Posted on 06/13/2003 9:27:37 AM PDT by Matchett-PI
[This is all the more delicious since it was written over a year ago]
Pundits and politicians across the world have been watching the bloody clashes between Israel and the Palestinians, screaming for President Bush to "do something." Act angry. Bite the lip. Flare the nostrils. Have a press conference. Demand everyone "sit down and talk." Toss a few cruise missiles around. Wag a finger. Have another press conference.
Of course, those mindless tactics are what created this recent mess in the first place.
As usual, the punditry sees the world about an inch thick.
For the hardcore students of The Art Of War master Sun Tzu, there is a deeper chess match unfolding behind the scenes.
After George H. W. Bush's harsh spanking of Iraq, Middle Eastern leaders poked at American resolve all during the muddled Clinton administration.
But September 11th crossed the line between annoyance and war.
The Al Qaeda allies made a classic fundamental error by attacking a stronger enemy with solid resolve, uniting historical enemies in the process, and giving George W. Bush the right to clean house.
In his first serious test of geo-political military wisdom, he orchestrated the elimination of the Taliban and relentless pursuit of Al Qaeda, while creating an Afghan government with a balanced temper between domestic independence and American friendship. Pakistan and Russia became American allies in the process. Arab leadership has gone scrambling.
Saddam Hussein knows he's next. By accident or intent, he pulled a ploy worthy of Sun Tzu: distracting and dividing the enemy.
The Palestinians have been the perpetual dupes of the Middle East, always willing to sacrifice themselves in a vain attempt to destroy Israel.
For 15 years, the rabid Palestinians haven't even questioned why their "allies" aren't massing armies to sweep through Israel, as if a few "martyrs" will convince the entire state of Israel to pull stakes and move away.
Reciting age-old promises to create a Palestinian state through the destruction of Israel, Hussein and his temporary allies have once again encouraged Palestinians to sacrifice their very children in a wave of suicidal genocide.
Yet Hussein's gambit isn't all that foolish, designed to draw Bush into taking sides against Palestinians, uniting Arabs against America, pulling the focus away from Afghanistan he is trying to drive a small wedge between Israel and America.
Bush is forced to appear unbiased, equally scolding Palestinians and Israelis.
Hussein also knows Arafat will perform lip service in condemning violence while Hezbollah and other factions will continue to send genocide bombers. America will have to spend some time and political capital, calming down the flare-ups.
But Bush has parried perfectly. He simply navigated around Hussein's trap.
Sharon has no problem ripping through the Palestinian camps, clearing out the danger zones. And Bush has no problem letting him, publicly chastising Sharon's actions while doing exactly nothing.
Sending Administration nice guy Colin Powell is a perfect pubic relations move, aimed at the hand-wringing punditry who have no choice but to snap in line. After all, they asked for a gesture, and they got one.
As a side benefit, the effect of Palestinian violence has drawn attention away from Afghanistan and Pakistan, where operations - and interrogations - are proceeding nicely.
This explains why Bush hasn't enforced his anti-terrorist line-in-the-sand policy towards Arafat.
Clinton and Barak ran breathlessly to the negotiating table, press corps, photographers and biographers in tow, losing interest in everything else. Bush sees the big picture, temporarily treating Arafat with legitimacy while quietly preparing for larger changes in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, the noose still tightens around Al Qaeda. It's a matter of time until America engineers a coup that gives Hussein a Julius Caesar-like exit, pulling the rug out from under Arafat.
Thus for Bush, the larger target is taking down Hussein and setting up the New Iraq: an American-friendly regime that maintains Arab respect.
Next, the other shoe will drop on Iran, as Bush performs the opposite trick, dragging Iran's annoying ayatollahs back to a secular semi-democracy with religious influence.
That is why Iraq and Iran, historic enemies are united in egging on Palestinian terrorism. Military options are out, and terrorist distractions are all that's left to keep America at bay.
