Tag Archives: Egypt

Israel’s reeducation minister

Education Minister Yuli Tamir has been much in the news. Two weeks ago she went on a well-publicized visit to authoritarian Singapore to learn the secret of its school system’s success.

Tamir summed up her visit in an interview with Yediot Aharonot, saying, "What most entranced me about [Singaporean schoolchildren] was that while there is discipline, it doesn’t look like repression. I didn’t see fear in the children’s eyes."

It makes sense that this would be the aspect of Singapore’s education system that most impressed Tamir. Her moves back home are all aimed at foisting her political agenda on schoolchildren while blocking all forms of dissent. Dissent, after all, could make her agenda appear repressive.

Tamir’s political agenda has been alternately described as pro-peace, anti-Zionist, pro-democracy, anti-democracy, pluralistic and anti-Semitic.

To understand what her agenda actually holds in store for our future, we need to move beyond labels and assess her policies themselves.

Last December, Tamir ordered that from now on, all maps of the country in new textbooks must clearly demark the 1949 armistice lines. As Tamir sees it, the demarcation of the 1949 armistice lines is crucial for advancing peace. Speaking to Ha’aretz, she said, "We cannot demand that our Arab neighbors mark the borders from 4 June 1967, when our own Education Ministry has erased them from the textbooks and from the students’ consciousness."

Since Israel has applied its laws to the entirety of unified Jerusalem and to the Golan Heights, it is clear that the reason they don’t appear in school textbooks is because they are irrelevant to the study of Israel’s borders. Aside from that, when the cease-fire lines were drawn, neither Israel nor any of its neighbors accepted them as borders and, moreover, in the peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, those lines did not serve as the basis for determining the borders between them. And so, not only does her move ignore Israel’s own determination of its sovereignty, it also ignores historical fact.

As one of the founders of the EU-funded radical Peace Now movement, Tamir opposes all Israeli building beyond the 1949 lines. Her animus was given expression this month with the Council for Higher Education of Judea and Samaria’s decision to upgrade Ariel College to the status of university center. Immediately after the institute, which confers bachelor’s and master’s degrees on its 8,500 students, changed its name to the Ariel University Center of Samaria, Tamir pledged to cut off its government funding and to ignore any correspondence with the institution if it referred to itself as a university center.

The Ariel University Center of Samaria’s location is not Tamir’s only beef with it. Its overt Zionism also sets her off. The school requires all its students to take one course per semester in either Jewish- or Zionist-related subjects. It also requires that the national flag be displayed in all classrooms.

These policies fly in the face of Tamir’s efforts to suppress Zionist and Jewish education.

This month she supported the Finance Ministry’s decision to cut the government’s support for pre-army leadership academies by 50 percent. Students at these academies receive a year-long deferment of their military service. During that year they study Jewish history, Zionist history and Talmud. They volunteer for community service. They undergo pre-military physical fitness regimens, and they hike throughout the country. Seventy percent of graduates serve in combat units and 30% become officers. Among the girls, the majority serve as officers.

In short, in the space of a year, the pre-army academies imbue their students with their Jewish and Israeli heritage and the students, in turn, form the backbone of the IDF’s combat soldier and officer corps. And Tamir has decided to slash their budgets.

As to the general school system, Tamir is advancing a plan to cut the course load by 30% over the next five years. History and Zionist education will be the areas most immediately affected. As she put it, "Rather than learn a lot of material – we’ll learn thinking.Today it is important to process information, not memorize things."

On Sunday, Yediot reported that as part of her plan to limit the materials and control the content of the lessons taught to students, Tamir is moving against Jewish and Zionist studies teachers who teach in the framework of their National Service. Most of the teachers in National Service are Orthodox teenage girls. Due to their religious observance, most Orthodox girls opt to do national service rather than serve in the military.

According to the report, and subsequent follow-ups, Tamir has decided to cut the number of Orthodox teenagers employed through National Service institutions as Jewish and Zionist studies teachers in elementary schools by 50%. As Education Ministry officials put it to Yediot, the girls are "too right-wing," and so they must be removed from classrooms lest they infect schoolchildren with their commitment to the state and to Jewish heritage.

In silencing dissenting voices, Tamir has not been shy about being ruthless.

Take the example of Rabbi Yisrael Shiran. In 2000, when Tamir was serving as tourism minister, Shiran worked as a Jewish studies teacher at the Moriah national religious school in Haifa. He raised Tamir’s hackles when he refused an Education Ministry directive to teach slain prime minister Yitzhak Rabin’s "legacy" of the Oslo peace process with the PLO in the framework of his lesson plans for commemorating his murder. As Shiran saw it, Oslo was controversial, and so it couldn’t simply be taught in a positive light. Tamir moved to have him fired. Shiran petitioned the High Court of Justice, and she relented.

In 2002, he transferred to another school. Now the parents at Moriah want him back. But Tamir is refusing to approve his transfer. Just to teach him a lesson.

Tamir wishes to replace Zionism and Jewish studies with "democratic citizenship" studies. As she explained to Yediot, "In Israel there is a real lack of democratic citizenship studies. As I pledged, the school system is moving this year to teach the subject of citizenship at a level of two credit units [for the high school matriculation exams]. In the future we will continue to expand citizenship classes to the level of three, four and five credits. People aren’t born citizens. They are educated to be citizens." Or reeducated.

In Tamir’s view, a good citizen is one who gives equal weight to both Israel’s actual history and to the Arab world’s distorted version of that history. Last month, she approved a third-grade textbook for Arab Israelis that teaches children that Arabs view the 1948 War of Independence, in which the infant state warded off the invading armies of five Arab states determined to annihilate its Jewish population, as "the nakba," or catastrophe.

Arab Israeli children will now be taught that from the Arab perspective, Israel’s establishment was an act of Jewish aggression. And as Tamir sees it, "I also think it is important for Jewish children to learn about the nakba."

In her latest gambit, this week Tamir informed Israeli Islamic Movement leader and MK Ibrahim Sarsour that she will seriously consider his request to make Islamic religion and culture a required subject for Israeli Arabs. While here too, Tamir’s move is clearly aimed at advancing the distorted Arab narrative in the interest of promoting her vision of good "citizenship," the fact is that Sarsour does not share her goal of promoting a multicultural Israel.

In February 2006, reacting to Hamas’s victory in the Palestinian Authority elections the previous month, Sarsour declared that the Israeli Arab public supports the Palestinian and global jihad forces working to destroy Israel and conquer the Western world.

In his words, "The entire Arab public, but especially the Muslim public, is in the crosshairs. It is the target of global attack. As the Islamic Movement, we wish to see establishment of the Islamic caliphate without borders, and this is what scares the West."

This March, speaking at a conference on Jerusalem in Ramallah, Sarsour called on the Palestinians to conquer Israel’s capital city. "Just as the Muslims once liberated Jerusalem from the Crusaders, so must we today believe we can liberate Jerusalem. It is not an impossible dream," he said.

Given Sarsour’s objective of destroying the State of Israel, Tamir’s willingness to consider his demands means that she supports the indoctrination of Arab Israelis to work toward the destruction of the state as a whole. When taken together with her war against Zionist and Jewish education, educators and institutions, it is clear that not only does Tamir’s vision involve indoctrinating Israel’s Arabs to become its enemies; it also involves indoctrinating (without repression) a new generation of Israelis in a manner that will render them defenseless in the face of the Arab onslaught against the country.

Coalitions, good and bad

Building and maintaining coalitions is one of the most difficult tasks of a nation at war. On the one hand, a state must ensure that its coalition partners share enough common goals and interests to ensure that their cooperation is effective. On the other hand, a state must constantly weigh the political and diplomatic benefits of maintaining its coalition against the price it must pay in terms of military effectiveness by delegating responsibility to others.

The price of maintaining coalitions is starkly exposed by the British military’s failure to rein in radical Shi’ite forces and Iranian influence in Basra, the Iraqi port city and oil hub. The question of whether having coalitions advances a nation’s interests at all is brought to bear in Israel’s diplomatic and strategic handling of its relations with the Palestinians and of the emerging situation in southern Lebanon.

Tuesday, a US intelligence official was quoted by the Washington Post saying, "The British have basically been defeated in the South." The Post article goes on to explain that the British "are abandoning their former headquarters at Basra Palace, where a recent official visitor from London described them as ‘surrounded like cowboys and Indians’ by militia fighters. An airport base outside the city, where a regional US Embassy office and Britain’s remaining 5,500 troops are barricaded behind building-high sandbags, has been attacked with mortars or rockets nearly 600 times over the past four months."

The British defeat in Basra was eminently foreseeable. Immediately after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in April 2003, some 100,000 Iraqi exiles who had lived in Iran since the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s entered the city. Under the command of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, during their time in exile, these Iraqis had organized a number of militias, including the Badr Brigade, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Dawa party, as well as several smaller militias. Muqtada el-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, although Iraq-based, was also supported by the Iranians.

These Iranian-backed forces were the most organized groups in the city in the chaos that engulfed Basra after the regime fell. Capitalizing on their organizational advantage, the groups volunteered to serve in the police and security services the British were raising to run the city. So it came to pass that within a short period of time, radical Shi’ite forces, backed by Iran, successfully took over Basra.

This radical Shi’ite takeover precipitated a reign of terror and intimidation in the city. As freelance reporter Steven Vincent chronicled before he was murdered in Basra in August 2005, the militias instituted a Khomeinist regime in the city, replete with death squads, generally comprised of off-duty policemen, which executed hundreds of civilians they accused of ties to the Ba’ath Party; the brutalization of women caught unveiled in public; the takeover of Basra’s university and hospitals; and the extortion of businessmen in mafia-like protection rackets. All the while, the British turned a blind eye to the devolution of the city into an Iranian enclave.

