The actions of some in the Middle East suggest that the weather is taking its toll.

There is something about the summer heat in the Middle East that seems to rob people of any semblance of good sense. They blunder on as if oblivious of the day of reckoning, not unlike the thoughtless girls in the parable about the wise and foolish virgins who, failing to fill their lamps with oil, were shut out of the house when the bridegroom arrived. (Matthew 25:1-13).
Consider, for example, the latest pronouncement by General Sir David Richards who, having commanded Britain's troops in Afghanistan, is soon to become chief of the general staff, Britain's top soldier. As news of the latest British casualties came in -- bringing the total to close to 200 -- he made the horrible prediction that ""nation-building"" in Afghanistan ""might take as long as 30 to 40 years"", adding that ""there is absolutely no chance of NATO pulling out"".
This is sheer folly. Has no one told Sir David what happened to the British army in Afghanistan in 1842, when a sole survivor managed to struggle home out of a force of 15,000? Has he not studied the fate of the Soviet army in Afghanistan in the 1980s?
The war in Afghanistan is a huge mistake that will, almost certainly, end in tears. It is an open-ended colonial war of uncertain aims. Instead of isolating and defeating Osama Bin Laden and his small band of militant extremists holed up in the mountains, it is cementing ties between them and the Pashtun tribes, which form the backbone of the Taliban. Instead of defeating the terrorists, it is busy creating far more of them.
Another warmonger is Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who has so far failed to make the transition from serial killer to statesman, which many had hoped for (including this writer.) Instead of welcoming the moderate political platform adopted by Fatah at its Sixth Congress in Bethlehem this past week -- which endorsed the advancement of a two-state solution by peaceful means -- Barak dismissed it as ""grave and unacceptable to us"". Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's even more extreme foreign minister, declared that the Fatah Congress had ruled out any possibility of peace with the Palestinians! Israeli citizens should wake up. The intransigence of their leaders is wholly self-defeating.
Barak has also issued blood-curdling threats against Hezbollah. ""We cannot accept that a neighboring UN member state should have in its government representatives of a militia that has more than 40,000 rockets,"" he declared, making no mention of Israel's own far more lethal arsenal. ""What happened in the second Lebanon war (in 2006) will not happen again,"" he continued. ""At the time a message from the United States indicated we must spare Lebanon's infrastructure."" Next time, he added, ""we will use all necessary force"". In the 2006 war, Israel killed more than 1,200 Lebanese, most of them civilians, and destroyed much of the country's infrastructure, including many roads and bridges, and a great swathe of Beirut's southern suburbs.
In turn, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has warned Lebanese Prime Minister-elect Saad Hariri not to include Hezbollah in his government -- or suffer the consequences. Undaunted, Hezbollah responded that if Israel tried its luck again the response this time around would make what happened in July-August 2006 seem mild by comparison.
Having published two articles last month by John Bolton, the hardline former U.S. ambassador to the UN, calling in effect for an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, the Wall Street Journal has this month given space to Chuck Wald, a retired U.S. Air Force general, to argue for an American attack. Should diplomacy and economic pressure fail, he wrote on August 6, a U.S. military strike against Iran was a technically feasible and credible option.
The risks of military action should be weighed against those of doing nothing, he added. ""We risk Iranian domination of the oil-rich Persian Gulf , threats to U.S.-allied Arab regimes, the emboldening of radicals in the region, the creation of an existential threat to Israel, the destabilization of Iraq, the shutdown of the Israel-Palestine peace process and a regional nuclear arms race.""
Every one of Wald's so-called 'risks' is fallacious. Although Iran is already the dominant power in the Persian Gulf, it is very careful not to throw its weight about. It enjoys good relations with most if its Persian Gulf neighbors -- in particular with the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Oman -- and is very careful not to offend or threaten them. It poses, and could pose, no 'existential threat' to Israel. On the contrary, it is Israel's vast nuclear arsenal which permanently threatens its neighbors with annihilation.
It is not Iran but the United States -- egged on by Israel and its friends -- that destroyed and destabilized Iraq, and put in power a Shiite-dominated government on close terms with Tehran. As for shutting down the Israel-Palestine peace process, no such process exists, largely because of Israel's visceral opposition to anything resembling an independent Palestinian state.
The summer heat seems to have released a great deal of poisonous hot air. U.S. President Barack Obama's policies of peace and reconciliation are beginning to seem in danger from warmongers of all stripes. He must act fast, and firmly, if the hopes he aroused are not to be disappointed.
Patrick Seale is a commentator and author of several books on Middle East affairs.
(Source: Gulf News)