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Regarding the Middle East.

From the NYT:

Diplomats around the world are telling these parties to keep a lid on it. And the groups themselves say they do not want a wider regional war.

summary of succeeding paragraphs: [Iran, Israel, and Hezbollah have said they don't want a regional war.]

...

Bader Al-Saif, a historian at Kuwait University, lamented “the amount of denialism surrounding this basic fact.” Pretending as if the actual conflict is yet to arrive, he said, risks “normalizing death, violence, fear, dispossession, hunger and lack of dignity across the Middle East.”

Also strife in Yemen (assassination), the Houthis, and Hezbollah launching attacks. Hamas has actually said they want a regional war, and they may be the only ones that see they have achieved it.

Also strife in Yemen (assassination), the Houthis, and Hezbollah launching attacks. Hamas has actually said they want a regional war, and they may be the only ones that see they have achieved it.

What is the common denominator among Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis?

What is the common denominator among Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis?<?i>

They all begin with the letter "H"?

They all begin with the letter "H"?

Ooooh! Albaby is taking on some snark?! ;-) First "where Palestinians come from", and now this. heh heh.

But Dope does have a point. At least the first thing I thought of was "Iran". They are definitely stirring the pot, even though a regional conflict would likely suck them in, and then they're in the middle of the excrement storm.

The larger point of the author, I think, was that it already is a regional conflict. It's not just Gaza. Lots of players are involved, even if armored columns aren't advancing on Jerusalem or Tehran or Beirut or Cairo. Yet.

They all begin with the letter "H"?

Close. You're only 1 letter off.

Pretending as if the actual conflict is yet to arrive, he said, risks "normalizing death, violence, fear, dispossession, hunger and lack of dignity across the Middle East."

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The industrialized world (democratic or otherwise) has yet to learn these lessons:

* "peace" attained by physical coercion of one group by another isn't actual peace
* stability isn't "peace" without justice

The Western world thinks it learned since World War II that Palestinians can be treated as disposable people because, when the game of musical chairs ended after WWII, they didn't wind up controlling any resource needed by an industrialized country or geography of value to countries needing to operate global navies.

Israelis learned their position as a single toe-hold in an Islamic dominated region hostile to western ideas on government, individual rights and economic development gave them vast lattitude in how they responded to attacks on their territory, itself granted to them as part of musical chair politics stemming from two disastrous world wars.

Soviet Russia, keying off the iron-clad principal that the enemy of my enemy can be useful to me, learned that aiding countries willing to battle Israel or, at a minimum, generate constant conflict with Israel suited their geopolitical goals by triggering vast sums of western dollars to be spent in the region trying to achieve or maintain some semblance of stability to keep oil flowing.

Oil-rich Arab nations learned they could combine their own citizenry's hatred of Israel with western desires for cheap stable oil to essentially play both sides of the table. They accepted cash from western countries to develop their oil and bought loads of military gear from the west for "defense" while simultaneously funding terrorist organizations waging constaint battle against Israel, helping to maintain the sense of chronic instability and keeping western countries perpetually distracted.

Palestinians have been stuck in the middle with no territory or little useful political influence as "guests" wherever they might physically be and have had little political power even as a "governing authority" over a tiny sliver of land. They learned they would never be welcomed in Arab lands and never be welcomed as citizens / residents / voters in Israel. They learned that given the inability to establish a viable internal economy to support itself organically, accepting funds and incorporating strategies from those aligned against "western" powers was the only available economic alternative. Most importantly, Palestinians have learned that, due to violent factions within their ranks, they would always face a threat of violence as a reaction to violence originating from within their ranks.

In short, all parties learned that the "least worst" scenario available given current thinking on the part of all parties involved is nearly constant "low intensity" killing because:

* one of the parties lacks the economic resources for a traditional active war
* the other party has enough economic and military power to make an active war unnecessary for its aims
* the continual "low intensity" killing nurtures a toxic social cycle that creates a new generation of extremists on both sides every ten years
* which sustains each side's rationalization for continuing the perpetual "low intensity" conflict

Of course, that calculus changed when Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023 and Israel responded by killing over 35,000 and injuring 78,000 as of June 2024. The world hasn't assigned vocabulary to that scale of violence because all "civilized" nations thought that means had been devised to "manage" the violence at lower, prior levels and no one likes to use the G(enocide) word or contemplate the level of destruction from a nuclear conflict.

