Israel Threatens to Hit Damascus-Next step of A Clean Break?:

Jordan wrote:


dontcowerfromthetruth wrote:
Keep in mind (when reading the following) that Syria has supposedly
made some sort of defense pact with Iran.

Syria and Iran have made an explicit, open defense pact.

So is attacking Damascus the
way the Zionists will expand the war for Israel to Syria and Iran next
(in accordance with the 'A Clean Break' agenda that esteemed
intelligence writer/author James Bamford discusses on pages 261-269/321
of his 'A Pretext for War' book - see the URL about such included after
the following) as Bush and Cheney have already said that the US would
come to Israel's aid if Israel is attacked which will most likely
happen if Israel gets into it with Syria and Iran:

Well damn, it would be _nice_ if this happened -- it would get the war
with Syria and Iran out into the open and put a powerful ally on our
side. Plus, Israel could smack around Syria, maybe bite off another
chunk of their territory, keeping the Syrians occupied while we took
out the Iranian regime. If, that is, we're ready for it.

I don't know though that the timing of this is entirely or at all under
Israeli control. Remember that this all started because Hamas, feeling
its oats as the new government of "Palestine," has decided to continue
to step up terrorist operations against Israel, apparently not fully
grasping that _as the government_ these are much more clearly
Palestinian acts of war against Israel.

I don't think that the Palestinians have much of a concept of
self-government. In fact, I don't think that Arabs in general, or many
of the other tribal groups in "Chaos-Stan" have much ability to govern
themselves.

The history of the Middle East seems to be one LONG litany of endless
war between tribes and the rise and fall (usually by assassination or
coup) of strongmen, warlords, and other various potentates with absolute
power. "Government" in the Mideast (excepting Israel) seems to consist
of kissing the ass of the guy with the biggest gun/sword and doing what
he says, even when his words cause massive death and destruction.

This is not a new problem-Muhammad's main goal in spreading Islam was to
give the eternally warring tribes of Arabia a universal touchstone that
would supersede tribal and warlord loyalties. It worked for about a
hundred years, then the empire broke apart and tribes started killing
each other again. I'm not a huge fan of Israel, but they have done in a
hundred years what their Arab counterparts have NEVER done-produce a
unified, stable governing system.

The "countries" in the Mideast have been described as "tribes with
flags" by Thomas Friedman. This has become painfully apparent in Iraq,
where Bush simply assumed that once the oppressive dictator (Saddam) was
removed that people would join hands and sing kumbayah and produce a
stable democracy without much US help. Instead, they've reverted to the
old tribal defaults, and started killing each other with renewed vigor.
It's clear that the Iraq Shi'a regard Sadr as their strongman, and are
willing to slaughter Sunnis in Sadr's name.

If the US national govt was wiped out, Americans would likely establish
some sort of democratic replacement eventually. It might take a while,
but they would. If the Iraqi, or the Saudi, or the Afghan, or the
Syrian, etc national govts were destroyed, you'd have all out civil war
within a month, and in Iraq's case within 48 hours. That civil war would
last for YEARS, until the cities looked like Beirut in 1985, and it is
highly doubtful that any of those countries would ever exist again in
any meaningful form. The only way that they would is if some warlord
managed to conquer the entire territory, as the Taliban did in
Afghanistan, and set himself up as president.

I also don't see why all this would be to the Israeli advantage, unless
this is combined with a long-term plan to drive the Palestinians out of
Gaza and the West Bank. I _hope_ that it is, but I greatly fear that
the Israelis still imagine peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians
possible -- they've been pursuing that mirage for a very long time now.

I don't think that's possible, at least not in today's geopolitical
climate. If the Israelis made a concerted effort to clean out Palestine,
the whole world (except the US) would jump all over them and make them
stop. I don't think that the Israelis can successfully set up a govt in
Palestine either, for the reasons that I mentioned. The best outcome
would be to persuade Egypt to take back the Gaza Strip and Jordan to
reclaim the West Bank. But I should note that when Sadat offered peace
in exchange for Sinai, he told Israel that it could keep Gaza. Jordan
has disavowed the West Bank. Both countries are more than happy to dump
the mess in Israel's lap and let the Israelis deal with it. I think that
if the Arab world really wanted to help Palestine, they'd take it back
and resettle the Palestinians in their own countries. But the
Palestinians are really just chess pawns in a game to destroy Israel, a
goal that is a mirage. Instead, the Arabs have created the ultimate
dysfunctional society-Pitcairn Island writ large and 100 times worse.
The Arabs created the Palestinian monster in the hopes that it would eat
Israel, but Israel is a bitter dish compared to the Arabs themselves.
Now the monster has joined hands with the Hizbullah monster and
threatens to eat EVERYBODY, Israelis, Arabs, Americans, everybody.

Though I do think that it's likely that Israel will emerge from this
First Terrorist War that began in 2001 with a stronger position
vis-a-vis the Islamic world

I don't think that Israel can invade Lebanon and win. They tried before,
and failed. I think the same about Palestine.


Sincerely Yours,
Jordan

PS - I know full well that you meant this to be alarming and ominous.
However, I'm rather pro-Israeli, and see it as a good development for
the world if Israeli power grows.


Power corrupts, but compared to Arab chaos, Israeli rule looks rather
attractive.