I still puzzle over the logic that has led Israel's current regime and its strongest U.S. backers to push for the Iraq War and its in-development sequels. (If you feel inclined to doubt this, see Eric Alterman's piece on what he calls the "Likudniks.") How could pouring gasoline on the fires of Arab and Islamic radicalism and anti-Americanism possibly be good for Israel? It still makes no sense if the goal is saving Israeli lives from suicide bombers and such, a more political answer is suggested by today's news from occupied Iraq suggests.

 It seems fairly obvious that the natural course of events in a free Iraq are much more likely to lead to an Islamic republic than the sort of lapdog western capitalist democracy that the U.S. and Britain want. The Shiite majority in the country, with strong ties to their coreligionists in Iran, are the best organized politically. Their most powerful group stayed away from the U.S.-sponsored confab on a new Iraqi government, which was beset with protesters. Pentagon favorite Ahmed Chalabi could not even attend for fear of being labeled a U.S. puppet, an impression that will always be easy for Iraqi nationalists or Shiite radicals to create (even if it ever turns out not to be true) with few leaflets and chanting crowds. Saddam City, a section of Baghdad that is home to 2 million Shiites, is said to be virtually independent now and controlled by Shiite clerics with their own police. The Kurds are making with the ethnic cleansing in the North, an action that is sure to evoke a violent response from Arabs Iraqis, the Turks or both. Finally, not even a week into the occupation, there's already been an incident in which U.S. soldiers are accused of firing on Iraqi protesters, likely to be the first of many such occasions as Iraq's tumultuous new politics unfold.  

The benefit for Ariel Sharon and the Likudniks would seem to be putting the U.S. in the Israeli government's position of trying to control and cow a hostile Arab population, thereby forcing U.S. forever into the Israeli column on the Palestinian issue. Moreover, the tremendous difficulties of politically pacifying Iraq and preventing it from falling into the hands of Islamic radicals might well force the U.S. to adopt the sort of ruthless tactics that Israel has used against the Palestinians (firing crowds, bulldozing houses, air raids on civilian neighborhoods) or at least preclude U.S from complaining about them. If events and Donald Rumsfeld conspire to wipe out Israel's longtime antagonists up in Syria, so much the better. A major U.S. military presence in Damascus, just a geopolitical stone's throw away from Israel itself, would essentially make Israel's problems our own in a way not dreamt of since Ronald Reagan pulled the troops of Beirut.