Posted on 07/18/2006 7:49:55 AM PDT by nosofar
Yes, I never understood the logic of why Israel returned the Sinai Pennisula, nor why it's giving up the West Bank and Gaza Strip etc.
Fatigue or not, there are enemies that are rational and a fair and lasting peace can be made with.
There are also enemies which are implacable and must be destroyed completely. Fanatics must be destroyed. Non-fanatics can be negotiated.
Well, part of the solution was Richard Nixon(who should've won the Nobel Prize and not Carter) granting more funds than the Soviet Union to Egypt, which was becoming a Soviet State. I think that that was a big, big reason why Egypt became friends with Israel and so I give Nixon credit for that. I do find it funny, however, the call to cut funds from Israel and not Egypt.
The funny thing is since Bill Clinton was so influenced by Ronald Reagan, he possibly thought that his talks with Suha and Yassir Arafat were some sort of linkage to the talks with Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife with Ronald Reagan. Either way, it shows how better of a president Reagan was than Clinton, at least he knew when to pull out the claw, Clinton on the other hand, I've never heard him go hard on Yassir sometimes.
I felt at the time that the overall terrorist threat would diminish more rapidly than it did as a result of the fall of its source and origin, the Soviet Union, and the reduction in funding and weaponry that it implied. Afghanistan had been won back from the Soviets at that point and the Taliban were still years away from becoming the threat that now seems so obvious. Iran was still weakened from war and Saddam had been taught a lesson about the disparity between third- and first-world armies.
In that environment a bit of complacency was a pretty natural thing. And complacency was Clinton's principal foreign policy characteristic just as it had been Carter's. And a complacency continued after the warning signs of the mid-90's - Osama bin Laden's fatwah, for one - turned out to be a disastrous policy indeed. But let us not forget that the complacent ones had every domestic political advantage at the time, and every reason to lull the populaces of all the Western countries with the siren song that the threat was an exaggeration of unsophisticated warmongers - their political opposition. Us. Europe is still struggling to break free of the considerable domestic political advantage afforded by complacency and a simple denial of the problem and a projection of it toward others. But the mess is real and it's going to have to be cleaned up, because it isn't the sort of mess that will allow us to live with it.
What I dont understand is how you wage war and dont kill many of your enemy.?. 200 dead, most civilians, Lebanon in ruins? Why not level Damascus, take out their armies, killing THOUSANDS? Why not bring troops in and go door to door and pile up the bodies in the streets?
"And even if it was a good idea to let the animals have their pen to themselves, no one in his right mind would have surrendered without a complementary concession."
The complementary concession was made by Bush. While the quid pro quo was not formally outlined it was obvious at the time. Sharon agreed with Bush to vacate Gaza and Bush agreed to repudiate any American support for (in advance of any negotiations) the Palestinian "right of return". In addition, again in advance of any negotiation, Bush endorsed the principle of Israel permanently expanding its territory from the 1967 borders, which in practical terms meant that the US was endorsing the idea that Israel was permanently taking over the territory behind the fence.
As I understand it, the Egyptians guaranteed security in Gaza before the agreement and simply failed to keep up their end of the bargain.
Of course, Israel never trusted Egypt. The obvious assumption must have been that the U. S. would enforce the Egyptian commitment and sanction Egypt if they didn't follow through---something the US is quite capable of since they give Egypt $3 billion a year in aid.
It appears to me that the US has betrayed Israel in this regard. However, no one in Israel so far has been willing to talk about it---through deference to the United States.
I presume that Bush simply doesn't understand what was going on---a more or less general condition of his at this time in regards to many issues (though his support of Israel in the current conflict is holding up pretty well). Of course, we can rest assured that the US State Department, as usual, did everything they possibly couldto further the Palestinian cause.
It was the only way to get Jimmah Carter to shut up and leave them alone.
This article describes an Israeli version of triangulation. Maybe works in the short-run but not a good long term strategy.
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