The road to progress

It's hard to believe that we still have to argue that peace in the Middle East is in the interests of all parties involved. But Zibigniew Brzezinski and Stephen Solarz do a nice job of just that.

To achieve Middle East peace, Obama must make a bold Mideast trip

The outlines for a peace agreement these guys make look fine. Except for the one big hitch that has always stalled these agreements.

The details are not for Americans to work out. They are for Palestinians and Israelis to work out. And until they are, everything else is doomed to failure.

We can make our suggestions. But, they, ultimately, must make the commitments that make peace workable.

And the truth is that the hold up is not the Devil that is in the details. The hold up is each side committing themselves, for real, to an honest peace agreement for the long haul. Everything else is excuses. And the bitterness of their long and tragic past undermining a peaceful future.

And this proposal by these authors demonstrates better than most I've heard during this period the folly of the prevailing political winds.

"Accordingly, the administration must convey to the parties that if the offer is rejected by either or both, the United States will seek the U.N. Security Council's endorsement of this framework for peace, thus generating worldwide pressure on the recalcitrant party."

If America were to follow this suggestion, any peace commitment would almost certainly fall apart utterly. Though noone should root for that outcome, obviously. But noone should have any doubts about that.

If there is any region in the world where it is clear that the legacy of military and political force, pressure, and manipulation has failed the larger interests of everyone involved in a peace that allows both peoples to grow and develop to their fullest potential, this is the region.

Hamas, Islamic Jihad, former P.L.O. members, and the Israeli government can point to a hundred pyrrhic victories over the years that supposedly justified the use of various forms of military and political manipulation to force short term concessions.

And every single one of those victories ignores the very clear and long term cost that each of them has incurred:

The absence of peace. And the lack of trust between Israelis and Palestinians to build a peaceful, secure, and prosperous future that does not continue to sacrafice the lives of innocent Palestinians and Israelis for the acquisition of land and political concessions.

If the President were to follow the advice outlined in this article, he would further add fuel to the very rationalization that has maintained this bloody relationship and undermined peace for almost a hundred years between these peoples.

Because the logic of political pressure is exactly the rationale used by Palestinian terrorists and those Israelis who have favored killing every peace agreement that has ever been and using peace discussions as a calculation in broader power politics.

It is an ugly logic that has won them concessions many times.

At the expense of thousands of innocent and not-so-innocent Palestinian and Israeli lives.

As long as we continue down this path, we give ammunition to the same ugly rationalizations of terrorists and despots the world over.

And nowhere has is this game being played with uglier, bloodier, more openly cynical calculations than in Israel and Palestine.

We can pretend that our cynicism has no consequences. But thousands of dead Palestinian and Israeli citizens would beg to differ. Millions more citizens living in repressive societies with governments and poltical players who rationalize in similar cynical ways bear the burden of our self-centered rationalizations.

And if we want that to end, we need to end the games and the political manipulation.

There is no other road to any real progress.

Trust

It's so crazy.

The more I watch national and international media, political leaders, academics, activists, and all the rest, this political period.

The less I trust any of them.

The more I watch people, the more dissappointed I become that so many of this foolish little species have such a hard time ever just admitting that they just don't know what to do about even the biggest problems that we face. And that, maybe, genuinely listening to one another might, consequently, be in order. If we actually want others to take seriously our concerns.

To hear all the confident assertions, you would think that more of the folks with opinions about politics actually know more than they do.

Except when you hear them repeatedly make assertions that turn out to be wrong - and I really can't think of any of the major figures in any circles who do not fit that description - the more you begin to wonder if any of those folks have ever stopped to even consider it. No matter how clearly wrong that often are.

It's a strange spectacle to watch. If you're honest, that is.

Because not many of them really are, is the truth.

Which is exactly why Lord Acton argued and was right, I think, that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Because those who covet it seem to almost never to able to admit that they ever screw up with its use. Which was exactly what he was telling the Pope when he said it.

No matter how many obvious mistakes they make.

I very much understand why the wisest political observers so often situate themselves so far from power.

Because it's so often such a three ring circus headed to nowhere.

And the truth is that I just don't trust most such folks anymore.

And it's good to know that I chose a life where I can avoid them as much as possible.

Because, most of the time, what a thoroughly unpleasant and ridiculous lot they are.

"Mature" democracies

Do Thais Lack Spirit for Democracy?

"There appears to be a misconception in Thailand over the past few years that democracy equals intimidation — whether that means blockading major city intersections in Bangkok and forcing the country’s commercial center to close, tossing grenades at government buildings, shutting down a major international summit attended by Asian leaders, occupying the Government House, or closing a major international airport."

Perhaps it is because intimidation is the way even the most "mature" democracies have been conducting themselves, as of late.

Because as this articles well articulates, everyone should know, by now, that intimidation isn't the way mature people and mature democracies should engage their disagreements.

Intimidation is how less mature goverments and peoples conduct themselves.

Mature governments and peoples only use force when no other means is available. Not as a rationalization for "by any means necessary" to get whatever it is that they want.

Perhaps the Thai people are watching contemporary democracies all too closely.

Perhaps they should find better role models.