Abu Muqawama retains its autonomy and the views and beliefs expressed within the blog do not reflect those of CNAS.
Rob Satloff made a claim on Hahvahd's Middle East Strategy blog that Vice President Biden's one-day visit to Beirut was decisive in swinging the election to March 14th.
Really, Rob?
Rob thinks the United States should take a hardline stance in the Middle East against Islamist parties, which is fine as far as it is a perfectly reasonable policy option about which we can have a healthy discussion. But let's not let our policy preferences cloud our analysis. There are a lot of factors which moved the elections in favor of March 14th, and Biden's visit is probably far down the list. How all those Sunni Muslims came out to vote in Zahle is probably a better question to be asking, as is how Hizballah -- whose message to its constituents is consistently pitch-perfect -- got it so wrong with respect to the signals it sent to the Christian electorate. I respond to Rob here.
In general, it might be healthy to admit that what we did and did not do in Washington had a far smaller impact on these elections than what the Lebanese did and did not do in Lebanon proper.
Update: Rex Brynen, who knows more about Lebanon than Rob and I put together, piles on.
Yeah, I read that on MESH last night and thought it was pretty silly. And what's more is that claiming this sort of influence offers the opposition an easy talking point: we only lost because the Americans were meddling in our affairs.
It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall in the discussions around Lebanon right now. Though I dont have any real expertise in Lebanese politics, rule-of-thumb tells me that its going to remain like Status Quo, where everyone gets to keep on doing what they are doing, and the money from both US *and* Iranian patronage keeps making everybody fat. It seems like a win/win situation for all the rational actors, of wich Hezbollah seem to be one.
That's right fnord. It is also probably a net gain for Lebanon to have Sunni cover should the Israelis and/or Americans go after Iran.
Rex made a most astute point, too.
OT, but just wondering if you saw this criticism of y'all's report:
http://stupidest.wordpress.com/2009/06/06/triaging-afghanistan-with-the-...
when i open satloff's article it says that there are no comments (and that comments are closed).
did you save a copy of rex's response? were there other comments on the post? i agree with your critique of the original piece and would've loved to see what the MESH community had to say about it in general...
Sheesh, you move the blog, the comments drop by 75%, and SNLII stops making goat, monkey and bumblebee comments. You really need to say something outrageous on the Arab-Israeli conflict to get things moving around here again.
Sigh.
Well, I was provocative on another thread, RB. I'll reprint:
RB, were you there for academic interests, or in a more official role?
Mo, I think you're right about Michel Aoun. But I've always wondered just how much traction he really had. Arriving back in 2005, a great deal had changed. While he thought he was picking a rising star, how much did the near coup in Beirut work against him?
The reason why I ask is because if there's any major figure in Lebanon who has a history of picking bad horses, it would be Aoun.
He chose to continue prosecuting a losing war against Syria. When we tried again to oust Syria, he chose to support Saddam Hussein. He opposed M14, opting to quietly support the very same Syrian forces he once opposed.
In 2006, he hitched his horse to Hizbollah, not realizing perhaps that the representative of the southern Shiites would attempt to force political change (and scare the living crap out of a great many Christians and Sunnis).
If there's anyone who is more tone deaf to the mood of the very people he claims to represent than Aoun, I have no idea who it would be. Samir Geagea?
Forget the "name" business.
Comment by SNLII is agnostic on labels on June 8, 2009 - 4:57pm
"He does all this ... and still gets somewhere near 50 percent of the Christian vote"
It appears as if there are more Christian Sunnis than Christian Shiites, as the joke goes.
Comment by SNLII deMurrs on June 8, 2009 - 5:13pm
As for winners, Exum, where would you place Michel Murr, Michel Sleiman and Patriarch Sfeir?
Murr and Sleiman will get something out of this. Sfeir perhaps isn't as interested in worldly gains.
The real problem, RB, is that it's hard to be so quarrelsome when I find myself agreeing with Mo.
And I'm not sure that my quips about goats, monkeys and bumblebees are all that outrageous.
The punchline about Nasrallah bedding goats could be made by any stand-up comedian doing a Friars Roast of a LF leader (OK, ok, maybe the LF don't have the best sense of humor).
I can't claim credit for the brilliant phrase "Monkey Sheikh." That goes to an Egyptian editor of the state-run media.
As for bumblebees, what could I say that would be nearly as hilarious as Nahul, himself (except the animal abuse, which was just plain wrong)?
Or Farfur?
