>You are speaking as a logical and reasonable man. That is exactly the kind of thinking that has no place in the Arab world <s> No lesson was learned in 1967 except by the Israelis who learned that survival required being able to defeat every one of its neighbors militarily at any time. 1973 proved the Arabs learned nothing.

Yeah but that was still time of bipolar (more balanced) world. I doubt in current time 'modern' Egypt or Jordan or Syria woul embark on such runaway train again. Switch of generations occured in most of Arab countries.
If not ever suspicious/trigger easy Israel, at least West should recognize this new reality, and make some efforts to bring reconcilliation drive on a table again.
I think moreover that US should slowly leave space for major diplomatic effort by European Union or someone else who has much cleaner face/hands in this case.
I prefer 6 more cycles of unseccesfull peace talks any day to a single
war.

>
>Paranoia is an irrational fear of enemies. Israel's enemies are very real.
>
>I completely agree that any rational society would realize Israel is there to stay, would have worked out a deal a long time ago for a Palestinian state etc. Arafat was a disaster for the Palestinians but Habash or any of a string of others would have been even worse. All the intelligent, moderate Palestinian leaders were frightened into silence decades ago. The current civil war in the Gaza strip shows a society that has collapsed and is eating itself.
>
>I really wish you were right. But I suggest reading Bernard Lewis's What Went Wrong I'm afraid the leadership and some patterns of thinking have doomed Arab society for a long time to come.
>
>I expected more of the Persians. But the Shah ranks right up there with King Farouk as being the kind of leader that makes revolution look really good. My time in Iran even made me nervous about Savak and we were supposed to be on the same side. But I'm not fond of theocracies either and while I find a certain amount to admire in Iran and great deal to admire in Iranians, I think the current leadership is leading it in the wrong direction. I really hope the Iranian people take matters into their own hands. Iran needs an Ataturk - but then so does the Arab world and there are never enough Ataturks to go around.

Yeah, multiplied Ataturk DNA would hv been quiet helpfull, but somehow it just aint happening so maybe west should do something to help along those lines.
I really believe that in current world, one entire G8 summit should be devoted to issue of bridging to Muslim world and enforcing/obliging them in some way to moderate religious influence/control over waist populations.
Iran or Ex-Afganistan kind of religion statehood should be simply banned by international law. No religion group ever should come into full power
democratically ellected or not.
So if new world treaty simillar to NPT treaty for nukes mentioned by Tracy is needed to regulate matter then be so. And we should all sign into that together with them. No Muslim state will be ever safe (nor their neighbours) until this issue is finally tackled and resolved for good.

Good muslim leader dies you have mess, bad leader is removed by west you hv mess again, You throw enough religion fanatics into Emirates and Dubai will look like Yemen capital in 25 years time.

That patterns together with radical muslim elements spreading havoc/fear in west, has to be addressed and somehow stopped, and that will not happen if west wait for muslim countries to regulate it themselves, nor will happen by Israel or US defeating every country of middle east separately or all together.
It has to be strong and decisive peacefull effort by top world bodies (UN,G8 etc) and countries (Russia,US,China,India etc) )
to address these issues, bridge to muslim countries, draw some conclusions
and create binding documents and legislatures for future.
Imho it is as big or even bigger problem then global warming.

Project of enforcing democracy by war (Iraq) obviosely colapsed, so maybe west should try some HQ negotiating/1:1 talks/good will hunting instead :)

They must hv been playing John Lennon over my bald head
last night while I was sleeping...
I better stop this hippy rant. <vbg>
But Peace anyway :)