Bombing Syria

I see folks on Facebook lamenting that Syria was recently hit by US/UK/French missiles.

I don’t get it. Why the grief now, and not about everything else that has happened in Syria since 2011? War is only wrong if the US, Britain, or France get involved?

Many are saying that the casus belli, the Syrian government gas attack on its own civilians, seems likely to be bogus. The US had just announced it was pulling out. It was entirely in the Syrian government’s interest to lie low for a while.

I accept that Machiavellian logic. Regimes do sometimes do stupid things that are not in their own self-interest. But that would suggest some breakdown in command, so that local players are operating in their own behalf. It was more likely staged, a false flag, by the opposition.

I’m not sure that is important. Whether or not he was responsible for this attack, it is plain that Assad has been continuing to manufacture and to use chemical weapons. This is in violation of the deal by which the US did not intervene under Obama. Such things cannot be ignored. It is just fortunate to have a clear violation now in order to make the point. Now, I trust, chemical weapons are less likely to be used, and not only because the strike targeted Syria’s chemical weapons facilities.

Russia has of course protested, on the reasonable grounds that this was a plain violation of Syria’s national sovereignty. Not long ago, I would have agreed. It used to be accepted international law that one country did not intervene in another’s affairs without a formal request from the government, and this seemed wise. Until Rwanda. Everyone felt pretty bad afterwards about not intervening, and a new international standard emerged in time for the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo: foreign intervention was justified and called for if any government was violating basic human rights with regards to their own citizens. Gas attacks would fall under this rule.

Given that Russian military was on site, does it all risk starting some wider war? Yeah. By the same token, so does the US sitting on its hands. On balance, by convincing Putin to tread more softly, this looks to me more likely to prevent than to provoke a wider war. Russia has been throwing its weight around, here and elsewhere. The more it does so, the more it risks inadvertently provoking a big war. Rather like the German Kaiser sticking his finger in everywhere leading up to World War I. Putin has been swashbuckling for the sake of prestige. Suddenly it looks as though the big boys have come to play. Now this adventure begins to feel like bit of a humiliation. That may make him less eager to undertake the next one. If he risks a wider war in Syria, he is an idiot: there is no way Russia can match the US, Britain and France in any overseas theatre.

His own position depends on sleight of hand. Russia is in bad shape; worse with the collapse in the price of oil. He may need foreign policy successes to stay in power; but, by the same token, a serious humiliation could topple him.

A third issue is the presence of Iran in Syria, in support of Assad. Apparently John Bolton was previously opposed to any US intervention, but now backs it because he fears the growing influence of Iran. If the US leaves a vacuum here, and it is filled by Iran as a regional power, this is troublesome for allies like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Israel, and Kuwait.

Ontario Today

On the advice of an alert reader, I tuned in by distance to a recent discussion on the CBC dealing largely with the current controversy about male-only campuses in Saudi Arabia:. http://www.cbc.ca/ontariotoday/2016/02/02/is-doing-business-with-saudi-arabia-worth-the-risk/

It was painful to listen to. It is sobering to learn how ignorant and prejudiced Canadians can be.

First, there is the premise that Saudi Arabia has a bad government that we ought not to have anything to do with. We ought, having our own monarchical traditions, to know better. There is nothing magical about democracy. It works well in some places, not so well in others. Usually, it takes years and a strong cultural tradition of voluntary associations to create.

Look around at the MENA region. What government is bettter? Would you rather live in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Iran, Sudan? These are the republics, the failed "democracies." Are not the good governments precisely the monarchies? Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Jordan, Morocco. Note that not all of them have oil wealth to make governing easy. Many of the "democracies," by contrast, do, and have still made a mess of things.

It seems to me pure prejudice to see Saudi Arabia as anything but a good international citizen and a reliable ally. Yes, they export their religious beliefs. That is their right.

Then there is the obnoxious bit about Canadian colleges supposedly having some kind of moral duty to impose "Canadian values." A claim made with much sanctimoniousness repeatedly in the podcast. This is just a new term for cultural imperialism. It is the ideology of empire. One caller rightly called his fellow Canadians out on this one. Are not the Saudis themselves more likely to be able to judge and run their own affairs? Do they not in any case have that human right? Are we so confident in our own superiority? Sorry, that is downright racist.

I am against capital punishment. But the programme host seemed to be upset with Saudi Arabia not because they, unlike Canada, have it, but because they execute by beheading, unlike the supposedly civilized practices of our southern neighbour in lethal injection, or electrocution, or the old Canadian and British method of hanging. The truth is that beheading is a good deal more surely painless than these other methods. We reject it only because we care more about the sight of blood than the pain of the executed, to our shame. When Europe regularly practiced capital punishment, being beheaded instead of hanged was a privilege of the upper classes.

The other rap raised against the Saudi justice system is that executions are held publicly. Does nobody stop to think that this is, and was in the old days in Canada and Europe, an important protection for our rights? If government executes someone the general public believes does not deserve it, by doing it publicly they risk a riot. By becoming queasy about our duty here, we Westerners have made it much easier for tyrants.

The faculty union rep on the programme also actually claimed, in so many words, that not all those executed recently by the Saudi government were violent. "Many," he said, 'were peaceful dissidents." That is an incendiary claim, shown to be unlikely, as noted, by the fact that they were publicly executed, and needs to be defended, not just asserted. According to the Saudi government, they were all violent terrorists. Fact and logic seems to be entirely on the Saudi side. These people had been through the Saudi justice system. Is it not the competent legal authority? Do we know better?

Inevitably, Saudi Arabia also comes under fire in the broadcast for not supporting the current Canadian craze for LGBT pride. Would Premier Wynne herself be free to visit with her partner?

Probably.

Homosexuality is indeed technically illegal in Saudi Arabia. Perhaps it should be; putting everything else aside, homosexuality is a public health risk. You may have heard of AIDS. But there is a serious distortion here in the perceptions of how homosexuality is in practice treated in more traditional societies like Saudi Arabia or, to cite a Christian example, the Philippines. In fact, homosexuals are almost always let alone to live and let live. The only difference appears to be that they are not allowed, any more than heterosexuals, to publicly flaunt or advertise their sexual appetites. Unlike in Canada, homosexuals and heterosexuals are treated the same way. I know a good many homosexuals in the Gulf; I would not know they were homosexuals if they were not perfectly open about it. In fact, Saudi Arabia is a kind of paradise for gays, due in part to the sexual segregation, and an unusually high percentage of expats here are homosexuals who have chosen to live here as a happy hunting ground. My impression is that, for the law to intervene, you have to be an adult going after teenagers or younger, who do not already have an established homosexual orientation. In other words, what passes for a law against homosexuality in Saudi Arabia is just the same law Canada has against pedophilia.

Filipino transsexuals

In the Philippines homosexuality is legal, but the great majority of Filipinos are devout Catholics, who are supposedly out to persecute gays wherever possible. Instead, Filipinos to a man and a woman seem to have no problem whatsoever with homosexuality. Like masturbatiion, it is a matter between oneself and one's God, and nobody else's business. Not only are Filipinos free to be gay or lesbian without any loss of social standing, there is a large and open culture of transgenderism. Nobody cares.

It is traditionally more oppressive in Canada.

Three Steps to a Stable Middle East

Although Americans are back in the skies over Iraq and Syria, Barack Obama is obviously profoundly reluctant to commit land forces to the Middle East. Americans have had enough of war for now.

Very well, if the US does not want to be involved, there are other ways of quieting the region and eliminating terrorist breeding grounds. What we need is a system of mandates like those of the old League of Nations, giving designated countries a limited right and responsibility to keep peace and order in a given jurisdiction.

1. Give Egypt a UN mandate over Libya.

Egypt has 82 million people and an armed forces that did rather well in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Libya is only 7 million. They sought to unite as recently as the 1970s. The Egyptian Army ought to be up to the task.

2. Give Turkey a UN mandate over Syria.

Syria used to be part of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey has a large, modern armed forces and is in the mood for prestige these days. Giving them free rein in Syria could be a quid pro quo for keeping them out of Iraq while arming the Kurds there.

3. Give the GCC and Jordan a UN mandate over Iraq.

The King of Iraq, now deposed, was a member of the same Hashemite royal family as the King of Jordan. Monarchies work best in the Arab Middle East. They also work best in countries that are ethnically divided, like Iraq. The GCC is among other things a union of Arab monarchies. They are obvious backers for a reinstatement of the Iraqi royal family. It is also to their advantage to restore Iraq as a friendly buffer against their traditional enemy, Iran.

The Best Thing for the Middle East

A case might be made here for a larger crown.

The Middle East is mess. A lot of people are upset with the US and NATO for not going in and helping the poor people of Syria. It's such a mess. A lot of the same people are upset with the US and NATO for going in and getting rid of Ghaddafi. Leaving such a mess. Not to mention with Bush going in and taking out Saddam, leaving the mess of ISIS there now.

Wait a minute, though. What would you have the US and NATO do?

The problem with nasty dictatorships is that they destroy all elements of civil society. They do this, because any separate organizations could become rival power centres and challenge their rule. They want an absolutely free hand, or what's a totalitarian supposed to do? It's in the job description.

That means that, when they fall, there is nobody and nothing in a position to replace them. And you have a mess.

So, the rest of us have three options here, and only three options, when they start to shoot their own people:

1. Go in, take out the dictator, and try to set up a civil society before we leave. That's Iraq.
2. Go in, take out the dictator, and leave, letting the chips fall where they may. That's Libya.
3. Do nothing, and leave matters to work themselves out. That's Syria.

The West is catching all kinds of criticism for each of these. In other words, they are being blamed no matter what they do.

For my money, number 2 is the best option available. All three end in a mess, but in 1, the West gets blamed for the chaos, while in 3, the West gets blamed for the dictator. The West still gets blamed for the chaos in 2, but it is less convincing, and certainly costs less.

The one institution that dictators in the Middle East do not dare to shut down, because it is too culturally ingrained, is the mosque. As a result, all organized opposition must develop a quasi-religious character, or at least a religious disguise. So, when a dictator goes, almost the only option to replace him ends up being the so-called “religious extremists” (a serious misnomer—these guys aren't very religious at all). This is why democracy doesn't work here. There are only two organized groups: the army, and the mosque. Neither is democratic in nature.

So how do you get to a healthy civil society in the Middle East?

History tells us that there is really only one way: monarchy.

The matter is partially obscured, because many nations have chucked the monarchy since achieving democracy, but it has almost always been necessary to have a monarchy in order to get a democracy in the first place. This is of course true of Canada, Britain, Australia, and the rest of the Commonwealth. It is true, recently, of Spain. It is also true, despite the national mythology, of the US: they got their democratic institutions when they were still colonies. It is true of Japan—under Hirohito; and of Italy. Germany achieved it without a king, but under long foreign military occupation. It is also true of France. Despite the revolution and all that, stable democracy came under Napoleon III, the hereditary Emperor.

With rare exceptions like Henry VIII, monarchies are not totalitarian. One reason is because you do not become the leader in a monarchy through personal ambition. On average, the average monarch will have only the average drive for personal power. Accordingly, there is so desire in the typical monarch to destroy civil society. Or, should suitable institutions arise, to hang on to power for the sake of power.

Like other citizens, they are mostly inclined to do whatever seems best for the nation. Nor do they have the same incentive as a dictator to loot the country's treasury: given the hereditary principle, they have every reason to want to leave the country in the best possible condition for the sake of their children.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have oil. Iraq and Iran have oil. Which governments have made better use of the resource?

Fortunately for the Middle East, it does include some monarchies.

How to Safely Arm the Syrian Rebels

Arab Christians

It now looks as though Obama may lose the vote in Congress authorizing Syrian intervention. If he does, his best option is to arm Syrian rebels.

But here we have a problem: the main Syrian opposition is reputedly closely allied with al Qaeda. How can the US, and other Western countries, ensure that their aid does not end up in the hands of their worst enemies?

The answer is perfectly simple. Arm only the Syrian Christians. Here we have an easily identified group that is guaranteed to be anti-jihadist and pro-Western. They are two million strong—enough to make a difference. And they are currently at greatest risk.

More on the Arab Spring and the Holy Roman Empire

I had hoped the Arab Spring would lead to Western-style democracy, and I am indeed concerned with Mohammed Morsi’s grab for dictatorial powers in Egypt.

On the other hand, here is one Arab perspective, courtesy of my office mate: the problem is corruption. People hope that the Muslim Brotherhood, because of their religious underpinnings, will introduce a more honest government.

Of course, they may be wrong. The same appeal once brought the Communists and the Nazis to power; in power, they proved over time as corrupt as a government could ever be.

It is well to remember, though, that the point is not democracy. The point is honest, competent government, and democracy is of value only to the extent that it produces this result. In fact, a good argument can be made for monarchy as a promising alternative. Consider the monarchies of the Middle East: they are consistently less corrupt than the supposed Republics.

There is a reason for this, of course. If you have one person in power, he has every incentive to rob the state blind before he loses the ability to do so. But then too, if you have one party in power, they have the same incentive, and so do the individuals within it. They may be inclined to take what they can while they can. If, on the other hand, the government is not a personal, but a family, possession, the current ruler has a good incentive to preserve and foster the prosperity of the state, without looting it. After all, it is a family heirloom, and he will naturally want to leave it to his children in as good a condition as possible, if he only has normal parental instincts.



Lacking, then, a sophisticated electorate, monarchy may be the best choice. And, of course, monarchy is perfectly compatible with the highest form of democracy as well, as England, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, and many others demonstrate. Arguably a more stable and secure democracy than a republic can muster.

I think the common people are also perfectly right, as well, to hold corruption to be the main issue here. And they do—I can vouch for it personally from many conversations with taxi drivers throughout the region. In fact, corruption is by far the main reason poor countries are poor. Ruling classes try to obscure the truth with talk about colonialism, overpopulation, alcoholism and a lazy populace, or exploitative multinational corporations. The alibis seem to work well enough with elites elsewhere, who share in the end a common interest. But they often do not confuse the common people.

It also makes sense that a strong unifying ideology with a strong moral component is an obvious antidote to official corruption. Good government almost requires a code of chivalry, a high moral code to which the ruling elite sincerely subscribes. Cultures rise and fall on the strength of such ruling ideologies.

