Adam's blogbox: wily Orientals outclass dumb Jews and Americans in Middle East

It’s interesting to see how America and its surrogate Israel are getting their lunch handed back to them as regurgitated particles of fecal matter in the Middle East.

How did this come about?

Well, the biggest power in the Middle East has been working behind the scenes to establish its dominance, like a wily Wizard of Oz, and it is now showing its hand.

That power is Iran. This theocracy of mad mullahs has proven itself to be far smarter at strategy than all the think tanks in American and Israel combined. Today they’re sitting with four aces, while Israel and America have run out of trumps. To their utmost surprise, secular America and Israel are being beautifully butt-bonked by those crazy mullahs.

In Iraq, Iran-connected Shiite militias –- part of the American-created government -- are murdering Sunnis at will, making sure the Shiites will rule Iraq. The Sunnis will probably end up with a little mini-country of their own, but it will be a very poor and powerless country, because Iraq’s oilfields are in Shiite and Kurdish regions.

In Lebanon, Iran-connected Hezbollah has emerged as the strongest militia in Lebanon, stronger than the Lebanese Army.

Bad news for American and Israeli leaders, who are helplessly weighing the mounting odds against having any gonads left after the dust settles.

The Iraqis have shown there are limitations to American military might –- a US Army of 140,000 soldiers can’t control a couple of thousand insurgents. Now Hezbollah has shown that there are limitations to Israeli military power, too.

Remember that Israel once, back in 1967, defeated three whole Arab armies in six days. But today they can’t subdue a few thousand Hezbollah fighters across the border (guestimated at around 7,000). Sure, Israel can bomb Lebanon to bits, and kill civilians by the hundreds, but they can’t defeat Hezbollah.

Neither can they stop it from launching rockets at Israel, or prevent it from humiliating Israel to the point that 500,000 Israelis have to skulk underground in bomb shelters.

Nobody is in awe of America and Israel anymore. They’ve played their big card, the card of military superiority. They’ve shot their entire wad of “shock and awe.” While people can still be shocked, as they are by the massacre of children in Qana, nobody is awed anymore.

This loss of awe spells the end for both America and Israel as effective users of military power. War is useless when you’re fighting guerillas embedded with the people. You can never defeat them.

Overwhelming air power may be very impressive, and all that smoke and rubble looks great, but it can’t win a modern war against determined guerilla fighters. It didn’t win the Iraq War, and it’s not winning the war in Lebanon. You can kill a lot of people with air power, but most of them won’t be your enemy. They’ll be innocent civilians.

If you want to defeat a guerilla enemy, you have to go in and fight hand to hand. Those battles will always be won by nationalist guerillas, because they’re fighting for their homes. The mighty IDF will not have the stomach to fight man to man and house to house and village by village against Hezbollah (something Hezbollah hungers for). That’s the problem with having more military power than your enemy: you simply can’t accept the need to suffer as many casualties as your enemy. Israel has gotten so used to offing at least ten Arabs for every single Jew whacked by the Arabs, that they can’t accept a less favorable kill ratio.

Now America and Israel have to learn to behave like everyone else – by talking, by negotiating, by gathering allies (and by trying to corral world opinion to their side, a battle they’ve both lost).

It’s going to be a long hard slog for America and Israel to get back in the game. With their armies proving useless, they now have to rely on their politicians.

Unfortunately, their politicians are pretty useless, too.

George Bush, Condoleeza Rice and Ehud Olmert are amateur stumblebums on the world stage. Condi is no Kissinger, Snowcroft or James Baker. Bush Jr. is no Bush Sr. or Nixon (he has a great domestic operative in Karl Rove, but no commensurate brain-for-hire in foreign affairs). Ehud Olmert is no Ariel Sharon or Rabin.

In terms of political infighting and strategic smarts, one Sheik Nasrallah is worth ten George Bushes, Condi Rices, Ehud Olmerts and Kofi Annans rolled into one. Nasrallah is simply smarter than Bush, Rice and the other stooges who think they can bomb people to get their way.

Nasrallah and his Iran allies have outfoxed and rendered America and Israel powerless, despite the military might of these nations -- maybe because of their military might, because possessing overwhelming military power has made them diplomatically dumb. Let’s go through a list of American/Israeli powerlessness.

1. America and Israel are powerless to stop Hezbollah from remaining the major player in Lebanon, as well as a major force in the Middle East. In fact, Hezbollah has now taken over from Al Qaeda as the most popular “freedom-fighting” or “terrorist” movement on earth (don’t forget they suicide-bombed US troops out of Lebanon years ago, and that they can reach beyond the Middle East: they bombed a Jewish synagogue in Argentina).

2. America and Israel are powerless to stop Iran from aligning itself with the Shiite majority in Iraq in an anti-American alliance. Chances are good that when America scrambles out of Iraq under some face-saving excuse within the next five years, the Iran-Iraq alliance will never allow America back again. Count on all oil contracts to go to Chinese and Russians corporations, not to American oil companies.

3. America and Israel are powerless to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power, and presiding over the Middle East as its dominant state.

4. America and Israel are powerless to stop Hamas from remaining the major player in Palestine. They will be forced to deal with Hamas if they want to solve the Palestinian crisis.

5. America and Israel are powerless to stop Palestine from becoming a free state.

6. In fact, it looks like America and Israel are powerless to dictate the terms of a freedom-for-Palestine negotiation. Up to now, they’ve dictated the terms, whether it’s been Camp David or Oslo or the Road Map or whatever they call their one-sided demands. When peace is negotiated, five to fifty years from now, final terms will be dictated by Hamas as much as by Israel -- and with the approval of Iran, who is now the indispensable nation in the Middle East.

7. Neither the US or Israel are indispensable to the Middle East anymore. Israel will be forced to make peace, otherwise it will become dispensable. It should be clear to everyone (but the dumb Israelis) that making peace is now the only way for Israel to survive. They can’t rely on America to save them – the US is just too dumb to be of any help. Heck, we can’t even run our economy ourselves; we have to borrow money from China to get by.

Expect to see Israel and Hamas at the negotiating table within the next five years. Over that table will fall the two shadows of America and Iran -- America as the guarantor of Israel, and Iran as the guarantor of Palestine. And if America keeps on being Dumb Player #1 on the world stage, the longer shadow will be cast by the wily Orientals of Iran.