Mary Madigan: Annapolis: Fool me — you can't get fooled again

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Posted by Mary Madigan:
Annapolis: Fool me — you can't get fooled again
http://whataretheysaying.powerblogs.com/posts/1196613546.shtml


   Michael Oren notes that the Annapolis peace process appears to be all
   about Iran: [1]Peace Through Anxiety

     LAST weekâs multi-national summit meeting here was about many
     things, the least of which, perhaps, was the pursuit of
     Israeli-Palestinian peace. Behind the calls for the creation of a
     Palestinian state that would live serenely and stably alongside the
     Jewish state, beyond the vision of a Middle East at last absolved
     of its longest-running conflict, was the paramount question of
     power â who in the region wields it and who in the region wants it.
     Indeed, while Annapolis is unlikely to succeed in bridging the gaps
     between Israeli and Arab positions, it effectively drew lines in
     the sand between those nations siding with America and the West and
     those allied with Iran.

     As a rule, international conferences have never served as effective
     frameworks in the search for Middle Eastern peace....

     ... Yet, in spite of its glaring handicaps, Annapolis must be
     deemed a triumph â not of peacemaking, paradoxically, but of
     girding the region for conflict. Though no doubt sincere in their
     desire to neutralize the Arab-Israeli irritant in Middle Eastern
     affairs, participants in the conference were above all motivated by
     their fear of a radical and relentlessly aggressive Iran. This fear
     has deepened with the success of the Iranian proxies Hezbollah and
     Hamas in Lebanon and Gaza, as well as the expansion of Iranian
     influence westward into the Iraqi vacuum.

     The inability of the international community either to entice or
     deter the Iranians from producing nuclear weapons adds urgency to
     the need to unite those countries threatened by those bombs. That,
     and not American fiat, brought 49 states and organizations to
     Annapolis; that, and not the yearning for an Israeli-Arab accord,
     impelled a Saudi prince to sit alongside an Israeli prime
     minister...

     Not unexpectedly, the Iranians reacted ferociously to Annapolis.
     President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pronounced it a "failure" and the
     government-controlled press promised to "bring down Islamic wrath"
     on its participants. But such rage merely betrays the anxiety
     induced by Annapolis in Tehran. For the first time a coalition of
     Western and modern Arab leaders has coalesced and declared its
     commitment to resist "extremism" in the Middle East â a well-known
     euphemism for Iran..

   Unfortunately, the worst extremism in the Middle East is not sponsored
   by the Iranians. That honor belongs to [2]Saudi Arabia, hub of world
   terror.

   I hoped that the Bush administration and the state department were
   wising up, doing the right thing in Iran - making efforts to weaken
   the regime and their intelligence agents. Instead, it appears that
   they're doing the same dumb thing they always have, relying on our
   Saudi allies and their 'influence' to make everything right.

   We ignore the fact that our allies are more of a threat than our
   enemies. We ignore the fact that our allies have been working overtime
   to incite Shia anger in the region, just as we ingnored their efforts
   to incite Saddam in Iraq, Gaddafi in Iraq, Palestinians in Israel,
   Islamists in Pakistan, separatists in Thailand and India, extremists
   in Britain and Europe...

   As Bush famously said:

     "There's an old saying in Tennessee â I know it's in Texas,
     probably in Tennessee â that says, fool me once, shame on â shame
     on you. Fool me â you can't get fooled again."

   With that kind of wisdom, it's no surprise we're still in the same old
   rut. [3]As predicted:

     ..governments worldwide will use the Gulf's apparently growing
     economic power as another reason to continue kissing their asses.
     Iran will continue to exploit fears of nukes to gain status in the
     Muslim world, Russia will continue to appear to support their
     nuclear ambitions because they know how much we freak out about
     nukes. They know that attacking Iran will deplete the West's
     economies, and they know that the mess we create will benefit them.
     The Chinese know that too.

     If we don't wise up, the west will attack Iran, we'll be bogged
     down in another long insurgency-filled occupation, we'll continue
     to borrow from the Chinese and the Saudis will be happier, richer
     and fatter than ever. Al Qaeda will have more money than ever,
     there will be more terrorist attacks worldwide and the dollar will
     be the new peso.

     Of course the whole mess could be prevented if we dealt with the
     Russians directly, treating Iranian mullahs and the Saudi royals
     like the irrelevant, bit players they are. Or it could be prevented
     if we took out the whole hornets nest, attacking Sauds along with
     the Iranians. If we're willing to consider attacking one, why not
     the other? Without the twin pillars of terrorism, who would have
     the time and the money to incite insurgencies around the world?

   We could avoid this, but we won't because our government is incapable
   of seeing anything outside of their old rut. Annapolis is proof of
   that.

References

   1. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/opinion/02oren.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
   2. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article2801017.ece
   3. http://whataretheysaying.powerblogs.com/posts/1190684909.shtml#4453