Four months ago, the new U.S. administration unveiled a policy that suddenly placed great emphasis on stopping the growth in Israeli “settlements.” (A term I dislike but use here for brevity’s sake.) Surprisingly, American officials wanted to stop not just residential building for Israelis in the West Bank but also in eastern Jerusalem, a territory legally part of Israel for nearly thirty years.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton launched the initiative on May 27, announcing that the president of the United States “wants to see a stop to settlements – not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions,” adding for good measure, “And we intend to press that point.” On June 4, Obama weighed in: “The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. … It is time for these settlements to stop.” A day later, he reiterated that “settlements are an impediment to peace.” On June 17, Clinton repeated: “We want to see a stop to the settlements.” And so on, in a relentless beat.

Focusing on settlements had the inadvertent but predictable effect of instantly impeding diplomatic progress. A delighted Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority responded to U.S. demands on Israel by sitting back and declaring that “The Americans are the leaders of the world. … I will wait for Israel to freeze settlements.” Never mind that Abbas personally had negotiated with six Israeli prime ministers since 1992, each time without an offer to stop building settlements: why should he now demand less than Obama?

In Israel, Obama’s diktat prompted a massive popular swing away from him and toward Netanyahu. Further, Netanyahu’s offer of even temporary limitations on settlement growth in the West Bank prompted a rebellion within his Likud Party, led by the up-and-coming Danny Danon.

The geniuses of the Obama administration eventually discerned that this double hardening of positions was dooming their naïve, hubristic plan to settle the Arab-Israeli conflict within two years. The One’s reconciliation with reality became public on Sept. 22 at a “summit” he sponsored with Abbas and Netanyahu (really, a glorified photo opportunity). Obama threw in the towel there, boasting that “we have made progress” toward settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and offering as one indication that Israelis “have discussed important steps to restrain settlement activity.”

Those eight words of muted praise for Netanyahu’s minimal concessions have major implications:

• Settlements no longer dominate U.S.-Israel relations but have reverted back to their usual irritating but secondary role.
• Abbas, who keeps insisting on a settlement freeze as though nothing has chaed, suddenly finds himself the odd man out in the triangle.
• The center-left faction of the Obama administration (which argues for working with Jerusalem), as my colleague Steven J. Rosen notes, has defeated the far-left faction (which wants to squeeze the Jewish state).

Ironically, Obama supporters have generally recognized his failure while critics have tended to miss it. A Washington Post editorial referred to the Obama administration’s “miscalculations” and Jonathan Freedland, a Guardian columnist, noted that “Obama’s friends worry that he has lost face in a region where face matters.”

In contrast, Obama critics focused on his announcing, just one day after the mock summit, that “America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements” – a formulaic reiteration of long-established policy that in no way undoes the concession on settlements. Some of those I admire most missed the good news: John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, stated that Obama “put Israel on the chopping block,” while critics within the Likud Party accused Netanyahu of having “prematurely celebrated” an American policy shift. Not so. Policy winds can always change, but last week’s capitulation to reality has the hallmarks of a lasting course correction.

I have repeatedly expressed deep worries about Obama’s policy versus Israel, so when good news does occur (and this is the second time of late), it deserves recognition and celebration. Hats off to Bibi – may he have further successes in nudging U.S. policy onto the right track.

Next on the agenda: the Middle East’s central issue, namely, Iran’s nuclear buildup.

Instead of Israel making yet more unilateral concessions to the Palestinians, in late May Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu called to “bring Arab states into the circle of peace.” U.S. special envoy George Mitchell and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak picked up on this and developed plans to integrate those Arab states into the diplomatic process. In mid-July, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asserted that “Arab states have a responsibility … to take steps to improve relations with Israel, and to prepare their publics to embrace peace and accept Israel’s place in the region.”

A month later, Barack Obama declared his hope that “we are going to see not just movement from the Israelis, but also from the Palestinians around issues of incitement and security, from Arab states that show their willingness to engage Israel.” According to Laura Rozen, Obama “sent letters to at least seven Arab and Gulf states seeking confidence-building measures [CBMs] toward Israel.” (Those states include Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.)

