Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

Martin van Creveld, The World Can Live With a Nuclear Iran - Forward.com, September 24, 2007

Iran may indeed have some Shihab III missiles with the range to hit Israel, but their number is limited and their reliability uncertain. Should the missiles carry conventional warheads, then militarily speaking the effect will probably be close to zero. Should they carry unconventional ones, then Iran — to quote former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, speaking not long before the first Gulf war — will open itself to “awesome and terrible retaliation.”

Iran’s other options are either to stir up trouble in the Gulf or to launch terrorist attacks in the West. Trouble in the Gulf will cause the price of oil to skyrocket, but it will not save Iran from being heavily bombed.

Terrorist attacks are certainly possible. However, their strategic impact will be close to zero. After all, the September 11 attacks — the largest such attack of all time — did not diminish the capability of the American armed forces by one iota.

In case Bush does decide to attack Iran, it is questionable whether Iran’s large, well-dispersed and well-camouflaged nuclear program can really be knocked out. This is all the more doubtful because, in contrast to the Israeli attacks on Iraq back in 1981 and on Syria three weeks ago, the element of surprise will be lacking. And even if it can be done, whether doing so will serve a useful purpose is also questionable.

Since 1945 hardly one year has gone by in which some voices — mainly American ones concerned about preserving Washington’s monopoly over nuclear weapons to the greatest extent possible — did not decry the terrible consequences that would follow if additional countries went nuclear. So far, not one of those warnings has come true. To the contrary: in every place where nuclear weapons were introduced, large-scale wars between their owners have disappeared.

General John Abizaid, the former commander of United States Central Command, is only the latest in a long list of experts to argue that the world can live with a nuclear Iran. Their views deserve to be carefully considered, lest Ahmadinejad’s fear-driven posturing cause anybody to do something stupid.

firstamendmentcenter.org: news, September 24, 2007

WASHINGTON — Sixty-five percent of Americans believe that the nation’s founders intended the U.S. to be a Christian nation and 55% believe that the Constitution establishes a Christian nation, according to the “State of the First Amendment 2007” national survey released Sept. 11 by the First Amendment Center.

Burma’s revolt | openDemocracy.net, September 27, 2007

Eyewitness reports from bloggers inside Burma - Times Online, September 26, 2007

With the Burmese government restricting visas to foreign journalists, and all internal media controlled by the state, the internet provides one of the few routes left for getting eyewitness reports from inside Burma to the outside world. Despite rumours that the junta intends to close down internet access, a few brave bloggers continue to report their experiences.

Monks’ protests put pressure on junta, Financial Times, September 25, 2007

…the dramatic display in recent days of the Burmese public’s long-pent up resentment is threatening the military’s plans, as they confront a mass protest movement led by Buddhist monks chanting prayers for peace.

In spite of warnings to monks to stop marching and keep out of “secular affairs”, the generals have shown an uncharacteristic tolerance for the protests, probably out of concern about the repercussions both at home and in relations with key allies, such as China, of any violent crackdown.

Nir Rosen, No Going Back, Boston Review, September/October 2007

By early 2007 all my Sunni Iraqi friends were trying to leave Iraq….

Hamid continued: “The American government is stupid. They invaded and gave Iraq to Iran.”

…”God is with us!” he said, “Each Sunni is worth one hundred of them. Sunnis, as few as they are, will return and kill the Americans, Iranians, and apostates.”

…Iraq had no history of civil war or sectarian violence even approaching this scale until the Americans arrived….

I recently spoke to a close Iraqi friend, a Sunni doctor who was desperately trying to get his family out of Iraq…. “You know what makes me crazy?” he asked me. “How they want to pull their troops out.” I was surprised. I thought he had been opposed to the American occupation; I certainly was. “You want them to stay now?” I asked. “Can you imagine what will happen if they left?” he asked. “I don’t know if things would be very different,” I responded. “If they left the government will kill all of us,” he told me…. Before my friend succeeded in obtaining his passport, his father was murdered, his body found in a Baghdad morgue.

