of Tehran that provides a figure without any indication of its accuracy:
“He’s more popular now than a year ago. He’s on the rise,” said Nasser Hadian-Jazy, a professor of political science at Tehran University. “I guess he has a 70% approval rating right now. He portrays himself as a simple man doing an honest job. He’s comfortable communicating with ordinary people.”
Other sources are “Iranian officials and western diplomats” although why their information should be treated as honest and impartial is not provided. We must assume that Iranian bureaucrats provide information about their elected President from a neutral stance. The article then states that the President is favourite to win a second term in 2009, which is only three years away. He may already be a lame duck given the electoral cycle! It is also attributed to his obigatory resistance to the United States.
Attributing his success to his populist style and fortnightly meet-the-people tours of the country, the sources said that as matters stood, Mr Ahmadinejad was the clear favourite to win a second term in 2009. The perception that the president was standing up to the US on the nuclear issue was also boosting his standing.
Further down, balance returns with alternative views that Ahmadinejad’s popularity stems from his lack of corruption and a high oil price that allows subsidies to be sprayed at the peasant and poor urban classes who voted for him. However, the recent unrest amongst minorities is wrapped into “US claims”: “US officials have described the Iranian president as a threat to world peace and claim that he faces a popular insurrection at home”. His denial of the Holocaust is only “apparent”.
Here, Iran is represented in the reporting as another democracy. with an emphasized subtext that Ahmadinejad’s popularity stems from threats by the United States as he is merely standing up for the rights of his country and resisting the demands of the West. An unbalanced article informed by unattributable sources, a lack of hard evidence, and a series of talking heads that are supposed provide a middle point from which readers infer the truth.
The Israeli state appears to be doing the same thing that the British state does when it accidentally shoots the wrong person. The latest horror in which a Palestinian family were hit by a shell whilst on a beach is a case in point. The Israeli military is now claiming that it was not a naval shell that had caused the unintended deaths but rather some unexplained mine or old buried shell in the sand which just happened to go off at or about the same time as an Israeli gunboat was shelling a terrorist target in the Gaza strip.
Well that story is coming unravelled and it is a marvel that they thought any reasonable person would believe that during a bombardment from the sea over the heads of the innocent victims, this explosion just ‘happened’ by complete coincidence.
Any critical observer should realise that the Israeli military had no interest in killing the hapless Palestinians who died when one of their rounds went short, so why not admit it was a terrible error and move on?
All concocting fairy tales does is confirm the prejudices of those who see the official Israeli line as being fundamentally untrustworthy. Hamas and their useful idiots in the west will not believe anything done by the Israeli state is not done out of pure malevolence regardless of the facts, so they can be ignored. Israel’s ethno-nationalist cheerleading squad will just assume anything Israel does under any circumstances is completely justified regardless of the facts, so they too can be ignored. However between those two poles of mindless unreason exists a large group of people who tend to judge things on the basis of ‘reasonableness’ and the likely facts.
What the Israeli military spokesman should have said was: “Whilst firing on a legitimate terrorist target, one of our shells went short. It is unclear if this was due to a firing error or a defective round, and as a result some innocent bystanders were killed. We are truly sorry that happened and we wish like hell that the sons of bitches we really were trying to kill did not keep putting us in the position of having to do things like this”.
Mistakes happen and in war, mistakes cost lives. Admit the truth and move on because in the long run it actually helps your cause if people have reason to believe what you say.
However this time it is nice to hear of Islamic extremists killing themselves in ways that do not involve blowing themselves up on a bus in London or in a pizzeria in Israel in order to murder a bunch of civilians. More of this and faster please.
Some weapons are marvels of technology, such as laser guided bombs or an F-22 fighter. Other weapons however use much older technology, based on something invented by Johannes Gutenberg in 1447. Such a weapon can do more damage to the cause of puritanical Islam than a thousand well aimed bombs.
Tim Blair is one of the first bloggers to note the killing of Abu Musab Zarqawi – the target of an American bombing raid. I feel a little ghoulish celebrating the death of anyone, however this is brilliant news. Zarqawi’s untouchability had grown into a legend; he represented an on-the-ground inspiration for many would-be jihadis. Many touted him as the true head of al-Qaeda, vital in his position and leading from the front – in contrast to Osama bin Laden – the largely sidelined nominal leader. The removal of this valuable piece from the game is a major coup for American forces.