In the world today, there are really only three such plausible ruling ideologies still standing: liberal democracy, as found for example in the US Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence; Christianity; and Islam. Marxism is dead outside the academy, and can no longer check corruption in China. Buddhism lacks an obvious political message, and Confucianism, Judaism, and Hinduism are culture-specific.

That the USA seems to currently be the leading proponent of two of these three ideologies, liberal democracy and political Christianity, makes me think it is the likely dominant world power for some time to come.

However, I could also see some other jurisdiction picking up the idea of political Christianity, based in part on the model of Islamism, and running with it. Hence, conceivably, with a breakup of the EU, we might, might, might, see something like a resurrected Holy Roman Empire; or something equivalent in South America; or in Eastern Europe, on the foundation of Orthodoxy.

Media Bias Blowback?

The media attack on Romney for supposedly speaking out of turn on the Arab crisis is so weird that I wonder if it may discredit the media in this campaign. As Dan Rather's attack on Bush's military record discredited the media in the Bush-Kerry campaign. It may generate a sympathy vote for Romney, and may make some turn against Obama purely on the grounds that the media is so obviously for him. The hatred of feeling manipulated could come into play here, given the new Internet-driven rules of engagement.

There is no sign of it yet, mind.

Smoking Guns

Here you go. According to this writer, the leader of the Cairo protests was actually the brother of Ayman Zawahiri, leader of al Qaeda. And the film was publicized by being shown on Egyptian TV, on a Salafist channel.

A Feminist Writes

Dressing like Mary.

Dear Abbot:

You are so wrong to defend the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia. You are wrong to defend the abaya as simply modest dress. Where do I start? I am 55 years old. I was raised Catholic. No I don't ever remember ever being told to 'dress like Mary'. I remember having a kleenex pinned to my head by nuns in 'habits' before a school outing to mass. Was that done to make a child of six or seven less sexually appealing? Anyway the 'winds of change' swept through the church in the sixties and seventies and even the 'Brides of Christ' no longer cover their hair. Here's the thing. I have no problem with a woman choosing to wear a scarf around her head. What I have a problem with is lack of choice for women or men for that matter. There is something wrong with a system that uses physical punishment to enforce a dress code. And it's not only about dress. For instance women are not allowed out without a male relative escorting them. Do you realize how constricting that would be? And the power that gives to the man? I never said that women could not be held responsible for their own choices. Social pressure is something that both sexes are subject to wherever one lives. It comes with being part of a community. And women in the west are indeed in positions of great power and responsibility now and doing quite well with it thank you very much! I'm not sure of what point you were trying to make about prisons and not sure of the statistics but if there are less women in prison I submit that is because they don't commit as many crimes as men. As for women never being blamed for anything and not accepting risks and responsibilities toward society? I'm not exactly sure what your talking about there. In the west women are allowed to participate and contribute to society and we not only 'expect all the rights and privileges', we have them. That's why I'm proudly a feminist. My generation broke through some pretty sturdy glass ceilings and made things better for the next generation. By the way as soon as women were allowed to join the armed forces they did. It's not that we weren't 'called on' to fight and die for our country...we weren't allowed to. I most definitely do not see women as 'precious fragile icons' and not sure how you surmised that. And I don't think it is really about sex or equality but CONTROL."

Baby Boomer Feminist

The Catholic Mantilla

Dear BBF:

Where do I start?

Let's just take it in order.

If you did not pay attention in Catechism class, that is of no relevance to anyone else.

Of course, as you note, covering the hair of young girls is not something they need at that age. It is part of their education, all of which is intended to be useful to them when they grow up, not right away. This is actually what education means. Some get it, some don't.

Your argument that this is no longer done is irrelevant—I pointed that out myself, and you cannot argue that, just because a thing is so, it must be right, and at the same time demand that current Muslim practices be changed. By your very logic, if they are so, they must be right.

If you are now in favour of choice for women, you must withdraw your original objection to Islam: the argument for the abaya I posted was from a Muslim woman, and you were refusing to allow her that choice. This, at least, is progress. I hope soon you will also be prepared to accept choice for men.

Yes, women have the right to be soldiers, if they decide they want to. Men, by contrast, have the duty to be soldiers, not the choice. They do not, unlike women, have the right to stay home if they prefer. Consider combat deaths. American men killed in Vietnam: around 50,000. American women killed in Vietnam: 6. Interestingly, the women have their own separate monument in the capital; the men don't. Your point will be valid if and when conscription for combat automatically applies to both men and women. 

The Separate Memorial for American Women Who Died in Vietnam, Washington. D.C.

It is actually the same with regard to working outside the home: women have the right to work outside the home, if they decide they want to. Men have the duty to work outside the home, not the choice—though their wives might give it to them. Women, in sum, have rights and no responsibilities; men have responsibilities, and no rights. This is not equality; this is a heightened inequality, in comparison with almost any other human society in history.

