Trying to turn a sow's ear into ......

Submitted by Ron Thompson (United States), Nov 5, 2003 at 14:24

I think Bush's policy in Iraq is extermely dangerous for the long-term future of Israel. The ultimate main front of the War on terrorism has all along, in my view, been the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The war in Iraq, which may well be lost, is already tying down so many American military resources, and more importantly, emotional and intellectual resources, that it makes the I/P situation seem (for the time being) secondary - which it is not.

Perhaps the larger question is that the overall Mid-East situation is not a war between religions, but it may well be a war against one religion - Islam - which is violent and out-of-control everywhere it's in contact with other religions, or esp the West. In this context, the Arab/Islamic religious hatred of Israel is only the most central and most acute aspect of this world-wide conflict.

The need now to keep some Moslems as allies dangerously obscures this larger context, if this view is right.

Rather than defending Bush's unwise unilateralism (not that all US unilateralism is always unwise), I think you should prepare public or elite opinion for this larger, long-term, and worldwide view. For IF Islam (or enough of Islam) really is at war with the world, we lack the intellectual and even the awareness framework to deal with it

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