At the very least Olmert should realize that he is a world statesman leading his country through a moral and military morass for which he's largely responsible. It might behoove him to try to be taken seriously. "Axis of evil" was coined by a man widely regarded as a bona fide moron and the worst president in United States history, a man widely despised in his own country. Adopting the phrase in a sensitive diplomatic context doesn't exactly speak volumes for Olmert's intelligence or independence, or his ability to conduct himself with some pretense of dignity and integrity. It does, however, help explain how Israel got into its current mess.
The Israelis violated the long-standing Spartan injunction not to fight the same enemy too often lest they start gaining on you. In fact, the U.S. also fell into that trap. Let's go back to Iraq! We beat them once, let's do it again!" Seems like the Iraqis also made strategic adjustments since Desert Storm. But of course we couldn't imagine they'd do that because we are the good guys, we have the tanks and bombs and aircraft, we have the better soldiers.
Our continued military invasions of small nations, our ever-present activity in the Middle and Near East, Israel's endless hostilities with its neighbors, all have given the region's contenders a crash course in war. Thus Hezbollah emerges from this latest fiasco with reputation enhanced for fighting the Israelis to a standstill, luring Israel into undermining the stability of the Lebanese state in favor of Hezbollah's own organization, leading relief efforts for those Lebanese harmed by the war, and making Israel look like the outlaw regime its enemies love to paint it as.
In short, we've gone in there so often that we've taught them how to beat us. The combination of cynical policies, ethical bankruptcy, and imbecilic conduct of military campaigns, taught the Middle East how to take on the mighty. The Israeli government of Olmert is poised to fall, with the disaster of Netanyahu waiting hungrily to take over again. We've got more than two years left of George Bush, which is like hearing the dentist tell you that even though he's run out of novocaine, he's only got to fill about a thousand more cavities and then you'll be through. Rumsfeld, one of the more buffoonish military clowns in a long human tradition of over-bloated generals and armchair masterminds, still presides over our foreign policy, while Condie hops around the world doing - just what the hell is Condoleeza Rice doing and what is this purportedly intelligent woman actually thinking?
Persia lost to the Athenians in 490 B.C.E., and to a loose Greek coalition in 480 and 479. A dreadfully outnumbered Greek force under Xenophon 75 years later cut a swath through the Persian empire and fought its way to freedom. The Persians lost the aura of invincibility that surrounded their fabulously wealthy, immense empire. Time just awaited a Philip of Macedon to realize that it was ripe for the picking, and his son, Alexander, to do the job. Familiarity truly bred contempt. The Greeks had fought the Persians enough to know they were vulnerable. History provided the right timing.
We don't like to think it, but both Israel and the United States are following a similar path. Their military prestige has been exhausted. Unlike the Spartans, the U.S. and Israel were too quick to go to war. The Spartans knew that military prestige won more battles when held back close to the vest of policy than squandered whenever one wants some practice kicking ass with a new weapons system. Both countries are also at the edge of exhaustion, having lost most of the institutional resiliency and democratic vitality that bestowed whatever international legitimacy either country could claim.
The deepest tragedy in all this, however, lies in the mindless repetitive use of the military solution as the fastest and best way to a political resolution. How cavalier with the lives of our own soldiers, the heartbreak of our own citizens. How immoral and murderous our willingness to bomb and slaughter others en masse while protesting our own good intentions, and blaming the victims for being in our sights. How strange that with a world threatened with ecological disaster, corporate, military, and political leaders in all these countries trumpet the same old hollow lies with the same grotesquely tiresome results. "A final resolution to the problem of our enemies...shock and awe...greeted with flowers...bring democracy to all Iraqis give or take a few hundred thousand that we've killed to do it...our brave heroes who are fighting to keep us free..."
The madness started a long time ago. Perhaps, as Israel's invasion empowers the very organizations it was supposed to destroy, and as America's invasion of Iraq draws us closer to a systemic breakdown, and as our repeated attacks teach the world's military small fry how to drive mighty armies to despair, perhaps now a growing universal disgust will bring an end to the sickness of the quick, convenient military solution. We would have done well to adopt the Spartan injunctions, or some version of them: 1) don't let your enemies become too familiar with you, 2) beware invading a people who considers itself freer without you than with you, and above all, 3) be cautious in wishing for war as you might get what you wish for.