In an interview with the BBC, Air Chief Marshall and chief of the British Defense Staff Jock Stirrup made clear that Britain never considered it its business how post-Saddam Iraq developed. Insisting that the British mission in Basra has been a success, Stirrup allowed that one’s judgment of the British mission depended on "what your interpretation of the mission was in the first place." As he put it, Britain viewed its mission as limited to getting "the place and the people to a state where the Iraqis could run this part of the country, if they chose to."

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government is keen to withdraw Britain’s remaining forces from Iraq in the fall. Given Britain’s performance in Basra, a British withdrawal would probably advance rather than harm the US’s strategic interests in Iraq.

And yet, for all the difficulties that the British forces in Iraq have created for the Americans (and for the Iraqis who are interested in living in a free society), there is no doubt that both countries perceive themselves as strong allies. To this end, the Americans refrain from publicly criticizing the British military’s dismal performance. For their part, the British have made clear that they will withdraw their forces in a manner that will minimize embarrassment to the US.

The Anglo-American alliance is a clear example of a true, but problematic partnership. In contrast, the Olmert government’s representations of Fatah and Egypt as Israel’s coalition partners against Hamas on the one hand, and the UNIFIL forces as Israel’s coalition partner against Hizbullah on the other hand, are a sham.

The Olmert government’s policies towards Hamas today are driven by its presumption of a partnership with Fatah and Egypt. The government asserts that both Fatah and Egypt share Israel’s goal of limiting Hamas’s power to the Gaza Strip in the short run and overthrowing the jihadist movement in the long run. But reality tells a different tale.

This week, we learned that the $100 million that Israel transferred to Salaam Fayad’s Fatah government last month was used to pay the annual salaries of soldiers in Hamas’s army in Gaza. Then too, this week it was reported that far from eschewing Hamas politically, Fatah is engaged in intense discussions with Hamas towards the establishment of a new Hamas-Fatah government. Far from cooperating with Israel in weakening Hamas, Fatah is actively maintaining Hamas’s strength.

Then there is Egypt. Although successive Israeli governments have insisted that Egypt is a moderating force on Palestinian society, for the past seven years, Egypt has worked steadily to strengthen Palestinian terror forces against Israel.

This state of affairs is most blatant in Egypt’s embrace of Hamas through its hosting of Palestinian "unity" talks for the past seven years, and in its facilitation of the weapons flow into Gaza through Egypt. That Hamas itself views Egypt as an ally rather than a foe was made abundantly clear this week when Hamas leaders offered to transfer control over security forces’ headquarters in Gaza to Egypt as a first step towards reconciling with Fatah.

Then there are the UNIFIL forces in Lebanon. Speaking to Kadima party members Wednesday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert bragged that the security situation in northern Israel and southern Lebanon has never been better. Olmert added, "The commanders of the international forces say so, too."

In this statement, and in countless similar statements he has made over the past year, Olmert has presented UNIFIL as a friendly force which shares Israel’s goal of neutralizing Hizbullah. But here, too, reality tells a different tale.

During last summer’s war, UNIFIL directly assisted Hizbullah by reporting IDF troop movements in real time on its Web site. Since the war ended, UNIFIL forces have done nothing to prevent Hizbullah’s massive rearmament.

Under the protective cover of UNIFIL forces, Hizbullah has reasserted its control over the villages in the South and prevented their Christian residents who fled during the war from returning home. Hizbullah’s unqualified control over south Lebanon is attested to by foreign visitors who report that they must receive Hizbullah travel permits in order to enter south Lebanon. Then too, this week Lebanon’s An Nahar newspaper reported that Hizbullah was moving to extend its independent telephone network to the south. Needless to say, UNIFIL has taken no action to prevent any of this.

UNIFIL’s treatment of Hizbullah demonstrates that like Fatah and Egypt, UNIFIL does not construe its interests or goals in a manner that adheres to any Israeli interests or goals. Indeed, UNIFIL’s assessment of its goals and interests are antithetical and hostile to Israel’s national security interests.

Yet Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and their cabinet colleagues consistently represent UNIFIL as an ally and have worked fastidiously to strengthen it. During the ceasefire negotiations last summer, the government insisted on enlarging the UNIFIL force and extending its mandate. After the war ended, in the interest of strengthening UNIFIL, the government made no effective protest against UNIFIL’s inclusion of forces from countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, whose governments are allied with Iran.

UNIFIL’s mandate expires on August 31. Next week the UN Security Council is scheduled to convene to extend its mandate for another year. Rather than acknowledge UNIFIL’s institutional hostility towards Israel, the Olmert government supports the extension of its mandate. As The Jerusalem Post reported this week, the government even hopes that UNIFIL’s renewed mandate will empower it to increase its presence in Lebanese villages – as if there is any chance that UNIFIL would use its widened role to fight Hizbullah.

Due to the rampantly anti-American atmosphere in Britain and to Britain’s refusal to view the threat that Middle Eastern rogue regimes pose to its national security in the same way as the US perceives the threat, there have always been tensions in the countries’ alliance that have led to their starkly different strategies in Iraq. The main reason that these divergent strategies receive attention today is because the US military’s recent successes in Iraq make Britain’s failures impossible to ignore.

The administration changed course in Iraq because domestic pressure forced it to acknowledge that its previous course was failing. So indirectly, it was public pressure on the administration that exposed the operational disparity between the British and the American militaries. The exposure of this disparity is now forcing the administration to contend with the fact that the coalition with Britain is not as useful as it had hoped. No doubt, as a result, the US military will soon be forced to operate in Basra regardless of whether the British remain in Iraq or withdraw.

Sadly, in Israel, the Olmert government refuses to acknowledge, let alone respond to domestic criticisms of its mishandling of the situation with the Palestinians and its mismanagement of Lebanon. Rather than acknowledge that Fatah, Egypt and UNIFIL share none of Israel’s national interests, the government continues to embrace them and hopes that no one will notice that its imaginary coalition partners endanger, rather than advance Israel’s national security.

America’s best friends

Two major arms sales were announced over the weekend. First, the US announced that it is planning to sell Saudi Arabia $20 billion in advanced weapons systems, including Joint Direct Attack Munition kits or JDAMs that are capable of transforming regular gravitational bombs into precision-guided "smart" weapons.

Largely in an attempt to neutralize Congressional opposition to the proposed sale, the Bush administration also announced that it plans to increase annual military assistance to Israel by some 25 percent next year and that it hopes that next year’s increase in assistance will be maintained by the next administration.

The second arms sale was the reported Russian agreement to sell Iran 250 advanced long-ranged Sukhoi-30 fighter jets and aerial fuel tankers capable of extending the jets’ range by thousands of kilometers. Russia’s massive armament of Iran in this and in previous sales over the past two years make clear that from Russia’s perspective, all threats to US interests, including Shi’ite expansionism, work to Moscow’s advantage.

On the face of it, these contrasting US and Russian announcements seem to signal that geopolitics have reverted to the Cold War model of two superpowers competing for global power by, among other things, assisting their proxies in fighting one another. Yet, today the situation is not the same as it was before.

Today, the US finds itself competing not only against an emergent Russia, but against Iran, and the Shi’ite expansionism it advances. Moreover, it finds itself under attack from Sunni jihadism, which is incubated and financed by Saudi Arabia, America’s primary ally in the Persian Gulf.

The US’s proposed arms sale to Saudi Arabia has raised pointed criticism in Israel and among Israel’s supporters in the US. As senior defense officials told The Jerusalem Post Monday, the JDAM sale to Saudi Arabia constitutes a strategic threat to Israel which has no way of defending itself against JDAM capabilities.

To assess the reasonableness of Israel’s opposition to the proposed sale, and to understand the sale’s significance against the background of emerging regional and global threats to US national security interests, it is worthwhile to revisit US actions toward Israel and Saudi Arabia during the Cold War when checking Soviet expansion worldwide was the main goal of US foreign policy.

The US held Israel at arms length until after its stunning victory against Soviet clients Egypt and Syria in the 1967 Six Day War. In the aftermath of Israel’s victory, the US realized that Israel was a natural ally in checking Soviet power in the Middle East. As a result, in 1968 it began providing Israel with political and military aid. This policy paid off in spades in the 1973 Yom Kippur War and in the 1982 Lebanon War when the IDF handily beat the Soviets’ proxy armies. Indeed, from the US perspective, there was no downside to supporting Israel. Israel’s patent lack of expansionist ambitions ensured that the US would suffer no ancillary blowback for its support.

The US-Israel alliance’s central weakness was US’s perception of Saudi Arabia as its strategic ally. This weakness came to the fore most prominently in 1981 with the Reagan administration’s decision to sell AWACs spy planes to the Saudis. As is the case with the US’s current proposed arms sale to the Saudis, back then Israel perceived the AWACs sale as a strategic threat to its national security. Yet, since checking Soviet expansionism and not securing Israel was the US’s primary strategic aim, and since the US perceived Saudi Arabia as an ally against Soviet expansionism, the Reagan administration pushed the sale forward against Israel’s strenuous objections.

In the end, the AWACs were not used against Israel. Yet by the same token, they also did nothing to curb Soviet expansionism or advance any other US interest. During the 1991 Gulf War, the Saudis played no effective combat role against Iraq.

The main Saudi contribution to the US’s victory in the Cold War was its willingness to finance the mujahadeen in Afghanistan who fought the Soviet invasion. There can be no doubt that the rout of the Soviet military in Afghanistan played a central role in causing the dissolution of the Soviet empire. But there is also no question that the blowback from the war in Afghanistan has been enormously detrimental to US national security and to global security as a whole.

The mujadaheen’s US-armed and Saudi financed victory against the Soviets in Afghanistan fed the aspirations of Saudi supported Sunni jihadists. It spawned al-Qaida and provided arms and combat experience to forces that would come back to haunt the US.

