I wrote this on Saturday on my way to Vegas. My hotel had no access (wtf?).

Maureen Dowd had a nice line this morning, saying that the administration continues to confuse simplicity for clarity. How is it that Bush and his suddenly active State Department are so confident in their appraisal of the Middle East, or even the individual crises within each country in the region that make up the broader crisis? It is perhaps a function of talking points being easier to digest than reality–for Chris Matthews or Lou Dobbs to describe each chess piece, explain how it moves, and define victory and still have time for yea- and nay-sayers to opine freely is a tall task. It’s much simpler to say that the administration has a plan and its opponents think he is “confusing simplicity for clarity.” Well, let’s try and do it anyway. Let’s see if we can list the various players and their affiliations and their competing goals:

Let’s see. We’ve got: Israeli Jews fighting Lebanese Shi’a and Palestinian Sunnis; Palestinian Fatah militants who’ve stopped fighting Hamas militants, but only because they’re both fighting the Israelis; Saudi Sunni fundamentalists issuing fatwas against Hezbollah Shi’a fundamentalists; Egyptian Sunni fundamentalists backing those same Hezbollah Shi’a fundamentalists; Iraqi Sunnis killing Iraqi Shi’a and vice versa; Iraqi Shi’a (the Mahdi Army) jousting with Iraqi Shi’a (the Badr Brigade); Iraqi Kurds trying to push Sunni Arabs and both Sunni and Shi’a Turkomen out of Kirkuk; Turks threatening to invade Kurdistan; Iranians allegedly shelling Kurdistan, Syrian Kurds rebelling against Syrian Allawites who are despised by Syria’s Sunni majority but allied with the Lebanese Shi’a who are hated and feared by the House of Saud and its Sunni fundamentalist minions. Oh, and American and Israeli neocons threatening to bomb both Syria and Iran.

Thanks for that, Billmon, but I still don’t get the game. How do you win? If the centuries-old conflict between the Shi’a and Sunnis is won by the Mahdi Army in Iraq does that mean that Saudi Arabia loses? Wait, but then Egypt would win. What does Iran gain by firing artillery at the Kurds? What happened to my clarity of mission? Who’re my friends again?

The only clear thing about the situation in the Middle East is that we have suddenly gone from talking about individual countries to describing the entire region as in turmoil. Questions about Iran and news from Iraq used to be distinct reports in the media, Saudi Arabia hasn’t been mentioned in anything except gas price reports, Lebanon was forgotten in the post-coital afterglow of anti-Syrian protests, etc. Now we’re talking about the whole region and its various factions, histories, religions, and capacities for destruction. We’re operating at both the state and sub-state levels as we discuss terrorist organizations, militias, national armies, Israeli reservists, individual terrorists, and civilians all at the same time–none can be separated from the news or the strategy. Having thrown a handful of pebbles into the Middle Eastern pond, we are seeing ripples collide in an astonishingly complicated situation.

There are only two ways to appear confident in understanding this situation: to be so delusional that you miss the complexities or to bullshit. Well, I’m calling it delusional. The administration has a misplaced faith in the pacifying power of bombs. By allowing the Israelis to attack Lebanon; allowing sectarian violence to rage in Iraq; and encouraging the governments of Syria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia to pick sides against religions and organizations Bush may well be banking on using implosion to solve the complexity problem. A weakened Hezbolla and a shattered Iraq might be less potent on the world stage. A strong Israel, cowed Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria and bombed Lebanon might be easier to push around. How else could Bush believe that this new wave of violence is clarifying?

It’s clear that the Bush administration thinks that the answer to the situation is to let Israel crush Hizbullah, to whatever extent that is possible and then come in with some sort of international settlement once the changed situation on the ground is fait accompli. But I really wonder whether there is any serious grappling in Washington with how many fires are currently burning in the Middle East and how close they all are to bleeding into one another into a truly regional confrontation. We have three fairly hot wars going on right now in a relatively small amount of space — four depending on how you choose to measure — each of very different sorts: Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and a quasi-war in Gaza.

Aside from the tremendous moral issues that come with such a cavalier foreign policy, there are important reasons to reject it. These reasons are found in the countless history books about the Middle East that have taught us that more bloodshed never leads to less bloodshed. Exhibit A is Israel and the Palestinians. Exhibit B is Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood. Exhibit C is Iraq and its sectarian violence. Like the hurricane season of 2005, the number of Exhibits at hand will soon require me to list them with the Greek alphabet. Bush and his new favorite advisor, Rice, have abdicated America’s role as a broker of peace by betting the farm on the emergence of a peaceful pile of rubble. Nothing about such a strategy is clear except its multitude of pitfalls. Instead they are over simplifying the most complex religious, international relations, political philosophy problem in the world.


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