Iraq Study Group Report, Stupid

Barry Rubin tells it like it is on the nonsensical Iraq Study Group Report.

“Let's focus on what the report says about the Arab-Israeli conflict...The section on this issue is just silly....

THE REPORT concludes that:

1. The Arab-Israeli conflict is inextricably linked to Iraq.

Really? I can't think of a single issue in the region it is less linked to. Iraq is about an internal struggle for power. The radicals are not extremists because of the conflict. By regional standards, nobody in Iraq even talks much about the conflict. This is repeating a mantra, not looking at the facts.

In this context, negotiations lead to violence because the extremists want to ensure the talks don't succeed. Unfortunately, those radicals include both the Palestinian and Syrian leaderships. Like it or not, there can be no diplomatic progress until the radicals are defeated.

2. The most important thing right now is for everyone to negotiate since it was the breakdown in talks that led to violence.

Wrong again. It was the refusal to make an agreement that led to the breakdown in talks, and to violence. The extremists don't want serious talks because they want victory, not compromise; or, to put it another way, the kind of gains they want are not those achieved by bargaining (West Bank/Gaza Palestinian state, return of the Golan Heights) but by fighting (demagoguery, holding onto power, destroying Israel)...Like it or not, there can be no diplomatic progress until the radicals are defeated.

3. A negotiated peace would strengthen Mahmoud Abbas.

Do these people pay any attention to the Middle East? To obtain peace, Abbas would have to make concessions. Making the needed concessions would destroy him. To make peace, Abbas would have to enforce law and order as well as stopping terrorism.

He is incapable of doing that. To get a peace treaty, Abbas would need to suppress Hamas, which he can neither do nor even try to do. Is that so hard to understand?

ANY COLLEGE undergraduate who has taken a couple of courses on the Middle East should understand the points above. (They probably don't because of the way the region is taught in universities, but you get my point.)

The only way this kind of thinking is going to damage the radical forces is if they fall down and hurt themselves from laughing so hard”.