But Bush knows once Iraq and Iran are "converted", funding for terrorism will dry up.
Syria and the schizophrenic Saudi's will settle back in an isolated, grumbling silence or face a similar fate.
Like Syria and Lebanon, the Saudi sheiks may even choose "cleansing" the Palestinians to protect their kingdom. And Bush will be spared the aggravation.
Hussein's string of errors began long ago, when he overestimated his own power, Arab unity, the toughness of George H. W. Bush, and the resolve of American people.
By unnecessarily attacking Kuwait, he fractured the Arabian powers and united the world against Iraq.
By sacrificing his armed forces, he lost regional power.
By funding and assisting terrorism at all levels, he made himself an obvious threat, uniting enemies.
Most subtly, he lost internal support by impoverishing his people, making him ripe for revolt.
Impatient, he chose the wrong American president, and the wrong Israeli prime minister.
He didn't merely poke the hornets nest…he dragged the nest into a box he built around himself.
He created a situation where his enemy cannot fail.
Bush, on the other hand, isn't falling for the distractions.
He knows Middle East troubles are unnecessarily instigated by despotic troublemakers.
One way or another, Bush has an opportunity to take out Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Syria in the same model as Afghanistan: American supported internal popular revolt. When surrounding support disappears, only then will Arafat meekly negotiate.
The fundamental error all previous diplomatic efforts have made has been to treat the Palestinian symptom, while ignoring the outside forces.
Bush isn't making the same mistake.
Sun Tzu would appreciate both men and their maneuvering. Bush, for his wisdom. Hussein for his foolishness.
It seems the Middle Eastern Arabs have been so intent on preserving the past with thuggish and religious despotism that they refuse to learn history's lessons.
America once again has a president that understands patience, decisiveness, the art of war and its consequences.
As Sun Tzu promised, victory will result.
The PLO was the first to agree to the road map".
They were also the first to break that agreement, which I'm sure that both Bush and Sharon knew would be the case.
Of course, the breaking of this agreement is what gave George W. Bush (through Sharon) the right to clean house.
Of course, as Tony Blankley says in the article above, this is the same classic fundamental error that the Al Qaeda backers made before.
They have learned nothing. And neither have a lot of others that I have seen posting here on Free Republic. Hahaha
Once again, they misunderestimate GWB.
mis·un·der·es·ti·mate:
1: to estimate a person's intelligence as being dramatically less than its actual level
2: to insist that a person who repeatedly hands you your ass is too stupid to be able to do so.
Hahahahaha
I was thinking about this article that Tony Blankley wrote, OVER TWO YEARS AGO (which is right in line with the one by Adkins):
April 10, 2002 Playing to an audience of fools Tony Blankley
Our allies and friends in Europe and the Middle East remind me of Prince Metternich's description of the Prussian royal court: "A conspiracy of mediocrities united by the common terror of any decisive action."
But because it is difficult — perhaps not feasible — for even the mighty United States to walk alone in this world, President Bush is obliged to try to congeal these gobs of jelly into a reasonably solid platform from which he can launch a series of decisive battles against terror — in Iraq, the Horn of Africa and other of the world's garden spots.
Since September 11, it is obvious that Mr. Bush has firmly grasped the fundamentals of the situation:
Everything must come second to our paramount need to extinguish terrorists who might reach our soil and the weapons of mass destruction that might reach their grip.
In the last two weeks of Middle East chaos, among the things that had to come second to that paramount need has been the president's reputation for straight talk. He has reluctantly, but decisively, plunged into the inglorious world of coded diplomatic language.
Or to put it more bluntly, he has been forced to use words manipulatively and insincerely in order to assuage our contemptible, but necessary, allies. Gary Cooper has been forced to masquerade as a used car salesman — saying and doing almost anything to make the sale. If the president can temporarily sacrifice his cherished reputation for straight talk, we Americans who support his struggle against terror must be willing to temporarily sacrifice our scorn for manipulative political language.
