Little Changes, Big Changes
Roundly discussed before it happened, and furiously spun when it was over, the Netanyahu-Obama meeting left the world curiously unchanged. The President still thinks two states can be fashioned out of the Hamas-run Gaza territory, Fatah-run West Bank territory and the State of Israel. The Prime Minister still thinks they can't - maybe not ever, certainly not now. They agree that Iran with nuclear weapons would destabilize the region and the world but they still don't agree on red lines in the development cycle or a time frame for action.
The Palestinians are marginally less happy because there was no apparent increase in a United States-Israel rift on both Iran and the Palestinians that began under the Bush administration. The Iranians are marginally happier because Israel agreed with the President's decision on engagement, and they proved it by launching the solid-fuel Sejil-2 missile yesterday. It seems to be an attempt to overcome problems with the prior launch in November, and proof positive that nothing has changed in Iran.
Which is not to say the world is standing still. Check Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
President Obama rightly connected progress in Afghanistan to weeding out Taliban bases from the tribal badlands of Pakistan to the southeast of Afghanistan. His Iran outreach was in part based on the need to stabilize Afghanistan to the west.
But Pakistan changed. Instead of being a corrupt, nuclear-armed but pro-Western country with a Taliban problem, Pakistan became a potential Taliban-style state with nuclear weapons. The government had reached an agreement with radical forces to permit Sharia law to govern the Swat Valley - over the expressed wishes of local Pakistanis who had voted overwhelmingly for secular politicians - and the radicals swarmed to within 60 miles of Islamabad. The government is now pushing back with American assistance, lots of civilian casualties and tens of thousands of refugees in desperate need of aid.
Perhaps the Pakistani government will succeed, but in the best case the country has been seriously weakened for future diplomatic and military activity. Democratic, nuclear-armed India cannot take lightly the possibility of an even more radical Pakistan - and what India doesn't take lightly, neither should the United States.
On the other side of India, Sri Lanka also changed. After more than 80,000 lives lost in 25 years of repeated terrorist acts, government retaliation, phony cease fires and "peace" treaties, the Sri Lankan civil war ended the old fashioned way. The government pushed the Tamil Tigers to the coast, cut off their escape and killed as many as they could. The battle was brutal, bloody and involved tremendous civilian suffering. Tens of thousands of refugees are in desperate need of aid.
While the United States will likely rush aid to both places - the right and humane thing to do - it would be worthwhile also to consider the nature of our investment in other peoples' civil wars and insurrections. And to consider our standard insistence that governments offer treaties, ceasefires, land and other inducements to radicals and terrorists.
And then to consider American insistence that Israel offer treaties, ceasefires, land and other inducements to the Palestinians.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment