A New Response to the Same Old Crisis

Michael Barone, in my opinion, is the best commentator on politics and world affairs. He is calm, logical, and incisive. Here is his take on the latest Middle East crisis at RealClearPolitics.com. What Barone points out is that the Bush administration is right to do things differently this time: no pressuring of Israel to stop military action prematurely, no rushing to engage in shuttle diplomacy that is an unmistakable signal of weakness to the Middle Eastern mentality, and no more pleas for Israel to give up land. Appeasement did not work with Hitler because Hitler would never give up his ambition of conquering all of Europe. Appeasement does not work with those now attacking Israel because they will never give up their ambition to destroy Israel. That means that the table has to be overturned. The game as played for years now favors the irrational who seek the destruction of Israel. So it's time to turn the chess board over: to create a new playing board with new facts, not to stick to the same dysfunctional constraints and parameters of the past. That's a revolutionary approach. Let's call it a "paradigm shift" so as not to alarm unduly the academic types who pontificate over foreign affairs. Whatever you call it, it's what you have to do, sooner or later, with irrational people and nations: throw out the old game that didn't work and start all over with a clean slate. If that happens here, then this crisis will indeed have been an opportunity that was not missed.