Jawjacking in Our Time
Mark Steyn is dismissing the “Great Men of Diplomacy” card that always gets played at times like these:
And none of these Great Men meeting with other Great Men gets us anywhere. Some of the Great Men can’t speak for their peoples (Mubarak) or their legislatures (Abbas). And a lot of the Great Men can’t even speak for themselves: From the late Yasser Arafat to Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, they say one thing in meetings with Western emissaries and something entirely different to their compatriots. And some of the Great Men we send to negotiate aren’t all that great: the wretched Mohammed El Baradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Authority, is, in fact, a patsy for the nuclear mullahs. To reprise one of my all-time favorite Iranian negotiating positions, let’s recall the perfect distillation of what Great Man diplomacy boils down to in the Middle East, as reported in the New York Times exactly a year ago:
“Iran will resume uranium enrichment if the European Union does not recognize its right to do so, two Iranian nuclear negotiators said in an interview published Thursday.”
If we don’t let Iran go nuclear, they’ll go nuclear. Negotiate that, Chuck Hagel.
The forces at play in the Middle East are beyond the Geopolitical Friars’ Club. The median age in Gaza is 15.8 years old. How likely is it that any of those bespoke Palestinian “moderates” who’ve been permanent fixtures on CNN and BBC Middle East discussion panels for 30 years have any meaningful sway over a population of unemployed uneducated teenage boys raised by a death cult? Israel withdrew from Gaza and, instead of getting on with a prototypical Palestinian state, Hamas turned the territory into an Islamist camp. Israel withdrew from Lebanon entirely in 2000, yet Hezbollah is now lobbing rockets at Haifa.
Maybe this time, it’s obvious to all that there can be no negotiations with Hizballah. For much the same reason that you don’t sue the pit bull that mauled your child; you shoot it. And then you go and serve papers on the dog’s owners: you want to feed and shelter this fucking thing and act like you have no responsibility for it? You’re gonna pay.
Syria and Iran are only a couple more revelations away from disastrous exposure —and absolute vulnerability.
