Word: israelity
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...especially the Arabs. The Israelis have stubbornly maintained a stiff blockade after pounding Gaza into submission in January 2009. Food is allowed in; Gazans aren't starving. But tight restrictions remain on construction materials for rebuilding homes and public buildings and on many of the nonessential necessities of life (Israel recently lifted the ban on cigarettes). Israel has suggested three conditions for lifting the siege to Hamas, which controls Gaza: no more rocket attacks against Israeli civilians, no arms smuggling into Gaza and the release of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier kidnapped by Hamas in June 2006. The rocket attacks...
Clinton's response to McCarrick's question was forceful but inadequate. She reminded the delegates that "violence preceded the suffering," a local coup d'état by Hamas, which then used Gaza "as a launching pad" for wholesale rocket attacks against Israel. She acknowledged the humanitarian suffering and said the U.S. had pressured Israel to increase the flow of essentials like food "from a trickle to a flood," but ultimately, she concluded, the fate of Gaza would have to await a comprehensive settlement between Israel and the Palestinians...
...just elected a right-wing government led by Benjamin Netanyahu, whose coalition partners were vehemently opposed to negotiations. The Palestinians were fiercely divided between Fatah, which controls the West Bank, and the more militant Hamas. U.S. envoy George Mitchell's slow-moving effort to start talks tanked because of Israel's unwillingness to stop building illegal settlements on Palestinian land. The Administration seems boggled now; the President told me in a January interview that the Middle East had proved tougher than he'd expected. It was not an admission that inspired confidence in the region. (See pictures of heartbreak...
...asymmetrical warfare can defeat a modern, well-equipped force in a limited war. It did so in Lebanon, and given the right circumstances, it would do so in other parts of the Middle East. But the real point is that in a limited war with the U.S. and Israel, the IRGC could predominate, or at least wear us down to the point that we would decide it's better to settle. (See pictures of the long shadow of Ayatullah Khomeini...
With inflation and unemployment running at 30% in Iran, continuing demonstrations in the country and shaky oil markets, the Obama Administration should be considering the distinct possibility that the IRGC may welcome an open conflict with the U.S. (and Israel), its coup d'état solidified...