Endgame Conservatives, Chapter Two

The American Spectator ^ | 7/17/2006 | Jed Babbin

[NCSteve]

Hizballah terrorists killed 220 American Marines, 18 sailors, and 3 soldiers on 23 October 1983 by driving a bomb-laden truck into their barracks in Beirut. America then retreated from Lebanon, its tail between its legs. Hizballah and Iran -- the nation that created Hizballah and still arms, funds, and supplies it -- won that round. The two -- and Syria, which supports both Hizballah and Hamas -- are now in the warmup stage for the next round.

For those who missed the first lesson in March, there are two schools of foreign policy in the Republican Party. There are those neo-Wilsonians, such as President Bush and Secretary of State Rice, who believe that in order to defeat Islamic terrorism we must establish democracy in the Middle East as a competitor to radical Islam. They have embarked on a strategy that requires success in Iraq before action is taken anywhere else. It is a self-imposed quagmire.

[NCSteve]

Babbin gets it. Be sure to read chapter one.

[NCSteve]

Ping for chapter two.

[RoadTest]

" radical Islam (an ideology, not a religion) must be defeated just as Soviet Communism and German Nazism were. "

I believe the three are interconnected in common cause.

[Obadiah]

It discourages me that people do not seem to get what the author so clearly lays out.

[Kurt_Hectic]

a clear thinker

[TaxRelief]

The proper direction of Israeli force is to attack and destroy the enemy's centers of gravity. Those are found in Damascus and Tehran, not in Gaza or Lebanon.

Perhaps Israel does get it: They took out the main linking highway between Lebanon and Damascus yesterday. :-)

Babbin does not have enough faith in Israeli Intelligence. Israel has survived most of these years using a method of strategic attacks based on covert intelligence. The strategic bombings in Lebanon, probably intended to target terrorist governance, may not even be worthy of this silly mass evacuation. It is only Lebanon's brazen, but pointless, retaliation that has caused all the panic.