Tuesday, December 30, 2008

God bless us, every one

Geez, I go away for a few days and the world goes to shit. I think Rob Farley wins for "capsule description of the current mess in Palestine":

I really have to wonder whether the Israelis have something more in mind that "2006 II: The Re-FAILening".
When Israel invaded Lebanon, I was asked what I thought and said Israel would be at least as successful in Lebanon as America was in Iraq. Given that the Israelis decided to leave much sooner, I counted that as being substantially more successful. There seems to be no real chance of "victory" in Gaza any more than there was a real chance at victory in Lebanon. Even in the maximally-optimistic scenario where Israel invades Gaza, kills or detains the Hamas leadership, and then withdraws with minimal casualties, the likely outcome is Gaza in anarchy or, slightly more optimistic, ruled by Fatah which, if memory serves, was so corrupt and intransigent that Israel's partners in Washington insisted on the elections that put us on the road to this place.

Also, I'm far more alarmed about what's going on in the subcontinent right now. Not because things are as bad, but because they have the potential to get so much worse.

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