Bloodless Coup

Oil hit $78 today. At least we know what the market thinks is gonna happen. Hold on to yer bonnet.

I repeat the gist of my previous post: what the hell is Israel doing?

Offhand I'd say they're starting a war, with the acceptance (or connivance or encouragement or assistance) of certain allies and interested powers. This isn't the usual Israeli lashing out in retaliation for something. This smells like phase one of something bigger.

Ponder this: if you're George Bush, and you want to take down Syria and Iran (before Iran gets the big bombs) as part of your master plan to neuter Islamic fundamentalism and remake the Middle East, and you know you've got zero support at home for starting something on your own, and Israel has a new and sympathetic leader, maybe you hatch a plan. (Or maybe Israel hatched it. Whatever.) What might be the next phase of such a plan?

And of course there doesn't have to be a conspiracy going on - it could simply be that the interests of certain Israeli leaders and certain White House officials mesh and they are acting in ways that just happen to benefit the other.

But then a conspiracy is possible. Though does saying that make me a "conspiracy theorist"?

Oh, that's certainly true. I just get the sense that there's a much larger story here than meets the eye.

well, from the silver lining files, at least it's plausible that with another round of escalations in fuel prices americans will start buying the new wave of tiny cars in droves. i don't remember the late 70's very well, so, as is the case with certain movies one watches in childhood but doesn't well remember or entirely understand, it might be "fun" to watch it again. i'm grateful that i've become quite the little bicycle commuter in the last couple of years.

Priuses have been breaking out in droves here over the last several months, but on the other hand "here" is Massachusetts (and specifically metrowest Boston, which is both affluent and liberal). I still see an awful lot of soccer moms in brand-new SUVs, though.

I have to say that along with small cars it has been nice to see some of the automakers reintroducing larger cars, which can do most of what the average suburbanite requires of an SUV with significantly better safety and mileage.

I'm kinda throwin' in with Jacflash. If you're Israel, and you're going to attack Iran soon, why not go ahead and knock out their friends, the thugs next door. Of course, they did give them a good excuse. Or, maybe Israel's just figured out that playing nice doesn't work any better than fighting, since every concession they make is closely followed by more attacks. I'm sure they realize if Iran gets a nuke, it's over for them, so they have to do something, and their local thugs were happy to provide them with an excuse. Alternatively, this could be a plot by Iran to draw Israel into attacking its neighbors, so it will be justified in the eyes of the Arab League, France, China, and Russia in using a nuke against them. But I'm going to stop short of accusing anyone here of racism by assuming the Jewish are more likely to be hatching something complex and subtle than the Arabs.

Holy-freakin' moley (if such a term exists and if that's how you spell it) - little bro raises "racist" leanings (and c'mon dude - if you don't think that what the hell is that last sentence about?), and in the process fails to identify the dominant Iranian race correctly. That's really pretty funny.

And how exactly does launching a war in Lebanon harm Iran exactly? My gut reaction is to say it does just the opposite.

Bro,
Nice pick up. And so much more embarassing since I so often play the Persians in my Civilization games.
The realistic assumption under which I expect Israel to be operating is that once they attack Iran, all roads in the Arabian-Persian world lead to Israel. Israel has been taking out some of those roads during the past days, and engaging those near them who most likely would respond had Israel engaged Iran unilaterally. The involvement of Hezbollah was pretty inevitable, and this way Israel's already given them a shiner while Iran has barely tapped in (although tapped in enough by helping them fire a missile at an Israeli ship, giving them a good excuse to further their defensive offensive). Even more, if Lebanon is truly anti-Syria, then once Syria joins in, they (or Iranian agents) may be tempted to take over Lebanon and hold onto it even after the overt hostilities have ended. Blowing up all those roads and their airport makes that more difficult. I don't see Israel as wanting to occupy these countries after this is all over, just to knock out the military capability of those who keep on killing Israelis. Of course if they lose, I can't see us letting Israel be invaded. Anybody know how many aircraft carriers we have going that way?

I'm still not clear on how that stuff hurts Iran. Iranian allies, perhaps, but not necessarily Iran - and it's far from clear at this point how badly Israel is really hurting Hezbollah.

