Stardate 20040325.1534

(On Screen): David writes and points me to an article by Amir Taheri regarding the Israeli decision to kill Hamas leader Yassin. David thinks that Taheri's observations support my conclusions regarding the new strategy Sharon is following:

Taheri’s points seem to complete your analysis, which now appears to me as:

One: Israel retires behind its wall, assassinating the Palestinian “capos” and thus destabilizing the criminal gangs that really run Palestine.

Two: The gangs can’t reach Israel; begin fighting for control within and among themselves; while Israel continues to hunt & kill all of them. (IMHO, the term “civil war” is too "respectable" for a gang war.)

Three: The resulting anarchy provokes a new round of diplomacy that includes the UN & EU.

Four: A new “international agreement” invites Egypt to administer Gaza, and invites Jordan to administer the west bank -- with overt American/international financial support (including detailed oversight) -- and covert Israeli “special operations” support.

Result: The Palestinian “regime” is “changed”; and Bush’s overall strategy for the "reform" of the Arab world's governance advances by one more step.

Taheri implies that large parts of the needed agreements have already been worked out with the principals – Egypt, Israel, and probably Jordan – none of whom are in a strong financial position to say “no” to Bush anyway.

The UN & EU can “fig-leaf” this as an international “rescue” for the “mistakes” that produced the anarchy, which means the internationalist hypocrites will desperately jump on board to avoid the humiliation of complete & public irrelevance when Bush does it anyway -- without them.

The U.S. benefits from (1) EU money; and (2) distracting the “internationalist children” with a useful job in their own backyard that they can (maybe) actually handle -- while the U.S. takes the lead on regime-change in Iran, and whatever it ends up doing with Saudi Arabia -- both of which are in the oil-producing (i.e. geostrategically important) part of the Mid-East.

I don't think Taheri agrees with me. The critical difference is David's stages two and three. Taheri's article fixates on finding a solution for the Israelis and the Palestinians and implies that he thinks that's what Sharon is doing. Thus he seems to think that Sharon has been maneuvering to arrange an Egyptian takeover in Gaza which, when coupled with lots of foreign aid, will make life better for the Palestinians there.

That strikes me as highly unlikely. Taheri himself and many others may want to find a solution for everyone, but Sharon is only concerned with Israel. (As well he should be; that's his job.)

I also think that Taheri's contention that Sharon is trying to revive a policy originally proposed by Shimon Peres is implausible. Peres is not held in high regard by Likud (which is why he's no longer part of the government).

Taheri makes this comment:

But possibly the most important reason why Sharon believes he can hit Hamas at the highest level of its leadership is the Israeli belief that the Palestinian radical movement is losing momentum. In 2003, the number of Israelis killed by Hamas and other radical groups such as Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine was down by almost 50 per cent compared to 2002. Although this was partly due to more effective prevention work, there has also been a sharp decline in the total number of planned attacks.

Hamas and virtually all other Palestinian radical groups have been experiencing growing difficulties in attracting new recruits, especially for suicide operations.

Which is true, and unquestionably good. But losing momentum isn't enough. Israel needs stop, not just slowing down. And if the situation is mishandled, the radical groups might recover and once again gain strength.

It's instructive to consider the Lebanese civil war. Various factions in Lebanon fought a low level conflict for years, and all external attempts to end it failed. Eventually "the world" gave up and turned to other things, and the factions there fought each other into total exhaustion. And only then was it possible for negotiations to create a coalition government which has been surprisingly stable ever since. As long as a significant minority still wanted to fight, the fighting went on.

The Lebanese civil war had to burn itself out before it could end, to the point where essentially no one still wanted war, and that took years. But once it had burned out, a negotiated settlement was achieved by the Lebanese themselves without external pressure.

That's more or less the situation with the Palestinians now, too. It may be that the majority of the Palestinians are sick of it all and want war to end, but there are still enough who don't for peace to be impossible. At this point the only real question is who the Palestinian militants will kill and will be killed by.

It has primarily been Israeli sold