Who's Where?

It's hard to know what's going on when you're not in the know. I had thought Cond's statement, roughly, that she would support no cease fire that was not sustainable because she didn't want to have to be back again in two weeks or six months going through the same thing again, was a green light to Israel to do whatever needed to be done to defeat Hizbollah. I thought it indicated a clear understanding that Israel can have no security without the total destruction of the terror infrastructure in Lebanon. It seemed her encouragement didn't do much good, the Israeli leadership still wasn't doing much.

Now I read in Insight Magazine (and Richard Perle and Newt Gingrich are among those sited) that behind the scenes she was on the phone urging "restraint", and that Olmert actually told her to bug off.

Rice attempted to increase pressure on Israel to stand down and to demonstrate restraint....The rumor is that she was told flatly by the prime minister's office to back off.

Apparently Olmert thought he was quite capable of doing nothing on his own.

But this is disappointing. The new thought that's needed is simple: The West must stand together against Islamic terror. There is no Palestinian problem or Israeli problem or Lebanese problem, it's the West against terror, first and before all else. If Israel is willing to fight they must be encouraged... Perhaps if Israel were located in Belgium that would be easier to see.

The charge is that Condi simply doesn't understand the Mid East? I rather doubt that. But also that she is not actually at the helm of the State Department, that she wears the Captain's hat but is in fact a mere passenger? That's possible. Being inserted into a population of mass agreement and habitual thought with no other thought visible out to the horizon might make one think that there is no larger world. Change in that atmosphere would be like trying to quicken a body that's dead. Perhaps it's easier just to breath the stale air until it no longer smells odd. Perhaps that just happens automatically unless you're Rumsfeld.

Old ways of thinking die hard. Bureaucracies are the ocean liner that turns slowly, but individuals are the cogs and the bolts, and they functionally can be just as insensate. It takes years and effort to develop a coherent world view, and once you have it it's hard to throw it aside and start all over again. Learning something new would be hard, like getting a new job. It's just too difficult, it would be stressful, so the nostrums for policy in a dynamic world become just the repetitions of concepts mastered in youth, which after all have served well enough for livelihood and advancement and comfort. It's good enough for government work. But the concepts touted are really just from notes taken on a now yellowed and crumbled page.

There will be a realignment, the West against terror, and Israel in the West as Luxembourg is in Europe. Shoulder to shoulder. But when is it going to happen?


UPDATE: "CORRECTION"

Apparently there's a kerfuffle here. From something called The Right Angle I learn that Newt denies he's oppose to Condi (and presumably wouldn't support the qoute I included), saying “So far she is saying and doing the right things.” But it is pointed out by Insight's editor that Newt is public in his criticism of the State Department, and goes on to say "...whether Newt supports Condi or doesn't support Condi [isn't the point]. The point of the story is that the State Department has hijacked President Bush's foreign policy. You see it clearly on Iran, North Korea and the Middle East.

My concern was about Condi. Now that seems not supported by Newt. I'm not a news blog and so don't intend to sort this out "he said, she said", but of the two people I sited as supporting the story apparently only Richard Perle would support it entirely, Newt only admiting to criticizing State. Okay, that would fit my own judgment that Condi has been saying the right things, and would be consistent with my initial judgment that she has a proper understanding of the underlying politics. That would be good. My assertion that State is still stuck in an old pattern of thought would hold (all conservatives make that judgment) as would my assertion that it's a hard barge to turn. That she has been co-opted by state would not hold, though the description of how that might happen would. --None of this really matters except that it's an embarrassment to have accepted as true a criticism I would have rejected had not Newt's name been attached. I am embarrassed. But the important hope is that she is politically sound and right now I'm going to go back to that assumption and forget what I read this morning.

Lesson Learned: When you're not in the know don't pretend you are on the basis of having read one article.