Stardate 20020329.1833

(On Screen): What ye sow, so shall ye reap. Or maybe we could say, what goes around, comes around. Arafat is isolated and surrounded, with no power and nothing but a machine gun and a cell phone to keep him company.

So he's doing what any brave man would do under the circumstances: he's using the phone to bitch to the media and beg someone to come save his ass.

Alternately defiant and craven, he is showing the world what he is made of. He blames the US because we are the source of the weapons being used to assault his compound, and then asks what I assume must be a rhetorical question:

In an interview with Jordanian state-run television, the Palestinian leader chided the United States for not stopping Israel's latest incursion into Palestinian territory. America, he said "could have ordered him (Sharon) to end the attacks. Why are they quiet despite all that is taking place?"

I think he's asking the wrong question. Here's the one he should have asked: Why, exactly, would the US want to do Arafat any favors at this point?

Actually, the problem is that my question answers itself, and it's not the answer he wants to hear: the US would be better off if Arafat became a martyr now.

Most of the time I try to keep my own desires out of my posts here; I try to analyze what I think will happen rather than to project what I hope will happen. But in this case they coincide: I (still) think Arafat is going to die soon, and when it happens I will be glad. Partly that is because I hate him; partly it is because I think his death will benefit my country.

Arafat's death will polarize the situation. It will inflame passions. It will force people to get off the fence and declare their real interests. It's going to royally piss off the Arabs.

What all of those things are going to do is to simplify the diplomatic situation. It will become far easier to identify who is truly on our side (e.g. the UK), who is truly against us (e.g. Saudi Arabia), and who is truly unimportant who will turn out not to be a factor in events (e.g. France). And these things will become obvious to everyone.

And in the aftermath of his death, it will become clear to all but the most pacifistic of observers that the situation has moved beyond what can be accomplished with the traditional diplomatic weapons of sanctions and debates in the UN and speeches expressing disapproval and official frowns aimed in the direction of opponents.

There is a time when diplomacy is a valid solution. But there is also a time when diplomacy is a way of masking indecision or cowardice. In such cases it becomes a way to do something without really doing anything, a way to avoid hard decisions. In the turmoil which will follow Arafat's death, the nations of the earth will be forced to choose sides and to make real commitments.

In June of 1914, Archduke Francis Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, and it was the spark that triggered World War I. The death of Arafat may turn out to be no less momentous.

I do not greet the prospect of war gladly. But I think it has become necessary, and there are certain battles which I think must be fought; certain political changes which must be forced using means beyond diplomacy. Arafat's death will make it easier to do that, and to the extent that it does I think it will be a good thing, in the long run, for my country.