Barry Rubin takes a look back at a year in the seeds were sown for a great deal of future trouble:
While 2007 didn't greatly change the Middle East compared to some of its predecessors, here are some of its significant trends which will continue to dominate the year to come.1. Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip. This is the most important single Middle East event of 2007 because it is a clear, probably irreversible, shift in the balance of power. Four decades of a movement dominated by nationalists has come to an end. Given Fatah's continuing weaknesses it is conceivable that Hamas will take over the West Bank within a few years and marginalize its rival. To Islamists, this is a great victory. In fact, it is a disaster for Palestinians and Arabs. It deepens divisions and destroys any real (as opposed to the silly superficial events that take up governments' time and media space) diplomatic option for them. A negotiated resolution of the Arab-Israeli or Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and with it prospects for a Palestinian state, has been set back for decades. Much Western sympathy has been lost. In years to come, struggles between Arab nationalists and Islamists, as well as between Sunnis and Shias, will dwarf the Arab-Israeli conflict. During 2008 we will have to assess whether the Palestinian Authority still ruling the West Bank can meet the Hamas challenge. (We already know it won't meet the diplomatic challenge but it will take all year for most Western politicians and much of the media to discover that.)
2. The military success of the U.S. surge in Iraq. U.S. forces showed that pessimistic assessments were wrong and they were able to reduce the power of anti-government insurgents and lower the death toll in Iraq. However, this is a long way from winning the war. During 2008 the two key questions will be whether U.S. troop withdrawals start in earnest and whether there is any political progress in bringing together Sunni and Shia communities in that country. It is hard to imagine what might change to bring about such an agreement. And even if the insurgents can kill fewer people they are likely to do enough damage to intimidate Sunnis from making peace. Still, the Iraqi government and society could grow strong enough to dispense with U.S. combat troops.
3. The Western failure to tighten sanctions substantially against Iran. It was clear in 2007 that negotiations with Tehran would fail to deter Iran from its campaign to obtain nuclear weapons. Certainly, France, Britain and Germany were more willing to take--or at least to talk about taking--action but due to their own hesitations, plus resistance from Russia and China, very little happened. The reaction to these events in Iran was mixed. On one hand, there was more worry about the pressures facing that country plus its own economic woes. On the other hand, the regime expressed more confidence that the West was chicken and that time and tide was on Iran's side. In 2008 we will be able to see if Tehran's drive for nuclear weapons continues without serious hindrance. Equally, it will be possible to assess whether President Mahmud Ahmadinejad is being weakened by his factional opponents--especially in the March parliamentary elections--or tightening his hold on power and holding to his reckless course.
4. U.S. policy returns to traditional stance. Whatever innovations, for better or worse, President George Bush introduced into American regional policy have vanished in 2007. He is largely back to the traditional approach as carried out by both his father and predecessor. The administration has given up on reform or backing democracy. In 2008, a new president will be chosen but real policy shifts will take until the following year of course.
5. Israel prospers. Despite outdated talk of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's weakness, he used 2007 to rebuild his authority. Especially interesting, Israel's economic growth has been impressive; unemployment fallen to all-time lows. Revolutionary enthusiasm and paper victories still thrill the Arab world and Iran but material gains continue to be what is important.
6. The demoralization of Lebanon. Worried that it is being abandoned by the West, forces supporting the moderate Lebanese government began to wonder if in fact Iran, Syria, and Hizballah would be able to reestablish their control over the country. A key element is the identity of the country's next president. In 2008, it will be important to watch how power shifts in Beirut and whether the investigation of Syrian involvement in terrorism against Lebanese opposition figures leads to an international tribunal.
7. France changes course. President Francois Sarkozy has moved France away from the nationalistic effort to undercut the United States and appease radical regimes. Sarkozy, however, has played footsie with Syria and Libya. The question for 2008: Will he implement pledges to get tougher and will French institutions follow him in changing course?
I don't know what it is that gives so many Christians and Jews Tunnel Vision ?
All I can figure out is that they are under a strong delusion.
I'm going to add critical things Barry left out
1. Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip
This is directly due to the Bush Road map and U.S. restraining of Israel for their counterfeit peace meant to destroy Israel.
Israel is always in denial until the hour is late.
2.The military success of the U.S. surge in Iraq.
success for how long ? until we begin our drawdown ?
Take a look at Basra after the British retreat.
Iranian allied Shiite's now control the south oil rich of Iraq.
You won't hear this from the government media propaganda outlets after the almost trillion dollars wasted on President Bush's meglomanical illusions of grandeur.
Iraq is more radical Islamic and deadly for Christian's after Bush.
Thats a fact and his great success almost everyone ignores.
3. The West's failure to tighten sanctions...
The West(US) is a rotted stick Israel mistakenly leans on.
4.U.S. policy returns to traditional stance.
The leapord has never changed her spots.The truth is Israel was seduced and led into a trap by a smooth talking snake oil salesman who never delivered what he promised to deliver.
Remember what his Road Map brought to Gaza ?
5.Israel prospers
Israeli citizens get their gasmasks and only a few Jewws get threown out of their homes so far.
Hezbollah is back to even higher numbers of missiles aimed at Israel's cities and the smuggleing of war hardware into Gaza goes on full steam.
Prosper ?
6. The demoralization of Lebanon.
More evident of continued US policy failure .The same U.S. that Israel has placed all of her misplaced faith in.
7.France changes course
So what ? Is this naother rotted stick you are looking to lean on /
You place your faith in everyone and in everything but in Hashem Israel.
This is you great sin and why you will have war and not peace.
