This is a fantastic article you MUST read. Condi, GWB, etc. wanted a new Middle East and it looks like they just might get it. But it's not the one they wanted.
This is published in the Stratfor, which is read by hedge funds, oil and gas execs, etc. and is some terrific analysis of the potential power shift.
An extraordinary thing happened in the Middle East this month. An Israeli army faced an Arab army and did not defeat it -- did not render it incapable of continued resistance. That was the outcome in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973 and 1982. But it did not happen in 2006. Should this outcome stand, it will represent a geopolitical earthquake in the region -- one that fundamentally shifts expectations and behaviors on all sides. It is not that Hezbollah defeated the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). It did not...
As it stands, logic holds that, given the tenuous nature of the cease-fire, casus belli on Israel's part can be found and the war reinitiated. Given the mood in Israel, logic would dictate the fall of Olmert, his replacement by a war coalition and an attempt to change the outcome. But logic has not applied to Israeli thinking during this war.
We have been consistently surprised by the choices Israel has made, and it is not clear whether this is simply Olmert's problem or one that has become embedded in Israel. What is clear is that, if the current outcome stands, it will mean there has been a tremendous earthquake in the Middle East. It is cheap and easy to talk about historic events. But when a reality that has dominated a region for 58 years is shattered, it is historic. Perhaps this paves the way to new wars. Perhaps Olmert's restraint opens the door for some sort of stable peace.
But from where we sit, he was sufficiently aggressive to increase hostility toward Israel without being sufficiently decisive to achieve a desired military outcome. Hezbollah and Iran hoped for this outcome, though they did not really expect it. They got it. The question on the table now is what they will do with it. .