In one such letter, sent on July 7 to King Mohammed VI of Morocco, Obama expressed his hope that Arab states will take steps to end Israel’s “isolation” in the Middle East and that “Morocco will be a leader in bridging gaps between Israel and the Arab world.” Examples of CBMs include Arab states opening trade office in Israel, allowing Israeli planes to traverse its airspace, issuing tourist visas to Israelis, and Arab officials meeting with Israeli leaders.

This appeal found a mixed Arab reception. On the positive side, Bahrain’s crown prince, Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, suggested that “All sides need to take simultaneous, good-faith action if peace is to have a chance” and Jordanian foreign minister Nasser Judeh committed his government “to creating the right atmosphere” and supporting the U.S. “vision.” An unnamed Arab diplomat offered that “In return for a symbolic compromise on the settlements, some Arab states will be willing to pay with some symbolic gestures.”

In contrast, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia rejected Obama’s appeal for CBMs vis-à-vis Israel during a presidential visit in early June. Rozen reports that the Saudi monarch “launched a tirade during Obama’s long meeting in Riyadh.” It went so badly that Saudi officials “later apologized to the U.S. president for the king’s behavior.” Likewise, Egypt’s foreign minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit asked rhetorically, “Is normalization possible as long as the building in settlements continues? The answer is no, of course.” Arab League chief Amr Moussa deemed it “impossible to speak of normalization when Israel rejects any significant measure.”

Negative responses notwithstanding, the involvement of the Arab states that can offer benefits to Israel should limit the harm inflicted by do-gooding diplomatic “peace processors.”

Almost two decades ago, in a Wall Street Journal article of June 1990, I called for including the states. I noted there a remarkable symmetry in which “Palestinians want from Israel what Israel wants from the Arab states—recognition and legitimacy. Thus, Palestinians seek concessions from Israel and Israel seeks concessions from the Arab states.”

I suggested yoking together the parallel frustrations that “Israel cannot get what it wants from the Arab states, and the Palestinians cannot get what they want from Israel.” The U.S. government should, I proposed, “link concessions to Israel by the Arab states with Israeli concessions to the Palestinians.” That is, when the Arab states give Israel something it wants, Israelis should then—and only then—be expected to give something in turn to the Palestinians.”

As an example, I proposed that when the Saudis end their economic boycott of Israel, Israelis in return increase Palestinian access to underground water on the West Bank. This balanced approach, I suggested, “places the burden of the initiative squarely on the Arab states—where it should be.”

After the long, sterile, and counterproductive detour of exclusively Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, it is gratifying to see an attempt finally to bring the Arab states into the negotiations. I still maintain that the Palestinians need be defeated before negotiations can productively take place, but involving the Arab states improves the balance and reduces the potential for damage.

To start with, his address to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, has an unusual tenor. "Sycophantic" is the word that springs to mind, as Brennan ninety times in five thousand words invokes either "President Obama," "he," "his," or "the president." Disturbingly, Brennan ascribes virtually every thought or policy in his speech to the wisdom of the One . This cringe-inducing lecture reminds one of a North Korean functionary paying homage to the Dear Leader.

Specifics are no better. Most fundamentally, Brennan calls for appeasing terrorists: "Even as we condemn and oppose the illegitimate tactics used by terrorists, we need to acknowledge and address the legitimate needs and grievances of ordinary people those terrorists claim to represent." Which legitimate needs and grievances, one wonders, does he think Al-Qaeda represents?

Brennan carefully delineates a two-fold threat, one being "Al-Qaida and its allies" and the other "violent extremism." But the former, self-evidently, is a subset of the latter. This elementary mistake undermines his entire analysis.

He also rejects any connection between "violent extremism" and Islam: "Using the legitimate term jihad, which means to purify oneself or to wage a holy struggle for a moral goal, risks giving these murderers the religious legitimacy they desperately seek but in no way deserve. Worse, it risks reinforcing the idea that the United States is somehow at war with Islam itself."

