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By Ignoring Western Delusions and Attacking Hizbullah, Israel Has Served Western Interests
(Wall Street Journal) Walter Russell Mead - Western foreign-policy elites desperately want to believe that we live in a stable, rules-based international order and that successful foreign policy in our enlightened era depends less on military strength and more on diplomacy, respect for international law, and scrupulous attention to human rights. Nowhere is the game of "Let's Pretend" more assiduously practiced than in Western Middle East policy. In the real world, Iran is a malign and restless power whose fanatical ambition can only be resisted by force. The Palestinian people, whatever the historical rights and wrongs of their predicament, currently lack the leadership, institutions and national consensus that could make a two-state solution work. UNRWA, whatever else it does, enables and nourishes terrorism. The international laws of war have limited relevance in a region in which the UN Charter itself is largely a dead letter. Real peace is not on the table for Israel or any state in the Middle East anytime soon. But in the West's view, peace with Iran is just a couple of diplomatic meetings away. Until the West shakes off the dream that we live on a post-historical planet, Israelis and Arabs alike will have to disregard Western advice to chart their own courses. The writer, a fellow at the Hudson Institute, is Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College.