As I understand the last few weeks, Mr. Bush has been winking to us as much as he can.
But here's the challenge he faces. Our European and Muslim friends became hysterical over Israel's march into the West Bank.
Even though Mr. Bush knows the chance of negotiating a meaningful peace with Yasser Arafat and the suicide bombers is nil, those deluded and frantic friends think there is a chance and have insisted that Mr. Bush make the effort.
To make the effort, he had to — temporarily — agree to work with Mr. Arafat and not call him what he is — a terrorist and a protector of terrorists.
He also has been compelled to insist that Israel pull back — even though he understands that once the suicide bombers start up again, Israel will have to go in again. If we are disgusted by this idiocy, imagine how the president must feel.
We got some sense of his true instincts when he talked to the press at his Crawford Ranch dressed in denim and slouched in his chair. He let Mr. Arafat have it with both barrels. Of course the highest ranking government official down there, other than the president, was a deputy press secretary. When his senior aides in Washington saw that performance they rushed to correctly remind him of his larger — if distasteful — duties.
To wit, his Thursday White House remarks with Colin Powell solidly by his side in which the president announced all the foolishness that is currently afoot with the Powell mission. I am told that Mr. Bush was so reluctant to have to utter those words, that his remarks went through 17 drafts.
Now, the same media commentators who have misunderstood the world since their college days have pronounced that with the president's deeper involvement in the Middle East mess, his authority and credibility will be smashed, should he not succeed.
They are as wrong now, in their stylish clothes, as they were 30 years ago in their bell bottoms and beads.
The only thing Mr. Bush needs to gain is Israel's temporary withdrawal from most of the West Bank. And he will get that because it is in Israel's national interest to comply.
Israel's grand strategy — going back 100 years to the time before it was even a state, when there was only a First National Zionist Congress — has been to ally with a great power: First it was with the Ottoman Empire; after World War I it was with Great Britain; and after World War II it has been with the United States. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is not mad, only stubborn.
And Israel's pullback will be sufficient, because the American people — if not the media savants — don't expect any more. Consider yesterday's CNN Gallup Poll. Sixty-seven percent approve of Mr. Bush's policy in the Middle East, but only 48 percent think he has a clear policy and only 39 percent expect Mr. Powell to accomplish anything. And by 74 percent to 21 percent the public doesn't believe that if we reduce our support for Israel we will reduce the risk of terrorist attack on us.
In other words, a sensible American public understands our enduring threat from terrorism, doesn't expect any resolution of the mess in the Middle East and supports whatever the hell the president is doing there.
Those of the president's supporters who are getting agitated over his recent circumlocutions should understand that he is play-acting to an audience of fools — and (as Shakespeare once wrote) he is signifying . . . nothing.
I agree. Bush has Sun Tzu's book in his library. :)
Not only that --- but one of "Rumsfeld's Rules" (via Sun Tzu) is: "If a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it."
I have not seen this before, thanks for posting it!
Over here:
White House Backs Latest Israeli Attacks
there is much discussion that seems to coincide with much of this!
This is a great piece!
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Here's another one written by Andrew Sullivan over a year ago:
The Democrats should be buying this:
The Art of War
by Sun-Tzu, Sun Tzu, James Clavell (Editor), Sunzi
rather than Hillary's book.
It would help them more!
I think Bush has had that book for a LONG time. I've heard that he used it for business strategery in Texas long before he became governor. That is a book that is owned by many CEOs.
Of course, the DemocRATS want to promote the idea that Bush is too stupid to read books like "The Art of War", and is letting others do his thinking for him.
Those are the ones described here:
mis·un·der·es·ti·mate:
1: to estimate a person's intelligence as being dramatically less than its actual level.
2: to insist that a person who repeatedly hands you your ass is too stupid to be able to do so.
Hahahaha
Gotcha!
But to me it explains much of what I did not understand about our current policies!
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