This passage regurgitates a theory of radical Islam that, according to Lt. Colonel Joseph C. Myers of the U.S. Air Command and Staff College, "is part of a strategic disinformation and denial and deception campaign" developed by the Muslim Brotherhood. Discredited in 2007 by Robert Spencer , the theory distinguishes between good jihad and bad jihad and denies any connection between Islam and terrorism.

It’s a deeply deceptive interpretation intended to confuse non-Muslims and win time for Islamists. The George W. Bush administration, for all its mistakes, did not succumb to this ruse. But Brennan informs us that his boss now bases U.S. policy on it.

The speech contains disquieting signs of ineptitude. We learn that Obama considers nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists to be "the most immediate and extreme threat to global security." Fine. But how does he respond? With three feeble and nearly irrelevant steps: "leading the effort for a stronger global nonproliferation regime, launching an international effort to secure the world’s vulnerable nuclear material …, and hosting a global nuclear summit."

Nor can Brennan think straight. One example, requiring a lengthy quote.

"Poverty does not cause violence and terrorism. Lack of education does not cause terrorism. But just as there is no excuse for the wanton slaughter of innocents, there is no denying that when children have no hope for an education, when young people have no hope for a job and feel disconnected from the modern world, when governments fail to provide for the basic needs of their people, then people become more susceptible to ideologies of violence and death."

Summary: Poverty and a lack of education do not cause terrorism, but a lack of education and a job make people more susceptible to the ideas leading to terrorism. What is the distinction? Woe on us when the White House accepts illogic as analysis.

Further, let’s focus on the statement, "when governments fail to provide for the basic needs of their people, then people become more susceptible to ideologies of violence and death," for it contains two stunning errors. First, it assumes the socialist fiction that governments provide basic needs. No. Other than in a few commodity-rich states, governments protect and offer legal structures, while the market provides.

Second, every study on the subject finds no connection between personal stress (poverty, lack of education, unemployment) and attraction to radical Islam. If anything, massive transfers of wealth to the Middle East since 1970 contributed to the rise of radical Islam. The administration is basing its policy on a falsehood.

Where, as they say, is the adult supervision? Implementation of the inept policies outlined by Brennan spells danger for Americans, American interests, and American allies. The bitter consequences of these mistakes soon enough will become apparent.

Today, for the first time that I am aware, someone within the field has gone public with this same observation. Mark Lynch of George Washington University focuses on one important aspect of this transformation, "a flood [of] smart, young veterans" back from Iraq especially but also Afghanistan. Lynch notes some of the differences between them and traditional students:

When they enter academic programs, these veterans will (and already do) bring a great deal of on-the-ground experience to the classroom and to their research. Many will (and do) enter their programs with far more advanced language skills than did earlier generations of students, although perhaps with more familiarity with colloquial spoken dialects than with Modern Standard Arabic (reversing a common traditional pattern). Their point of reference will be (and is) Iraq and the Gulf, not Israeli-Palestinian affairs, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, or other areas where a great number of current faculty began their encounters with the region. And they will have much greater familiarity and comfort with military and security issues than do many currently in the field.

Lynch finds that the officers "are all over the map politically and in terms of their intellectual aspirations" and doubts that their main effect on the field will be to push it to the right. Instead, he expects them to bring a bias toward "pragmatism and empiricism, and against any kind of ideological doctrines."

Comments: (1) That prospect sounds great to me. I look forward to the point when pragmatic academics reign and Campus Watch can close down, its work accomplished. (2) Returning veterans are just one-half the story. The other is the larger and more varied cadre of non-military students going into the field as a result of 9/11, individuals who just a decade ago would have shunned it. Their orientation has less to do with Iraq and more to do with Islam. (July 29, 2009)

Aug. 4, 2009 update: For responses from other specialists, see both the comments at Lynch’s article and Scott Jaschik, "Shift in Middle East Studies? " at InsideHigherEd.com. Plus Lynch provides more reactions at "Changing Middle East Studies, part 2 ."

It then occurred to me, what about Muslim political women – are they all in hijabs, chadors, jilbabs, niqabs, and burqas? A little research found that at least some of them not only avoid any Islamic apparel but fit a Western standard of beauty and glamor, making a sharp contrast to those Europeans and Americans in their tatty hijabs.

