Re: here's the Juan Cole note that I responded to

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

Jim Devine wrote:
>
> The wholesale destruction of all of Lebanon by Israel and the US
> Pentagon does not make any sense. Why bomb roads, roads, bridges,
> ports, fuel depots in Sunni and Christian areas that have nothing to
> do with Shiite Hizbullah in the deep south? [clip]
>
> It doesn't make any sense. . . .

The theory Cole puts out is an impressive hypothesis. I would reject the
implications of his final paragraphs, however, which switch from
geopolitical to domestic concerns, implying that the 'ultimate' cause is
the u.s. need for oil at home. But the bulk of the argument, focusing on
u.s. control (and _blocking_ Chinese or Indian (and I would add, EU and
Russian) control makes a good deal of sense. I have argued for a couple
of years that this war was different from the Vietnam or Korean Wars --
that the U.S. was more serious about it and would not so easily be
forced to withdraw as in Vietnam. (I'm aware that "easily" sounds weird
applied to a war in which the u.s. may have caused the death of close to
3 million.)

In a sense this war started in Tehran over 50 years ago with the
overthrow of Mossadegh. And the u.s. assault on the mideast has been
continuous and unrelenting ever since. It is, I think, absurd to see it
as Bush's War -- it continues to have too much overwhelming support from
all sectors of the ruling class and their chief political and
intellectual allies.

A world empire controls the mideast or it is not an empire. A lot rests
on the capacity of Hizbullah to resist.

Carrol

P.S. I would reject out of hand any proposal that this is first of all
an Isreli War. Israel would never have gone to war without the approval
of Washington. Piss on the Zionist Lobby. Israel is a _very_ junior
party to this alliance.