Conflict In The Levant

If you are interested in what is happening in Lebanon the best place to look is Michael Totten's blog and Rick Moran's for coverage of the conflict and Obama's incredibly boneheaded statements on it. It looks like the Iranian and Syrian backed thugs of Hezballah painted themselves into a corner and are now looking for a way out. When Israel pulled out of southern Lebanon they lost the raison d'etre , their reason to be and are now seen by the majority of the Lebanese people for exactly what they are, proxies for Iran and its puppet Syria and a threat to Lebanon's sovereignty. Lebanon has one of the most diverse populations in the Middle-East and they have no desire to be ruled by a Tehran style Mullacracy or by the kleptocratic thugs in Damascus that Obama wants to sit down with for tea and crumpets. Mark Steyn says with it best with his usual style.

It says something for Democrat touchiness that the minute a guy makes a generalized observation about folks who appease terrorists and dictators the Dems assume: Hey, they’re talking about me. Actually, he wasn’t — or, to be more precise, he wasn’t talking only about you. Yes, there are plenty of Democrats who are in favor of negotiating with our enemies, and a few Republicans, too — President Bush’s pal James Baker, whose Iraq Study Group was full of proposals to barter with Iran and Syria and everybody else. But that general line is also taken by at least three of Tony Blair’s former cabinet ministers and his senior policy adviser, and by the leader of Canada’s New Democratic party, and by a whole bunch of bigshot Europeans. It’s not a Democrat-election policy, it’s an entire worldview. Even Barack Obama can’t be so vain as to think his fly-me-to-[insert name of enemy here] concept is an original idea.

Increasingly, the Western world has attitudes rather than policies. It’s one thing to talk as a means to an end. But these days, for most midlevel powers, talks are the end, talks without end. Because that’s what civilized nations like doing — chit-chatting, shooting the breeze, having tea and crumpets, talking talking talking. Uncivilized nations like torturing dissidents, killing civilians, bombing villages, doing doing doing. It’s easier to get the doers to pass themselves off as talkers then to get the talkers to rouse themselves to do anything. And, as the Iranians understand, talks provide a splendid cover for getting on with anything you want to do. If, say, you want to get on with your nuclear program relatively undisturbed, the easiest way to do it is to enter years of endless talks with the Europeans over said nuclear program. That’s why that Hamas honcho endorsed Obama: They know he’s their best shot at getting a European foreign minister installed as president of the United States.