Beyond making this contrast, offering their pictures here suggests that, at least in the highest political circles, the Islamists will meet strenuous opposition from women. So, bring on the sequinned gowns, jeans, jewelery, curling irons, and make-up.

Let’s start with Khadiga el-Gamal, wife of Gamal Mubarak, daughter-in-law of Husni Mubarak, and possible future first lady of Egypt.

Khadiga Mubarak.

Queen Rania of Jordan:

Queen Rania of Jordan.

Sheikha Mawza, wife of Hamd bin Khalifa, ruler of Qatar:

Sheikha Mawza of Qatar.

Mehriban Aliyeva, wife of the president of Azerbaijan:

Mehriban Aliyeva.

Asma Al Assad, wife of Bashar Al-Assad, ruler of Syria:

Asma Al Assad

More Asma Al Assad.

Princess Consort Lalla Salma, wife of Muhammad VI, king of Morocco:

Princess Lalla Salma of Morocco

Sheikha Hiya, wife of Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, ruler of Dubai:

Sheikha Hiya of Dubai.

Aesha Qaddafi, daughter of Mu’ammar:

Aesha Qaddafi of Libya.

Princess Amira Al-Taweel, wife of Saudi prince Waleed bin Talal:

Princess Amira Al-Taweel of Saudi Arabia.

Farah Diba, former empress of Iran:

Farah Diba of Iran

Benazir Bhutto, the late prime minister of Pakistan:

Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan

The answer is easy: a fundamental difference separates the two. Islam is a missionizing religion, Judaism is not. Islamists aspire to apply Islamic law to everyone, while observant Jews seek only to live by Jewish law themselves.

Two very recent examples from the United Kingdom demonstrate the innate imperialism of Islamic law.

The first concerns Queens Care Centre , an old-age home and day-care provider for the elderly in the coal town of Maltby, 40 miles east of Manchester. At present, according to the Daily Telegraph , not one of its 37 staff or 40 residents is Muslim. Although the home’s management asserts a respect for its residents’ "religious and cultural beliefs," QCC’s owner since 1994, Zulfikar Ali Khan, on his own decided this year to switch the home’s meat purchases to a halal butcher.

His stealthy decision meant pensioners at QCC could no longer eat their bacon and eggs, bangers and mash , ham sandwiches, bacon sandwiches, pork pies , bacon butties , or sausage rolls . The switch prompted widespread anger. The relative of one resident called it "a disgrace. The old people who are in the home and in their final years deserve better. … [I]t’s shocking that they should be deprived of the food they like on the whim of this man." A staff member opined that it’s "quite wrong that someone should impose their religious and cultural beliefs on others like this."

Queried about his decision, Khan, lamely replied he ordered halal meat for the sake of (nonexistent) Muslim staff. Then he backtracked: "We will be ordering all types of meat" and went so far as to agree that religious beliefs should not be imposed on others. His retreat did not convince one former QCC staffer, who suspected that Khan "intended to serve only halal meat at the home but has had to think again because of the row."

A second example of imposing Shariah on non-Muslims comes from southeast England. The Avon and Somerset police force patrols the cities of Bristol and Bath as well as surrounding areas has just issued hijabs to female officers. The hijabs, distributed at the initiative of two Muslim groups and costing £13 apiece, come complete with the constabulary’s emblem.

Now, issuing hijabs as part of uniforms in Great Britain is nothing new – the London police led the way in 2001, followed by other police forces, at least one fire brigade, and even the furniture chain Ikea. What sets the Avon and Somerset hijabs apart from these others is their being intended not just for pious Muslim female staff but also for non-Muslim staff, in particular for their use upon entering mosques.

[Rashad Azami of the Bath Islamic Society finds it "highly pleasing" that the constabulary took this step. One of the seven non-Muslim officers to receive a hijab of her very own, Assistant Chief Constable Jackie Roberts, calls it "a very positive addition to the uniform and one which I'm sure will be a welcome item for many of our officers."