UPDATE : Iraqi blog IraqTheModel claims
Zarqawi’s identity was confirmed through his fingerprints.
Reports of his death seem a lot more unequivocal this time, as opposed to earlier claims that turned out to be false. The man is almost certainly dead.
I was interested to read Condoleeza Rice’s remarks about Iran which flagged the possibility of the US joining the European “Group of Three”‘s so far futile talks with Iran about that country’s nuclear weapons program. While answering questions from reporters, Ms Rice seemed to imply that there was some sort of ‘understanding’ with Russia and China on this issue:
QUESTION: To follow on that, do you have agreement then from Russia and China that if you got to that point, having made this overture, sort of, taken the last best hope here for diplomacy, that if it fails at that point they would be willing to back what they have been thus far unwilling to do?
RICE: I think there is substantial agreement and understanding that Iran now faces a clear choice. This is the last excuse, in some sense. There have been those who have said, “Well, if only the negotiations had the potential for the United States to be a part of them, perhaps then Iran would respond.”
So now we have a pretty clear path. We have negotiations if Iran is prepared to suspend. If Iran is not prepared to suspend — and by the way, this an understanding that comes out of New York — that there is another path.
RICE: And while we have worked to get agreement on what had been some tactical differences, I think you can be sure that our friends and our partners understand the importance of the step and the importance that the Iranians must now see of making a choice and making that choice clearly.
I think we have very good understanding with our partners about that.
A very good understanding, huh? I can not imagine what understanding that the United States could come up with that that would compensate Russia for oil being north of $70 a barrell.
Needless to say, Iran has accepted the US offer with conditions of its own, namely that it will continue its business with nuclear research at its own pace. The slow slide towards US surrender on this issue is starting to gather a momentum of its own.
I have come across an allegation I am unable to verify because I am a linguistic curmudgeon, unable to read (or even speak!) Swedish or Danish. Sorry, everyone. A late night trawling through a comments thread over at Tim Blair’s unearthed this very interesting comment from reader “TOGITV” :
I have just read that the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten is about to republish the Mohammed cartoons!
I can’t find any reference to it in any English language press. But here is the link to the article in the Swedish press
TOGITV later posts :
I just read the Swedish article a bit closer. It isn’t the same newspaper (Jyllands Posten) that will re-publish the cartoons, it will be another Danish newspaper called Politiken.
I can’t read Danish quite as well as Swedish, but I think the article in Politiken says that Harpers Magazine will also publish the cartoons in their June edition also accompanying an article on Art Spiegelman.
Interesting, if true. Perhaps someone versed in Swedish or Danish could enlighten the rest of us as to the articles’ content. If it is true, and the cartoons are published again in another Danish magazine, the seemingly obvious consequence would be another explosion of fundamentalist Islamic vitriol against Denmark, freedom of speech, the West and Western values, you name it. However, the furore over the Jyllands-Posten cartoons occurred several months after publishing, and was certainly incited by a few conspiring Islamic leaders, who provided the nexus between a liberal European paper and the protesting Middle Eastern mobs. On reflection, it is hard to see what good the rabble-rousing has done for the Islamic cause. In response to the disgusting behaviour of the Islamist mob, the silencing veil of political correctness was blown off various issues surrounding Islam in quite remarkable time. I’ve noticed that the educated middle class – possibly the social group most conscious of PC mores – are these days far more likely to openly discuss and criticise the ugly sides of Islam and its (in)compatibility with modern Western society. I’d go so far to say that, post cartoon-rage, even tracts of the left are less willing to defend Islam’s excesses.
I rather think that those who scurrilously incited the cartoon rage did not expect the mob to claw and bay with such intensity. Certainly, the hideous scenes we witnessed on our televisions at the time turned many erstwhile allies in the West away from the Islamic cause. More importantly, an enormous number who had no opinion one way or the other regarding Islam now see it in a negative light. It is most evident that the individuals who all-too-successfully activated the mob dealt themselves an almighty propaganda defeat – possibly one of the more spectacular tactical backfires we’ve seen in recent times. Surely, even the most benighted, zealous Islamic leader has the limited perspicacity required to concede that point. Hence, if the cartoons are soon published in another Danish newspaper, we may hear nothing more of it.
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