A balanced, clear take on what is to be done with Iran from Mr. Kissinger himself.

From Martin Jay

The godfather of modern European intellectual history, Berkeley's Martin Jay, has just released a new book--Songs of Experience: Modern American and European Variations on a Universal Theme. Knowing Jay, I'm sure it's incredible. See the review here.

From Beirut II

"A mysterious and omniscient security-intelligence officer named Stuart told me to pack my bags. He picked me up from the Sheraton Four Points - the sleekwall fountain in the front had been shut down. I had brought some orange sweets with me from Mama Hiam's to offer him, but he declined. He reminded me of those French guys in Munich who hoard confidential information and sell it to dueling governments. As we drove, I noticed how Beirut had never been so cloudy. He said that the gloom was largely due to all the explosions: two layers of grey hung above us. We picked up some Yalies from the American University of Beirutand drove North to Dbayeh.We arrived at Le Royal and met Zado, Zohair, and Yousra, who would cater to our every need in the days to come. The suite was two stories, complete with two bathrooms, two-story window, kitchen, and balcony. The asking price for this suite is $1,300 per night according to the website. I spent the afternoons looking blankly at outdated issues of Time Out Beirut in the health club's Jacuzzi overlooking the Mediterranean, now full of helicopters and war ships. I could turn my head to the south to see Beirut. On the first night, I sat outside on the veranda of the lobby and looked at the city in the distance. I saw three explosions, falling like decaying fireworks. Day by day, the cloud of smoke thickened over Beirut. Day by day, I became accustomed to eating a $33 lunch at Le Jardin Royal and to sitting comatose in the mezzanine of the Opera Garnier. We moved back to Beirut to catch the AUB evacuation. It felt good to be back in the city. I wanted to see and feel its paraplegia. In the afternoon, I went down to the Corniche to the Manara lighthouse, whose crown had been blown to shambles. Then, I walked the 2.5 km to Talet El Khayat and took the elevator to the third floor. When I knocked on the door, Emily asked, "Who is it?" Quietly, I said,"Hassan Nasrallah." Clueless, she opened the door, smiled with soft ignorance, and returned to folding wareq 3anib. I snuck down the hallway and saw Mama Hiam snoring on her couch with the TV on LBC. I found some Sayadiyeh in the fridge, grabbed some Saudi dates, and had lunch on the balcony...now in the orchestra. I returned to the living room and sat on the chair opposite big Heo, waiting for her to wake up. Her arms flabbed open like an overweight Fantasia dragon. "Inteh houn?" she screamed. She had no clue how I had arrived or what I was doing there, so we ate mangoes and drank Turkish coffee. I took a four hour nap and showered forever. Whenever anyone called, Hiam would tell them how I materialized out of nowhere in her living room. How I had left a five-star hotel-evacuation package to sleep on her couch. I looked in the drawers full of crap I had left behind and pulled out my "bahebek ya philistine" t-shirt, which I had accidentally left in the laundry. Come sunset, I kissed her goodbye. We stood in line for eight hours with hundreds of Arab-Americans holding babies and baggage. The marines - who look like people from White Water and Six Flags- handed out MREs, calorie packed portable meals with magical water-activated heaters inside (bite-size Tabasco and moist towlette included). Stuart stood with us and told us about his compound in Sanaa and how he trained militaries around the world to purge mine fields. The hours of waiting melted together.The rusty Egyptian cruise-ferry boat (followed by an American destroyer or two) zigzagged back and forth between Turkey and Cyprus for twenty hours. I woke up from a nap on the top deck of the ship. Hoary Lebanese grandpas and their grandchildren in Fubu and Chanel were joined in a dabke line, stomping and singing across the width of the deck. When the song changed, a grandpa would break off the line and belly dance with a baby in the middle of the circle as we all sang/clapped along. They were a good pair since neither could handle the shifting equilibrium. After hours of Eurotrash debauchery in Ayia Nappa, a first-class ticket to London, and a bus to Porte Maillot, Beirut has become an internet news package on bbcnews.com with hyperlinks titled "What is Hizbullah?" I am not there anymore (was I ever?). People here ask me if I was frightened. I shake my head. The augmenting emotional distance, however, has become unbearable."

WWIII?