[Dhimmitude is the term Bat Ye'or coined to describe subservience to Shariah by non-Muslims. Assistant Chief Constable Roberts' enthusiasm for the hijab might be called "advanced dhimmitude."]

"Hijab bullies " (as David J. Rusin of Islamist Watch calls them) who coerce non-Muslim females to cover up are just one stripe of Islamist imposing Shar’i ways on the West. Other Islamists focus on impeding the uncensored discussion of such topics as Muhammad and the Koran or Islamist institutions or terrorist financing ; still others exert to bring taxpayer-funded schools , hospitals , and jails into conformity with Islamic law, not to speak of taxi cabs and municipal swimming pools . Their efforts don’t always succeed but in the aggregate, they are rapidly shifting the premises of Western, and especially British, life.

Returning to pork: both Islam and Judaism abominate the flesh of pigs, so this prohibition offers a direct and revealing comparison of the two religions. Simply put, Jews accept that non-Jews eat pork but Muslims take offense and try to impede pork consumption. That, in brief, explains why Western accommodations to Halakha have no relevance for dealing with Shariah. And why Shariah as public policy must be opposed.

In Saudi Arabia, a whole system has evolved whereby the men in the first category — grandfathers, fathers, brothers, uncles, nephews, sons, grandsons, — share, along with the husband, enormous control over a woman’s life. She cannot leave the house without their permission, making her like a prisoner.

That, anyway, is the logic that a Saudi woman, a reformist journalist and human rights activist, Wajeha al-Huweidar, follows in an article "Saudia – The Largest Women’s Prison in the World ." Published on June 24, 2009, on the liberal website Minbar al-Hiwar wa’l-’Ibra (and translated and made available by MEMRI), she makes several points there about the mahram regime:

·         The Saudi woman "has no right to make decisions, and may not take a single step without the permission of … her guardian." Specifically, Saudi women "need the permission of their guardian to leave their home, their city or their country."

·         A woman in jail cannot "leave her cell when she has finished serving her sentence unless her guardian arrives to collect her. As a consequence, many Saudi women remain in prison just because their guardians refuse to come and get them."

·         The men of religion, the ulema, bear much responsibility for this state of affairs, for "the state has authorized [them] to oppress the women. … They suffocate [the women] in all areas of life by means of oppressive laws [enforced by] the religious police." They deny the Saudi woman "every opportunity to find a job, get an education, travel, receive medical treatment, or [realize] any [other] right, no matter how trivial, without the permission of their jailor, that is, their guardian – [all] based on oppressive fatwas sanctioned by the male [leaders] of the state."

·         "Although Saudi women are deprived of freedom and dignity more than any other women, they suffer all these forms of oppression and injustice in bitter silence, suppressed anger, and death-like dejection."

·         Things used to be better: "the mothers and grandmothers [of today's Saudi women] … enjoyed much greater freedom – as did all Muslim women in past eras, such as the wives of the Prophet.

·         The "oppressive mahram law … is not based on the tenets of Islam and in fact has nothing to do with Islam."

MEMRI also reports that Huweidar and other activists recently launched a campaign against the mahram law that reminds one of the play Lysistrata by Aristophanes . The campaign’s slogan is "Treat us like adult citizens or we leave the country" and it was launched at the King Fahd Bridge connecting Saudi Arabia with Bahrain, the latter being notably less misogynist, where the women demanded the right to cross this border without a guardian’s permission.

Comments:

(1)   The claim that the mahram law "has nothing to do with Islam" is an exaggeration, though it is true that most interpretations of Islam do not require it.

(2)   Ironically, Saudi women are awakening to their oppression even as the niqab and burqa arrive in the West.

(3)   Just as I see a race between Iran and Turkey (will the one throw off the Islamic regime before the other Islamizes?), so I see one between Saudi Arabia and, say, the United Kingdom (will the one throw off head coverings before the other puts them on?).

So, I read with considerable interest that Salam Fayyad, who calls himself the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority (a title I do not use, by the way), said roughly the same thing at a meeting of the Aspen Institute’s Aspen Ideas Festival on July 4.

