Truman Had Low Poll Numbers but He Was Decisive!

Iran's interior minister accused US, British and Israeli intelligence as being behind the attack on a bus in Iran 's capital of Bulchistan near the border with Pakistan and Afghanistan. The attacked bus was carrying members of the National Revolutionary Guards. Eleven were killed and 30 injured.

Lately, more attacks against Iranians inside Iran are beginning to give the government some jitters. There are those in the West who believe the interior ministers accusation is a prelude to justify an Iranian revenge attack. There are a growing number of DC'ites who believe GW is setting about to provoke an overstep by Iran and thus orchestrate a public outcry for the attack they claim GW is planning on Iran. This could also be a ploy, as I have stated before, by this who want to cut him off at the pass and thus, preclude anything they fear he might be planning.

Sec. Rice ended her tri-lateral meeting pledging she will return. No doubt she had to make some kind of re-assuring statement but the conference between Abbas, Olmert and Rice was the flop it was predicted to be. Olmert cannot, and should not, negotiate with a unity government committed to his nation's destruction. There are those who argue he should, because it props up Abbas. Why prop up Abbas? What has he accomplished? He is weak, willing to buy into Hamas's defiance in order to sell the EU on financing his own plight. Abbas is now leaving for Europe to do just that.

The Saudis gutted TRM by blessing a unity government which contravenes everything the Quartet insists upon, ie no more terror, acceptance of previous agreements and recognition of the State of Israel. Though the Saudis deny it they backed up the Mecca meeting with a significant financing package if the unity government holds.

In time, the third attempt at a unity government will assuredly fall apart because Hamas is not going to agree to anything necessary to provide the cover Abbas needs and Fatah is not likely to want to become subjugated to the rule of Hamas any more than they already have.

I suspect the Palestinians will be back to killing each other and blame Israeli intransigence. That is the pattern from which Hamas and Fatah seem incapable of extracting themselves. (See 1 below.)

Meanwhile, the Jordanian Times reports Syria and Iran profess they have strengthened their relationship. (See 2 below.)

Jeff Jacoby chimes in and writes why there is no justification for a Palestinian state and Jacoby fills in what the media failed to report. (See 3 below.)

What Admiral Fallon has to say will become increasingly important as he assumes his new post. Richard Halloran reports on Fallon's thoughts. (See 4 below.)

I have just returned from seeing "Letters From Iwo Jima." Great movie and again proves how tragic war is. But we are at war and GW has done a poor job of convincing us we are at war. He cannot make a speech and then fade away. He let the media define him because no WMD were found and Sadaam was allegedly not linked to terrorism. Sadaam was himself a WMD and he financed terrorists with laundered UN money. We are at war, a war that is more difficult than any we have fought because our might alone is not going to carry the day. You win wars. You do not allow yourself to be defeated.

I have said, and I repeat, the American people understand war and are willing to accept casualties but only if they are convinced we are winning and/or are committed to win. So when they see us failing to do what is necessary to win they become easy pickings for the cut and run crowd - for those who forced our defeat in Viet Nam.

That said, I believe the Democrats and their candidates are digging a hole for themselves with their whining and bring the troops home defeatist strategy. Truman had low poll ratings but he was steadfast in his purpose and history ultimately gave his presidency high marks. Truman was decisive but he too was a poor communicator. I never will forget those thick glasses, which magnified his eyes, and those hands that went up and down, in a hackneyed style, as he talked.

GW does not have a great deal of time to get his train back on track and unless he is decisive and convincing the Democrats will continue to derail him at every turn and do it with nothing but negativism. That will be sad for all concerned.

Israel lost 117 soldiers in the Lebanon War which lasted a few months. On a population equivalency with our country that is over 5500 lives and yet the Israelis were totally behind the government until they became convinced Olmert did not know what he was doing.

Democrats have been allowed to preach, virtually unchallenged, we can afford to lose in Iraq and suffer no serious consequences. In fact, their argument goes, that we will save the billions we are spending on the war and the lives we are losing. If voters buy that argument the ultimate price will be astronomic because a nuclear Iran linked with a nuclear N Korea will put our very freedoms at risk.

The same was said about Hitler, that he did not mean what he said, that he would not be foolish enough to believe he could conquer Europe. After all the French had the Maginot Line. Hitler conquered Europe in less than 6 months and had he not pulled back from finishing Britain and making the mistake of attacking Russia we might now be studying Mein Kampf in our school rooms.

Dick

1) Top Hamas official: US 'sowing sedition'


A senior Hamas official on Monday accused the United States of "sowing sedition" among the Palestinians, hours after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held a rare summit with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

Moussa Abu Marzouk, Hamas's deputy political leader, told a Palestinian rally at the Yarmouk refugee camp near this Syrian capital that US policy was based on "sowing sedition among the peoples and states of the region through dividing the Middle East into two camps: A moderate camp and a non-moderate one."

Monday's three-way summit - initially billed as a new peace push - produced few results amid concerns over an emerging Palestinian unity government led by Hamas.

Rice said following the two-hour meeting in Jerusalem that the two sides exchanged views of the political future and agreed to hold another summit.

