What Bill Kristol has learned

Is that after years of unmitigated failure, pushing the same policies are still lucrative -- and completely without risk -- to Bill Kristol:

An Israeli success in Gaza would be a victory in the war on terror — and in the broader struggle for the future of the Middle East. Hamas is only one manifestation of the rise, over the past few decades, of a terror-friendly and almost death-cult-like form of Islamic extremism. The combination of such terror movements with a terror-sponsoring and nuclear-weapons-seeking Iranian state (aided by its sidekick Syria) has produced a new kind of threat to Israel.

But not just to Israel. To everyone in the Middle East — very much including Muslims — who aren’t interested in living under the sway of extremist regimes. And to any nation, like the United States, that is a target of Islamic terror. So there are sound reasons why the United States — whether led by George W. Bush or Barack Obama — will stand with Israel as it fights.

Once again the calculus is this:

-- Random indiscriminate car bomb or ill-aimed mortar -- the most awful tragedy ever.

-- Carpet bombing killing hundreds -- AWESOME!

There's never a question of proportionality as long as a Muslim is on the receiving end of Bill Kristol's notion of justice. Random acts of terror are inexcusable (over 8 years, rocket attacks have killed 15 people when launched from Gaza), but so are massive bombings of regions such as Gaza where the causes of the discontent are never analyzed, rather the people there are just supposed to shut up and accept their poverty and powerless -- accept their maginalization with a smile.

When the fuck has that ever worked out that way? Because the Palestinians haven't produced someone who is "enough" of a Gandhi it's okay to bomb 'em till the rubble bounces?

"Ours is not to question why, ours is just to watch 'em die."

Preserving Israel's right to exist is one thing, perpetuating and encouraging all of the bad shit of the last sixty years in that area again shows the short-comings of the "wise-old men" theory of politics. Kristol knows little about foreign policy that doesn't end in mass-bombing and war. What "non" militaristic foreign policy has the guy ever advocated?

In its own way our countries Middle East policy is no different a failure than our half-century long Cuban policy. Nothing ever changes, though in the former a hell of a lot more people have been killed.

But god forbid we ever try a new approach and advocate people not dying on "both" sides.

[mostly cross-posted at Firedoglake]

(pic Abid Katib/Getty)