As long as any of the parties insist on looking backwards -- into actual history or their own sectarian version of history -- to justify who gets to stay where, NOTHING will alter this status quo. Unless of course, one of the parties WITH actual economic power decides to give up the charade of "proportionate response" and attempt an all-out elimination of one of the other parties. It is possible to argue Israel is doing that now, short of using an atomic bomb to level Gaza. Going down that route will certainly break the current one hundred year moral logjam but replace it with an entirely new horrendous game board.


WTH

...never be welcomed as citizens / residents / voters in Israel.

Quibble. After the 1967 war, the Palestinians were offered Israeli citizenship. As part of these discussions, I looked up some details and read that. They refused. So they were welcomed as potential citizens, but declined. That's on them.

I think most of the rest of your post is broadly correct. Though I will note that Hitchens was correct: a lot of fighting over some of the only land in the middle east that doesn't have oil.

After the 1967 war, the Palestinians were offered Israeli citizenship. As part of these discussions, I looked up some details and read that. They refused. So they were welcomed as potential citizens, but declined. That's on them.

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I remember that but I get the distinct feeling that had that path been pursued, conservative Israelis would have viewed a Palestinian minority as an electoral / demographic threat that could eventually make Jews a numerical minority within the state of Israel and undo Israel's status as a Jewish state.

There are currently about 2.1 million Arabs within Israel making up 21% of the total population. There are about 5.0 million Palestinians in the territories. Had a decision been reached to assimilate within Israel proper, one could imagine today a total of 7.1 million Arabs amidst a total population of about 15.1 million. Nearly a majority.


WTH

Between the middle east, asia, africa .. how many regional fights are muslims involved in? The janjaweeed don't get much press, not the fighters in the Phillipines. Eastern Europe?

Hard to keep track of them all.

Close. You're only 1 letter off.

Yep. George W. Bush has a lot to answer for.

Look, it's no secret that the entire region's political and security issues have re-oriented around checking Iran's bloc and their effort to expand Shi'a power. Prior to the Second Gulf War, Iraq was the primary obstacle to Iran exercising regional hegemony. Iran had influence through their client proxies in Syria and Lebanon, but mostly they had their hands full dealing with the military threat posed by Iraq. The U.S. decided they would eliminate the Iraqi regime and try to replace it with a government sympathetic to the West, but instead it ended up being a major Shiite ally of Iran.

That upended the entire regional balance of power, driving all the Sunni states to seek stronger alliances amongst themselves and against the Shiite bloc. And it's led Iran to continue to push and prod that new bloc using their proxy paramilitary organizations.

I'm with the Left.

This is no big deal now.

Or, in the future.

:ike I said, in the future you people will be killing for politics more frequently. This loophole makes it easier.

Hopefully more of you are armed as things heat up :)

100% serious and smiling.

Quibble. After the 1967 war, the Palestinians were offered Israeli citizenship. As part of these discussions, I looked up some details and read that. They refused. So they were welcomed as potential citizens, but declined. That's on them.

Double quibble - I believe what you're referring to is the offer of citizenship to Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, the portion of the West Bank that was actually annexed into Israel after the 1967 war. The rest of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were not annexed into Israel, and I'm pretty sure that none of those residents were offered Israeli citizenship.

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-know-about-a...

That upended the entire regional balance of power, driving all the Sunni states to seek stronger alliances amongst themselves and against the Shiite bloc. And it's led Iran to continue to push and prod that new bloc using their proxy paramilitary organizations.

Iran using their proxies to spread terror around the globe pre-dates Gulf War II. The mismanagement of the immediate aftermath of the invasion along with the decision to just pull up stakes and leave without first vastly reducing Iran's ability to influence/destabilize the new Iraqi government didn't help.

High oil prices and the effective dissolution of the political power of OPEC (does anyone ever talk about them any more?) are giving the Iranians more economic power than they should have, given the sanctions in place on their economy.

There's a macabre foreign policy game of "Just the tip" (hat tip to Ben Shapiro) playing out right now. It goes something like this

*Iranian proxy does something (in this case, Hezbollah blows up a schoolyard full of kids)
*The Israelis retaliate, often in a way that embarrasses Iran (like showing the ability to blow up the bed of an honored guest)
*Iran is then allowed some measure of "retaliation" even if it amounts to not much, they get to say they did something

On some levels it makes some practical sense...until one stops and thinks that the best scenario is one where Iran doesn't encourage its proxy goons to stir up stuff in the first place.