Among the things that are asserted in the piece above is the following:
"A negotiated resolution of the Arab-Israeli or Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and with it prospects for a Palestinian state, has been set back for decades."
Here Rubin reinforces the idea that a "negotiated resolution" of the war, endless but also manageable, conducted by Muslim Arabs (and other Muslims who have quite naturally been led to make the cause their own), is possible. In other words, the author appears to believe that Muslim Arabs will not only enter to a "peace process" (the hoo-ha of endless negotiations, and demands, and then a "treaty" signed with Israel), but having pocketed all the concessions that Israel will make, that Israel has always made in all of its "treaties" with Arabs, that this will satisfy the Arabs and Muslims. But of course it won't. His analysis is still based on some notion of a fight between those he calls the "nationalists" and Hamas. Rubin writes that "[i]years to come, struggles between Arab nationalists and Islamists, as well as between Sunnis and Shias, will dwarf the Arab-Israeli conflict." It's a strange remark. Does he really hold to old idea that the "nationalists" are not Muslims, that they are not prompted by Islam? Does he not see that Nasser and Saddam Hussein, for example, the two famous pan-Arabists, were simply interested in "pan-Arabism" because, at this stage, it represented Muslim ambitions but in an achieveable way -- not with appeals to a single "Caliphate" but to a greatly enlarged Arab state (for Nasser, that would be an enlarged Egypt; for Saddam Husssein, a greatly enlarged Iraq). The view of "pan-Arabism" or "Arab nationalism" as opposed to pan-Islamism (i.e., to the promptings of Islam, with Dar al-Islam united against Dar al-Harb) is misleading. It makes much more sense to see "pan-Arabism" as not an alternative to Islam but rather the expression of a desire to reach an achievable first step - uniting the Arabs -- toward the goal of uniting all Muslims.
In the case of the local Muslim Arab shock troops conducting the Lesser Jihad against Israel, those shock troops we now have gotten used to calling the "Palestinians," Rubin apparently puts great stock in their "ideological" differences -- the "nationalists" and those possessed by Islam. But the "nationalists" of Fatah are merely Slow Jihadists, differing only in timing and tactics with the Fast Jihadists of Hamas, but not in ultimate goals, and their real quarrel is over power, over money, the money that Fatah wants to have resupplied, and pronto, from the West, because Mahmoud Abbas, Saeb Erekat, and all the others who over the years have been siphoning off. as Arafat's henchman, whatever he let them have, can -- with the Boss gone -- help themselves to a larger cut, and they are eager to do so. The leaders of Hamas, more single-minded in their Islam, less worldly and "purer," are not only horrified at the size of Fatah's corruption, but are themselves willing to skim less off the top. That's what constitutes honesty in the Arab Muslim world.
""In other words, the author appears to believe that Muslim Arabs will not only enter to a "peace process" (the hoo-ha of endless negotiations, and demands, and then a "treaty" signed with Israel), but having pocketed all the concessions that Israel will make, that Israel has always made in all of its "treaties" with Arabs, that this will satisfy the Arabs and Muslims. But of course it won't. """
Why are so many Jews and Israel in general so blind to this reality.
Is their cup of delusion about to overflow into a major war of Islam reality ?
I hope Israel awakens soon to the trap of the Bush led Road Map.
The evil smooth talking wolf BUSH whom so many continue to see as a sweet loving lamb is satanic deception at it's finest.
How he must be crowing at his finest deception ever which has snared so many.
"Given Fatah's continuing weaknesses it is conceivable that Hamas will take over the West Bank within a few years and marginalize its rival. To Islamists, this is a great victory. In fact, it is a disaster for Palestinians and Arabs."
If it's a disaster, it's a self-imposed one. Once again, Palestinians missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. They're the ones who chose Hamas. Sure Fatah is corrupt, but is there no third way in the Arab order?
I wonder whether Bostom's book on Muslim anti-semitism will make a dent in the dangerous assumptions Hugh so rightly laments?
Kuntzel's book has circulated in Israel and made quite an impression; he correctly diagnoses massive antisemitism in the Arab-Muslim world, but I understand he blames all? - or most? - of it, incorrectly, on Western influence, in particular Nazism, thus getting Islam itself off the hook.
Bostom's book should be much more unsettling, in that he goes right back to the ancient Muslim texts, and connects them with the broad sweep of Muslim history, thus making it quite plain that medieval Muslim mobs howling 'kill the Jews!!!", or the Moroccans executing 17 year old Jewess Sol Hachuel for 'apostasy' in 1834 (after her charming little Muslimah 'friend' had declared her a convert to Islam, and Sol had indignantly denied this blatant falsehood and insisted on confessing her Jewish faith), were perfectly typical and were getting their Jew-hatred from pristine Muslim sources.
Muslims didn't need any Nazi at all, to teach them to hate and kill Jews.
Oh, I see. What a relief number 5 is! Israel has nothing to worry about as long as Olmert - the great economist - can continue to improve his ghetto's economy.
And when massive Arab armies invade the rump state he thinks he presides over, what will happen? Will the demoralized IDF be able to defend Israel? Well, why would they want to? Any time a soldier in the IDF does the right thing (i.e., kills the enemy), Olmert lets the Israeli courts destroy him. Any time some kid in the IDF risks his life to capture a Muslim terrorist inside a booby-trapped Arab house, Olmert soon releases him (and then asks the IDF to capture him again).
I know! When the combined Arab-Muslim armies invade, Olmert will have all those upwardly mobile Israeli businessmen hurl their Blackberries at them! Good plan!