Yehuda Bauer, A human being without fault, Haaretz, September 27, 2007

Over the years, a strange friendship developed between us: On the dais, we would engage in a virulent argument but afterward, we would drink coffee together and tell each other personal news, talk about new findings and mutual friends. We sought each other out, we went together to book stores in the places where we met, we wrote to each other from time to time, and he would send me his books with the most important dedication of all: “To he who, like me, seeks the truth.”

Like me, he was a total atheist, and like me, he was a warm Jew in every sense. We grew up, as he would tell me, on “the same garbage heap,” with the same mother tongue, in the same cultural milieu. We were born a few months apart and our families fled from Europe in the same month…. During the only conference that was held in his honor, when he retired from his teaching position at the University of Vermont, he insisted that I be the main speaker. There too, as always, I did not hide the differences between us, and he sat and listened. Later, we embraced. Raul Hilberg was a great man, a great researcher, irritable, furious and loving, but above all, a human being without fault. I lost a close and personal friend.

Sami Abdel-Shafi, Divided and voiceless, Guardian Unlimited, September 27, 2007

Today we are imprisoned from all sides, including the sea, our vast symbol of freedom and opportunity that Israel stopped us sailing on long ago. Within the prison walls Gazans cannot escape the foul smell of burning rubbish that frequently fills the streets; many are forced to eat bread made of flour mixed with “feed wheat” - only suitable for animals - to compensate for flour shortages.

The appearance of leaders of both Hamas and Fatah, side by side on Tuesday at the funeral of my uncle, Dr Haidar Abdel-Shafi, the co-founder of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, was welcome. The suffering of ordinary Palestinians and the presence of Israel as an occupying force - whose military policies have bred division among Palestinians - can only be remedied by further expressions of unity between the parties, and a move to dialogue based on an unambiguous platform of pursuing peace with Israel.

It is urgent because Palestinians are drowning in half-truths. While internal security improved in the eyes of many Gazans with the change of power, some innocents were tortured by Hamas. The impact of yet another siege, and the collapse of whatever remains of an economy, health system or connection with the outside world, create profound instability in ordinary people’s lives.

The deplorable conditions here only make it easier for Hamas to commit mistakes and violations. Improved internal security in Gaza and Hamas’s victory in the 2006 elections cannot continue to be Hamas’s only bargaining chips.

The PA’s promise that, despite its physical distance, it would not forget Gaza’s citizens, is not holding up well. Palestinian official ability to challenge the continuing military policies of Israel has been gravely corroded, as events on the ground illustrate. Many in Gaza perceive that Fatah provoked June’s seizure of power by Hamas, and their suspicions are hardened by a sense that officials in the West Bank are looking the other way while life in Gaza loses any sense of dignity. In effect, Gaza is forgotten. Gaza is left voiceless.

It came as little surprise, therefore, to see how easily the Israeli cabinet was able to declare the Gaza Strip an “enemy entity” last week, legitimising the deliberate, and disproportionate, punishment of Gazans through disruption of electricity and fuel supplies. The move came in response to Palestinian home-made rockets targeting southern Israel, which Gazans widely oppose. Israel’s declaration warns of a self-afforded licence to continue hammering the Gaza Strip, with barely any accountability.

Against this backdrop, Israeli and PA officials are drafting an agreement on principles ahead of the US-sponsored peace conference scheduled for November. But Palestinian division and the degeneration of 1.5 million Gazans into a humanitarian case - or an “enemy” humanitarian case - only diminish the Palestinian negotiating position. It also allows Israel’s hawks to dismiss legitimate Palestinian demands for a just peace.

The resilience of Gazans is not so great that it will enable them to endure the consequences of Palestinian division on top of the continuing military incarceration from Israel. The real victims in the battle between Hamas and the PA are the people of Gaza. Here, ordinary lives are crippled, with access to medical care, municipal services and utilities brutally halted.