internal insurrection vs external attack. apples and oranges my friend.
Well...
The Turkish Kurds clearly get support from outside, and unfortunately, its the USA who backs their backers. It will be interesting to see if Turkey actually does any cross-border raids. I suspect the USA will also not do much if such happens, but I might be wrong.
I can't see the current Israeli actions as producing much useful. The pundits talk about cleaning out Hezbullah, but if Israel could do that, why can't the USA clean out Osama's darlings from Iraq? We have been at it 3 years. Israel could clearly drive Hezbullah out for a short while, but they'll be back into the vacuum once Israel departs. Neither the Lebanese nor the UN will mount any significant deterrence to their return.
I think a better strategy is, as you have mentioned, to pull Syria into the table with the Golan Heights. I think that is a better way to apply effective pressure on Hezbullah. Not the least, it would look like the Arabs "won" something. I know this is counter to all Israeli (and USA) thoughts, since they take the view that any sign of weakness is to be strictly avoided, but IMO, we horribly fail to understand the emotional roots of war in the ME. We must improve in that aspect, or I'm afraid we will never see peace there. |