As to the statistics on male and female incarceration, which is to say, punishment for crime, the stats are easy to look up on the Internet, if you cared to. Currently in the US, about 7:1. That's a much higher proportion of females than it used to be, apparently for one reason: zero tolerance on drugs. This means judges and prosecutors can no longer give women a bye, at least on those crimes.

You want to argue this is because men actually commit more crimes; let's let you do that, because feminism is in the wrong either way. Then you also have to accept the argument that the disproportion of men in senior executive positions (before governments forced women's promotions) could have been because men are more responsible and more committed to their jobs. You cannot have it both ways--affirmative action when it favours women, and not otherwise—and in the same breath claim to want “equality.” Your position is, instead, all rights and no responsibilities for women; all responsibilities and no rights for men.

Women are allowed out without a male relative in Saudi Arabia; perhaps you were thinking of somewhere else? Possibly Afghanistan under the Taliban? Manhattan before Giuliani? The Wild West? In each of these cases, it may simply be a practical necessity, if one values women's safety over that of men. But stop and think for a minute: if this is constricting for the woman, isn't it at least as constricting for the man, who must drop whatever he wanted to do in order to accompany her? Why see this as something done to women, and not as something done to men? Are you really only concerned with the welfare of women, and whatever is done to men is okay?

And if so, why disguise it all by pretending to want equality? Why not at least be honest about it?

Abbot

It's Only a Westernized Elite

When the young people gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square, my Middle Eastern friends assured me, and so did the BBC and CNN, that this was only the educated, Weternized, urban young. Out in the countryside, it was likely that everyone lstill loved Mubarak.

A few days ago, both my Middle Eastern friends and the BBC were saying almost the same thing about Libya and Ghaddafi. Okay, the folks in Benghazi didn't like him; but he was wildly popular. It was just a tribal conflict. They would never riot in Tripoli.

My Middle Eastern friends have been saying the same, of course, about Iran for years. Even though everyone I know who has actually been to Iran in the last few years comes back saying they cannot find anyone who will admit to supporting the Ahmedinejad regime. But my Middle Eastern friends assure me quite forcefully that he is very popular. The people love him; the people support his programme. It is only a few Westernized, educated urban types who are rioting in the streets.

And they belive the same about China, my Middle Eastern friends.

But surely the flaw in this logic is obvious. My English-speaking, professional, well-educated Middle Eastern friends—they are themselves precisely the type of people they are insisting is pro-Western and anti-regime. So are the Middle Eastern reporters on the BBC. And if you meet this type, you find them to be, like my friends, actually resolutely anti-Western and pro any leftist regime. Something here has gotten reversed.

Yet this is what one would expect: that they would be anti-Western and pro-regime. After all, these urbanized, educated types are the ones doing best in the system as it is; why would they oppose it or want to overthrow it? They are the ruling class. Moreover, as the ruling class, they have every reason to scapegoat the West. If everything is not the West's fault, if the West is not secretly controlling everything, then they are in power and in charge; the necessary alternative is then to blame themselves.

And so when we see protesters gathering in urban squares in countries like Egypt, Libya, China, or Iran, in any generally underdeveloped country, and they seem to be well-educated and articulate in English, we are very wrong to suppose this represents only a tiny minority of opinion. It does, in a sense—but it represents the ruling class. This is especially true in a leftist regime, becuase leftist regimes councentrate power in the urban, well-educated, which is to say the bureaucratic, class.

It is pure leftist fantasy, if not a conscious lie, to suppose that the poor support leftist regimes and oppose rightist regimes. The poor, whether in city or countryside, essentially always support regime change. If you are poor, there is nowhere to go but up, so any change is likely to be an improvement. And the poor are by definition those who are not doing well under the present regime.

So when we see this wealthy, well-educated, Westernized, urban elite too turn against the regime, in particular if it is a leftist regime, we see a regime that has lost the support of even its natural constituency. It is a pretty likely sign of a regime in its death throes.

Letters for Iraq

You can send letters of encouragement to the persecuted Catholics of Iraq. The Papal Nuncio to the UN has offered to deliver all letters by diplomatic pouch.


Please address your emails to the families to His Beatitude Emmanuel Delli, Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Baghdad at tonuncio@gmail.com. He will print out the emails and put them in the pouch.

The Iranian Bomb

Courtesy CIA World Factbook.

Reading an in-depth article on the Iranian nuclear issue. It looks more serious than I had supposed.

Among those most worried about an Iranian bomb—let's be clear about this—are the Arab countries of the Persian, aka Arabian, Gulf. They are very small countries, with very small populations, flat as pancakes with no natural defences, and very, very rich. Iran is very big and very close by. If Iran gets le bombe, they warn, they will have no choice. They will have to cater to Iran's whims, in hopes of not being devoured, as they have been by Persia many times in their history.

Iran, on the other hand, will have every incentive to try sooner or later to take them over with conventional forces. The money is so good. Should they fail, given that they have the bomb, as well as strong natural defences, not much bad is going to happen to them. Should they succeed, they get control of the majority of the world's oil supply, with all the financial and strategic benefits this implies. A firm hand on the necks of Europe and the developed and developing nations of the Far East.