Weddkng Crashers reference?

Iran using their proxies to spread terror around the globe pre-dates Gulf War II. The mismanagement of the immediate aftermath of the invasion along with the decision to just pull up stakes and leave without first vastly reducing Iran's ability to influence/destabilize the new Iraqi government didn't help.

Of course, but prior to Gulf War II the other nations in the region didn't fear Iran as much as they do now. With Iraq as another regional hegemon hostile to Iran, Iran was more constrained in what it could do - particularly against the Sunni states, with a massive Sunni-controlled military on their borders. So while they could foment disruption against Israel (whom few in the region loved), direct support of proxies attacking other Sunni nations was far more dangerous. Iran wants all of the secular Sunni governments in the region to be replaced by Islamic ones (whether Shia or Sunni), but faced a greater natsec risk in taking measures to make that happen while Iraq was still an enemy.

The fall of Iraq opened up the sandbox for them, as it were. The secular governments in the region are threatened by Islamist activism (one reason El-Sisi despises the Muslim Brotherhood), so Iranian support for Islamist movements represents a real danger for them. Which is why they've all been cozying up to Israel recently, since they pose the only real military danger to Iran comparable to what was lost when Iraq switched sides.

It looks unsolvable at this point WTH. It will continue after I die.

Which is why they've all been cozying up to Israel recently, since they pose the only real military danger to Iran comparable to what was lost when Iraq switched sides.

There's a bit more to it than all this.
Nobody wants a nuclear Iran. The US took a potential nuclear Iraq off the chessboard but since then some US administrations have been somewhat naive about the mullah's long term plans and have been inadvertently funding Iran's weapons programs. (For some other poster who thinks he's going to drop in here with a sick burn "fact check": Don't. Money you don't have to spend on say, food, can get spent on building missiles and centrifuges).

A nuclear Iran is a far more scary thing that Iran's army, which was never a real thing. Recall that they still fly reverse engineered Phantoms and Tomcats. Their *only* means of projecting power is through their terror proxies. Shut those off, Iran has nothing other than a lot of oil.

The Arab nations - Sunni - recognize that since they can't beat the Israelis that it's a far smarter thing to team up with them against their common enemy, Iran. That was the entire basis of the Abraham accords.

Which is why they've all been cozying up to Israel recently, since they pose the only real military danger to Iran comparable to what was lost when Iraq switched sides.

So Dubya furthered Israeli peace with its neighbors? Interesting. I realize you're describing an "enemy of my enemy" situation, but still...

So if Hamas is sufficiently degraded that they can be ignored for a bit, you said "the deal" that precipitated the Hamas action was only on hold and could continue. Once that deal is in place, how would that affect Hamas and Iran? Maybe it would be strategically wise to do that. Checking Iranian influence could only help Israel.

Money you don't have to spend on say, food, can get spent on building missiles and centrifuges

N Korea, as just one example, has demonstrated for decades that food (basic human needs) for the masses needn't be the priority of a dictator/strong man government.

Fictitious skydaddy books are tragically effective motivators for duping people into killing one another.

Which is why I oppose any aid or commerce with dictatorships. DPRK is a great example...take the aid and convert/divert it to weapons at the expense of your people. Dope isn't wrong about that.

IIRC, the US and British intelligence agencies helped a coup in Iran, installed the unpopular Shah, and Iran was becoming a Westernized country. The Ayatollah took over after the Shah was deposed,and it became a Shi'ite theocracy. The theocracy was developing a bomb because the modern world doesn't invade countries with atomic weaponry. One President made a deal which would delay the bomb by 15-20 years, but that was set aside by another President.

They should have enough material to make a bomb, but don't seem to be in too much of a rush to get there. Odd for them, you'd think they'd be like N Korea.

So over the next 10 years Iran will roll out a bomb - we won't be able to put the genie back in the lamp - so we'll have to deal. We have to find a formula that allows Iran to exist and stabilizes the Middle East. We aren't very good at replacing governments - look at what happened in Iran and in Nicaragua for instance. Right now we are the Great Satan. This will call for diplomacy, not the "nuke 'em till they glow" mentality.

Tehran has made diplomatic strides with other Arab states, but what their desired end is is never apparent. So far the stated goal appears to include ending Israel.

That's how I remember it. In fact, I believe the deposed leader was democratically elected. But he wanted to nationalize Iran's oil, and we couldn't have that. BP and Standard Oil were upset.

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