There are two places in the world where the \u201cmajor powers\u201d have been abject failures.\u00a0\u00a0The first is Afghanistan, where both the Soviet Union (now Russia) and the United States went in with high hopes, and left decades later in utter failure.\u00a0\u00a0The Soviet failure was a \u201cbrick\u201d in the wall in the fall of the Soviet Union. The US, could claim success in gaining vengeance against Al Qaeda.\u00a0\u00a0But we switched to \u201cnation-building\u201d, removing the Taliban and inserting more \u201cdemocratic\u201d forces. And that ended up in the longest war in our history.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Taliban proved more resilient and dedicated than we were; willing to sacrifice far more than we would ask our own troops.\u00a0\u00a0It took over twenty years to say \u201cenough\u201d, and as ugly as the US withdrawal from Afghanistan was, it was the only possible end to an interminable war.\u00a0\u00a0Vietnam had folks hanging from the last helicopters; in Afghanistan they were hanging from the landing gear of the last C-17\u2019s.\u00a0\u00a0Both were awful, but inevitable; the images of hope going to die.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The other location where \u201chigh hopes\u201d go to die is the Middle East, and particularly, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Almost every President has tried to use the substantial influence of their office to find some ultimate solution to the \u201ctwice-promised\u201d land; and while there were limited successes (Carter at Camp David, Clinton at Oslo, Trump and the Abrahamic Accord), in the end, they proved to only dampen the fire for a while. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Approaching a solution is perhaps the most dangerous point of all.\u00a0\u00a0When President Carter got Israeli Prime Minister Begin and Egyptian President Sadat to agree to peace at Camp David, Sadat was soon assassinated by extremist Egyptian military forces.\u00a0\u00a0When President Clinton negotiated a two-state agreement with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Rabin in Oslo, both were undermined by extremists in their own camps.\u00a0\u00a0Arafat could not bring all of the Palestinian extremists, notably Hamas, in line. And Rabin lost an election to Benjamin Netanyahu, who had no interest in allowing a \u201ctwo-state solution\u201d to continue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And when President Biden seemed to have Saudi Arabia in position to normalize relations with Israel, Hamas struck in such horrific way that it triggered an inevitable response of Israeli invasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
President Biden faces a similarly difficult conundrum now.\u00a0\u00a0It started with the full moral justification of Israel\u2019s response to the October 7th\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Hamas terrorist assault.\u00a0\u00a0Every sovereign nation has the right to defend itself.\u00a0\u00a0To Israel, October 7th<\/sup>\u00a0was more than equal to the 9-11 attack on the United States that triggered our involvement in Afghanistan.\u00a0\u00a0Biden, reasonably, pledged full US support to our single best ally in the Middle East, a pledge that even included a physical hug of sympathy and support from Biden to Netanyahu.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n But, predictably, Netanyahu took the \u201copportunity\u201d of October 7th<\/sup> to seek the ultimate extinction of Hamas, regardless of the non-Hamas civilian casualties in Gaza. Hamas is deeply embedded among the civilians, in a region where over half the population in under twenty. The casualty numbers include both Hamas \u201csoldiers\u201d and civilians; and neither Israel nor Hamas bothers to differentiate between the two. But there are so many children killed, it\u2019s hard to contemplate or justify. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The most recent example; the rescue of four hostages from a densely populated urban environment, proves the point. Israeli Special Forces were discovered and a huge firefight broke out.\u00a0\u00a0While they managed to extract the four hostages with only one Israeli death, estimates range from 100 to 250 civilians dead.\u00a0\u00a0How many of them were Hamas fighters, and how many were innocents caught in the crossfire, it\u2019s hard to tell.\u00a0\u00a0Israel justifies the damage by saying it\u2019s Hama\u2019s fault for hiding hostages in the middle of civilians.\u00a0\u00a0The American answer seems to be, \u201cYes, But\u2026?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Politically all sides have a stake in the game. Netanyahu must have absolute victory, the destruction of Hamas, or face removal from office and worse, perhaps imprisonment for corruption. Any solution less than that is unacceptable to him. Hamas, of course, wants to survive. They want time to regroup, and get their leadership out of the tunnels and safely into exile (perhaps in the luxury hotels in Doha, Qatar). <\/p>\n\n\n\n And Joe Biden has his own political needs. The wanton Israeli bombings, and the looming threat of Palestinian famine pressure Biden to find some \u201cending\u201d. It\u2019s not just for humanitarian reasons, but also to mollify Democrats who sympathize with the Palestinian cause (different than sympathizing with Hamas). So Biden is pressing Netanyahu to \u201cbend\u201d, quietly using Israeli dependence on US military assistance to apply force. And Biden is offering Hamas the time they so desperately need. But Hamas is demanding more than just a six-week pause in the destruction. It\u2019s hard to see where either will find a political \u201cup-side\u201d to Biden\u2019s plan, now endorsed by the United Nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWho is a Fighter?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Hope<\/h3>\n\n\n\n