Ruvy,

As crazy as it sounds, Assad might also take this presentation to Congress as an opportunity to ease hostilities with Israel, try to help defuse the Lebanon/Hezballah thing, and begin the necessary process of distancing his country from the sinking ship that is Iran. Personally, after seeing how poorly his previously touted air defense systems work I would be surprised to see him do anything to spark a war. It's not that I'm not worried about Israel's state of preparedness, just that for quite some time I've been getting the impression from Assad that he isn't quite as comfortable with his role as Hezballah and the Iranians are. Honestly, I can't see him relishing the act of killing Israeli Jews the same way that they do. I believe his primary objective is stability, not the service of Allah. So if he wants out of this unholy alliance, now is the time to do it. Unfortunately if I'm wrong then probably the only other option is the one you've mentioned above.

In regards to political shenanigans affecting the national security situation as you've suggested, the population, according to polls, thinks a lot more like you (ie paranoid and mistrustful) than the parties that prop up the govt. I'd expect the government to fall and be replaced by Likud long before anything truly terrible happened.

An interesting and enjoyable post as usual, Ruvy.

Mac,

Thank you for the kind words.

I'd expect the government to fall and be replaced by Likud long before anything truly terrible happened.

The problem with the Likud is that it is no better than Kadima, which is nothing but a bagful of criminals hiding under parliamentary immunity. Go to the links to see these points expanded upon. Read the comment thread thoroughly on the second link to see just how cynical the bastards who run this country are.

I made a prediction in the second article linked to, that Ariel Sharon would be the last prime minister of his kind. I have been proven right, though not the way I expected to be. Olmert is a weak-kneed coward. Sharon, for all of his many many faults, was at least a man with some guts.

Ruvy

Again, thanks for the insights.

Unfortunately, I think that making kosher the pig's breakfast which the whole mess has become is going to be more difficult than mucking out the Augean stable.

Dan

Ruvy,

Here is an interesting link, the thrust of which is that war may be on the way. It pulls together a bunch of incidents which perhaps are insignificant in isolation, but which when viewed each in context with the others may well be meaningful.

Your analysis would be helpful.

Dan

Dan,

Thank you for the interesting link. You know, you're the guy with the name of the prophet who figures out riddles, not me.

Well that's not entirely true: my middle name is Daniel. So, we'll give it a shot. What does the handwriting on the wall say, anyway?

The only problem with Friedman's analysis is that it assumes

1) that the Israelis are a lot stronger than they really are, and
2) the Americans are really allies of this country.

Neither of these things is true. The problem is that George Friedman, the author of the article and CEO of Strategic Forecasting, Inc. is an American himself, and too many Americans, particularly American Jews who think highly of Israel, have this unrealistic vision of Israelis being expert fighters who are super-organized and that America is behind Israel, a fellow democracy.

I used to be just such a fellow, myself, so I'm not looking down my long Jewish nose at George Friedman.

The movie "Exodus" really messed up Americans' heads - that movie, and "Cast A Giant Shadow".

I have had to swallow a whole series of painful truths about this country since moving here. One of them is that Israelis are no where near as organized as they might have once seemed. Another is that Israel seems like a democracy, has the forms of a democracy and tells itself it is a democracy, but is in reality a dictatorship with most of the power concentrated in a few families.

But the most painful truth of all has been having had the realities of the relationship between the United States and Israel shoved down my throat rather rudely, and worse, seeing the results of these realities reflected in my inability to get a job in my usual profession, managing burger joints, due to policies forced down Israel's throat by the American regime - just one example; NOT crushing with an iron fist the Arab revolt of 2000. This resulted in a drying up of the tourist trade here, the folks who buy hamburgers in Israel, and me being forced to find something different to do.

So, in other words, when I say the American government is an enemy of Israel, this is based on my own experience of impoverishment here, as well as the massive evidence that I can marshall to back my assertions. It is not based on hatred or anger or anything like that, though the facts do really piss me off.

Ruvy,

A very interesting comment which, (for me, at least) goes a long way toward explaining a number of issues about which, hitherto, you had only hinted.

A very interesting comment which, (for me, at least) goes a long way toward explaining a number of issues about which, hitherto, you had only hinted.

Perhaps, Clavos, you should re-read the corpus of my work here (you don't have to re-read all ninety-seven articles) with these points in mind. You may get a very different impression of what I have to say about what goes on here and why.

Ruvy,

First, to clear up a minor misunderstanding: Daniel is my middle name as well. I am a "junior," and my dad got first dibs the first name; hence, I got stuck with the middle name and continue to use it. Despite his death last year at age 93, I retain the suffix "Jr." Just because I want to.

You say, Israel seems like a democracy, has the forms of a democracy and tells itself it is a democracy, but is in reality a dictatorship with most of the power concentrated in a few families.

I could look up the population of Israel, but won't bother. Obviously it is a small fraction of that of the U.S. Although Israel, as its borders now exist, has a population perhaps more frighteningly heterogeneous than that of the U.S., democracy could probably work there given a more nurturing environment.

In the U.S., with its more than three hundred million residents, I fear that that ceased to be the case long years ago.

Yeah, I know, the U.S. is a Republic, not a Democracy. I am aware of the differences, but they don't seem very pertinent to the point I am about to make.

I now live in Panama, with a population roughly one percent of the population of the U.S.

Panama definitely has its myriad problems, most of them better "known" to folks who don't live here than to those who do.