So as far as the Middle East and Central Asia are concerned, a primary lesson of the Cold War relates to the relative weight the US can securely place in its alliance with Israel on the one hand, and its alliance with the Saudis on the other. Israel used US support in a manner that advanced both Israel’s national security and US geopolitical interests with no blowback. The Saudis were either inconsequential, or advanced US interests in a manner that caused enormous blowback.

Today as the US faces Russian hostility, Iranian expansionism and Saudi-financed Sunni jihadists, it remains afflicted by the Cold War dilemma of the relative importance of its alliances with Israel and Saudi Arabia. On the face of it, given that today the potential for blowback in supporting Saudi Arabia is far higher and eminently more foreseeable than it was 25 years ago, it should seem clear that in assessing its strategic assets and interests in the region, the US would place far greater weight on its alliance with Israel.

Unfortunately, today the Bush administration is behaving counterintuitively. It pursues its alliance with Saudi Arabia with vigor while eschewing and downgrading its alliance with Israel.

The administration’s hostility toward Israel is not limited to its intention to arm the Saudis with weapons capable of destroying Israel’s strategic assets in the Negev. It is also actively pressuring Israel not to defend itself against Iran and its proxies. Since the Second Lebanon War last summer, the US has pushed Israel to take no action against Iran’s proxy Hamas on the one hand, while pushing Israel to empower Fatah, which has its own strong ties to Iran and to Hamas, on the other. By pressuring Israel to enact a policy of capitulation toward the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria, similar to its capitulation to the Palestinians two years ago in Gaza, the Bush administration is advancing a policy that if implemented all but ensures Iranian control over the outskirts of Jerusalem and Amman.

There are two principal causes of the US’s coolness toward Israel and warm embrace of the Saudis. First, the administration’s failure to achieve its goals in Iraq strengthened the influence of the Saudi’s Cold War proponents. These proponents, led by former secretary of state James Baker’s disciples Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, advance their Saudi-centric agenda while paving the way for a US withdrawal from Iraq without victory. In the Baker camp’s view, the best way to facilitate a pullout is by strengthening the Saudis so that they can perhaps prevent a post-US withdrawal Iraq from devolving into an Iranian colony.

The second cause of the administration’s hostility toward Israel is the Olmert government’s irresolute handling of the Second Lebanon War last year. As was the case 25 years ago, so too last summer, the administration supported Israel against the wishes of the Baker camp. Yet when unlike 25 years ago, last summer the Olmert government led Israel to defeat in Lebanon, it weakened the standing of administration officials who view Israel as a strategic ally and oppose the Saudis, while strengthening Israel’s Baker-inspired foes who view Israel as a strategic liability.

The Olmert government’s enthusiastic embrace of capitulation as a national policy toward the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria merely serves to strengthen the US view that Israel is a strategic liability rather than an asset.

Yet the lessons of the Cold War, and those of the past 15 years remain clear. The Saudis remain at best fair-weather friends to the US, while Israel’s strength or weakness directly impacts US national security and geopolitical interests. As was the case during the Cold War, so too today, the US’s best option for checking Russian and Iranian expansionism and neutralizing Sunni jihadists is to back Israel.

If the US were willing to understand the clear lessons from its Cold War experience in the Middle East, it would not be pushing Israel to weaken itself still further through land giveaways to Iran’s Palestinian proxies. It would not be actively undercutting Israel’s national security by supplying sophisticated weapons to the Saudis. It would be admonishing the Olmert government for its irresponsible behavior and exhorting Israel not to go wobbly because it is needed for the larger fight.

Iran 2, Israel 0

Jafar Kiani was an anonymous Iranian prisoner until earlier in the month he became the first Iranian to be stoned to death since 2002.

Iran’s decision to revert to domestic barbarism is just one aspect of the regime’s strategy for terrorizing its people sufficiently to quell all pockets of resistance to its rule.

The regime’s determination to prevent an internal rebellion is an integral part of its larger plan to cast aside all obstacles to its acquisition of nuclear weapons.

Iran already possesses what it needs to make nuclear bombs. What it needs is time. Last summer’s war against Israel was timed to provide Iran with a respite from international pressure. Hizbullah’s abduction of IDF reservists Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser took place the day before the leaders of the G-8 were scheduled to discuss Iran’s nuclear program. By ordering the assault on Israel, Iran diverted their attention away from its nuclear program.

Ever since the war, the Olmert government has declared that the war split the Muslim world into two camps – the moderates and the extremists. Operating on the basis of this perceived split, Israel has sought to build a coalition with the moderates in the hopes that such a coalition will block Iran from acquiring the bomb.

A year after the war, the time has come to make a renewed assessment of the situation. Are moderates blocking Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons? If not, what has transpired?

A good place to start the analysis is with an item that appeared on both Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s to-do list this week. Both leaders telephoned Turkish Prime Minister Recip Erdogan to congratulate him on his Islamist AKP party’s electoral victory on Sunday.

Turkey is perceived as the paragon of Muslim moderation. Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and President Shimon Peres have all stated that Israel does not have a problem with AKP’s Islamist character. Indeed, in a bow towards Turkish friendship, Olmert revealed last week that Turkey has been facilitating talks between Israel and Syria towards an Israeli surrender of the Golan Heights.

Yet Ankara’s readiness to encourage Israel to hand the Golan Heights over to Iran’s client state does not necessarily indicate that Turkey is Israel’s friend. Indeed, since the AKP rose to power in 2002, it has distanced Turkey from both Israel and the US while warming Turkish relations with Iran and Syria.

Starting with Turkey’s refusal to participate in or support the US-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime, recent years have been marked by steadily increasing Turkish hostility. Two weeks ago, to Washington’s dismay, Turkey signed a $3.5 billion gas deal with Iran.

As to Israel, Erdogan was the first leader to host Hamas terror masters after the jihadist movement won the Palestinian elections in January 2006. During last summer’s war, Iran shipped arms to Hizbullah through Turkey. Turkey’s leaders have repeatedly declared their support for Iran’s right to develop its nuclear program.

IRAN’S COURTSHIP of Turkey is but one aspect of its foreign policy. Over the past several years, Iran has built webs of alliances with other states, alliances that have significantly deepened since last summer’s war.

In the first circle, Iran has its clients – Syria, Hizbullah, the Shiite (and increasingly the Sunni) militias in Iraq, and the Palestinians. Just as these forces fought together last summer, so they will fight together in the future. Ahmadinejad’s visit to Damascus last weekend was strikingly similar to meetings he held with his terror underlings before last summer’s war.

In its second circle, Iran has cultivated strategic ties with countries in Latin America, which, led by Venezuela, share its hatred for America. These ties serve three purposes. First, they provide Iran with a global deterrent against the US. Second, they provide Iran with ready support in diplomatic forums. Third, they build support for Iran among the "progressive" set in the US and Europe.

In Iran’s third circle of alliances are countries like Russia, China and Egypt. While all these states publicly oppose Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons, they effectively block the international community from taking effective action against Iran’s nuclear program.

In the meantime, Israel’s coalition of moderates has failed to materialize. The leaders of the sought-for coalition, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, refuse to take any action against Iran. Indeed, they effectively support Teheran. In February, Saudi King Abdullah feted Ahmadinejad during a state visit. The next month, by mediating the formation of the Hamas-Fatah government, Abdullah enabled Iran’s Palestinian proxy to gain control of the Palestinian Authority. As for Egypt, it is using Iran’s nuclear program as cover to advance its own nuclear weapons program.

Then there are the great powers and foremost among them Russia, France and the US. Any UN action against Iran must be agreed upon by all three. And there is little chance of that ever happening.

Russia is Iran’s ally. Russia supplied Hizbullah and Syria with arms and intelligence during last summer’s war. In the intervening year, Russia has sold advanced weapons systems to both Iran and Syria. Last weekend’s report in the Arab media regarding Iranian financing of Syrian purchases of Russian jet fighters, tanks and missiles is part of this overall picture.

Israeli analysts scoffed at the report, noting that the billion dollars Ahmadinejad pledged is insufficient to purchase the weapons he outlined. But those weapons will not all be going to Syria. Last April Iran and Syria signed an agreement essentially merging their militaries. Iran’s Defense Minister Mustafa Muhammad Najjar told reporters in Damascus, "We consider the capability of the Syrian defensive forces as our own." He added that Iran "offers all of its defense capabilities to Syria."

While Russia is selling the weapons to Syria, a Russian military official said of the aircraft, "The Syrians will be getting the top line of Russian aircraft through financing by Iran and [will] share some or most of the platforms with the Iranian air force." Jane’s Defense Monthly reported that at least 10 of the artillery-missile systems will also be transferred to Iran.

Russia also acts as Teheran’s diplomatic shill. During a summit in Teheran last month Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, "We do not see any kind of threat from Iran." In a subsequent visit to Israel, Lavrov insisted that Russia’s arms sales pose no threat to the Jewish state, and anyway, the only way for Israel to ensure its security is to surrender the Golan Heights to Syria.

But the Olmert government refuses to acknowledge that Russia has reinstated its Cold War hostility towards Israel. It vapidly praises President Vladimir Putin for his "positive role" in the region and continues to adhere to the line that Russia will agree to UN Security Council action against Iran.

Then there is France. Last summer France displayed open hostility towards Israel in its representation of the Lebanese government in which Hizbullah was then a member at the UN ceasefire talks. On the other hand, in 2005 France joined forces with the US to expel the Syrian military from Lebanon after the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Israel hoped that with Nicholas Sarkozy’s victory in the presidential race, France would take a more pro-Israel stance. Unfortunately, the opposite occurred. Sarkozy has warmed French ties with the Iranian-Syrian-Hizbullah axis. Sarkozy legitimized all three when he invited Hizbullah representatives to participate in talks he held with Lebanese factions outside of Paris this month.