On Sunday, Rice said in the West Bank city of Ramallah that she wouldn't judge the new Palestinian government until it has been formed.

Abu Marzouk, who lives in exile in Syria, thanked Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, for resisting what he called "US pressures" exerted by Rice during her visit.

"These pressures exerted by Rice on Abu Mazen during Sunday's and Monday's meetings to abandon the agreement [with Hamas] and promising him support, and his resisting these pressures deserve appreciation," Abu Marzouk told the rally.

The international community has demanded that any Palestinian government recognize Israel, accept previous peace deals and renounce violence, but the coalition government deal, forged earlier this month in Saudi Arabia, only pledges to "respect" past peace agreements.

Abu Marzouk praised the power-sharing government agreement designed to stop fighting between Hamas and Abbas's more moderate Fatah party. The agreement allows the government to be based on "partnership, rather than domination of one party on power," he said.

On Sunday, Abu Marzouk called on the US administration and the international community to deal positively and reasonably with a Palestinian national unity government.

2) Syria on Sunday denied any rift between Damascus and Iran during a visit to Tehran by Syrian President Bashar Assad, who accused the "enemies" of Islamic countries of trying to sow discord.... some Arab diplomats have said Syria feels betrayed by Iran because of a joint Iranian-Saudi Arabian effort to clamp down on sectarian tensions in Iraq and violence in Lebanon. Syria has largely alienated many of its traditional Arab allies but has had close ties to Iran for years.
Arab observers have said there are also newfound tensions between majority
Shiite Iran and majority Sunni Syria over their differing interests in Iraq.
Such 'differing interests' don't affect their mutual support of
Hizbullah in Lebanon.

"The creation of a rift among Muslims is their latest weapon, which is more
dangerous than their previous plans," Assad was quoted as saying on the
Iranian state television's website... the Syrian president also accused the
US and Israel of having "ominous aims". During his visit, Assad met Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and top
nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani.

Ahmadinejad described Assad's visit as fruitful and called for greater
cooperation between their countries."Current situations in the region,
especially in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon and Afghanistan, have doubled the
need for cooperation and coordination between Iran and Syria, particularly
to confront plots by enemies," ... .

The Baath newspaper of Syria's ruling Baath Party ...In a published
editorial ... Baath wrote, "Though their visions are not identical on
everything, they however agree on two basic issues, Iraqi unity and the
departure of the occupation forces, and the support of the political process
in Iraq."...During the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, Syria was the only Arab
country to support Iran.. . . the elite Revolutionary Guards will launch
their second war games in a month on 19 Feb....The Revolutionary Guards is
an elite military corps with more than 200,000 members and its own naval and
air forces.It oversees vital interests such as oil and natural gas
installations and the nation's missile arsenal.

3) Has any population ever been less suited for statehood than the Palestinians?
By Jeff Jacoby


The tong war between Fatah and Hamas was raging last month when Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas addressed a Fatah rally in Ramallah. "The priority for me is preserving national unity and preventing internal fighting," he told the crowd on Jan. 11. "Shooting at your brother is forbidden."


But Abbas made clear it was only intra-Palestinian bloodshed he opposed. Attacking Jews was still OK.


"We should put our internal fighting aside and raise our rifles only against the Israeli occupation," he said, according to a World Net Daily report. In a nod to his Arab rivals, he praised arch-terrorist Ahmed Yassin, the co-founder of Hamas who was killed by Israel in 2004. For good measure, he threw in some anti-Semitic boilerplate: "The sons of Israel are mentioned as those who are corrupting humanity on earth."


Most media accounts of the Fatah rally mentioned only Abbas's "unity" remarks, leaving out the gamier stuff about raising rifles against the humanity-corrupters (AP headline: "Abbas calls for respect at Fatah rally"). In similar fashion, news reports have rarely pointed out that in the Gaza Strip, where the Fatah-Hamas street battles have taken place, the "occupation" ended in August 2005, when Israel razed 21 Jewish settlements and expelled every Jew from the territory. For all intents and purposes, there has been a sovereign Palestinian state in Gaza for the past 18 months. The anarchy and violence, the kidnappings, the myriad of armed gangs — that is the authentic face of Palestinian statehood. Take a good look.


"In the State of Palestine," writes columnist Caroline Glick in the Jan. 30 JWR, "two-year-olds are killed and no one cares. Children are woken up in the middle of the night and murdered in front of their parents. Worshipers in mosques are gunned down by terrorists who attend competing mosques. . . . In the State of Palestine, women are stripped naked and forced to march in the streets to humiliate their husbands. Ambulances are stopped on the way to hospitals and the wounded are shot in cold blood."


The wonder is not that the Palestinian Authority seethes with violence and instability; there are other places too where bloodshed is the daily fare. The wonder is not that the Palestinians, who receive copious amounts of international aid — more than $1.2 billion last year from Western governments alone — channel so much of their resources and energy into weapons and warfare. The wonder is that so many voices still push for a Palestinian state.


But has any population ever been less suited for statehood than the Palestinians? From the terrorists they choose as leaders to the jihad promoted in their schools, their culture is drenched in violence and hatred. Each time the world has offered them sovereignty — an offer that the Kurds or the Chechens or the Tibetans would leap at — the Palestinians have opted instead for bloodshed and rejectionism.


