Big Bang getting lost in the shuffle?
Monday, January 30, 2006 at 4:42PM ARTICLE: “Mideast Crises Reset Agenda for World Leaders: Iran, Palestinian Politics Take Center Stage at Talks On Afghanistan Planning,” by Neil King, Jr., Wall Street Journal, 30 January 2006, p. A4.
Iran and Palestine have so overshadowed the current London’s donors conference on Afghanistan that our man Neil King forgot to even mention it, quite frankly, in this story, which I guess proves his point!
But it also proves my point on Iran: this is one country who can veto our peace efforts throughout the region. It sits next to Afghanistan. It sits next to Shiite-heavy Iraq. It has strong ties to Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine.
Iran decides it wants to stir things up and pretty soon that’s all we’re talking about at a donors’ conference in London on Afghanistan. You remember Afghanistan, don’t you?
Must have been awfully frustrating to the USG people who set up this conference, some of whom Enterra Solutions has been working with on the subject of how to best template the experience of moving a country from postwar basket case to globalization emerging market.
Of course, Palestine has everyone talking about it, but I keep saying to myself: don’t be unhappy getting what you wish for (real democracy where an Arab government gives up power after an election that is free). Having the “revolutionaries” and terrorists in power may be just the push the languishing Big Bang process needs. I mean, trying to make the two-state solution work with that tired old mess called Fatah was no picnic, so maybe having some firebrands will push things to their logical conclusions faster, like Israel abandoning the West Bank and securing themselves behind that Berlin Wall for the 21st century, as I like to call the security fence they’re building.
Robert Wright’s number one rule for running the world is, Don’t fight the inevitable.
My addendum to his rule would be: Hell, speed it up as fast as you can!
Reader Comments (4)
Nietzsche's "was faellt, das soll man auch noch stossen." (approx)
Berlin Wall for the 21st Century?
Well...it has always been my understanding the Berlin Wall was built more so to keep East Germans in East Germany, and as a challenge to the West, than to keep anyone out.
Israel's wall is quit clearly built to keep Palestinians out and control as much as possible the tide of suicide bombers.
So I would have to say the two walls only resemble each other in that they are both wall-like :)
Even still, building up walls is never a good idea, certainly only a band-aid at best and fogs the real issues anyhow.
Hamas' gains are another system perturbation which makes for another incredible challenge for State. Hitchens was quite pessimistic with his initial take.
actually, Steven, Tom says we're good at sitting on walls (Berlin, Korea, Cuba?) and that it has done good. sometimes all it does is keep the peace while enough of the irreconcilable people die off, say a generation or so, for reconciliation to happen. sometimes it cordons off the ultimately untenable political and economic system until it collapses on its own weight (USSR re: Berlin Wall and 'Iron Curtain' and trying to on N Korea).
(i'm paraphrasing Tom from memory vaguely here, so the details should be corroborated before ascribing them to him.)