Additionally, early this month France led 10 EU member states in meddling in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The foreign ministers of these largely Mediterranean EU member states sent a letter to Quartet envoy Tony Blair, demanding, among other things, that Israel agree to the deployment of international forces in Judea and Samaria, and that Hamas be invited to participate in an international conference on the issue.

As France treats with Iran on Lebanon, the US follows a similar course of engaging the mullah on Iraq. After his meeting with his Iranian counterpart in Baghdad this week, US Ambassador Ryan Crocker announced the formation of a joint US-Iranian security committee which will discuss Sunni terrorism in Iraq.

Apparently in the interest of advancing America’s "security cooperation" with Iran, the State Department refused to raise the issue of the five American citizens being held hostage in Iran at the meeting. And with the prospect of diplomatic "progress" with Iran on Iraq in the air, the US certainly doesn’t want to rock the boat by pursuing the issue of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Indeed, Iran’s carrot and stick approach to powers like the US and France form a fourth circle of ties. Iran has worked to neutralize threats from these countries by attacking their interests in other spheres: Lebanon, in the case of France, and Iraq, in the case of the US. Given both countries enthusiasm for "engagement," it seems that the mullahs have hit on the right approach.

ISRAEL HAS experienced some achievements regarding Iran over the past year. The UN Security Council did pass two sanctions resolutions against Iran. With the active lobbying of opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu, many US public employee pension funds are moving to divest from companies that do business with Iran. And this week, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that like his predecessor Tony Blair, he will not rule out the option of using military force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Yet despite these achievements, Iran has made steady progress with its nuclear program. Wednesday Ahmadinejad announced, "Iran will never abandon its peaceful [nuclear] work." Sunday, a senior Iranian official told The Independent that with almost 3,000 centrifuges operating at its nuclear facility at Natanz, "We have at the moment enough centrifuges to go to a bomb."

Back in Israel, this week Olmert made clear that he wishes to advance contacts with the Palestinians towards an Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria. His advisors told reporters that Olmert is moved by his desire to get beyond his failure in last year’s war and the criminal investigations into his shady business dealings. He wishes to be perceived as a statesman.

Of course if Olmert truly wishes to be seen as a statesman, then he shouldn’t be concerning himself with Israeli withdrawals that will only strengthen Iran. He should change his strategic focus to Iran which threatens to wipe Israel off the map.

Despite his government’s protestations to the contrary, there is no coalition of moderates to work with against Iran. There is no coalition at all. And time is not in Israel’s favor.

If Olmert wishes to gain the public’s support, and even admiration, he must quickly build and deploy a military option for destroying Iran’s burgeoning ability to destroy the State of Israel.

No heroes in Act Three

Will the US and Israeli belief that a hero will suddenly appear to save the day for the Palestinians never die? Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and US President George W. Bush are in for a big disappointment. Palestinian and Arab sources say that with the scheduled return of Egypt’s intelligence detail to Gaza next week, Fatah will commence discussions toward politically capitulating to Hamas. And so the US and Israeli plan to respond to the Hamas takeover of Gaza by strengthening Fatah has failed.

Neither its failure, nor the US and Israeli insistence on courting failure is the least bit surprising. For the past 14 years, Washington and Jerusalem have clung to their belief that that the way to bring stability and peace to the Middle East is to establish a Fatah-dominated Palestinian state in Gaza, Judea and Samaria and parts of Jerusalem – in spite of its consistent failure.

Since 1993, from blueprint to road map to vision statement to horizon vision, successive Israeli governments and US administrations have advanced the idea that Fatah is the deus ex machina that will solve all the woes of the region with a singlemindedness bordering on religious zealotry. Both countries’ apparent obsession with finding the proper way to establish a Fatah state has caused them to stubbornly ignore mountains of evidence which clearly showed that their basic assumption – that a Fatah state would engender stability and peace – was wrong.

Throughout the 1990s, both countries shut their eyes as Yasser Arafat built irregular Fatah militias; enabled Hamas and Islamic Jihad to carry out suicide bombings against Israel; and transformed the Palestinian schools, mosques and media into indoctrination centers which hooked the Palestinians on jihad.

In 2000 Arafat’s rejection of statehood and peace at the Camp David summit exposed the fact that the Fatah-based, two-state solution was a failure. Yet both Jerusalem, under the Barak and Sharon governments, and Washington, under the Clinton and Bush administrations, have refused in the intervening years to accept its failure. To the contrary: Since 2000, Israel and the US have redoubled their efforts to "strengthen Fatah" in the hopes of establishing that Palestinian state.

Even as their favorite "moderates" – who at various times have included Arafat, Abbas, security chief Muhammad Dahlan, convicted mass murderer Marwan Barghouti, former PA prime minister Ahmed Qurei and current Fatah Prime Minister Salam Fayad – have all been implicated in terror attacks and funding, both Israel and the US have remained unstinting in their view. Fatah must be strengthened in order to achieve a two-state solution.

Still today, in spite of Hamas’s takeover of Gaza, its popularity in Judea and Samaria, and Abbas’s inability to even control his own terror forces in Fatah, the Bush administration and the Olmert government are adamant: Fatah must be strengthened in order to achieve a "political horizon" that will bring about the Palestinian state.

And now, by engaging in negotiations with Hamas, Fatah intends to prove them wrong yet again. And again, far from engendering peace and security, the Fatah-based policy breeds yet more instability and greater Palestinian support for terror.

Given their public commitment to the Fatah-based "two-state solution," there is little hope that either US President George W. Bush or the Olmert government will accept their "vision’s" failure. Yet today in both Washington and Jerusalem significant voices are calling for a reappraisal of the Fatah-based strategy. Discussions are taking place among policymakers in both capitals regarding a possible "Jordanian option."

Proponents of the "Jordanian option" maintain that a Jordanian military contingent deployed to Judea and Samaria can act as a deus ex machina that will save the day for all sides. They will end the chaos on the Palestinian streets and ensure Israeli security. By doing so, it is claimed, the Jordanians will pave the way for a reform of Palestinian society which will enable negotiations to restart between Israel and the Palestinians toward a two-state solution.

While those involved in these discussions are to be congratulated for their willingness to put aside the Fatah deus ex machina, their view of a Jordanian deus ex machina suffers from a flawed reasoning similar to that which plagues the Fatah enthusiasts. Advocates of the Jordanian military option project their own aspirations for security and a political settlement on the Jordanians without checking to see whether the Jordanians share their aspirations. And, they do not.

It is true that since King Abdullah closed Hamas’s offices and expelled its leaders from Jordan in 1999, the kingdom has advanced an anti-Hamas policy. But it is also true that until 1999, Jordan supported Hamas and allowed it to use Amman as its home base. Both Jordan’s decision to embrace Hamas and its decision to expel Hamas stemmed from Jordan’s assessment of its national interests.

Unlike Israel, Jordan can, under certain circumstances, coexist with Hamas. The threat that Hamas poses to Jordan is qualitatively different from the threat it poses to Israel. And so, unlike Israel, there is no reason to believe that Jordan will not cut a deal with Hamas in Judea and Samaria that will enable the group to continue to exert control over the Palestinians and threaten Israel.

A Jordanian military deployment would not merely neglect and probably harm Israel’s security interests. It would also cause great harm to Israel’s political interests. The deployment of Jordanian forces to the region would not mitigate international criticism of Israel as the "occupier" of the areas. And rather than forming closer political ties with Jordan, the Palestinians would continue to view attacking Israel as the best way to advance politically.

What both the Fatah road map to the two-state solution and the Jordanian road map to the two-state solution show quite clearly is that there is no two-state solution.

Rather than search endlessly for new blueprints and horizons, both Israel and the US would do well to ask themselves the basic question of what their interests are vis-a-vis the Palestinians.

Both Israel and the US would likely agree that they are interested in stabilizing the security situation in the Palestinian areas – first and foremost in Judea and Samaria to prevent Hamas from extending its reach to the Jordan River. Aside from that, both Israel and the US would agree that Palestinian society must transform itself from the jihad-supporting polity it is at present to an anti-jihadist polity.

If it shows anything, the failure of the Fatah paradigm should show that all the best wishes and efforts of Israel and the US cannot cause the Palestinians to change course. They themselves have to be brought to a point where, over time, they will perhaps decide that they have taken a wrong course.

Today, for all the talk of bringing in the Jordanian army, the fact of the matter is that the security situation in Judea and Samaria is the only good news in town. Since the IDF reasserted its control over the areas in 2002 during Operation Defensive Shield, the Israeli military has managed to largely prevent the Palestinians from rebuilding terror infrastructures capable of carrying out major or sustained attacks against Israel. Since Israeli military control is the only strategic asset to be found, it is the only thing that should be left untouched.

What should be radically altered is the political strategy informing US and Israeli policymakers. The 14-year obsession with strengthening Fatah has hooked the Palestinians on the belief that they can and should expect Israel to fund and legitimize them even as they become ever more radical in their hatred of the Jewish state and ever more devoted to the cause of its destruction.

It will no doubt take a generation to disabuse the Palestinians of this belief. And as long as this belief informs the Palestinians, there is no chance of ever reaching a political accommodation between them and Israel.

So rather than seeking to appease the Palestinians into accepting statehood, Israel and the US must set the course for an internal Palestinian reckoning with what they have become. To this end, the most Israel can responsibly offer the Palestinians is civilian autonomy with no military component. This state of affairs must last until the Palestinians themselves have proven, through their actions, that they have kicked their addiction to jihad.

If thoughts now turn to Jordan, it is in the realm of political transformation and not in military affairs, where Jordan can make a major contribution to stability that can pave the way to a future peace. From 1950-1988, all Palestinian residents of Judea and Samaria were also Jordanian citizens. For the first time since King Hussein revoked their citizenship rights, today there appears to be a willingness among members of Jordan’s ruling class to engage in discussion toward reinstating them.