The alternative is almost as troubling: the little oil-rich states of the Middle East will all have to get their own nuclear arsenals, in order to forestall Iran. They have the financial ability, at least, to do so. But this probably means a Saudi bomb, a Kuwaiti bomb, a Qatari bomb, an Emirati bomb, maybe even an Omani and a Bahraini bomb. So much for nuclear non-proliferation. And you've suddenly multiplied the likelihood of some Islamist terrorist organization getting their hands on a bomb, clean or dirty, exponentially.

The possible elimination of Israel, really, is the least of America's worries; but this too looks ominous. There is no Mutually Assured Destruction here to stay Iran's hand. Even if Israel retained the ability to strike back—which it would—Israel would be gone in a puff of smoke from only a handful of well-placed bombs. Iran could be wounded, but not so destroyed. It is just possible the prestige of having taken out Israel might be worth it; and there is also the calculation that, even if a few Israeli subs retained the ability to strike back, they might not at this point. Their command structure would be gone, they would have no nation to return to—their own self-interest as well as objective morality would argue for quietly heading instead for the nearest friendly port.

So let's review: Ahmadinejad has within his sights control over all the oil wealth and plain wealth wealth of the Persian Gulf, great strategic influence over all of the developed world outside North America, and perhaps Russia, and indeed also over most of the undeveloped world. Meantime, he takes out Israel.

Seems as though, by this point, and given that by this point the counterbalancing prestige of the US in the region would be roughly zero Kelvin, his prestige could be great enough to become the acknowledged leader, formally or informally, of the Muslim world, stretching from Gibraltar to New Guinea. The new Iran, a democratic-theocratic Muslim government, seems primed to be an ideological model for such a new caliphate.

Imagine that: a radical Islamist world power. Perhaps even the dominant world power. Allah is great.

Gentlemen, we could be looking at the end of the American empire.

Given the stakes, does the current US administration have the courage to try to take out Iran's nuclear capabilities, by whatever means necessary? Do they even have the courage to let Israel do so? It seems a bad time to have a president like Obama in office, and a bad time for the US to be maxing all its credit cards.

The gameboard.

In the face of these concerns, Bush's invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan look a lot smarter than many ever imagined. I suspect he knew all along what he was doing—it's all too perfect. Saddam himself, let alone his weapons of mass destruction, might have been an alibi. Bush was surrounding Iran with US military, and US military bases—to the East, in Afghanistan, and to the West, in Iraq. Check and mate. At the same time, American and Iraqi forces are now positioned to oppose any land invasion from Persia into the Gulf—they will have to come by sea, and that's a lot more difficult for a land power facing a sea power; not to mention the high-tech Gulf Arab air forces. Money for good equipment, they've got.

I note that Irbil, in Northern Iraq, population just under one million, just opened in September a new airport with the fourth-longest runway in the world. It's a civil airport. Infrastructure is a good thing, but it is a bit hard to see why a mere regional centre, in a nation not exactly on the world tourist map, needs this kind of capacity in the near future. Oddly enough, though, the runway is large enough to land all the USAF's largest cargo planes. At speed. They are within about a hundred clicks of the Iranian border. They are also directly across from the one major pass in the mountains that separate Northern Iraq from Northern Iran—one of only four highway crossings along the entire Iraq-Iran border.

I suspect similar airports are opening elsewhere in Iraq, and in Afghanistan. Similar huge airports are certainly under construction in Dubai and Qatar. Dubai's will be the world's largest. Together, they seem like a necklace of peals around Iran's neck.

This suggests that the US authorities do have a fix on the significance of the problem before them. I suspect they have been working hard, with Brits, Gulf Arabs, and Israelis, on other options: on cyber attacks on Iran, on supporting the Green Revolutionaries, who seem, frankly, to have been coordinated very largely from Dubai. If any of these other initiatives succeed, well and good; the need for possibly massive bloodshed will have been avoided. The evident strength of these attacks—so great that they have made the world news, although the government of Iran itself would probably want to suppress all knowledge of them—shows the seriousness of intent behind them.

The Man in the Arab Street Reacts to Obama's Nobel

The local paper does “man-in-the-street” reactions to current news. Strikingly, the local reaction—here in the heart of the Arab Gulf, to the Nobel Peace Prize for Barack Obama is 100% negative. This is ironic, becuase it was supposedly for improving relations with the Muslim world.

The paper interviewed local Qataris, Lebanese, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, Indonesians, Indians, and Afghans. All were clear in feeling that the award was undeserved. Some seemed to find it actually insulting to the Arab and Muslim world—after all, some Muslim and Arab leaders have positive accomplishments in terms of world peace to their credit—the return of democracy in Pakistan, the end of the Lebanese Civil War, the Doha Round...--and yet this American gets it for nothing!

