More on the strategic disaster

Billmon's refrain is similar to mine last night, he's truly been outstanding the last month:

At this point I'm not sure if the Israeli branch of the punditburo has yet to recognize the full magnitude of the debacle, or whether it's just trying to put a brave face on it. But this statement, from Ha'aretz's Ze'ev Schiff, is a leading nominee for the Emperor Hirohito Memorial Prize for Ridiculous Understatement:

In regard to other Arab elements, it is very possible that Israeli deterrence will be somewhat undercut.

All the bellicose rhetoric in the world -- like Schiff's threat that Israel will respond with "cruel craziness" if other red lines are crossed in the future -- can't conceal the multiple failures: of a miltary aristocracy's arrogant faith in technology, of an Army that's grown accustomed to waging war against Palestinian teenagers, of a political establishment that believes with zombie-like intensity that the cure for its own incompetence is ever greater applications of military force. (Because, of course, that's the only thing the Arabs understand.)

There will be hell to pay for this fiasco -- coming as it did on top of Uncle Sam's own murder suicide pact in Iraq. When and where that payment wil be demanded isn't clear yet, but if the past is any guide it will be paid in the blood of the innocent, not the guilty. Condi better swap her forceps for a shovel, because it looks like there's going to be a plenty of graves to dig in the "new" Middle East.