Monday, July 9, 2007

The enemy of my enemy is.. probably still my enemy

It's definitely a Monday.
Al Qaeda in Iraq threatens Iran
The leader of an Al Qaeda umbrella group in Iraq threatened to wage war against
Iran unless it stops supporting Shiites in Iraq within two months



They should be careful:

Tunneling Near Iranian Nuclear Site Stirs Worry

The sudden flurry of digging seen in recent satellite photos of a mountainside
in central Iran ..is the back yard of Iran's most ambitious and controversial
nuclear facility, leading U.S. officials and independent experts to reach
another conclusion: It appears to be the start of a major tunnel complex inside
the mountain....On Friday, an IAEA spokeswoman confirmed that the agency has
broached the subject with Iranian officials.


Cue music: Ride of the Valkyries.

Thursday, July 5, 2007

Happy Fourth!

We walked up to the Rt.1 overpass a few blocks from the house last night and joined a couple hundred of our neighbors. That venue, five miles from the Washington Monument, provides a clear view of the fireworks show on the National Mall. (And it is a lot easier to get home afterwards.) An added benefit: the smaller fireworks all around the horizon, in other parts of DC, in suburban Maryland, out in Fairfax County. It was a good show.
Happy Fourth of July. Thanks to all who keep us free.

Sunday, July 1, 2007

Clairvoyance or just a keen grasp of the obvious?

This is a long way around to a point, so bear with me...
One of the annoying things about many political and religious arguments is the absolute certainty with which each side holds its view. My example today is the notion in liberal Protestant circles that because the gospel of Mark quotes Jesus's prediction that the Temple would be destroyed, it must have been written after the Temple's destruction in 70 AD.
I'm not even an amateur Biblical scholar; but to any Jew in Jesus's time and place with even a casual knowledge of Jewish and Roman history, of the brutal Roman suppressions of Jewish revolts, this was not a prediction but a foregone conclusion. You knew how things were going to end; the question was, what would happen next?
So, here are a few foregone conclusions:
1) Hamas and Hizbollah will continue to shoot rockets at Israel. A couple years ago they were killing Jews in tens and twenties in homicide attacks; now they can only kill in ones and twos. As soon as they have the means to do so, they will attempt to kill Jews in the hundreds or thousands.
2) Not all Islamofascists are bungling idiots. Sooner or later they will succeed in a catastrophic attack- in London or Glasgow or New York or Washington.
3) There will be another Mideast war, maybe not this month or this summer but soon. A rational Bashir Assad would not attack Israel directly; a conventional Israel- Syria war will be like Godzilla meets Bambi. Is Bashir Assad rational? Is Hamas or Hizballah or Ahmadinejad?
4) Musharraf's governement in Pakistan will fall, and be replaced by something worse. A really nasty pro west strong man or more likely, a Taliban.

The questions is, what will happen next? What will we- the Israelis, British, Americans, Indians- do?
Old Chinese curse: may you live in interesting times.