International Affairs

As all the world knows, Hamas has done better in the Palestinian elections than expected, pulling ahead of Fatah. Understandably, this has caused a great deal of commentary.

The BBC called it a “stunning victory”, going so far as to describe Hamas as Islamic, a term they tend to omit when writing about suicide/homicide bombings. With slightly more understanding, perhaps, Deutsche Welle referred to a “shocking victory”.

The Guardian wrote of it as a “shock victory” but it would, perhaps, be more of a shock to people who have been publicly proclaiming that the so-called peace process was stalled repeatedly solely because of Israel’s supposed intransigeance.

All the news services have been quoting various people, some named, some anonymous or semi-anonymous, in Arab countries, who were rejoicing in what they saw a victory to the people who had given their blood (and other people’s, of course). All of these are countries and people who are prepared to fight for the cause to the last drop of Palestinian blood and why the Palestinians allow themselves to be manipulated in this way has always been a mystery to me.

Read more

01:00 Condoleeza Rice is having a live press conference right now, talking about Iran and its nuclear program.

01:02 Rice said that there was no peaceful rationale for Iran’s defiance of the international community. Is the flag going to go up?

01:03 No, nothing that dramatic. The US is going to work with other countries and try to get some sort of resolution.

01:04 The reporters are clueless. One of them even asked if the US would put the matter in front of the United Nations Security Council! Might as well put it in front of UNICEF for all the good it would do, even though a few of the EU countries are calling for just that. (Probably to appease the voters in case an invasion is necessary.)

01:05 Another reporter asked what support the US was going to have from China and Russia, two countries that Rice mentioned specifically. She dodged with a bit of non-specific pablum, but it was a good question.

01:06 CNN had cut from the Alito confirmation hearings for Rice’s little talk. Even they realize that nothing is going to happen because they just went back to that incredibly tedious show.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN
Iran broke the seals placed on their nuclear facilities a few days ago so they could continue working on atomic weapons. This indicates that they’re either rather close to a working bomb, or that they just don’t think anyone will try anything. It’s not good any way you look at it.

So why did Rice hold this little talk with reporters?

It’s probably just a way to ratchet up the pressure a little bit. You know, lay the groundwork in case a military solution is necessary. That is the only conclusion I can reach since I don’t see anything changing due to what she said.

UPDATE
I pretty much figured that there was a chance Condoleeza was going to announce something momentous during her press conference. It appeared to me that CNN and Wolf Blitzer figured the same thing judging by how they quickly cut back to the Alito hearings after it was obvious that Rice was just clarifying the official US position.

The situation can’t be allowed to continue the way it is now. Sooner or later something will have to be done or else Iran will develop some nuclear WMD’s.

Milblogger Murdoc Online has an interesting post where he discusses the chances for a variety of outcomes. I think it’s a little early to bet one way or another, but I’d have to agree with Murdoc until conditions change.

C’MON! 2005 WASN’T SO BAD AFTER ALL ~Amir Taheri

On Tuesday, the Senate passed a resolution calling for regular reports and pushing for a handover to Iraqi primacy. The vote was 79-19. The argument on the right was that this would send a terrible signal to Iraq that we’re going to cut and run. On Thursday Rep. Murtha proposed immediate withdrawal. On Friday, the House voted on an immediate withdrawal resolution sponsored by the GOP that was stark in its simplicity “the deployment of United States forces be terminated immediately.” The measure failed 403-3.

Amazingly nobody, not the left or the right, seems to be analyzing this in terms of what this message sends to the people of Iraq. It’s all inside baseball, chickenhawk v cut & run, and US patriotism. Where concerns about what they’ll think in Iraq are brought up at all, it’s about our own troops in Iraq and how they’ll react. This doesn’t scan, not in the least.

What we should be worried about is the guy on the bubble, torn between joining up for the police or the Iraqi army and staying on the sideline. What will he make of these events? Did the Senate action dismay him? Did the House action buoy his spirits? Will the new week see him decide to join the long line of applicants or not? We should deeply care about that. Our chattering classes seem to have abdicated the only real, serious question that matters. Inside baseball, for them, is so much more entertaining.

I started to respond to one of the comments in Ralf’s entry, but it got out of hand. Besides, that savage Anglo-Saxon capitalism has me working my flabby butt off and I haven’t been posting.

There is no reason to doubt that the Muslims will successfully integrate, given the chance. The US had its own “unassimilable” religious minority; poor, ignorant, violent, and superstitious; resistant to the civilizing norms of society; an alien culture that could never be compatible with ours. I am speaking, of course, of the Irish Catholics who arrived in great numbers after the famines of the 1840’s. Their gangs and their riots inspired widespread fear. They were suspected, with some reason, of forming a potential fifth column. In reaction, a nativist political party gained power in several states and cities, which is more than Le Pen has been able to do. Among others, there was a Know-Nothing mayor of Chicago, Levi Boone.

Americans have a bad habit of lecturing the rest of the world on the virtues of assimilation. In doing this, we are demonstrating the blessings of pragmatism and a short memory. We learned to assimilate because we had to, and have forgotten that it ever was otherwise. Now it seems perfectly unremarkable, at least as far as past successes are concerned (there are several incomplete projects, of course). My own ancestors got here some 300 years later than the Pilgrim Fathers, but they are my Pilgrim Fathers now, too. Sooner or later, France will have to raise a generation of French Muslims who will speak without irony of “nos ancêtres les Gaulois.”