toomuchtime_
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- Dec 29, 2008
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Not according to Pat Buchanan:
"Is there any treaty that could be agreed to, or imposed, that would be acceptable to Israel and the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank, let alone to Hamas, which has emerged from its defiance of one of the most intensive bombardments of modern time with new prestige?
"What are the obvious impediments to such a treaty?
"First, Bibi Netanyahu, who has presided over the expansion of Israel settlements and joined Avigdor Lieberman, a supporter of ethnic cleansing of Israeli Arabs, in a coalition of the Israeli hard right.
"Would Bibi agree to a treaty that required removal of scores of thousands of Israeli settlers from Judea and Samaria, when he opposed Ariel Sharons withdrawal of a few thousand settlers from Gaza?
"Would Bibi agree to Jerusalem becoming the capital of Palestine as well as Israel, a non-negotiable demand of Arab nations?
"Could a Palestinian Authority that gives up all rights to Jerusalem survive?"
A Mirage of Mideast Peace | The American Conservative
How would American national interests be undermined by staying out of a conflict we have no chance of resolving?
The article is correct in saying there are no prospects for a lasting formal peace in the ME, but the situation for Israel is not nearly so dire as the suggests because none of Israel's enemies, individually or in concert, is strong enough to overcome Israel's military, and for this reason the prospects for long lasting periods of peacefulness are quite good.
The cost to America of trying to maintain peacefulness among Israel and its neighbors is dwarfed by the cost of maintaining enormous military deployments of US troops to defend our allies in the Pacific such as South Korea and Japan or our allies in Europe, and the rationale behind US efforts to maintain peacefulness in the region is that if the US abandons the region, others step up to fill the power vacuum which are hostile to US interests. This is what happened in the 1950's when the US had a hands off policy toward the ME and France and Britain recruited Israel to take Sinai, and in the 1960's and 1970's before the US made a commitment to peacefulness in the ME and the Soviet Union moved in to foment wars that nearly drew the US into military confrontations with the Soviet Union.
If America's other allies were as capable of defending their interests as well as ours as Israel is with only a few billion dollars of aid, the cost of foreign policy would be much lower and many fewer US troops would have to be put in harm's way.