The course of things in the Middle East looks grim for the US right now

Israel's previous 18-year occupation of Lebanon is often referred to as "Israel's Vietnam". The current Israel-Lebanon War is starting to look an awful lot like "Israel's Iraq War".

Gideon Levy has a lot of worthwhile things to say in The real estate war by Gideon Levy Ha'aretz 08/06/06. The core of it, though, is this:

This miserable war in Lebanon, which is just getting more and more complicated for no reason at all, was born in Israel's greed for land. Not that Israel is fighting this time to conquer more land, not at all, but ending the occupation could have prevented this unnecessary war. If Israel had returned the Golan Heights and signed a peace treaty with Syria in a timely fashion, presumably this war would not have broken out. ...

For years, Israel has waged war against the Palestinians with the main motive of insistence on keeping the occupied territories. If not for the settlement enterprise, Israel would have long since retreated from the occupied territories and the struggle's engine would have been significant neutralized. Not that a non-occupying Israel would have turned into the darling of the Arab world, but the destructive fire aimed at Israel would have significantly lessened, and those who continued to fight Israel would have found themselves isolated. (my emphasis)

In other words, the brilliant and legendary victory of Israel's in the Six Day War of 1967 has led to four decades of conflict. And unless there's a radical change in Israel's position that is not currently on the political horizon, they may have decades more of the same.

For American policy, it means a lot of things. But given that Israel and America are virtually the same entity in the eyes of much of the Arab world, a couple of policy priorities seem particularly urgent. One is to avoid any more direct American involvement in wars in the Middle East, especially ones aimed at "regime change" - and that includes getting out of the Iraq War (though as quickly as the situation seems to be deteriorating there, that may soon be a moot point).

The second is to get much more serious about domestic preparedness for major terrorist attacks, including a federal disaster agency that can handle a major urban disaster - maybe even a hurricane! - and a significant build-up of the public health infrastructure. Because we're likely to be targets of jihadist types for a long time to come.

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