In other recent news, Al Azhar University, in Cairo, has banned the niqab, the veil, in all female classes, as un-Islamic. For those who are not aware, Al Azhar University is the closest thing Sunni Islam has to a Vatican.

This being so, nobody should still cling to the false notion that wearing a veil is either 1. a religious requirement for Muslim women, or 2. something forced upon them.

A friend has posted this video from The Daily Show. In my experience, this is what the Middle East is really like. It is not the strange, Medieval world that so many seem to think.

The Zionist Entity

One can understand the Arab perspective on Israel.

Israel is not a particularly noble thing done by Europe. Feeling guilty for their historical treatment of the Jews, and most especially for the Nazi holocaust, Europe gave them—someone else's land.

Not a big chunk of land, agreed. But still not theirs to give. One cannot blame the Arabs for missing it, just as France missed Alsace-Lorraine, or Germany missed Danzig. It is a legitimate casus belli.

Granted too, Arabs in Israel have full rights to practice their religion and full civil liberties. The only thing that really distinguishes Israel from any other state is its Right of Return—that anyone proving Jewish ancestry has the automatic right to residence and citizenship.

One can understand why this might be important to the Jews—they know, in any future worst case, in case of future persecution, that there is a safe haven available to them. The Right of Return ensures that.

But here's a thought—might it be at least a valuable gesture, to set things right, if the EU included, as part of its own constitution, that all its member states must extend to the Jews the same right of return as does Israel?

That would be fairer than asking the Arabs to do it. It would make the Jews yet more secure—if Israel itself was ever overwhelmed, as it indeed might be, the Jews would still be assured a safe haven.

Indeed--dare I say it?--it might obviate the need for Israel. Even if one or more states of the EU became oppressive to the Jews, having the right to move instantly to another would protect them. With 27 nations, the odds are extremely good that any Jews in danger could escape. More, surely, than with just one. One might hope, indeed, that extending this right of return might appeal to some other nations as well: immigrant nations like the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Singapore, and so forth. After all, a sense of guilt is not the only reason to do it: the Jews, as an ethnic group, are highly educated and skilled. Jewish immigration, looked at without prejudice, would probably be of net benefit to any country.

Some might argue that this is just not good enough—the tie of the Jewish people to the land often called Palestine is just too culturally deep. It must be this land, and no other.

But that, I would argue, with many devout Jews, is a cruel idolatry. That Israel, that Jerusalem, is the metaphysical one. The real history, and the real mission, of the Jews, is to be “a light unto the nations.” To be like the leaven in bread. That can only be accomplished through diaspora, and there has hardly been a time in the history of Israel when it has not been in diaspora—in the time of Abraham, in the time of Moses, in the time of Daniel, in the time of Maimonides. It is residence in Judea/Palestine/Israel that has been the anomaly. It is the proper fate of prophets to wander in the desert. The true Israel and the true, heavenly Jerusalem, are reserved for the end of time.

I leave you, too, with this thought: if Israel is the answer, then Hitler was right. This was Hitler's own plan, to segregate the Jews out into some other nation. He thought of Madagascar, not having Palestine available, after the fall of France. He resorted to annihiliation only once this proved impractical.

And Israel, as a state based on ethnicity, is to that extent, as the Arabs indeed argue, rather uncomfortably itself like Nazi Germany.

Mushrooms in My Back Garden

Here, as I see it, is the probable current Israeli thinking on Iran:

- The US will not strike Iran's nuclear facilities. Their troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Persian Gulf are too vulnerable, as is the oil link through the Gulf. From the American point of view, it is far better and far less destabilizing to the region to let Israel do it. Therefore, if the thing is going to get done, Israel is going to have to do it.

- Israel needs at least tacit US permission to strike—they will have to fly over Iraq.

- There is an overwhelming likelihood, at minimum, that Iran will get nuclear weapons sometime within the next eight years—some say as soon as next spring. That so, the time to strike is now. After next January, there will be a new president, who may well not be as well-disposed as this one to permitting an Israeli strike.

- In theory, one could wait until November, to see who wins the US election. But this is still risky: even McCain is a relatively unknown quantity, compared to a clear yes from the US now. And what happens if the Iranian reaction gets messy? Bush, as president, will probably want the time to mount his own preferred response in this case. It would not be good for US security interests to have this happen in the midst of the relative confusion of a turnover of administrations.

- Accordingly, if it is tactically possible, the time for any Israeli strike against Iran is now.

- It is also probably in the US's best interests, and that of the current administration, to help in any way they can to make this tactically possible. First, it takes the onus, the blame, and most of the risk, off them in acheiving a US foreign policy objective. Second, from the partisan point of view, an Israeli strike on Iran could be a useful “October surprise” for the Republican party, bringing foreign and military policy to the fore in the current US election. That would certainly help McCain against the relatively inexperienced Obama. Third, the current administration probably has the same fear as do the Israelis—that the succeeding administration may not follow the policies they believe in.

