"Warburg in Rome" — I've read on in this James
Carroll novel, much of it, so far, at any rate (I'm halfway through) set in or
near the Vatican during and just after World War II. The novel does not lack
for verisimilitude, far from. You never doubt that Carroll knows this terrain
intimately, from the architecture of Vatican buildings and offices on through
the protocols that govern all orders of the Catholic hierarchy. Carroll knows
it historically, as well, including the efforts by some in that hierarchy, when
Germany had clearly lost the war, to create a Catholic state to serve as a buffer against the atheistic Stalin, and
to provide Nazi higher-ups with a way out, passports and safe haven, until the
Reich might rise again.
Saturday, September 27, 2014
Friday, September 26, 2014
What to do about ISIS?
ISIS has proclaimed itself to be is a new
state, and beyond that, a caliphate. Let's for now agree the caliphate part,
with its references to ascendant Islam, is at best aspirational.
But upshot ISIS does have has the money, arms
and territory to qualify as a state, esp. in a Middle East where old
definitions of statehood are in tectonic (I'd like to say quantum) flux.
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
James Carroll's Warburg in Rome: Jews & Catholics
Reading "Warburg in Rome" a recent novel by James Carroll. James Carroll is author
of, among other things, "Constantine's Sword," an account of the historic
swerve toward anti-Semitism by the Roman Empire, under Constantine, in league
with the Papacy. Carroll remains a Catholic. I don't know he manages that, nor
do I know how anyone remains any sort of professing true believer, though I
know many who aspire or pretend to.
Carroll's Catholicism is exquisitely self-aware,
self-conscious, and self-critical.
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
President D'Artagnan
Maybe President Obama, reluctant warrior that he is, can,
perhaps because of that, be an astoundingly nimble combatant. Maybe, for
example, he can attack ISIS in Syria, as he just has, while sparing a few bombs
for the new al Qaeda offshoot known as Khorasan, which, unlike ISIS, absorbed
in crazed dreams of long-gone caliphates, is in fact targeting the United
States, then pivot swiftly enough to parry Assad.
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Another GW Bush moment?
Are we heading for another GW Bush moment? Irreversible geopolitical
catastrophe?
An editorial in today's NY Times (9/21/14) sensibly asked:
"The Unlikeliest of Coalitions: Can Adversaries Become Allies to Fight
ISIS?"
After summing up the formidable obstacles in the way of an
American war aimed at the destruction of ISIS — a war that must orchestrate
unity among historically fractious powers of the Middle-East, doesn't call on
American ground troops, and did not engender more Islamist terrorism than it deters
— the editorial concluded that things would go just fine provided that there
were "some kind of political settlement in Syria, an inclusive government
in Iraq and some reduction in the Sunni-Shiite tensions that created space for
ISIS to grow."
Monday, September 15, 2014
Got bombs. What about brains?
The name of Machiavelli comes up in discussions of ISIS and
the American response to it.
My view is that it would take someone with at least the
skills of a Machiavelli to lead this new American intervention in the Middle
East, which will involve attacking ISIS without working (openly) with either Shiite
Iran or its Alawite ally Assad; getting Turkey on board while aiding the Kurdish
Peshmerga; arming the Peshmerga against ISIS; inducing Saudi Arabia to
cooperate with Qatar, though these two are at loggerheads with regard to the
Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (Qatar
for the Brotherhood, the Saudis against); getting Egypt’s General Sisi to do
something vaguely useful so he can get back more American aide; urging/compelling
Iraq's new Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi, not to be the second coming of
Nouri-al-Maliki, whose treatment of Sunnis helped bring ISIS into being. . .
(Haven't even had cause to mention Israel and the
Palestinians, have I?)
Jack Beatty has opined that the success of this new military
intervention will require three miracles. I've counted more.
This new intervention will require the wiles of a Machiavelli
and the fancy footwork of a Fred Astaire.
Such finesse is not the forte of American policy in the Middle
East, is it?
And who do we have braying at Obama from the sidelines? John
McCain, Dick Cheney, and Hillary Clinton.
Me, I wish Obama could have held off from doing "stupid
stuff" just a bit longer. We've done "stupid stuff" a plenty. He
might have extended the pause, since it's not clear we can do smart stuff.
Friday, September 12, 2014
Iraq is over, No?
Hey, Obama, I wouldn't necessarily want your job and suspect
you've had some doubts about wanting it too, dating back to that debate with
Romney you snored through, you threw.
Cuban Missile Crisis: The War That Wasn't. . .
Saw the PBS documentary, "Cuban Missile
Crisis: Three Men Go To War", about Kennedy, Khrushchev, Castro and
the aforementioned crisis.
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
Israel seizes land, Abbas goes to the U.N.
Remember all that discussion, argument, flame-war,
occasioned by the war in Gaza? Glad the war is over, and with it, some of the
obsession. But key issues are as unresolved and as hot to the touch as ever.
I can't stand that Israel has just seized 1000 acres of West
Bank land, while peace talks are going on in Cairo and before the proposed
Hamas-PLA unity government has had a chance to take hold.
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
Thoughts about ISIS and what do about it
We, the United States, can't wipe out ISIS. In fact, we
helped create it when we invaded Iraq and disbanded Saddam's Sunni military.
Those well-trained fighters have merged with Sunni fundamentalists and,
according to all accounts, have provided ISIS with tough, seasoned military
leadership.
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