Today people like former Jordanian prime minister Abdul Salim al-Majali are quietly engaging in discussions with the Israeli and American policy communities about the possibility of reasserting Jordanian political responsibility for the Palestinians. Although these discussions are couched in the rhetoric of an Israeli withdrawal from the entirety of Judea and Samaria, there is no reason to believe that opening offers will also be closing offers.

While the Olmert government and the Bush administration seem intent on ignoring them, there are viable options for securing the Palestinian front and preventing a jihadist takeover of Judea and Samaria. But to move toward them, fantasies of Fatah forces or Jordanian forces marching in to save the day and move us to a fantasyland of two-state solutions must be discarded in favor of real options based on real interests.

Olmert’s international coalition

Today Hamas consolidates its power in Gaza and plans its next moves in Judea and Samaria. Fatah – its main competitor – has collapsed.

Fatah was plunged into a state of organizational shock last month after its US-trained militias surrendered control of Gaza to Hamas and its US-benighted commanders fled the area.

Although with sufficient bribes for its angry followers courtesy of Israel and the US, Fatah may be able to temporarily resuscitate itself (at least until its leaders feel secure enough with the size of their Swiss bank accounts to decamp to Borneo), Hamas’s consolidation of its control over Gaza has nonetheless sealed Fatah’s death warrant.

In the course of its jihadist putsch in Gaza, Hamas took control not only of Fatah’s US- and European-financed military arsenal and the CIA and MI-6 intelligence gathering equipment Fatah was lavished with. It also took control of Fatah’s intelligence files and the personal files of Fatah leaders. This means that Hamas now has complete documentary evidence of Fatah’s corruption; its involvement in terrorism; and its double dealing with the West, with rogue regimes like Iran, and with terror groups like Hizbullah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and al-Qaida.

There can be no doubt that under the tutelage of the Iranian and Syrian intelligence directorates, Hamas will use its treasure trove of information in a manner that will block any move by Fatah to renew its support bases in Palestinian society.

Hamas’s intelligence windfall will similarly prevent Fatah from significantly resisting Hamas’s consolidation of control over Gaza and the expansion of Hamas’s rule to Judea and Samaria.

Two examples of Hamas’s use of information to date suffice to make this point clear. First there is Israel and the US’s favorite Palestinian "straight-shooter" Salam Fayad. Fayad – a former senior official from the terror-linked Arab Bank and the current prime minister of Fatah Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s Judea and Samaria government – served willingly as finance minister in Hamas’s government before the Gaza takeover.

Claiming that Fayad was a personal friend of hers, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ignored her own government’s boycott of the Hamas government to meet with Fayad when he visited Washington in the spring.

Sunday Gaza-based Hamas terrorist and parliamentarian Yahya Musa accused Fayad of corruption. Referring to him as "the head of the thieves," Musa claimed that Fayad is "suspected of embezzling $36 million from the Agricultural Development Company."

Musa also hinted that Fayad has personally overseen the finance of terrorism by stating that he "used to channel public funds to Fatah."

The second example is Hamas’s use of information on Fatah commander Muhammad Dahlan. On June 15, Hamas took control of Dahlan’s palatial residence in Gaza. Hamas claimed it found a suitcase filled with gold, forged Pakistani and US passports and the identification card of murdered IDF border guard Nissim Toledano. The last find is particularly revealing.

Since 1994 both the US and Israel ignored mountains of evidence of Dahlan’s involvement with terrorism. Both governments have clung to their support for Dahlan despite his close relationships with senior Hamas terrorists like Muhammad Deif and his own forces’ direct involvement in the murder of Israelis. The fact that Dahlan had possession of Toledano’s ID card shows just how ill-advised this support for Dahlan has been.
Toledano was kidnapped on his way to his border guard base in 1992. His mutilated body was found near the Dead Sea some days later. Toledano’s abduction and murder became a pivotal event for all that would follow in the region.

Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. In response, the Rabin government deported 417 Hamas terrorists to Lebanon where they were quickly taken under the wing of Hizbullah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. In 1994, in the wake of the Oslo peace process with Fatah, Rabin allowed the 417 to return to Gaza, Judea and Samaria. Once back, they immediately fomented a terror onslaught against Israel the likes of which had never been seen before. It was the returnees who organized the first suicide bombing beginning in April 1994.

The fact that Dahlan was in possession of Toledano’s ID raises the question of Fatah’s involvement in his kidnap and murder and casts a pall over the entire attempt by Israel and the West to make a distinction between Hamas and Fatah terrorists.

There can be no doubt that more information about Fatah leaders (and their business and other connections with Israeli political leaders and others) will follow – as suits the operational interests of Hamas and its Iranian bosses.

In light of this it is clear that Fatah can be of no use to anyone any longer. Indeed, those who work to strengthen Fatah may well be opening themselves to blackmail and public humiliation at a time and place of Hamas’s choosing. So not only is Fatah a dead horse, it is a dead horse rigged to a land mine.

Yet for all that, supporting Fatah and Abbas remains the central goal of Israel’s government. This week Israel handed some $120 million over to Abbas and Fayad. Next week it will release 250 Fatah terrorists from prison. Last week Prime Minister Ehud Olmert embraced Abbas at Sharm e-Sheikh after expounding on Abbas’s greatness with US President George W. Bush at the White House the week before.

Olmert and his colleagues portray Abbas as a central member of a camp of "moderates" which includes the Saudis, the Egyptians and the Jordanians. All these so-called moderates are supposed to form a coalition with Israel, the US and the EU against the "extremists" in Hamas, Iran, Hizbullah and Syria. Unfortunately the camp of moderates is a fiction. Jordan is so frightened of a jihadist coup that its government statements are barely distinguishable from Muslim Brotherhood press releases.

Over the weekend, at Egypt’s invitation, Hamas terror forces deployed along the Gaza border with Egypt. For its part, Saudi Arabia oversaw the formation of the Hamas-Fatah "unity" government last March which subordinated Abbas and Fatah to Khaled Mashaal and Hamas. The Saudis have embraced Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In his maiden visit to the Sunni Islamist capital, the genocidal, messianic Shi’ite Ahmadinejad was kissed, and hugged, and held hands with King Abdullah.

For her part, rather than condition any further US support for Fatah on credible steps to fight Hamas and its own terror networks, Rice is redoubling her pressure on Israel. Rice is planning to use $86 million in US-taxpayer funds to have Lt. Gen Keith Dayton train Fatah forces in Judea and Samaria. That’s the same Gen. Dayton who trained and armed the Fatah forces in Gaza who cut and run rather than fight Hamas last month and so surrendered their US-supplied weapons to Iran’s proxy without a fight.

Additionally, Rice is aggressively pushing her plan to force Israel to negotiate and conclude a treaty with Abbas that would involve an Israeli pledge to surrender Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem to Fatah. This is the same Fatah whose membership is revolting and bolting and the same Abbas who Fatah members are revolting against.

As for the Europeans, newly appointed Quartet envoy Tony Blair is set to begin negotiating with Hamas in his planned visit to Gaza next week.

While like Rice, Blair has repeatedly claimed that the absence of a Palestinian state is the cause of all the troubles in the Muslim world today, a week ago a Blair adviser went a step further. According to media reports, the official advised the Israeli government that as far as Blair is concerned, Israel is responsible for the global jihad because of its refusal to surrender to Palestinian terrorism.

The only reasonable explanation of the Olmert government’s behavior in regards to the Palestinians is that the government hopes that by appeasing the US and the rest of the gang on the Palestinian issue, Israel will receive their cooperation in preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Unfortunately, here too, all evidence points to the conclusion that Israel has not received anything on the Iran front from any of the relevant actors in exchange for its willingness to let Hamas take over Gaza and continue to finance and arm Fatah terrorists.

Over the weekend Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Foreign Minister met with Iran’s ambassador to the Kingdom and reasserted Saudi Arabian support for Iran’s pursuit of "peaceful nuclear technologies." The Saudis and the Iranians also agreed on the need for Islamic solidarity against the "enemies of Islam."

As for the Egyptians, not only are they, like the Saudis now openly moving to get nuclear capabilities of their own, the Egyptians are responsible for enabling Hamas to take control of Gaza. In spite of repeated Israeli entreaties, Egypt has never lifted a finger to prevent the flow of arms and terror personnel across its border. To the contrary, it facilitated Gaza’s transformation into a jihadist hub. Since last summer’s war, Egypt has moved towards reestablishing full diplomatic relations with the Iranians.

Today both the US and the Europeans are poised to set aside the option of escalating sanctions against Iran for its refusal to end its uranium enrichment activities. Over the weekend, their representatives to the International Atomic Energy Agency debated a plan to take a break from escalating sanctions if Iran agrees to stop expanding its uranium enrichment. That is, the US is presently considering a plan that would allow Iran to continue to enrich uranium without facing effective international sanctions as a result.

The tragedy of this situation is that a coalition could be brought together that would be capable of meeting both the Palestinian and Iranian threats to Israeli and global security. Friends of Israel in Congress, the Bush Administration and the US policy community would be happy to work with Israel to counteract Rice’s failed policies.

Unfortunately, Israeli leaders capable of appreciating and acting on this fact are nowhere to be found in the Olmert government.

Grounded in fantasy

Iran and its client state Syria have a strategic vision for the Middle East. They wish to take over Lebanon. They wish to destroy Israel. They wish to defeat the US in Iraq. They wish to drive the US and NATO from Afghanistan. They wish to dominate the region by driving the rest of the Arab world to its jihad-supporting knees. Then they wish to apply their vision to the rest of the world.

