Submitted by daveinboca, Nov 25, 2006 18:32

But since then, the West has had a poor record in keeping insurgencies from winning. What to do in the Middle East in Iraq, now that we have conquered the country without mopping up, as the real fighters in World War II would have done. Instead the Republican Guard melted away and the Iraqi Army deserted their barracks. And we can "clear out" Tal Afar and Fallujah a half-dozen times and the locals will welcome back the insurgents. We never had enough men in Iraq to do the job. Shinseki was right and Rumsfeld/GWB/Cheney were wrong. But now that Iraq is basically toast, what about Lebanon?

As an FT columnist said prophetically a while back, this young Assad and Iranian president Ahmedinejad tend to overplay their hands---Syria.to get the monkey of the International Inquiry into the death of Rafiq Hariri off his back and Iran to build a bomb. The reason they do that is because with the toothless feckless UN, it works. Scare the UN enough and it will go away. That means Syria can slither slowly back into Lebanon without the Hague and bothersome international organizations finger-pointing and making accusations about Syrian motives. It will be left to the UN and everyone knows that is a recipe for endless dithering. The Saudis, Jordanians, Egyptians and other Sunni states will get exercised, but it appears that the US will soon be in a self-imposed paralysis and it will be left to Israel to take action to stop the eventual radicalization of Lebanon, if it can be stopped.

When Hezbollah Nazrullah calls for action against "this unconstitutional and illegal government," any veteran observer of the Middle East knew that a coup d'etat is in the offing. Walid Jumblatt is completely correct that Assad is behind the Gemayel assassination. Read Edward Luttwak's classic "Coup d'Etat," or just turn to Appendix C on page 206 where the chart shows that Syria once had five successful coups in five years, and set the world record for three coups in one year! All in Damascus, of course, but the skill-sets are still valid for another go at Beirut!

And now Iran wants to co-opt Al-Qaeda by putting its own candidate in the running for next Terrorist-In-Chief, a former Egyptian colonel who may be favored by Dr. Zawahiri.

But to keep these disasters [Iraq, Lebanon, Aghanistan] from occurring in rapid-fire fashion, we must by all means avoid the Canadian disease that "sticks need to be taken off of the negotiating table entirely," as this only encourages the Syrians and Iranians to think of the US/UK as another UN, to be maneouvered and manipulated with no accountability or consequences.

These are high-testoserone, shame-culture strongmen who believe the mincing and prancing of simpering "realists" who desperately want dialogue only demonstrates weakness and softness.

And, by golly, the strongmen are right!

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