- Ehud Olmert, the Israeli PM, would also hugely benefit from a military strike on Iran ASAP: it would take the heat off in his current corruption scandal.

Hence, expect an Israeli attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities before November.

I expect things to get lively around here soon.

It Must be My Fault

The December 26 posting on this site, “Saudi Apartheid,” which argued that women in Saudi Arabia are not really the victims of apartheid in the same sense as South African blacks, appeared also, in slightly amended version, in the letter columns of the National Post.

This prompted a response in the December 29 edition of that paper. The correspondent argued that no less august a body than Amnesty International had declared that Saudi women are oppressed.

An appeal to authority never a legitimate argument. But for my opinion of that particular authority, the reader might like to review the entry on this site titled “The Life Cycle of an Idealistic Organization,” and posted August 28, 2007.

The respondent also, inevitably, cited the recent case of a Shi’ite woman sentenced to 100 lashes as proof that women in Saudi Arabia are indeed discriminated against. (She does not note that the sentence was ultimately overturned; and does not realize that the men who raped her were not the man she was illicitly visiting.)

But this was not in fact a case of sexual discrimination at all, as I pointed out in the entry on this site titled “Saudi Lashings,” posted November 19, 2007.

The subtext here, I think, is a pervasive, almost unconscious assumption that women should not be held accountable for their own actions—the same attitude, indeed, that deems it proper to declare Saudi women “oppressed” for choosing to wear a hijab. If anything a woman does is somehow offensive to anyone, it must be the fault of the nearest man.

Saudi Apartheid

Anne Applebaum, in yesterday’s National Post, asks, “Where is the outrage over Saudi gender apartheid?” (National Post, December 26). “In Saudi Arabia,” she advises us, “women still can’t vote, can’t drive, can’t leave the house without a male relative.” She wants a campaign on behalf of Saudi women comparable to the campaign against South African apartheid some years ago.

She misses, of course, a major difference between the Saudi treatment of women and the segregation of blacks in South Africa. The segregation of blacks was done in order to keep black and white lives apart. Women and men are ultimately not kept apart in Saudi Arabia. Indeed, they invariably share the same homes, the same families, the same bedrooms, even the same beds.

It is not, in other words, a matter of segregation of women. It is a matter of segregating non-relatives, of either sex. This is not oppression, unless unrestricted sex is a fundamental human right.

Applebaum oddly misses another important point. It was fairly clear that blacks in South Africa were not happy with the situation under apartheid. It is not so clear that Saudi women would prefer to live like Westerners. Perhaps feminists ought to allow them the dignity of asking them first?

Applebaum laments that Saudi women still cannot vote. True enough; they can’t. But she omits the important fact that Saudi men cannot vote either. Don’t men count?

She claims Saudi women cannot leave the house without a male relative. This is false: they cannot travel cross-country alone; but they are free to go out and about doing their shopping and visiting. The law, however ill-conceived, is intended for their safety.

Applebaum is correct, at least, that Saudi women are not allowed to drive. She might have cited other restrictions; but, to be fair, she should also have noted that Saudi women have rights not accorded to Saudi men. The legal right to be supported by their nearest male relative, for example.

As it happens, I live in the Saudi 'hood. I have experienced personally some of the discrimination against women here. Whenever there is a lineup for a service, for example, women are served before men. Most attractions have special days on which men cannot attend unless accompanied by a woman—women are free to go any time. Most parks are designated “for women and children only”; no dogs or men allowed. On the buses, the men must sit in the back; women sit where they like. Men must surrender their seats to women.

I have to tell you, in practice, it looks and feels a whole lot like discrimination against men.

Saudi Lashings

There has been much press lately on a woman in Saudi Arabia, the victim of gang rape by seven men, who was then sentenced to 200 lashes. Universally, the suggestion is that this is an example of Saudi discrimination against women. The Chicago Sun-Times editorializes that it is “like something out of the Dark Ages.” A correspondent writes to the National Post, “It is just another reminder of how women are treated in parts of the Muslim world and the indifference to their plight shown by so many feminists in the West.”

There is certainly room to condemn the sentence as too harsh; and the doubling of the woman’s sentence for talking to the media does not seem proper. But the one thing that is certain is this: it is not a case of discrimination against women. Conversely, the reporting of the story in the West is a case of discrimination against men.

For all news reports focus on the woman. But the fact is that the girl’s boyfriend was also in the car, also raped, and also received the very same initial sentence, of ninety lashes. If it was unjust in the case of the woman, it must have been equally unjust in the case of the man. Nobody cares. By objecting only to the woman’s sentence, the media are saying that what happens to men does not matter.

The man and woman who were raped were guilty of a crime in Saudi law: she was married, and yet was meeting another man alone, in his car.

Perhaps this should not be a crime; but that is a different matter. It has nothing to do with discrimination—unless the real issue here is discrimination against women having sex, not against women.