Today, Syria and Iran are ardently advancing their strategic vision for the world through a deliberate strategy of victory by a thousand cuts. Last week’s Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip; Sunday’s reopening of the Lebanese front against Israel with the Syrian-ordered rocket attacks on Kiryat Shemona; the now five-week old Syrian ordered low-intensity warfare against Lebanon’s pro-Western Siniora government; last week’s attack on the al-Askariya mosque in Samarra; the recent intensification of terrorism in Afghanistan and Iran’s move to further destabilize the country by violently deporting 100,000 Afghan refugees back to the war-torn country – all of these are moves to advance this clear Iranian-Syrian strategy.

And all these moves have taken place against the backdrop of Syria’s refashioning of its military in the image of Hizbullah on steroids and Iran’s relentless, unopposed progress in its nuclear weapons program.

For their part, both the US and Israel also have a strategic vision. Unfortunately, it is grounded in fantasy.

Washington and Jerusalem wish to solve all the problems of the region and the world by establishing a Palestinian state in Gaza, Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. While Israel now faces Iranian proxies on two fronts, in their meeting at the White House today US President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will gush about their support for Palestinian statehood. Creepily echoing LSD king Timothy Leary, they will tune out this reality as they drone on about the opportunities that Gaza’s transformation into a base for global jihad afford to the notion that promoting the Fatah terrorist organization’s control over Judea and Samaria can make the world a better, safer, happier place.

Today Bush and Olmert will announce their full support for Fatah chief and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s new government. The US will intensify General Keith Dayton’s training and arming of Fatah forces. Israel will give Fatah $700 million. The Europeans and the rest of the international community will give the "moderate, secular" terror group still more money and guns and love. The US will likely also demand that Olmert order the IDF to give Fatah terrorists free reign in Judea and Samaria.

Olmert and Bush claim that by backing Abbas militarily, financially and politically they will be setting up an "alternative Palestine" which will rival Hamas’s jihadist Palestine. As this notion has it, envious of the good fortune of their brethren in Judea and Samaria, Gazans will overthrow Hamas and the course will be set for peace – replete with the ethnic cleansing of Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem of all Jewish presence.

Fatah forces barely raised a finger to prevent their defeat in Gaza in spite of the massive quantities of US arms they received and the military training they underwent at the hands of US General Keith Dayton. Bush, Olmert and all proponents of the notion of strengthening Fatah in Judea and Samaria refuse to answer one simple question: Why would a handover of Judea and Samaria to Abbas’s Fatah produce a better outcome than Israel’s 2005 handover of Gaza to Abbas’s Fatah?

They refuse to answer this question because they know full well that the answer is that there is absolutely no reason to believe that the outcome can be better. They know full well that since replacing Yasser Arafat as head of the PA in 2004, Abbas refused to take any effective action against Hamas. They know that he refused to take action to prevent Hamas’s rise to power in Gaza and Judea and Samaria. They know that the guns the US transferred to Fatah in Gaza were surrendered to Hamas without a fight last week. They know that the billions of dollars of international and Israeli assistance to Fatah over the past 14 years never were used to advance the cause of peace.

They know that that money was diverted into the pockets of Fatah strongmen and utilized to build terror militias in which Hamas members were invited to serve. They know that Fatah built a terror superstructure in Judea, Samaria and Gaza which enabled operational cooperation between Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror cells.

So why embrace the fantasy that things can be different now, in Judea and Samaria? Rather than provide rational arguments to defend their view that Hamas’s takeover of Gaza is an opportunity for peace, proponents of peace fantasies as strategic wisdom explain vacuously that peace is the best alternative to jihad. They whine that those who point out that Israel now borders Iran in Lebanon and Gaza have nothing positive to say.

To meet the growing threat in Gaza, they argue that Europeans, or maybe Egyptians and Jordanians can be deployed at the international border with Egypt to stem the weapons and terror personnel flow into Gaza. To meet the growing threat in Lebanon, Olmert pleads for more UN troops.

Both views ignore the obvious: Gaza has been transformed into an Iranian-sponsored base for global jihad because Egypt has allowed it to be so transformed. Assisted by its Syrian-sponsored Palestinian allies, Hizbullah has rebuilt its arsenals and reasserted its control in southern Lebanon because UN forces in southern Lebanon have done nothing to prevent it from doing so.

No country on earth will volunteer to fight Hamas and its jihadist allies in Gaza. No government on earth will voluntarily deploy its forces to counter Hizbullah and Iran in south Lebanon. This is why – until they fled – European monitors at the Rafah terminal were a joke. This is why Spanish troops in UNIFIL devote their time in Lebanon to teaching villagers Spanish.

So why are Bush and Olmert set to embrace Fatah and Abbas today? Why are they abjectly refusing to come to terms with the strategic reality of the Iranian-Syrian onslaught? Why are they insisting that the establishment of a Palestinian state is their strategic goal and doing everything they can to pretend that their goal has not been repeatedly proven absurd?

Well, why should they? As far as Bush is concerned, no American politician has ever paid a price for advancing the cause of peace processes that strengthen terrorists and hostile Arab states at Israel’s expense. Bush’s predecessor Bill Clinton had Arafat over to visit the White House more often than any other foreign leader and ignored global jihad even when its forces bombed US embassies and warships. And today Clinton receives plaudits for his efforts to bring peace to the Middle East.

By denying that the war against Israel is related to the war in Iraq; by ignoring the strategic links between all the Iranian and Syrian sponsored theaters of war, Bush views gambling with Israel’s security as a win-win situation. He will be applauded as a champion of peace and if the chips go down on Israel, well, it won’t be Americans being bombed.

Olmert looks to his left and sees president-elect Shimon Peres. Peres, the architect of the Oslo process which placed Israel’s national security in the hands of the PLO, has been rewarded for his role in imperiling his country by his similarly morally challenged political colleagues who just bestowed him with Israel’s highest office.

Olmert looks to his left and his sees incoming defense minister Ehud Barak. In 2000, then prime minister Barak withdrew Israeli forces from Lebanon, and enabled Iran’s assertion of control over southern Lebanon through its Hizbullah proxy. In so doing, Barak set the conditions for last summer’s war, and quite likely, for this summer’s war.

By offering Arafat Gaza, 95 percent of Judea and Samaria and half of Jerusalem at Camp David, Barak showed such enormous weakness that he all but invited the Palestinian terror war which Arafat began planning the day he rejected Barak’s offer.

For his failure, Barak has been rewarded by his Labor Party, which elected him its new chairman on the basis of his vast "experience," and by the media which has embraced him as a "professional" defense minister.

Olmert looks to his right and he sees how the media portrays Likud Chairman Binyamin Netanyahu and former IDF Chief of General Staff Moshe Ya’alon as alarmists for claiming that Israel cannot abide by an Iranian-proxy Hamas state on its border. He sees that Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu supported Peres’s candidacy as president and have joined their fortunes to Olmert’s in a bid to block elections which will bring the Right to power.

Israel has arguably never faced a more dangerous strategic environment than it faces today. Yet it is not without good options. It can retake control over the Gaza-Sinai border. It can renew its previously successful tactic of killing Hamas terrorists. It can continue its successful campaign of keeping terrorists down in Judea and Samaria, and it can continue preparing for war in the north. All of these options can be sold to the Left.

But today both Bush and Olmert will reject these options in favor of mindless peace process prattle. They will reject reality as they uphold Abbas as a credible leader and shower him with praise, money and arms. Their political fortunes will be utmost in their minds as they do this. And they will be guaranteeing war that will claim the lives of an unknown number of Israeli civilians and soldiers.

Bush and Olmert should know that when the time for reckoning comes they will not be able to claim, along with Peres and Barak that their hands did not shed this blood. Reality has warned them of their folly. But in their low, dishonest opportunism, they have chosen to ignore reality and amuse themselves with fantasies and photo-ops.

James Baker’s disciples

 

Ahead of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s trip to the White House on June 19, the Bush administration is pressuring Israel to endanger itself on at least two fronts.

First, the Americans are pressuring the Olmert government to agree to Palestinian Authority and Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas’s request to bring millions of bullets, thousands of Kalashnikov assault rifles, RPGs, antitank missiles and armored personnel carriers into Gaza from Egypt.

The government has yet to respond to the request. Those who oppose it argue that Fatah forces in Gaza are too weak and incompetent to battle Hamas, and so any weaponry transferred to Fatah militias will likely end up in Hamas’s hands.

This logic is correct, but incomplete. It is true that Fatah forces are unwilling and presumably unable to defeat Hamas forces. But it is also true that Fatah forces use their arms to attack Israel. So even if there was no chance of Hamas laying its hands on the weapons, allowing Fatah to receive them would still endanger Israel.

The same limited logic informs Israel’s strenuous objection to the Pentagon’s intention to sell Saudi Arabia Joint Direct Attack Munition satellite-guided "smart bombs," or JDAMS. The government claims that while it has no quarrel with the Saudis, it fears for the stability of the regime. If the House of Saud falls, Osama bin Laden would get the bombs.

Yet like Fatah, the Saudis aren’t simply vulnerable. They are culpable. In addition to being the creators of al-Qaida and Hamas’s largest financial backers, the Saudis themselves directly threaten Israel.

In direct contravention of their commitment to the US (and the US’s commitment to Israel), the Saudis have deployed F-15 fighter jets at Tabuk air base, located 150 km. from Eilat. On May 13, the Saudi Air Force held an air show at Tabuk for the benefit of King Abdullah and senior princes where the F-15s where ostentatiously displayed.

The timing of the show was interesting. It took place the day before Abdullah hosted US Vice President Richard Cheney at Tabuk.

The Bush administration is not just asking Israel to facilitate the arming of its enemies. It is also placing restrictions on Israel’s ability to arm itself. As The Jerusalem Post reported on Wednesday, the Pentagon has yet to respond to Israel’s request to purchase the F-22 stealth fighter. Moreover, the US seems to be torpedoing Israel’s acquisition of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The Pentagon recently voiced its objection to Israel’s plan to install Israeli technology in the jets that are to be supplied starting in 2014. Israel’s installation of its own electronic warfare systems in its F-16s and F-15s is what has allowed the IAF to maintain its qualitative edge over Arab states that have also purchased the aircraft.