Frankly, I think I deserve my own comedy roast on al-Aqsa TV. I'll tell off-color jokes hinting at Arafat's sexuality (well, before he croaked); crack wise whatever is in Sami Abu Zuhri 's wallet; then tell a few proctologist jokes at the expense of Basim Naim.
I'll kill!
On another note, the CNAS peeps likely are trying to edit this. They'll kick out strong language.
So I probably can't get away with suggesting that bin Nasrallah has a big, fat ass.
Or that the Mandarines running SWJ are a gaggle of constipated old grumps.
Or that Fnord pees sitting down, lest he offend fellow Scandanavians.
See? I can't get away with it now. You can't go blue here.
The Redd Foxx of the Abu Muqawama comments' section is muted by The Man.
I was there for a workshop at LAU, SNLII.
On Aoun, it is interesting to read the post mortems on some of the FPM discussion boards. While some of it is predictable (Saudi money, secret hordes of Sunnis in Zahle, etc.) there is also some interesting introspection about FPM organization, Aoun's style, electoral alliances (and the relationship with the SSNP and Hizbullah in particular), and their campaign messaging.
snli: "On another note, the CNAS peeps likely are trying to edit this. They'll kick out strong language"
What? Does this mean that I cannot imply that you constantly try to dehumanize muslims by constantly comparing them to animals, and so insidously help dehumanizing them in the eyes of the readership, thus legitimizing violence? Shocking...
You tell him, Fnord! He DOES constantly do things constantly, thus constantly constantlying the constantly. And redundantly, too.
SNLII, don't believe for a [REDACTED] moment that the people at CNAS would edit the [REDACTED] blog--you're just being a [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] again...
What did you make of Michael Slackman's article in the NYT today that attributed some of the March 14 victory to Obama's speech quelling anti-American sentiment in Lebanon?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/world/middleeast/09lebanon.html?_r=1&r...
"Does this mean that I cannot imply that you constantly try to dehumanize muslims "
Autobiographically, this would be quite interesting for me to pull off. Perhaps your reading doesn't match with the motive behind the sentiments I express.
"SNLII, don't believe for a [REDACTED] moment "
The man got to you, too, RB.
My theory? There he sits in his chilled office, set apart from the drones' cubicles. His pleated Dockers bestride an ergonomically OSHA-compliant chair, peering over his wire-rimmed spectacles, his feet clad in sensible shoes, his tie red to connote "leader," per the advice of part-time anthropologist Dave Kilcullen, LTC (ret) Nagl pecks away at the keyboard, Bowdlerizing the blogs.
"This language won't do," he clucks, a finger gliding over the "delete" key the way it used to lovingly caress the trigger guard of his M-16A2.
A tremor of pleasure overcomes him. He is, as his interns call him, "The Man."
If they only knew. He really is "The Man."
And this is his world.
Fnord, I think I see now where you might have misinterpreted what I typed.
"I kill" is American patois, often used by comedians, to imply that they entertained an audience.
"To kill" in the parlance of stand up talents is to imply that they slayed the audience with jokes that made them pee themselves silly. What, in Norway, would require a toilet for all the males in the audience in which to properly relieve themselves, per political correctness norms and EU regulation.
I did not wish to suggest that in the midst of my "killer" routine before the bearded, bovine blowhards of HAMAS that I would actually harm them.
If I wanted to harm them, I would submit these incredibly sincere men to iterative viewings of Nahul, the kitten abusing bee, and Farfur the Jew-hating terror mouse. Being devoid of any gene that allows for an appreciation of camp humor, they would scowl and shift uneasily like the constipated old grumps at SWJ reading antiwar.com .
To them, torture.
My send up of "The Man" belongs to me. Sorry, I forgot to put my name in the "Your Name" section again.
On a final note, I should suggest that Alex "The Yorkshire Ranter" actually wrote an interesting and sincere review (in four parts) of Kilcullen's meandering tome.
It's worth reading Alex's blog on this one matter.
Over the past week, I've found myself agreeing almost completely with Mo about Lebanon and today advised readers to visit the "Ranter" for a greater appreciation of military studies.
Now I must scrub my fingers in holy water, lest the prophency be fulfilled and we arrive at the End of Days.
Now I must scrub my fingers in holy water, lest the prophency be fulfilled and we arrive at the End of Days.
Dogs and cats, living together...
When I have 5:1 ratio of comments on snli, Im happy ;-)
and the wink was to annoy you, Jason...
Sorry, meme infection.
Add your comment