A real turning point, or just another short-lived highfalutin concept?
You do have to hand it to him. He got Israel and Syria to sit at the same table and bandy about the term “normalization.” The whole thing bears continued observation, and tempered optimism isn’t unwarranted. Many questions have to be addressed, though. Syria has much explaining to do in the mater of the string of Lebanese political assasinations over the past few years, as it does for the nuclear reactor it was building with North Korean help last year (and which Israel zapped). And it’s still hard to see what kind of security guarantees it could give Israel that would be worth banking on should a transfer of Golan Heights possession proceed.
You do kind of have to wonder if this sudden flourishing of goodwill isn’t fueled by a motivation to be on the side with the most allies in the escalating tensions between the West (and much of the Arab world) and Iran.
July 15th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Probably what the Brits wondered too when we dealt the new dec. 232 years ago, which is actually pretty short-lived so far and we need to remember that.
July 16th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Pax Romana lasted 207 years. Wonder when Pax Americana will begin? Looks like matters are going to get much worse before they get better, but we have managed to avoid dropping another big one now for 62 years, 49 weeks. If you count Viet Nam and Iraq as mere skirmishes, among some other much smaller tiffs, then that’s how long the relative “American” world peace has lasted.