Blog For Arizona

Voting for the Middle East

Despite criticism of the approach of all out assault of urban areas by former Marine command officers, such as Lt. Gen. James Conway, former commander of the Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq which assaulted Falujah, the Administration appears to have issued orders to prepare for renewed assaults on 'no go' urban areas immediately following the Presidential election. The likely result will be extremely high casualities among American troops and civilians in target areas which would be unacceptable to voters prior to an election.

Major policy shifts in Iraq, like this one, are in the cards if Bush is re-elected. We will continue to kill innocents and battle insurgents without any clear rationale beyond compete military, political, and economic dominance of Iraq. Richard Clark posed a very salient question tonight on the Daily Show. Why are we killing these people? For 9/11? No. Because they have WMD? No. Because they support Saddam? No. Because they oppose democracy? No, they want democratic governance, too. So why? Because the terms under which they want democracy would not leave us in control. Simple as that - we are killing these people because they do not wish us to control them. Is that who we are as a nation? November 2nd will answer that question.

Now rumblings of a debate over how to deal with Iran and their uranium cycle capability between the hawkish NeoCons, who brought us the Iraq debacle, and advocates of constructive diplomatic engagement are emanating from the White House. You only get one guess who is likely to win this 'debate' with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Rice all on one side, and the most prominent multilateralist, Powell, seeming to have little or no real weight in the Adminstration. Meanwhile an Iran 'regime change' resolution makes its way through Congress, we are selling bunker busters to Israel for use on Iran, and the Pentagon and Israel are wargaming first strike options. Sanctions are also fraught with danger of misstep and miscalculation, they are as likely to cause Iran to accelerate any weapons program as to abandon it, but unlike military action, nobody gets vaporized. The future of our relationship with Iran will also be determined by our Presidential elections. Bush seems firmly on a course of purposefully escalating the crisis with Iran in hopes of a decisive step by Iran giving the NeoCons the pretext they need to gain UNSC approval, or to be able to claim an eminent threat exists for a pre-emptive strike. Kerry will attempt to rachet down the crisis and gain oversight of nuclear fuels in Iran while engaging the Iranian regime constructively and then pressing for democratic reform. The Iranians have legitimate security and commericial interests in the region, if we deny them the ability to pursue those interests legally, they will do so illicitly.

Finally, consider what the Bush approach to peace in the Arab Israeli conflict has brought us: a few weeks of intense focus, catastrophic failure, and the subject was never mentioned again. As a result, the Israelis and Palestinians have hundreds of civilians dead, a gulag wall being built by Israel in a desperate bid for a final solution, even more radicalized political leadership on both sides, illegal settlements still being built, and peace appears only a distant dream. Typical pattern for Bush, really. If he cannot succeed without trying, he has no interest in the subject and will thereafter completely ignore it. I think Kerry would be hard pressed to do worse.

The resolution of many questions which hover over the Middle East will likely await the resolution of possible 'regime change' in the United States. Will America take a hardline military approach to quelling rebellion in Iraq, or pursure a political 'hearts and minds' approach? Will America creative engage with Iranian government with appropriate consequences and incentives, or act unilaterally or in concert with Israel to try to eliminate the Iranian regime or it's nuclear potential? Will we finally cut the Gordian knot of Arab-Israeli peace, or continue to let the fuse of an increasingly nuclear Middle East continue to smoulder?

This election will largely determine these very important questions of war and peace in the Middle East. The equation is really very simple:

Bush = war, death, isolation, catastrophic failure

Kerry = peace, life, alliances, planning for success

What do you want the next four years to add up to?

posted by Michael Bryan @ 9/22/2004 01:16:00 AM