"What do you want more," a frustrated Shimon Peres once asked Yasser Arafat, "a Palestinian state or a Palestinian struggle?" Over and over, Palestinians have chosen the "struggle." The very essence of Palestinian national identity is a hunger for Israel's destruction. Both the Fatah and Hamas charters call for the obliteration of the Jewish state through bloodshed. A two-state solution — Israel and Palestine living peacefully side-by-side — is emphatically not what the Palestinians seek. No amount of Israeli concessions or American wheedling or Quartet cajoling is likely to change that.


So why does the Bush administration continue to pretend otherwise?


"There is simply no reason to avoid the subject of how we get to a Palestinian state," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice blithely asserted Feb. 2, even as the best reason to do so — the Palestinians' unfitness for self-government — was on display in Gaza's streets. Last week Abbas agreed to form a "unity" government with Hamas, making any prospect of peace with Israel more remote. Yet next week Rice will host a summit meeting with Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and there will be a fresh flood of empty words about peace and statehood.


James Woolsey, who served as director of central intelligence under President Clinton, said recently that it would take "many decades" before Palestinian society is civilized enough for statehood. Even some Palestinians might agree. "Everyone here is disgusted by what's happening in the Gaza Strip," Shireen Atiyeh, 30, a Palestinian Authority government worker, told the Jerusalem Post. "We are telling the world that we don't deserve a state. . . Today I'm ashamed to say that I'm a Palestinian."


When will it be time to consider statehood for Palestine? When it is led by people like her.

4) Adm. Fallon Reflects on Leaving Pacific
By Richard Halloran

When Admiral William Fallon turns over the helm of the Pacific Command to Admiral Timothy Keating next month, he will leave behind what he says are "a lot of things that are works in progress."

"I leave this job with great reluctance and with no small sense of loss," he said in an interview. He noted in particular the relationships cultivated throughout the Asia-Pacific region in the two years he has commanded US forces from the west coast of North America to the east coast of Africa. He had planned to stay in this assignment for another year.

The admiral goes from the Pacific Command's relatively stable area of responsibility to take charge of the Central Command, with headquarters in Tampa, Florida, where he will be responsible for all US forces in the Middle East, including those in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and the Persian Gulf. In that turbulent region, the odds for success may be stacked against him.

Fallon acknowledged the thorny issues that will confront him in his new post where he plans to travel as much as he did in Pacific Command, meeting everyone from heads of government to soldiers who pull triggers. "Those nations have a slew of problems," he said. "There are not so many nations as in Pacific Command but they have more problems and problems that are more difficult to deal with."

Among the works in progress the admiral noted:

China With the backing of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Fallon has nurtured a gradual expansion of military exchanges with China. Those contacts are intended to assure the Chinese that the US is not planning to attack them but also to caution them not to miscalculate US military power.

An intriguing question: In his new assignment, will the admiral, who has visited China three times, seek help from China in Iraq or Afghanistan or in the war on terror? He declined to speculate on specifics. He noted that tensions between China and Taiwan had been reduced and that Pacific Command had been "working with Taiwan to build a credible defense."

Terror and Piracy In the southern Philippines, Fallon said, US special operations forces had achieved some success in helping the Filipino armed forces in their fight against Muslim terrorists known as Abu Sayyaf.

In the Straits of Malacca and the South China Sea, Indonesian, Malaysian, and Singaporean forces have reduced piracy and, so far, prevented a tie-up between pirates and terrorists. "They are doing it," Fallon said, "and we are helping in the background."

Contingency Plans The admiral said he had ordered the command's contingency plans, such as sending reinforcements to South Korea to fend off a North Korean invasion, to be overhauled and tested "to make sure we can do it."

Fallon said he had placed renewed emphasis on what military planners call "Phase Zero," which is to engage both friendly nations and potential adversaries in an effort to head off open conflict. "We did this so we would not have to employ the kinetic parts of the plan--not have to shoot'em up."

Posturing US Forces As part of the Global Posture Review initiated by former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Fallon surveyed US forces in the Asia-Pacific region to see whether they "were in locations and of the size appropriate for today and tomorrow."

This included a strategic review with Japan that led to plans for establishing a headquarters for a US Army corps there and moving 8000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam, a new pivot point for US forces in this region. In addition, submarines and bombers are being based in Guam. A sixth aircraft carrier may be added to the Pacific fleet. A reduction of US troops in South Korea has begun and Fallon said "there will be additional changes in the future."

The admiral did a final assessment of Asian and Pacific nations having security arrangements with the US. Japan: "Reaffirmed commitment." Singapore: "Wonderful relations." Indonesia: "Renewed relations." India: "New partner." Australia: "Staunch ally."

Admiral Fallon said he had sent a team to brief Admiral Keating in Colorado where he heads the Northern Command responsible for US homeland security. Keating has served in Pacific Command in Hawaii and led an aircraft carrier group based in Japan. At one time, he commanded the Naval Strike Warfare Center in Nevada, perhaps best known as the site of the Navy's "Top Gun" competition.