With its small population, just about every Panamanian knows the folks running for office in local or provincial [analogous to state] elections. Most everybody knows whoever is running for National office, even that of President, or at least has a cousin or a friend who does. That can make a difference.

The most recent former president of Panama, the trophy wife of a former president, who applied her best efforts to bankrupting the country and to filling her own purse, is widely disliked here. Probably, her status as the former first lady to a highly respected president got her elected (N.B. I don't mean to suggest that Senator Clinton is a trophy wife; some trophy). They (sometimes, I wish I could use the pronoun "we") learn.

In the U.S. press, the current president, Martin Torrijos, was stated to be the bastard son of the former "dictator," Omar Torrijos. That is correct; however, Martin was eight years old when his father was killed [murdered?] in an helicopter crash possibly engineered by Noriega, and has been a pretty good president. Point is, he is widely known by the electorate -- partially because his father remains well respected here -- and because this is a small country; liked or disliked, he is well known.

And that is my point: democracy, or republicanism, is much more likely to survive in a small than in a large country for the simple reason that in a small country the people can have more insights into their candidates than is possible through bumper sticker slogans, short sound bites, and even well choreographed debates.

I think I may understand how you feel about Israel, and perhaps I shall feel much the same about Panama after I have lived here for more than my present six years. Unless things change much for the worse, I don't think I will.

Were I not a devout Agnostic, I would pray for Israel and for you. Since I can't, I wish you and your adopted country the best.

Dan

You raise a most interesting and, IMO, cogent point in # 8, Dan.

I think it accounts for the fact that, in general (with a few notable exceptions), here in the US, governance on a local and state level tends to be much more responsive (and beneficial)to the citizens, who are of course, the bill payers, than the federal government does.

Dan,

Israel's population is about 7.5 million with 6.4 million of us Jews. This does not count the Arab population of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, of which there is a dispute over the numbers. The Arab figures are based on the lessons the Arabs learned well from Jewish displaced persons in sucking money out of the UN over sixty years ago - they never record deaths or people leaving; that cohort of readers who buys Arab propaganda as truth, both here and elsewhere, use and accept the inflated Arab numbers. Reality is somewhat different and suggests a far smaller number of Arabs living both in Gaza and Judea and Samaria. Nevertheless, there are about ten million of us huddled between the Jordan and the sea.

But the institutions of democracy are far and few between.

The main elections here are for the Knesset, the parliament. I refer you (again) to Israeli Politics: All the Trash is Jumping into the Same Bin for an explanation of how the Knesset is elected. All councils here are elected in a fashion similar to the Knesset.

Reading what I wrote there , you'll rapidly see that there is no individual accountability. It is very unlike the North End of Saint Paul, where my ex and I lived three decades ago. If you had a serious problem, you could go to Tommy Osthoff (DFL), the fellow who represented the area in the Minnesota House of Representatives, and complain. and if you were active members in the Senate DFL club, like me and my ex were, you often got action. There is more than one paragraph in the Minnesota legislative code that can be traced to us if you work hard enough to find it.

Kibbutzim (agricultural collectives) used to be incubators of democracy, as it was practiced in Poland in the 1920's anyway (the source of Israel's political culture), but they no longer are. They have nearly all privatized and the institutions of the kibbutz general meeting, like the hora and other "folk" dances, is a thing of the past.

Having said all this, the ties that bind us as Jews are far stronger than the divisions that separate us as immigrants from the four corners of the world. The real phrase governing the culture here is kol yisraél avár zeh el zeh "all Israel is involved one with another."

It's always a pleasure to point to a picture of a pretty lady and say "she proves me right". Almost two years ago to the day, I wrote about The Persian Empire Reborn? President Ahmadinejad's Messianic Politics analyzing the idea that the Iranians were trying to re-create the Persian Empire that existed 1,400 years ago, just before Islam made its appearance on the scene in these parts. This empire was the last time that Persian soldiers got to see the Mediterranean. Now, I get to read Caroline Glick's Column One in today's Jerusalem Post "Ahmadinejad's Smile" and see that she proves me right! According to the behavior of Ahmadinejad, he has demonstrated that he has Bashar Assad's balls in a jar somewhere in Teheran. The Fars News Agency can afford to set up Assad for a Saudi hit squad (the implication of its claims) and Assad can do nothing but fold his pita into the houmus and pray he doesn't get killed....

From the article:

The regime-affiliated Iranian Fars news agency published a sensational story this week. According to the Fars report, Saudi Arabia and Israel collaborated in killing Iranian terror-master Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus in February. The story is important regardless of whether it is true. It is important because it says something important about the nature of Iran's relationship with Syria. Specifically, it says that Iran views Syria as a vassal state.

If Teheran were not convinced of its control of the Syrian regime, it would never have dared to publish a story that places the Assad regime in an open confrontation with Saudi Arabia. An even partially independent Syria would never go along with such an open challenge to Saudi Arabia.

Syria, of course, is not Iran's only proxy in the Arab world. There is the Hamas regime in Gaza as well. On Thursday the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center released an in-depth report on Hamas's military buildup since Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in September 2005. The report notes that Hamas receives arms and funding from Iran and Syria and sends its fighters for extending training at camps in Iran and Syria.

Ruvy, that article doesn't prove you right, only events could actually do that.

I'm not sure adding Syria and Gaza would actually constitute an Iranian empire either, but hey, who needs a sober analysis when feverish certainty is so easy and attractive?