All this talk of World World III is wildly exciting and atrociously silly. Newt Gingrich has outdone himself in bombast, calling the current crisis the latest battles of WWIII. The dangers of this nomenclature are obvious. Most after 9/11 believed we faced the possibility of imminent annihilation from some unknown enemy in the East. Thus, swingly around wildly in the dark against anyone who could possibly pose a threat (i.e. Saddam's non-Islamist Iraq) seemed necessary. But we did so at the price of ignoring the complexities of Islamic fundamentalism and regional power politics, the difficulties of state-building, and what should have been our primary task of shutting down Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan and finding OBL. Now we have a ghastly civil war (well, almost--this month Baghdad has exploded like never before with sectarian bloodshed) on our hands and have abetted the rise of a far stronger and far more unpredictable and ideologically driven power--Ahmadinajad's Iran. Overexaggeration and bombast have hurt us. The war in Iraq has hurt us. Badly. On the other hand, what does it mean to ignore the threat of fundamentalist terror? What does it mean to downplay the possibility of an 9/11 repeat? The comparisions made to Chamberlain's 1938 appeasement of Hitler are so hackneyed I dare not repeat them here. But it's true--treating bad guys lightly can lead to trouble. No shit. But balance needs to be found between outright war and clammy appeasement. And history is not a perfect teacher. Indeed, Clausewitz reminds us of this: it is impossible to find strategic or tactical principles in history that apply perfectly to the present since all strategic/military situations are different and infinitely complex. Thus, although the bold cries of appeasement are relevant, they may not point towards the same solution that would have been appropriate to the Allies in 1938 Europe--namely, immediate military confrontation with the Third Reich. Gingrich's re-labeling of the conflict, so he purports, forces the world to chose which side it is on: that of American democracy and capitalism or Taliban-style fundamentalism. And, if we are really fighting an apocalyptic struggle between good and evil, then all means (invasion of Iraq, annihiliation of Lebanon, bombing of Iran, etc.) seem necessary. Hasn't the embarrisingly unsuccesful three-year experiment in Iraq shown the bankruptcy of such appeals? Guess not. (Listening to Thom Yorke's new album, however, doesn't help--it's pretty apocalyptic too, although unfortunately not so artistically breathtaking.) Let's face it: the idea of the Apocalypse has probably been the most capitivating idea in the post-Classical West. It's exciting, aesthetically captivating, and gives us a sense of urgency, a sense that we are living in a world-historical epoch. That right now is the time to live and to die. That we are deciding the fate of history and that we want to be the good guys. America needs to get over its post WWII smugness and arrogance. We fought and won a good and important war. It is the very nature of things, however, that every war since will be completely different.

Where is Baghdad?

What has happened to Iraq since this strange new war in the Middle East has broken out? Does anyone remember Baghdad, or does the daily report of 40, 50, 60 dead in car bombings, kidnappings, and beheadings no longer mean anything to the reading West? (To be honest, I'm pretty numbed; it always seems a little odd not to wake up to at least a 30+ body count on the NYT website...) Over the past month, things have gotten a lot worse, and I think most (distracted by Hezbollah, Israel, etc.) haven't realized how hopeless things now are in Baghdad. Here's a really nice feature from Foreign Affairs that may help to keep us focused. Make sure to check out the responses and discussion.

Finally.

The 2006 issue of The Yale Philosophy Review is just about ready to go to the publishers, and I will link it as soon as it gets online. It will feature an article by friend and blogger Dan Koffler on perdurantism and worm theory and an interview with Richard Rorty.

From Beirut

An email from a good friend who has just been evacuated from Beirut:

"My lanky Saudi cousin stepped into the living room with his XXL "Real Men Don't Need Viagra" t-shirt. He announced that he had just finished his twenty-third episode of the series Lost. His sister stood up and asked, "Anyone wanna go eat junk?" They returned with salt & vinegar Pringles, two scoops of Nutella in a bowl, and golden Pepsi leftover from the World Cup. His ghetto-fabulous Nokia-mp3 player rang with Sean Paul. His father was calling from Riyadh: he just bought a new blue Lexus ES 30!!The phones ring a couple times an hour, and it's usually the Saudi parents checking up on their kids. Together, they and Mama Hiam make sure the kids stay informed, amused, and sometimes sedated (as happened yesterday). After lunch the other day, I found Hiam plopped on the ground like a walrus playing cards with the grand kids while LBC screened Fayrouz and shots of the blasted Chtoura highway. Heo was sifting through her collection of civil war stories--the one about the polyglot beggar in Hamra who turned out to be an Israeli spy, the one with Hiam opening the door of her Fiat to see three dead bodies with their brains down on the road, and the one about Hiam's illicit one night stand with Ariel Sharon.When anyone calls to check up on her, she begins her hadeeth with, "malee khayfeh, wa ana hal dhul hoon ("Me, I'm not scared and I'm gonna stay here)." And she really has no reason to be frightened. Beirut proper should remain untouched however long this vicious, unjustified attack lasts. Should the Israelis threaten her personal safety, she can go up to the mountains like many Beirutis have already, or the UN will ship her off to Saudi since her daughter is a UNDP official.It's Sunday morning, and, more than 85 Lebanese civilians later, Israeli warplanes are still exercising the right to self-defense. Some American security official called my mobile about an hour ago and told me that I'll be evacuated today to Cyprus. All the Atlanta Syrians/Lebanese are in touch, and they haven't heard anything from the Embassy. When I first felt the Israeli warplanes in the sky, the blood sank out of my body. The whole building quaked as they dropped bombs not too far away on the south end of Beirut. When the sun rose that morning, I could see from my balcony the smoke rising from the Dahyeh power plant. My apartment building is on a hill (Talet el Khayat -- the tailor's hill), and Dahyeh is about 15 minutes away, between my house and the airport. Our balcony faces south.In addition to barricading the country by sea, they also bombed all the runways in the country, mobile service towers, electricity power plants, and of course the vast majority of the roads to Syria (thereby murdering more Lebanese flies in the process).Throughout the mornings and the afternoons, we hear/feel Israeli warplanes flying about, and once I actually saw one from the balcony heading west towards the Med. They are real! not imaginary! real! flown by real people!We have the usual five star lunch (complete with freshly pressed lemonade and fine linens) and just keep eating the buttered artichokes and broiled lamb while the planes buzz and bomb. It reminds me of that scene from the end of HEARTBREAK HOUSE. A part of me felt disgusted to be indulging in such a luxurious lunch (which is the norm at Hotel Hiam) while those white planes were bouncing about. But life keeps on moving as best it can even though the temptation to glue myself in front of the tv/computer/radio is great.They struck Manara, the new lighthouse just 2.5 kilometers down the corniche, and the keys jumped off the table in the foyer. Manara is just after the Bain Militaire and adjacent to the Palace Café where my friend and I joked about a Mediterranean tsunami drowning us while smoking arguileh. I know the lighthouse is exactly two and half kilometers away because it was the climax of my morning jog. Every .5 kilometers along the corniche, there are distancemarkers, leftover from a marathon in Beirut.I saw pictures of Manara on the television, expecting to see a crumbled lighthouse. But actually, only the top was blown to pieces. It was still standing. No, it doesn't symbolize the will of the Lebanese. It's more a demonstration of Israel's technique. It is the precision and the efficiency of the Israeli war on Lebanon that terrifies me. They make a decision to blow out the radar system in the light house in official meetings, and two hours later they do it in addition to scaring the shit out of the city.Before Hizbullah attacked the military ship (all of which we could hear), Israeli jets broke the sound barrier, resulting in two consecutive, very tangible sonic booms. The impact of the boom launches all the parked cars into panic. Not sure how a sonic boom over Beirut is gonna convince Hizbullah to compl{ to Israeli demands, but whatever.It does send the city into a brief state of hysteria. Everyone rushes out onto the balcony, looking for SOMETHING, ANYTHING...but of course the jets are long gone by the time we step outside.We were sitting at a café in Patraciat, and the news was blaring on a big screen. When the news flashed to Mr. Bush, he asserted Israel's right to self-defense and called upon Syria toexert its influence to disarm Hizbullah. We sunk in our chairs and made sure to distance ourselves from the screen.The American government blocks a Security Council resolution for a ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel, tacitly allowing Israel to tear Lebanon apart like a UGA quarterback raping a passed out blond. How proud I feel to be hopping on this American deus ex machina."

Auschwitz

This weekend I visited Auschwitz outside of Krakow, Poland. It was, of course, a harrowing experience, although somewhat diluted by the tour I was on and the number of tourists visiting the camp. An important experience, however, and an interesting counterpoint to the visit I made last year to Dachau outside of Munich. Visiting these places one cannot help but a feel a sense of dread that something this terrible, this evil could be occurring right now in some part of the world of which we are not aware. On a smaller scale perhaps, but still this inhuman. Or even worse, that something this evil does exist today of which we are aware but whose gravity we underestimate or whose existence we would rather ignore. Of course, I thought of Darfur (and in a moment of serious cynicism, Guantanamo Bay). What the hell is happening on the ground in Darfur? Do we have any idea? What is rationally within the power of the West to do to stop it? I have been following The New Republic's self-proclaimed "crusade" to force action on this issue, although not too closely. Can someone point me towards some well-balanced literature on this issue? Something that keeps in mind strategic and political realities?
(Photo mine.)