The Adminstration’s display of hostility toward Israel is unfortunately not an aberration. It is the result of a policy shift that occurred immediately after the Republican Party’s defeat in the Congressional elections in November.

After the defeat, the administration embraced former secretary of state James Baker’s foreign policy paradigm, which is based on the belief that it is possible and desirable to reach a stable balance of power in the Middle East.

As Baker sees it, this balance can be reached by forcing Israel to shrink to its "natural" proportions and assisting supposedly moderate and stable states like Egypt and Saudi Arabia to grow into their "natural" proportions. Once the states of the region (including Syria and Iran, which Baker wishes to appease) have settled into their proper proportions, stability will be ensured.

Baker fleshed on his view in the Iraq Study Group’s recommendations that were published immediately after the elections. Although President George W. Bush rejected the ISG’s recommendations, the day after the elections he sacked defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and replaced him with Robert Gates, who served on the ISG. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is a disciple of Baker’s ally, former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft.

The problem with the Baker paradigm is that it has never been borne out by reality. It collapsed during the Cold War, both as the Soviet Union worked tirelessly to destabilize countries allied with the US and when the states of East-Central Europe revolted against the teetering empire and gained their freedom with its collapse.

In the 1990s, Baker’s stability paradigm failed to foresee the post-nationalist movements that swept through Western Europe and the Muslim world, and embraced the Soviet goal of weakening the US. Baker still denies the phenomenon and ignores its policy implications.

Today, the notion that stability is a realistic aim is even more far-fetched. Specifically, the willingness of Muslim secularists to form strategic relations with jihadists and the willingness of Shi’ites to form strategic partnerships with Sunnis was unimaginable 20 years ago. Aside from that, the specter of a nuclear-armed Iran throws a monkey wrench into any thought of regional stability. A look around the region shows just how absurd Baker’s notions truly are.

In Lebanon today, Fatah al-Islam, which is apparently allied with al-Qaida, is fighting the Lebanese army in a bid to bring down the Saniora government at the behest of its sponsor – the secular Ba’athist regime in Damascus. Fatah al-Islam is also aligned with Hizbullah, which shares its goal of bringing down the Lebanese government, and with Iran, which gives the Syrians their marching orders.

This state of affairs is also the name of the game in Iraq, where Iran and Syria support both Muqtada al-Sadr’s Shi’ite Mehdi army and al-Qaida’s Sunni death squads. It repeats itself in Afghanistan, where Iran is arming the Taliban, and in the Palestinian Authority.

Furthermore, the paragons of moderation and stability in Egypt and Saudi Arabia that Baker and his followers are so keen to strengthen are neither stable nor moderate. Both Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Saudi King Abdullah are old men of uncertain health. To "stabilize" their regimes, they wrought unholy alliances with the Muslim Brotherhood and the Wahabis, the only forces in Egyptian and Saudi societies that have not been flattened under their jackboots.

This week, Channel 10 reported that the Bush administration recently informed Israel and the Gulf states that it has no intention of launching military strikes against Iran’s nuclear installations. The Americans explained that they need Iranian assistance in stabilizing Iraq to pave the way for an American withdrawal from the country before Bush leaves office. Under Baker’s regency, the administration apparently now subscribes to the belief that they will be better off out of Iraq and with a nuclear-armed Iran, than in Iraq without a nuclear-armed Iran.

For their part, the Arabs have demonstrated clearly that they do not share the administration’s newfound faith that a nuclear-armed Iran will reach a stable equilibrium in a Bakeresque Middle Eastern balance of powers. Their stated aim to build nuclear reactors is a clear sign that they recognize the danger of a nuclear-armed Iran. The administration’s support for the Arabs’ quest for nuclear reactors makes clear that it is now willing to have a Middle Eastern nuclear arms race.

This brings us back to Israel, which is situated smack in the middle of the regional chaos. How is Israel contending with this threatening state of affairs?

The IDF seems to be contending fairly well, at least with regard to Syria and Lebanon. The IDF’s decision to have television crews film Israeli soldiers fighting in mock Syrian villages this week, like Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi’s announcement that the IDF is prepared to fight on two fronts simultaneously, are signs that the IDF recognizes that its only safe bet is to prepare for all contingencies. Were the IDF to complement these actions with warnings to Iran and operational plans to attack Iran’s nuclear installations and distribute gas masks to the public, the General Staff would go a long way toward proving that it is adopting the only reasonable strategic posture available, given the cards Israel has been dealt.

Yet not only is the IDF not warning Iran, the Olmert government is undermining the army’s correct posture toward Syria and Lebanon. Indeed, on every front, including toward Israel itself, Olmert has himself adopted Baker’s failed paradigm.

Rather than publicly explain that in light of Syria’s position as an Iranian client state with regards to Lebanon, Iraq and Israel, there is nothing for Israel to talk to Syria about, Olmert announced Wednesday that he wishes to open negotiations on an Israeli surrender of the Golan Heights to the Syrians.

The Syrians, for their part, cornered Olmert on Thursday by agreeing to his offer. As Karl Moor and David Rivkin explained in Thursday’s Post, it is not true, as Olmert and his minions claim, that Israel has nothing to lose by negotiating with Syria. Given Israel’s perceived weakness in the wake of last summer’s war and Syria’s perceived strength, speaking to Damascus about an Israeli surrender of the Golan Heights will only encourage Syrian belligerence.

And as with the Syrians, so too with the Palestinians, the Olmert government acts as Baker’s water boy. Rather than waging a rational military campaign to defeat the jihadist front that has seeded itself in Gaza, Olmert issues near daily statements telling the Palestinians that Israel will cause them no harm. He defends this policy by declaiming on the importance of strengthening the "stability" of the Palestinian Authority.

Then there is the daily brown-nosing Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni engage in toward the Egyptians and Saudis. Israel praises both as "moderates" while Egypt vows publicly not to act to stop the transfer of weapons from Sinai to Gaza and the Saudis bankroll Hamas and demand that Israel implement their "peace plan" that calls for Israel’s destruction.

Yet all of this incompetent bumbling pales in comparison to Israel’s weakness toward Iran. Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz’s assertion this week to the Post that he does not "think it is right today to talk about military options" toward Iran because he thinks that sanctions can still convince the mullahs to give up their nuclear ambitions comes dangerously close to an Israeli collapse in the face of an existential threat. The fact that Mofaz made this statement the same week that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that Teheran had crossed the nuclear threshold only exacerbates the perception of Israeli strategic disarray.

Sooner or later the US will pay a price for the Bush administration’s decision to embrace the delusion of stability as its strategic goal. With jihadist forces growing stronger around the globe, if the Americans leave Iraq without victory, there is no doubt that Iraq (and Iran and Syria) will come to them.

But whatever the consequences of America’s behavior for America, the price that Israel will pay for embracing Baker’s myths of stability will be unspeakable.

Don’t make the same mistake twice

By Clay Varney


 


The Gaza Strip exploded in violence yesterday as armed factions of Hamas, a spear carrier for Islamofascism, took to the streets in a concerted effort to challenge Fatah. Formerly led by Yasser Arafat and a staunch foe of Israel, Fatah and its Presidential Guard have received active support from the United States and Israel in an effort to prevent a hostile takeover of the now all but defunct Palestinian Authority. The internecine fighting, which had been percolating at a slow boil in recent months, seems to have finally reached a tipping point, overwhelming a weak and obviously temporary ceasefire brokered by Egypt. Since the factional warfare reignited on Monday, a multitude of Palestinians have been killed, many in particularly gruesome manners such as the execution of wounded fighters in hospital beds, various kneecappings, and the tossing of a member of the Presidential Guard from the top of an eighteen story building.


 


The Palestinian terrorist organizations, Hamas foremost among them, have long sought to blame all of the Palestinians problems on Israel. However, such unfortunate excuses have no credibility in the current situation. As is characteristic of totalitarian movements, Islamofascists have long put the blame for their own problems on an outsider, depending on the situation, Israel, the United States, or more loosely, the West. Hamas has led this approach, justifying violence against innocents as a necessary first response to those it falsely accuses of injustice. Much like the precursor ideologies of Nazism and Communism, Islamofascism seeks power out of the barrel of a gun. This veneration of violence, first demonstrated to the world in the form of suicide bombings against Israeli civilians on city buses, then followed by indiscriminate rocket fire at Israeli population centers, has come full circle.


 


As has been long feared about organizations espousing the Islamofascist ideology, Hamas has used a faade of democracy as an avenue for the outright takeover of the Palestinian Authority. Instead of upholding the unity government through peaceful democratic measures such as negotiation and arbitration, Hamas has instead resorted to violence in a bid to oust Fatah from the Gaza Strip. As Islamofascism is a tool for the seizure of political power, it comes as no surprise that an organization like Hamas would target fellow Muslims opposed to the takeover of Gaza by means of a military coup. A Palestinian, in reference to Fatah, said, They are not Palestinians, they are lost people. Hamas has exchanged terrorism against Israelis with terrorism against Palestinians.


 


Clearly, this violence is not something for which Hamas can blame Israel, as has long been its supposed prerogative. Having withdrawn from the Gaza Strip in 2005, Israel washed its hands of the territory. Though the Palestinians now had their chance to build a decent civil society without so-called Israeli interference, the outcome has been a disaster. Islamism has infiltrated the Gaza Strip to an alarming degree. In what is essentially a Mad Max environment, Islamofascist organizations potentially more dangerous than Hamas have emerged. These include the Army of Islam, responsible for the kidnapping of the BBC’s Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston and IDF Corporal Gilad Shalit, and al Qaeda itself, which has established a presence in the territory. In a campaign reminiscent of the Taliban, these shadowy organizations are now making their presence known through terrorist attacks on video stores, Internet cafes, and other establishments deemed blasphemous. In a particularly egregious offense, one person was killed in a grenade attack on a United Nations-run school, which was targeted for the crime of holding a mixed gender sporting event.


