SmartRemarks

I’d been meaning for  several days to write about the Obama administration’s appointment of Charles (Chas) Freeman to the chairmanship of the National Intelligence Council. It was a praiseworthy choice that promised new perspectives on foreign intelligence and international relations… and therefore, unsurprisingly, it was controversial in certain corners. But I hadn’t gotten to it yet when the news broke this past Wednesday that, in the face of a barrage of criticism from those corners, Freeman had withdrawn his name from consideration for the position.mild

This is a huge disappointment. It’s also a harbinger of policy battles to come. So I’m still going to write about it. Settle in, this is going to be a long one…

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Sorry I haven’t posted for a few days. But the holiday interregnum is now well and truly over, and the ordinary part of winter has commenced. Kids are back in school, the full staff is back in the office, and as of today the new Congress has been sworn in.

(Of course, that last part took place absent the junior Senators from Minnesota—although Franken’s win in the long, long recount, finally certified yesterday, is heartening, Norm Coleman’s legal challenge will delay things further despite being almost certainly doomed to fail—or Illinois—one can’t help but feel a little bit sympathetic to Roland Burris, but rejecting him as a symbol of Blago’s hubris is the sensible thing to do, and Burris certainly knew what a minefield he was stepping into. From Delaware Joe Biden is actually still there, until his successor is formally appointed on January 20; and likewise New York and Colorado will need new appointees Very Soon Now too, when Hillary Clinton and Ken Salazar move on to the cabinet.)

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At a time of year when most of the rest of the civilized world has been trying to observe a little peace and goodwill, the government of Israel has apparently decided this is a good time to launch “an all-out war to the bitter end” against Hamas… and thus, by extension, against the population of Gaza.

The timing raises questions for reasons that go beyond the season. We’re six weeks away from Israeli elections, in which the right-wing Likud party is favored to win control away from the centrist coalition behind outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert… so there’s the possibility that the current regime is trying to score political points for toughness. We’re three weeks away from Barack Obama’s inauguration, and some White House insiders speculate that Israel’s action was timed to finish before the current administration leaves; others are more cynical, like Middle East scholar Aaron David Miller, quoted as saying “this takes the already slim chance of an early, active and successful Obama engagement on Israel-Palestinian peace and lowers it to about zero.”

Let me stipulate, in order to sidestep the usual straw-man deflections:  Yes, I agree that it’s also bad for Hamas to be lobbing rockets across the border into Israel. And no, I’m not anti-Semitic in any way, shape, or form. However, none of that, nor any possible reason or rationalization Israel may have, either public or private, changes the fact that these bombings are an absolutely unconscionable and illegal act on Israel’s part.

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