SUICIDE BOMBINGS: MEANS TO ONLY ONE END

Winds of Change pointed me to this excellent analytical piece by Stratfor.com on how the tactic of suicide bombings plays into Palestinian long-term strategy. Here is the most central part of their analysis.

The suicide bombing campaign cannot be intended to achieve any significant short-term goal. First, it is not likely to generate a peace movement in Israel --quite the contrary. Second, it locks the United States into alignment with Israel, rather than driving a wedge between the two. Finally, it creates an extreme psychology within the Palestinian community that makes political flexibility all the more difficult. The fervor that creates suicide bombers also creates a class of martyrs whose sacrifices are difficult to negotiate away. The breadth and intensity of the suicide bombings force us to conclude that the Palestinian leadership is focusing on a long-term strategy of holding the Palestinians together in a sense of profound embattlement, transforming the dynamics of the Arab world and then striking at Israel from a position of strength. In short, the Palestinians think that time is on their side and that sacrifices for a generation or two will yield dividends later. If they wait, they will win.

Here Palestinian strategy, intentionally or unintentionally, intersects with that of al Qaeda, which also is committed to a radical transformation of the Islamic world. Its confrontation with the United States is designed to set the stage for this transformation, enabling the Islamic world to engage and defeat the enemies of Islam.

One of the critical mistakes that observers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict make is to analyse the conflict outside of the wider context of the Middle East. Olso was only possible because of the nadir of anti-Western forces in the Arab-Islamic world after the Cold War and Gulf War. The rise of Islamism has changed that calculus - once more raising the hopes of a unified front (this time in pan-Islamic as opposed to pan-Arabic terms) capable of eliminating Western influence and Israel from the region.

Thus, the only way to peace in the Middle East is to create a truly "New Middle East." The United States can either act agressively to foster a liberal, democratic Islamic world, or it will find itself engaged in a long conflict with a militant Islamic world dreaming of recovering past glories and repaying past defeats.