 


The security implications of an outright Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip cannot be overstated. With Gaza as a launching pad, Hamas and like-minded organizations would have an ideally located position in which to destabilize neighboring Egypt and Jordan. Further, Gaza would provide al Qaeda with the opportunity to directly strike Israel, a long sought goal. With these consequences in mind, it becomes obvious that the United States and its foremost ally in the region, Israel, cannot allow Hamas to succeed in the consolidation of power in Gaza.


 


Israel, under Ariel Sharon, decided that the continued protection of settlers in Gaza was not worth the cost. Faced with the intra-Palestinian violence on display this week, and its potential spillover effects to other areas of the Middle East, the current Israeli leadership is likely wishing that decision had never been made. As such, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert would be well-served by rethinking any prospects of a withdrawal from the West Bank. In a potential repeat of the rocket attacks on Sderot, Israeli towns near the West Bank would be highly vulnerable to increased Qassam rocket fire. Currently, Fatah is still predominant in the West Bank, but a removal of the IDF would allow for Hamas to operate in an open manner. With its obvious willingness to resort to violence, Hamas could likely gain significant traction in its struggle against Fatah, adding yet another vulnerability to Israels national security.


 


Concurrently, with few good options available for a resolution of the situation in Gaza, American policymakers should be loath to encourage a repeat in the West Bank out of a misguided and what would be ultimately foolish attempt to gain brownie points internationally. Unfortunately, Sharons disengagement did not go according to plan, and it is likely that any similar withdrawal from the West Bank would result in the same effect. The implications for the interests of the United States in the region are too grave, as Israel, a vital ally, would face an antagonistic force on yet another front, and the West Bank would provide another staging ground for Islamofascist terrorism, possibly into Jordan, or even, the United States itself.


 


Clay Varney is an intern at the Center for Security Policy and a Master’s candidate in International Security at the University of Denver.

Echoes of 1919

Blind Wilsonian idealism is bad enough, but isolation and defeatism are worse.

Both critics and supporters of US President George W. Bush’s post-September 11 vision of a new, freedom-loving Middle East have noted the strong similarities between the president and his predecessor Woodrow Wilson.

In 1917, the 28th president introduced US forces into World War I with the promise that an allied victory against Germany and its allies would make the world "safe for democracy." Wilson’s vision of a postwar world was a bit out of place in the war being fought on the killing fields of Belgium and France. Neither the Allies nor the Central Powers were fighting the war for ideological gain. Rather, the war was being fought to restore or upset the balance of power between European empires in Europe and beyond.

[More]Yet Wilson had his vision. As he sent 1,200,000 American forces to war, he appointed a committee of 150 academics to prepare the peace. In 1918, he announced his 14-point plan for the postwar era. The last point, which called for the establishment of an international government with the power to guarantee each nation’s sovereignty and independence, was the one that Wilson held to most strongly.

As historian Paul Johnson noted in his History of the American People, Wilson "became obsessed with turning [his vision of the League of Nations] into reality, as the formula for an eventual system of world democratic government, with America at its head." It was through the League of Nations, Wilson believed, that the war could indeed become a war to end all wars.

Wilson’s messianic view was harshly criticized by the British and French, by his domestic political opponents who controlled the Congress and by members of his own administration. The French and British, together with Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, who chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee responsible for ratifying the Treaty of Versailles, all called for a scaled-back version of the plan.

They could see no advantage to an organization that would place the US and its allies on equal footing with Germany. Nor could they understand why a nation would go to war to protect the territorial integrity of countries that did not impact their national interests. Cabot Lodge specifically objected to the diminution of US national sovereignty inherent in the notion of transferring the power to commit US forces to war from the US Congress to an international body.

Cabot Lodge and French president George Clemenceau suggested that the US limit its objectives to guaranteeing the peace of Europe. They suggested the formation of an organization much like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which from its establishment in 1949 maintained the peace of Europe for the duration of the Cold War.

But Wilson refused to compromise and, as a result, his vision was defeated. The Senate rejected the Versailles Treaty and so the US never joined Wilson’s League of Nations. For its part, the League proved incapable of preserving either the peace or itself.

In the 1920 presidential elections, Warren Harding won handily by promising to turn America away from Wilson’s grand designs and return it to "normalcy." Harding’s "normalcy" was quickly translated into a policy of isolationism. The US locked its doors and shuttered its windows, blocked immigration and ignored the world as Germany descended into fascist madness and placed itself under the leadership of a tyrant bent on global domination.

Today, as then, Bush’s freedom agenda for the Muslim world is under attack from all quarters as the US shifts noticeably into a comparable isolationist mode. Conservatives concerned about preserving the America’s cultural identity are pushing for an end to illegal immigration from Mexico. The Democrats, in concert with former secretary of state James Baker’s considerable camp of followers in the Republican Party and the State Department, are advocating an end of US support for its allies and supporters in Iraq, Israel and Lebanon in favor of an embrace of US enemies Iran and Syria.

There are many differences between the Bush and Wilson administrations, but three stand out in particular. First, by ignoring the real interests of the US and its allies in favor of utopian peace, Wilson’s vision of postwar peace was a flight of fancy predicated on a rejection of reality. In contrast, by recognizing the threat that the global jihad constitutes for the Free World, Bush sought to shake the US and its allies out of their collective flight from reality in the 1990s and force them to contend with the world as it is.

But while Wilson’s vision was unrealistic, he has to be credited for his unstinting devotion to it. In contrast, Bush never completely matched his visionary rhetoric to his actual policies. And today, increasingly abandoned by his supporters and undermined by his own advisers who reject his vision and insist on returning to fantasyland, Bush has apparently abandoned his own doctrine of war and peace.

Over the weekend, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated that the administration stands united around her policy of appeasing the Iranian regime which is guiding the terror wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Lebanon, and beyond. In Rice’s words, "The President of the United States has made it clear that we are on a course that is a diplomatic course [with Iran]. That policy is supported by all members of the cabinet and by the Vice President of the United States."

Rice’s statement cannot be aligned with Bush’s statement at his 2002 State of the Union Address and subsequent speeches, where he announced that one of the principal aims of the US war against the global jihad is to deny rogue regimes, specifically Iran, Iraq and North Korea, the ability to acquire weapons of mass destruction.

As the president put it then, "We’ll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events while dangers gather. I will not stand by as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons."

But then, since the September 11 attacks, for every rhetorical step the president has taken towards reality, he has taken two policy steps back to delusion.

While upholding Islam as a religion of peace, the administration courted Islamic preachers of war. So it was that at the post-September 11 memorial service at the National Cathedral, the administration invited Muzammil Siddiqi to speak for Muslims. Siddiqi, who heads one of the largest mosques in North America, was the man who converted Adam Gadahn, the American Taliban, to Islam. As head of the Wahabist Islamic Circle of North America, on October 28, 2000 Sidiqi participated along with Abdulrahman Alamoudi – now in jail on terrorism charges – in a rally outside the Israeli embassy. There he proclaimed, "America has to learn. If you remain on the side of injustice, the wrath of God will come."

Until his arrest, Alamoudi presided over the training of Muslim chaplains in the US military. In 2004 Congress initiated a probe into ISNA’s suspected links to terror groups. Several members of its board of directors were arrested and convicted of involvement with terror cells.

In embracing radical Muslim religious leaders and pro-jihadist Muslim organizations in the US rather than embracing and strengthening anti-jihadist Muslim activists and leaders, the Bush administration followed a pattern that has remained consistent worldwide. Rather than embrace liberal, pro-American and pro-democracy Muslims, the administration embraces America’s enemies. In Iraq, leaders like Mithal al-Alousi and Ahmed Chalabi were spurned in favor of Ba’athists like former prime minister Iyad Allawi and Iranian puppets like current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

As for the Palestinians, Bush has opted to ignore Fatah’s involvement in terrorism, its jihadist indoctrination of Palestinian society and its strategic collaboration with Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hizbullah, Iran and Syria. By upholding Fatah, Bush blocked all possibility that an alternative, liberal and democratic Palestinian leadership could emerge. The same pattern has held in Egypt.

Whereas Bush’s commitment to advancing his stated strategic aim has been far weaker than Wilson’s was, the danger of abandoning the fight today in favor of isolationism and appeasement is far greater than it was in the 1920s. While Great Britain’s embrace of isolationism and appeasement under the Baldwin and Chamberlain governments was a disaster for the British, who were high on Germany’s target list, it is possible to argue that isolationism was a sensible policy for America. There was no German threat to the US in the 1920s and 1930s. Today the situation is different.

Last week FBI Assistant Director John Miller said that most of the 2,176 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act search warrants approved in 2006 were used against terror suspects inside the US. Three days later, the FBI announced the arrest of the members of an American and Caribbean terror cell that was plotting to bomb JFK International Airport. Last month the FBI arrested a terror cell planning to attack Fort Dix.

Then there is last month’s Pew Survey of American Muslims under the age of 30. The survey found that 26 percent of young Muslims in America believe that suicide bombings are justified. Only 40 percent believe that Arabs carried out the September 11 attacks.

Historical hindsight has judged the feckless appeasement and irresponsible isolationism of the 1920s and 1930s responsible for the catastrophe of World War II. Bush’s doctrine of war and peace was aimed at preventing just such a reenactment of history.

As Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proclaims that the countdown to the next Holocaust has begun while actively waging war against the US and its allies on all available fronts, the catastrophe that will follow an American relapse into isolationism and appeasement is undeniable.