According to “Palestinian prime minister: Jews would be welcome in future state” by Brent Gardner-Smith in the Aspen Daily News, former CIA director James Woolsey noted that a million Arabs in Israel account for one-sixth of the Israeli population and that they “generally they enjoy the guarantees that Americans look for in the Bill of Rights.” He went on to ask:

Now, if there is to be the rule of law in a Palestinian state, and if Jews want to live in someplace like Hebron, or anyplace else in a Palestinian state, for whatever reasons or historical attachments, why should they not be treated the same way Israeli Arabs are? That would be, there could be a sixth of the population consisting of them. They could vote for real representatives in a real Palestinian legislature, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and most importantly, be able to go to the sleep at night without worrying someone is going to kick down the door and kill them.

Fayyad responded:

I’m not going to disagree with you. And I’m not someone who will say that they would or should be treated differently than Israeli Arabs are treated in Israel. In fact the kind of state that we want to have, that we aspire to have, is one that would definitely espouse high values of tolerance, co-existence, mutual respect and deference to all cultures, religions. No discrimination whatsoever, on any basis whatsoever. Jews to the extent they choose to stay and live in the state of Palestine will enjoy those rights and certainly will not enjoy any less rights than Israeli Arabs enjoy now in the state of Israel.

Gardner-Smith reports that the crowd “applauded enthusiastically” at this statement.

Comments:

(1) I applaud it no less enthusiastically.

(2) But I would like Fayyad to say it not just in English the rarified air of Aspen, Colorado, but also in Arabic in Ramallah.

(3) Still, this is an important statement and a standard to which to hold the Palestinian Authority. (July 5, 2009)

They left under a Status of Forces Agreement reached in November 2008 stipulating their "withdrawal from cities, towns and villages" by June 30, 2009. In addition, by December 31, 2011, "All U.S. forces are to withdraw from all Iraqi territory, water and airspace." The SOFA also grants Baghdad control over American military operations and it defines the U.S. role in such areas as Iraq’s economy and education.

Some urban U.S. fortifications were turned over to Iraqis, others razed. As Capt. Andrew Roher put it, while standing on a commercial street in central Baghdad, watching his small base being obliterated, "Leave no trace is the goal." American troops have moved to tent and plywood "installations" (don’t call them "bases") outside the cities.

These changes signify, in short, that the Iraqis, despite six-plus years of U.S.-led occupation and their still requiring substantial U.S. support , are more-or-less finally running their own country.

For me, the American move to the countryside comes six years too late. Already in a 2003 article, "Let Iraqis run Iraq ," I advised: "Turn power over to the Iraqis. Let them form a government. … Take coalition forces off their patrols of city streets and away from protecting buildings, and put them in desert bases."

Washington’s long delay has cost Americans heavily, starting with thousands dead and hundreds of billions of dollars, then going on to poisoning American politics. Tying American interests to the welfare of urban Iraqis shattered the post-9/11 "united we stand" solidarity and replaced it with the country’s most fractious and vicious debate since the Vietnam War.

Worse, occupying Iraqi cities has a yet-incalculable but frightening long-term impact. More than any other factor, taking responsibility for Iraqi cities discredited George W. Bush and built the groundswell of support that swept the furthest left-wing politician ever to the presidency. Barack Obama’s first half-year in office suggests that he aspires to make fundamental changes in the relationship of state and society ; in this sense, Americans for many decades will likely pay for mistakes made in Iraq.

And what about the impact of the occupation on Iraqis? As Ernesto Londoño of the Washington Post notes, two questions haunted U.S. troops as they prepared for the June 30 pullout: How will Iraqi forces behave after they leave? Will the American lives and treasury spent to prop up and legitimize the Iraqi government prove to have been a good investment?

I am pessimistic, seeing Iraq as a historically violent country yet emerging from the Stalinist nightmare of Saddam Hussein, a place replete with corruption , tension, hatred, and desire for revenge. Having American troops around for six years temporarily contained the pressures but will barely ameliorate the country’s fate.

