Another Moment of Clarity

by digby

The conflict in the mideast has always had a certain kabuki element. In the past when these situations would flare up, Israel would take an agrressive action to demonstrate that it wasn’t a pushover and the US would step in like a Dutch uncle and reluctantly pull the pissed off Israelis back. In a dangerous part of the world, these face-saving kabukis can prevent things from hurtling out of control while allowing each side to stage a little bloodletting. It’s an ugly, ugly business, but ultimately it has managed to help keep this volatile region from hurtling out of control. The “honest broker” thing may have always been phony, but sometimes a phony “honest broker” is all you need.

This time, the US has abandoned that role and they are letting Israel off the leash to do some real damage before they “step in.” Via Atrios I see that Bush thinks he’s smarter than everyone else on this:

When hostilities have broken out in the past, the usual U.S. response has been an immediate and public bout of diplomacy aimed at a cease-fire, in the hopes of ensuring that the crisis would not escalate. This week, however, even in the face of growing international demands, the White House has studiously avoided any hint of impatience with Israel. While making it plain it wants civilian casualties limited, the administration is also content to see the Israelis inflict the maximum damage possible on Hezbollah.

As the president’s position is described by White House officials, Bush associates and outside Middle East experts, Bush believes that the status quo — the presence in a sovereign country of a militant group with missiles capable of hitting a U.S. ally — is unacceptable.

The U.S. position also reflects Bush’s deepening belief that Israel is central to the broader campaign against terrorists and represents a shift away from a more traditional view that the United States plays an “honest broker’s” role in the Middle East.

In the administration’s view, the new conflict is not just a crisis to be managed. It is also an opportunity to seriously degrade a big threat in the region, just as Bush believes he is doing in Iraq. Israel’s crippling of Hezbollah, officials also hope, would complete the work of building a functioning democracy in Lebanon and send a strong message to the Syrian and Iranian backers of Hezbollah.

“The president believes that unless you address the root causes of the violence that has afflicted the Middle East, you cannot forge a lasting peace,” said White House counselor Dan Bartlett. “He mourns the loss of every life. Yet out of this tragic development, he believes a moment of clarity has arrived.”

One former senior administration official said Bush is only emboldened by the pressure from U.N. officials and European leaders to lead a call for a cease-fire. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan demanded yesterday that the fighting in Lebanon stop.

“He thinks he is playing in a longer-term game than the tacticians,” said the former official, who spoke anonymously so he could discuss his views candidly. “The tacticians would say: ‘Get an immediate cease-fire. Deal first with the humanitarian factors.’ The president would say: ‘You have an opportunity to really grind down Hezbollah. Let’s take it, even if there are other serious consequences that will have to be managed.’ “

They are now officially crazy.

I haven’t bought into all the 1914 stuff that’s been going around, but I’m heading that way. It will be sheer luck if we avoid serious consequences from letting these dimwit megalomaniacs loose on the world.

It seems like a good time to remind people of our vaunted leader’s history. I’m speaking, of course, of Dick Cheney. (I won’t bother with Junior– he’s a foreign policy ventriloquist dummy.)

From Frances Fitzgerald in the NY Review of Books:

In “A World Transformed,” the memoir that he and Bush senior published in 1998, [Brent] Scowcroft makes it clear that while all Bush senior’s top advisers had different perspectives, the fundamental division lay between Defense Secretary Richard Cheney and everyone else. By his account, and by those of others in the administration, Cheney never trusted Gorbachev. In 1989 Cheney maintained that Gorbachev’s reforms were largely cosmetic and that, rather than engage with the Soviet leader, the US should stand firm and keep up cold war pressures.

In September 1991 Cheney argued that the administration should take measures to speed the breakup of the Soviet Union—even at the risk of encouraging violence and incurring long-term Russian hostility. He opposed the idea, which originated with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Colin Powell, that the US should withdraw its tactical nuclear weapons from Europe and South Korea. As a part of the preparations for the Gulf War he asked Powell for a study on how small nuclear weapons might be used against Iraqi troops in the desert.

This is the person who is playing a longer game than the tacticians, not Little Bushie. And he is playing a long game. His sharklike, relentless, predatory concentration on achieving long held goals no matter what the current circumstances is quite awesome to behold. The problem is that he’s nuts.

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