How ironic and tragic that even one of the most successful and highly militaristic states in history actually can teach us today about humility and the judicious use of force, when it is we who should be looking back at them and shaking our heads at their single-minded barbarism. And yet it is we who are making the Spartans look good.
The Israelis violated the long-standing Spartan injunction not to fight the same enemy too often lest they start gaining on you. In fact, the U.S. also fell into that trap. Let's go back to Iraq! We beat them once, let's do it again!" Seems like the Iraqis also made strategic adjustments since Desert Storm. But of course we couldn't imagine they'd do that because we are the good guys, we have the tanks and bombs and aircraft, we have the better soldiers.
Our continued military invasions of small nations, our ever-present activity in the Middle and Near East, Israel's endless hostilities with its neighbors, all have given the region's contenders a crash course in war. Thus Hezbollah emerges from this latest fiasco with reputation enhanced for fighting the Israelis to a standstill, luring Israel into undermining the stability of the Lebanese state in favor of Hezbollah's own organization, leading relief efforts for those Lebanese harmed by the war, and making Israel look like the outlaw regime its enemies love to paint it as.
In short, we've gone in there so often that we've taught them how to beat us. The combination of cynical policies, ethical bankruptcy, and imbecilic conduct of military campaigns, taught the Middle East how to take on the mighty. The Israeli government of Olmert is poised to fall, with the disaster of Netanyahu waiting hungrily to take over again. We've got more than two years left of George Bush, which is like hearing the dentist tell you that even though he's run out of novocaine, he's only got to fill about a thousand more cavities and then you'll be through. Rumsfeld, one of the more buffoonish military clowns in a long human tradition of over-bloated generals and armchair masterminds, still presides over our foreign policy, while Condie hops around the world doing - just what the hell is Condoleeza Rice doing and what is this purportedly intelligent woman actually thinking?
We don't like to think it, but both Israel and the United States are following a similar path. Their military prestige has been exhausted. Unlike the Spartans, the U.S. and Israel were too quick to go to war. The Spartans knew that military prestige won more battles when held back close to the vest of policy than squandered whenever one wants some practice kicking ass with a new weapons system. Both countries are also at the edge of exhaustion, having lost most of the institutional resiliency and democratic vitality that bestowed whatever international legitimacy either country could claim.
The deepest tragedy in all this, however, lies in the mindless repetitive use of the military solution as the fastest and best way to a political resolution. How cavalier with the lives of our own soldiers, the heartbreak of our own citizens. How immoral and murderous our willingness to bomb and slaughter others en masse while protesting our own good intentions, and blaming the victims for being in our sights. How strange that with a world threatened with ecological disaster, corporate, military, and political leaders in all these countries trumpet the same old hollow lies with the same grotesquely tiresome results. "A final resolution to the problem of our enemies...shock and awe...greeted with flowers...bring democracy to all Iraqis give or take a few hundred thousand that we've killed to do it...our brave heroes who are fighting to keep us free..."
The madness started a long time ago. Perhaps, as Israel's invasion empowers the very organizations it was supposed to destroy, and as America's invasion of Iraq draws us closer to a systemic breakdown, and as our repeated attacks teach the world's military small fry how to drive mighty armies to despair, perhaps now a growing universal disgust will bring an end to the sickness of the quick, convenient military solution. We would have done well to adopt the Spartan injunctions, or some version of them: 1) don't let your enemies become too familiar with you, 2) beware invading a people who considers itself freer without you than with you, and above all, 3) be cautious in wishing for war as you might get what you wish for.
How ironic and tragic that even one of the most successful and highly militaristic states in history actually can teach us today about humility and the judicious use of force, when it is we who should be looking back at them and shaking our heads at their single-minded barbarism. And yet it is we who are making the Spartans look good.
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