Many Iraqis agree . "When the Americans leave, everything will be looted because no one will be watching," says an Iraqi army lieutenant. "There will be a civil war—without a doubt," predicts an interpreter. No one pays attention to the bouncy messages of hope and reconciliation forwarded in Iraq with U.S. taxpayer monies. "Iraq is like a baby right now. It needs people to look after it," said the chairman of a local security council . A Shi’ite legislator, Qassim Daoud , openly calls for American troops to remain until 2020 or 2025

But the troops are inexorably leaving and, I predict, the massive American effort will rapidly dissolve, fail, and be forgotten. Iraqis will deal poorly with such problems as terrorism , Sunni-Shiite tensions, Kurdish autonomy, Islamist ambitions, disappearing Christians, a fragile Mosul Dam , and an obsolete oil and gas infrastructure . Civil war remains a live prospect as sectarian fighting returns. Current evidence indicates that Iraqis cannot even maintain their billions of dollars worth of U.S.-donated military equipment .

As an American, I say good luck to Iraq but good riddance to U.S. control of its cities, goodbye to oversight of the economy and schools, farewell to worrying about inter-tribal relations and the Mosul Dam, and adieu to responsibility for terrorists and their victims .

Ironically, while occupation of Iraqi cities did deep and lasting damage to the United States, its beneficial impact on Iraq will likely be superficial and transient. In all, a painful waste of resources is winding down none too soon.

the Israeli brutal destruction of Qunietira city, southern Syria, expressing his shock over the devastation he saw which exposes the Israeli destructive, occupying mentality. Mr. Diaz described this destruction as unprecedented brutality and terrorism, stressing his country’s support to Syria with regards to regaining the occupied territories.

Comments: (1) How come, 35 years and one day after the negotiated return of Quneitra by Israel to Syria June 26, 1974, the town remains unrebuilt? To make a propaganda point, its population has been prevented all these years from returning to the town and resuming their lives.

(2) Damascus is acting illegally in not rebuilding Quneitra, for it was returned under the Separation of Forces Agreement Between Israel and Syria of May 31, 1974, of which paragraph B(1) of) requires that “All territory east of Line A will be under Syrian administration, and the Syrian civilians will return to this territory.”

(3) As the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) neatly established a few years ago, the destruction of Quneitra did not result from Israel’s “unprecedented brutality and terrorism” but from warfare, much of it originating from Syria:

a Los Angeles Times article of June 12, 1967 included a sub-head which referred to Al Koneytra (i.e. Quneitra) as the “ruins of [a] captured town.” The article reported that “Al Koneytra was a town of smoldering ruins. Heavily armed convoys patrolled the debris-covered streets,” and “Life was at a virtual standstill, with all shops closed or wrecked.” This damage, obviously the result of the just-concluded war, occurred a full seven years before Israel’s supposed spiteful bulldozing of the town.

Soon after the war, Syria began regularly shelling Quneitra. For instance, a New York Times dispatch of June 25, 1970, headlined “Fighting Flares in Golan Heights as Syrian Tanks Attack Israelis,” reported that Syria had shelled Israeli positions in the Golan for three hours, hitting “El Quneitra, Nahal Gesher and Ein Zivan.”

And a Times story on September 2, 1972 referred to the one inhabited street in the town and Israeli soldiers training “a block or two of ruins away.” Yet another Times story, this one on November 26, 1972, was headlined “Syria Shells Israeli Bases in Occupied Golan Heights,” and reported Damascus radio’s announcement that Syrian artillery had shelled “Kafr Naffakh and El Quneitra.”

On October 11, 1973, during the Yom Kippur War, another Times report told of a Moroccan brigade joining Syrian forces “in an attack on El Quneitra.” And in an article on October 21, 1973, the Times reported that while the UN observation station in the town had survived the war intact, Quneitra itself was “a bombed-out military town the Syrians lost to the Israelis …”

Finally, a report in the British Times newspaper of April 5, 1974 referred to Quneitra as “the ruined capital of the Heights.”

So much for the decades-old Syrian falsehood about the Israelis maliciously destroying an intact town just before handing it over in June 1974.