More broadly (not just as a response to Morris) - I still don't quite get where Lebanon fits into this. Why are we standing by here? Yes it's hopelessly weak and barely coherent - but it is a sovereign state that's been invaded that a rogue-ish, nuclear armed, aggressive power (one that occupied parts of Lebanon for 18 years up until quite recently, and still, arguably, occupies a little section of it). What exactly is to become of the poor democratic Lebanese? Their people are being killed by an invading power - yes one we are friendly with (and often with good reason) - but they are being killed and their country is being destroyed. Aren't we supposed to stand-up and defend the few modernizing, "free", democratic states in the Middle East?

You know, after reading Billmon I'm starting to think of this as what happens when effective signals break down. Armand, you are the expert, so correct me, please, but here's a sketch.

Let's posit Israel has a certain role in the region (understatement of the century) and relationship with the United States. Israel, with good reason, acts like a porcupine. Over time, and incorporating historical events like Osirak, as well as having the US's support (and we can debate the subtleties of that, but let's just look at the weapons tranfers and agree for the moment that I am right) that porcupine behavior has been an easily readable signal that Israel will respond, and might just go a little overboard, and has the strength, skills and friends to back it up, so just don't push it, ok?. It seems that in the present situation, that signalling is breaking down. Hizbollah (and maybe we could talk about Hamas and the elections) instead of taking the signal, grabbed a handful of quills and said, "hey, this doesn't hurt so bad. Now what are you going to do?" And Israel doesn't know.

I don't know about that - a basic problem with the hole area is that everyone always expects the worst of everyone else - they rarely underestimate a response - so I'm not at all sure that what's going on is that they aren't reading the likely negative consequences with enough accuracy.

So I'm off base on Israel expecting its show of force to work, and being surprised when it doesn't?

I read what you wrote to mean that Hezbollah was missing Israel's signal. As to Israel - I guess it depends on how one defines "work". Maybe they were surprised by the intensity of Hezbollah's actions - but really I doubt that's what's going on. It looks to me more like Israel is up to something.

But I could be wrong, of course.

No, I was trying to say, Hezbollah got their signal, but decided to test Israel's political will/resolve/whathaveyou. And that subsequently, Israel (over)reacted more strongly. Just thinking out loud, and your hyspothesis certainly has merit. I'm just doing the old "what serves whose self-interest, and how might that get confused" exercise.

i'm utterly out of my depth in this conversation, but i have a question for armand.

while i agree with you that the public behavior of all actors in this conflict suggests an expectation of the worst from other actors in every scenario, isn't that for public consumption? the reality is, the worst rarely happens, the spin rarely reflects the outcome, and so it still seems plausible that hezbollah thought israel was bluffing and so did israel, with the real surprise being that hezbollah called.

Yes, that's what I was saying. Hezbollah called.

"The worst" might regularly happen, but the very bad happens with some frequency. And I don't think thinking the worst of the other actors involved in this case is for public consumption - you've got HAMAS and Likud (yeah, it's called Kadima now, but the people are mostly old Likud hands), Hezbollah and Likud, maybe Syria and Likud. These actors see each other as mortal threats. I don't think that's just for winning votes and support. I mean sure given public perceptions they can be toyed with in highly aggressive ways to play up one's domestic support - but I think the fear and antipathy is quite real at the highest levels.

Am I the only person who's thinking that given the continued scale of this that an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear program is becoming increasingly likely - and that creating a situation in which that could seem an almost natural progression of events might explain the grand scale of Israel's behavior?

Is that becoming more likely with each passing hour?

that's a chilling thought, but you're the expert, and it's the most credible fit with the data i've seen. i mean, you've got the iranian stamp on the attacks on haifa and the hamit (hanit?), no? it's increasingly plausible for israel to accuse them of de facto complicity (not much of a stretch) and act accordingly. and that might also explain why we're being so complacent about this.

(not that everyone may get this, but i've got this analogy in my head with floyd landis conceding the yellow jersey for a couple of days to take the pressure off his own depleted team -- for as long as the jersey's on another team's shoulders, that team has to do some leading to protect it. no one can dispute that israel makes a hell of a spearhead.)

That definitely fits, and it's what I was trying to get at above. Did any of you see the pics of Bush and Putin at the G-8 summit? Bush was having a good old time, and Putin's expression is something like an hour into giving birth. I can't help wonder if the enjoyment of everyone else in the world as we limp through the international community with Israel tied around our necks hasn't just been turned around as we use them to fight the battle we can't start.

i like your image of "limp[ing] through the international community with Israel tied around our necks" very much. :-)

Maybe "the international community" merely has qualms about the casualty level, surge in oil prices, and heightened instability - oh, and course a healthy level of doubt that much good will actually come out of all this death and destruction.