Failures Of Military Might

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Failures Of Military Might
By Michael Harris
June 30, 2006

Kill the mike and pass the ammunition: Might is right, again.

Israel’s invasion of the Palestinian territory, its warplane buzzing of the summer home of Syria’s president, and its bombing of the already decrepit infrastructure of Gaza, establish a new low in the brass-knuckle diplomacy invented by George W. Bush.

It would be humanitarian tragedy enough at the best of times. But coming as it does at the moment when Hamas and Fatah, the current and former governments of the Palestinian Authority, have reached a compromise that might have re-launched the peace process in this troubled region, it is a genuine disaster.

Like the Bush invasion of Iraq, the government of Israel is practising misguided, collective punishment at its worst. The deplorable actions of the few have been used as the green light to punish everyone, from elected Palestinian political figures to the poorest ordinary citizens in the refugee camps. What on Earth does blowing up bridges and destroying water mains have to do with punishing those responsible for kidnapping an Israeli soldier?

Israel’s role model in this classic example of state-sponsored terrorism is, of course, the United States under the watch of President Bush. It was the president who famously decided that the U.S. had the right to pre-emptive strikes against America’s enemies on the probability of their ill intentions towards the West. It is a right, apparently, that holds good even when the intelligence establishing the potential threat is dead wrong.

The governments of both of these great countries, Israel and the United States, have contracted the same deadly disease — unilateralism. Unilateralism is giving in to the temptation that superior force means you can have your own way irrespective of others. In Israel’s case, successive governments have tried to dictate the solution to the Palestinian problem by force or fiat.

Whatever else the answer may be to the illegal occupation, it has to begin with the notion that there are two sides to the dispute. Building a wall to establish a new border, withdrawing from only those lands one doesn’t want, and ignoring one’s negotiating partner is a strategy guaranteed to keep the body bags coming. The Israeli government has clearly chosen to ignore the experience of the Bush administration in Iraq.

There was a time when President Bush and his neo-conservative advisors believed that American military power had an almost mystical ability to create a bandwagon effect for foreign policies that otherwise could not be sold to unwilling allies. Iraq was supposed to have been a knockout in round one, a hit with the Iraqi people in round two, and a stable democracy in round three. After that, all the naysayers and equivocators would be volunteering to get in on the success.

Instead, the war gave us Abu Ghraib, mega-casualties on all sides, and a mis-named insurgency that is really a civil war. Countries are leaving, not joining President Bush’s coalition of the willing and the western values on display in Iraq have nothing to do with the founding principles of America.

Does it mean that Washington can’t keep unleashing the dogs of war and winning the bar-room brawl in banana republics and tin-pot backwaters? Absolutely not, anymore than the Palestinians can defeat the formidable military capability of Israel. But is there a price for projecting America’s and Israel’s power into conflicts begging for a diplomatic or judicial solution? There is. It is called one’s reputation.

In the case of Iraq, (and prisoner treatment, the environment and the international criminal court, ICC) it turns out that everyone from Richard Perle to Tucker Carleson was wrong. In the end, the reputation of America has taken a major hit from the deadliest precision weapon of them all — world opinion. America wants to change the world but can’t find allies and can’t do the job herself. The only way to keep the illusion going is to bankrupt the U.S. economy and break American and international law in the process, as the U.S. Supreme Court decided this week.

In small measure, President Bush has seen the error of his ways and is making minor course corrections. The cheese-eating surrender monkeys have lately become the objects of a White House charm offensive. Instead of denouncing Europe’s dialogue with Iran, America has joined it. The president has acknowledged that Guantanamo Bay is inimical to American values and has to be closed. And after thumbing his nose at the ICC, Mr. Bush has now agreed that it is the proper place to try accused war criminals from Darfur.

Shimon Peres grasped the importance of what, in the long run, the world thinks of you.

Taking a page from Peres, and to a lesser extent the American president, would not be a bad idea for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. After all, war is peace is as hard a sell as it ever was.