Two New Things

I'm curious to have first-hand reports of Tom Stoppard's apparently brilliant new play Rock'N'Roll which has just premiered in London. The Guardian has nice things to say and what I've read about it makes it sound pretty fascinating--something like a mix between Václav Havel and Pink Floyd. I'm also eager to hear Thom Yorke's recently released solo album The Eraser. Again, The Guardian reports. I've been a little out of the loop for the past few months and had no idea either of these British artists were about to debut something new. If you have seen the play or heard the disc, leave me your thoughts...

Clarification

Let me rephrase something: it is only my pessimism about the possibility of an international, Kantian world-republic that leads me to say things like "The battle of civilization against terrorist barbery itself inevitably becomes barbaric. The price the West has always had to pay for wealth, security and democracy has been the blood of others. But I can't see any other way." My apologies for such a wild statement: I sound as if I believe that the "slaughter-house of history" justifies itself by the fruits of civilization. We can't believe such simplistic things anymore. I owe a clarification:

Israel does have the right to protect its democratic political institutions from radical religious terror. But it must curb its violence as the humanitarian consequences of this struggle are beginning to mount. It must not bring Lebanon 20 years back into the past.

Back

I haven't posted in ages. This upside-down/backwards German keyboard doesn't help. Travelling, lack of internet connections in my apartment, and back-breakingly difficult German lessons have all kept me away. That faced with the dilemma of planning my post B.A. existence in the coming year or so. Anyway, a lot has happened. Italy won the World Cup and Zidane went down in flames (much like, as a friend pointed out, a tragic Greek hero: stunning career, final test, tragic flaw, destined failure.) Although check out what his mother said about Materezzi--"Je suis dégoutée par ce que j'ai entendu, mais fière de l'attitude de mon fils qui a fait honneur à la famille. Si les insultes qu'il a faites s'avèrent vraies, je veux qu'on m'apporte ses testicules sur un plat" (!!).
But much more importantly, and interestingly, of course, is the new war in the Middle East. I have nothing much original to say--the violence is the inevitable result of Iran's growing awareness of its ability to shake things up in the region and its desire to do so as talks stall on its nuclear program, Olmert's desire to prove his new government capable of facing Hezbollah's threat, and the U.S.'s inevitable support for Israeli security. The key questions seem to me:

1) What will Syria do? Will it continue to support Hezbollah and allow its leaders, weapons, and followers to flee Lebanon into Syria? Doing so will surely bring violence to Damascus and put al-Assad's Baathist autocracy into jeopardy--probably a bad thing, considering the alternatives that exist to secular dictatorship in the Arab world. Can it afford to cut ties to Hezbollah, however, when the group's main sponser--Iran--is increasingly Syria's only friend in the region?
2) What will happen to Lebanon's nascent democracy? Bush is calling on Israel for restraint in its bombing campaign in order to keep Beirut's democratic coaltion goverment from falling. But as an Arab official recently remarked, this effectively means the U.S. telling Israel to drop four bombs instead of five to destroy a target. The U.S. can't afford to lose a semi-stable democracy in the region; look at the alternatives--Iran, Palestine, Iraq.
3) What kind of diplomacy is possible? The U.S. won't officially speak to Iran, Hezbollah, or Hamas, the main players in the current conflict. And unless the rules change, this seems to rule out any effective, U.S. backed bargaining except between the Lebanese government ("Stop providing shelter for Hezbollah") and Israel ("Stop bombing, when you find it convenient"). A permament diplomatic solution to the problem looks unlikely for now.

My predictions: A week or two of continued hostilities. A short Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. Big losses for Hezbollah in arms, manpower, and territory. But not total defeat. A more confident, brazen, and angry Iran emerging out of all of this. An Arab world (Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia) awakened to the threat Iran poses to their regional interests. Increasing cooperation between the Arab world and the U.S. to deal with Iran. Increasing impatience on Israel's part with Iran's nuclear program and belligerence.
I greave for the innocent deaths on each side of the boarder. The irony, as it is today with asymmetrical warfare, is that Israel is responsible for far more civilian deaths than Hezbollah while at the same time actively seeking to avoid these deaths, warning the civilian populations of Hezbollah-heavy towns to get the hell out. Hezbollah, on the other hand, has killed very few Israeli civilians despite their earnest intention to do so. The battle of civilization against terrorist barbery itself inevitably becomes barbaric. The price the West has always had to pay for wealth, security and democracy has been the blood of others. Is there another way?