Dean's World

There are worse regimes than Egypt. But such a statement is damning with faint praise. Freedom House ranks them not quite at the bottom, but not even partly-free.

Mubarak is a deplorable thug running a brutal regime. In his favor, he actually let one of his political opponents out of jail this year. The fact that he kept the guy in jail in the first place, in a cell about the size of a coffin, is unforgivable.

Without question, this is what a real oppressive regime looks like, what a real racist regime looks like. The question is, what is the best way for us to get them to be better? Would cutting them off, for example, make them move closer to Iran and Syria? I'd guess it would.

Such questions are what the word "Realpolitick" was invented for. If we were to be "pure," we'd cut off all aid, all trade, and all but the most strained of diplomatic relations. But if we did that, would that just make them worse? At least now we have some leverage with them, at least now when the Secretary of State visits she's able to speak out about the need for democratic reform and liberalization. Cut them off and try to isolate them and our influence goes to zero.

I think the problem with that "cut them all off and let them mind their own affairs" mentality is that we no longer live in a world where we can consider ourselves safe if we do so. Leaving rogue regimes free to develop nuclear weapons and conquer their neighbors long-term represents a threat we'll have to deal with sooner or later.

I have the soul of an isolationist, but I've reluctantly concluded that we can't afford it. It's just too dangerous.

The $1 billion annual aid package to Egypt was a direct and specific act to balance the $2 billion annual aid package to Israel, both coming as enducements to sign the Camp David Peace Accords.

I think the US can put tighter controls on how Egypt uses the money (i.e., keep it out of the kleptocrats' pockets), but canceling it would not be in the US interest.

While the money surely props up the Mubarak government, it also provides important (maybe even necessary) support to the Egyptian people through infrastructure development. Cutting the program would punish Mubarak, but it would also punish most of the people in the most populous Arab country. They are not in any position to particularly defend themselves, nor to change their leadership.

Expulsion means that whoever had the power to take the land and then enforce their hold over it, has an opportunity and almost certainly an obligation to expel anyone who threatens their control. Otherwise, those whom they have failed to expel will gather their strength and expel them instead. There's something about this in the bible if I'm not mistaken. Anyway, that's the way it has worked since life began on this planet. And that's almost certainly the way it shall continue to work.

You know, John, your ancestors and those of most of the population in this country got to come to this continent solely because the Indians were exploited, driven off their lands, stuck away in reservations and in more or less every other measure, disinherited. So too for every other patch of earth.

There is not a spot on this planet where one nation or country has not crowded out or dispoiled another, or one species or flock of animals, or even type of plant life. Competition for scarce living space and life sustenance is an utterly implacable, pitiless and endless process. No matter what you think your god, gods, scriptures or even your own conscience may tell you.

Therefore, when the people who maintain predominant control over this country weaken, their grip over this land will be destroyed forever, and their nation -- our nation -- along with it.

Now check back in your history about the spread of islam and of the Arabs who poured out of their peninsula in the 7th century. They accomplished that because they were a great people then. But what are they now but Israel's own version of the Mexicans who all but crawl through the irrigation ditches of southern Texas to come here for little more than to clean the toilets in our suburban fitness centers and to stoop over to pick fruit on California farms? Do you seriously imagine that such a backward, febrile, disorganized and thoroughly silly people will forever hold onto all the lands from the Atlantic ocean to the Persian gulf, and from the Mediterranean to deep into central Africa? If that is what you and they think, then I sincerely wish them and you the best of luck.

The only thing that saved what is left of their stinking, crummy Palestine is that most of the Jews are beset by a particularly unfortunate disease of the brain, that of social guilt and the curious need to attach themselves like limpets to what they imagine are powerful governments, instead of concentrating on enhancing their own military power. Other than that, the end of this whole farce would be quite predictable.

So I don't call these matters Iranian options or Likud options. It simply is natural to kill and drive out enemies. I think the original quote came from some Greek during the Peloponnesian war, who reminded his defeated enemy that,

"the strong do what they want, and the weak suffer what they must."

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

Maor, don't misjudge the situation. The annual US aid to Israel is as much a bribe as the aid to Egypt. It's part of Washington's means of dangling both your people and the kofim as though they a pair of puppets in Punch and Judy show. And when super-powers spend money like that, they work hard to get their money's worth.

The problem is that Israel's long-term or even short-term interests are not rarely in synch with the policies of the US State Department.

(Ask John Burgess about that. If you treat him politely, maybe he'll tell you about these things more factually now that he's retired from the US foreign service and presumably lobbies here for the Saudis and for those here who do business with them in a big way.)

There will also come a time when Israel's vital interests will be out of synch with whoever runs the federal administration as a whole, and not just the permanent specialized bureaucracies such as those of the US State Department.

And depending on the largess of a distant imperial government while simultaneously trying to wiggle out from under them, is exactly what got the ancient Judeans into trouble with the Roman government in the 1st century. You ought not to want that to happen again.

In any case, the only Americans who really are prepared to help Israel with no strings attached are the bible Christians. Maybe you distrust their motives, which, I think, involve all of you and us too being blown to hell so Jesus can return to earth and dispatch us all to paradise, but without the 72 virgins per man.

Nor would I count too much on the american Jews, who mainly are a liberal lot whose ties to the anti-israeli and anti-semitic left sometimes seem as important as their ties to their fellow Jews of Israel. Some of them -- jewish leftists and non-jewish leftists -- would sell out the United States and Israel with equal aplomb.

Instead of all that, think of the following;

First, build up your control over such parts of Judea and Samaria that are vital for your national future as well as your national defenses. And the minimum safe boundary eastern boundary line for Israel under any circumstances is the Jordan river from Galilee to the Dead sea. It will be easier for your people to do that if you are left with relatively smaller numbers of Arabs. So buy them out or kick them out, but get rid of them from any lands you intend to keep.

Second, find some other backers. If I were an Israeli, I would be thinking of Turkey and India, both of whom have hostile relations with some of Israel's leading enemies. And on the outer fringes of super-powerdom, start rebuilding the relationships started earlier between your military industries and the People's Republic of China. That means, if they want to buy some high-grade technical hardware from your defense plants, don't renege on the deal just because your Washington backers squawk about it. Russia too.

Third, make no promises whatsoever to anyone about your thermonuclear arsenal. That arsenal is your ace in the whole to guarantee the life of your country and the lives of its citizens. You may have no choice one day but to use them to blow up most of the cities of the Arab world. If they are talked into leaving you folks in peace, that is probably the one factor that will keep you people alive. Because no promise the US government can or will make to you about your ultimate defense is worth so much as the paper it would be printed on.

The day will surely come when Asia will be dominated by the combination of Russia, China and India. And when that day comes, most of the Arab oil will have been depleted and American interest in the Arabs and much of the rest of southwestern Asia -- including you folks -- will have shrunken. You don't want to be on the wrong side of the fence when that happens.

You are in fact a sovereign country, with a responsibility for your own future. But you sure as hell can't play such a role as long as you are nationally licking the asses of another country, and especially one that in the past has tried to pretend they don't even know you when push came to shove. I'm talking specifically about the days leading up to the Six-Day war in June 1967.

So start working your way out from under that "special relationship" with the USA. A lot of that money, in any case, is aquandered in efforts to buy elections for compliant Israeli politicians. Which includes fancy villas along the Mediterranean shore. Your politicians are as bribeable as ours. But with one difference. American is rich enough to afford that kind of shit. Israel is not.

Some of this probably sounds unkind when you think about it. But I believe in direct approaches to all issues, and I know I'm straight, even if don't pretend to be kind. So think it over.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI