APPEASEMENT MINUS ONE

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last."
~ Winston Churchill

American historian, Arthur Herman, is of the opinion that Iran came out the winner as a result of the UN ceasefire in the Israel-Hezballah conflict, and this opinion can be read at the New York Post. I think he's right. Herman compares the recent international community cave-in to the Munich agreement of 1938, which opened all of Europe to Nazi Germany. Listen to this:

The clear losers were the United States and Israel. Israel has sacrificed lives and treasure, and had its honor dragged through the mud of international opinion, for no purpose. America squandered its political capital at the start of the crisis by getting moderate Arab regimes to condemn Hezbollah instead of Israel. They did so because they thought Hezbollah was about to be annihilated. However, they soon realized their mistake. They now know Tehran and Damascus will set the agenda in the Middle East, not Washington. The Arab League's support for this U.N.-brokered deal is just one more measure of our strategic failure.

The other loser is Lebanon. The price of peace in 1938 was de jure dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, as Germany annexed the Sudetenland. The price of Resolution 1701 is de facto dismemberment of Lebanon. A large, well-armed terrorist army acting at the behest of a foreign power now controls the southern half of Lebanon, and pulls the strings in the other half. The facade of Lebanese self-government has been preserved. As a territorial state, it may even last longer than Czechoslovakia did (Hitler gave the Czechs five months before he annexed the rest of their country).

But other states in the region will have learned their lesson. Faced by an internal terrorist organization, especially one with links with Tehran, they will have to make accommodations. No white knight in the guise of U.S. Marines will ride to their rescue; no Israeli tanks and F-16s will do their dirty work for them. Appeasement will be the order of the day.

That includes Iraq. The disarming of Sunni and Shia militias, the necessary first step to ending sectarian violence there, will be postponed - perhaps for good. On the contrary, this crisis has taught Iraq's Shia minority that extremism pays, particularly the Iranian kind.

For everyone in the Middle East knows Iran is the clear winner. Only the diplomats and politicians, including the Bush administration, will pretend otherwise. Iran has emerged as the clear champion of anti-Israeli feeling and radical Islam. The Iranians have their useful puppet in Syria; they have their proxy armies in place with Hezbollah and Hamas. They have been able to install missiles, even Revolutionary Guards, in Lebanon with impunity. Sunni regimes in the region will move to strike their own deals with Iran, just as Eastern European states did with Germany after Czechoslovakia. That includes Iraq; the lesson will not be lost on Russia and China, either. And all the while, the Iranians proceed with their nuclear plans - with the same impunity.

He goes on to slam the weenies at Foggy Bottom for the spineless appeasers they are, and he makes reference to the American administration's perennial infighting between the State Department and the Department of Defense. Rightly so, because all of these big political games, punctuated with military force, are nothing more than an expansion of the perennial infighting. These games have nothing to do with what's right or what's wrong; they have nothing to do with justice or the spread of democracy. Thanks to the leadership of the US, and the greedmongers at the UN, Lebanon's enslavement by Iran is offically blessed.

Herman states that "the Bush administration has in effect declared that its global war on terror is over. We have reverted to the pre-9/11 box of tools, if not necessarily the pre-9/11 mindset." What I find excruciatingly ironic about that statement is the fact that an organization that is on The List®, is the only organization that is on the ground, fighting the evil mullah regime (as well as their evil ally and neighbor, the fascist Turkish state).

Where every other organization, state, or world body is in full, active appeasement mode; where the same groups are talking the talk but clearly unable and unwilling to walk the walk, the only entity fighting the good fight against fascism and totalitarian political Islam (i.e. Islamofascism), is an organization made up of Kurds, from all parts of Kurdistan, and non-Kurds who love Kurdistan. That group is known as the PKK. PKK, alone, stands between civilization and fascism, doing that which everyone else on the planet is afraid to do.

Amazing. Utterly, completely, thoroughly, and without any doubt whatsoever, amazing. The big, bad PKK is the only one big enough and bad enough to fight contemporary fascism. Everyone else, without exception, is merely playing at their stupid little games. Even the Israelis are playing stupid little games.

Back in Washington, Qubad Talabanî is playing Big Daddy's stupid little game, blathering on like an imbecile about his "Turkish brothers." (on the Turkish general staff, because they're the only ones with any real power in Turkey), and is still trying to sell the idea that South Kurdistan "is the safest and most stable part of Iraq."

He fails to mention the fact that Big Daddy's pêşmerge open fire on and arrest Kurds who demonstrate for an end to a corrupt KRG, for basic services and infrastructure, and for a job that pays a dignified wage and in which Kurds will not be treated like slaves or beasts of burden. Meanwhile, there are almost 300,000 of Qubad's "Turkish brothers" lined up at the northern border, with his corresponding "Iranian brothers" lined up along the eastern border. Both of these are becoming a bit more bold and regular with firing artillery at Kurdish villages. JITEM and MIT are running wild with the ITF--with the blessing of the KRG--in the Mûsil to Kerkuk areas, with a corresponding sharp rise in suicide bombings and other attacks.

All of this is in addition to the fact that Iran just bagged round one in the race to establish regional hegemony.

I don't know, homeboy, but it seems to me you've got bigger problems than trying to sell that "safest and most stable" line to a bunch of Washington knuckleheads who can't even find Amed (Diyarbakir) on a map, not to mention not finding Silêmanî. Methinks a reality check is in order here.

The other thing that really hacks me off is the fact that in all his talk about his "Turkish brothers" and PKK (who, you would think, should really be his brothers), Big Daddy's boy never once mentions the source of the problems of the Bakurî Kurds (who, you would think, should really be his brothers). He never once mentions the atrocities that the fascist Turkish regime has inflicted on the Kurds of the North (who, you would think, should really be his brothers--am I getting through to you?) for the last 83 years. Qubad Talabanî and his Big Daddy, are as cognizant of Turkish fascism as Buyukanit Pasha (their "Turkish brother") is.

This, too, is appeasement.

After all this, Baby Qubad has the nerve to use HPG's argument against Turkey's argument of the double standard vis-a-vis Israel/Lebanon. Of course, Heval Bahoz Erdal said it better:

“To compare the developments in Lebanon to that of the developments in Kurdistan is a false comparison. Hizbullah is a force of Lebanon and it has positioned itself there. Hizbullah has not one fighter in the soil of Israel. Hizbullah positions itself near the border of Israel and from there organises attacks against Israel. Our area of struggle is in North Kurdistan and Turkey. We have not one military action beyond the border. The majority of our forces are in North Kurdistan, therefore positioned in Turkey, our activities are there. Our forces are in Gumushane, Diyarbakir (Amed), Tunceli (Dersim), Amanos and Sirnak. The military operations and conflict is concentrated in these areas… To target South Kurdistan is an excuse. We will show them the necessary response if they do decide to enter South Kurdistan.”

No appeasement here. You go, boyfriend.