By Diana West on Saturday, March 20, 2010 4:37 PM

First, it sounded as if Gen. Petraeus were channeling Walt (if not Mearshimer) in his Senate testimony when he invoked the Arabist narrative regarding the "conflict" between Israelis and Palestinians: namely, that Israel is the font of all Islamic violence in the world that the US has to deal with (although how Israel has anything to do with, for example, Muslim massacres in Nigeria, Thailand, India, Pakistan, etc., is never explained).  It was just poisoned icing on the cake that Walt was one of Petraeus' thesis advisors back at Princeton in 1987.

But now, in Sunday's Washington Post. Stephen Walt is quoting Gen. Petraeus -- referring...

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By Diana West on Friday, March 19, 2010 11:23 AM

George Ford writes in:

Your blog on Petraeus makes me wish it's all a "24" episode and I'll grab the remote and delete the story out of existence.

But first, the plot:

The quiet hero-general of the Iraq war gets promoted to regional responsibilities amid talk of a possible presidential bid. His unfairly maligned patron/President/Commander-in Chief leaves office, replaced with a flamboyant Leftist who starts gutting the military and replacing Ollie North look-alikes with Janet Napolitano look-alikes. Just when you think the gutting and compromising with jihad can't get any worse, it cuts to a Pentagon meeting with the Joint Chiefs where the totally compromised Arab lackey Michael Mullen is saying, "So, gentlemen, it's time we move on Israel ...."

Cut to Mullen in the back of a limo saying into his cell phone: "It went well, General."...

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By Diana West on Friday, March 19, 2010 4:31 AM

Photo: Islamic Republic of Afghanistan flag over Marjah

From the AP:

MARJAH, Afghanistan — Crouched on packed earth at a barricaded Marine encampment, the village elders issued their complaint: U.S. troops had killed an innocent 14-year-old boy. Secretly, the Marines didn’t believe them. No matter. They apologized, called the death a tragedy and promised to offer a condolence payment to the boy’s family.

Here we see the act of assuaging "Arab anger" -- something of primary concern to Gen. Petraeus and the Obama administration -- in its wider Islamic context: Apologize for no reason and pay up. Or, in Islamic terms, prostrate one's self as befits an infidel and offer jizya-style protection money. Call it the COIN/sharia twofer.

It’s all part...

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By Diana West on Thursday, March 18, 2010 7:04 PM

There is an intensifying debate over how exactly Gen. David Petraeus regards Israel. (I have written about it here, here  and here.) On the one hand are the general's words -- first, as related in a blog posted at Foreign Policy, and, later, in the general's own written statement recently submitted to the US Senate Armed Services Committee. On the other hand are his supporters, who don't believe his words, either as reported in Foreign Policy (which they don't believe, either) or even...

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By Diana West on Thursday, March 18, 2010 2:54 PM

This week's column:

Phew. We can breathe easier now that the Obama administration has taken a tough-as-scimitars line with Israel, whose existentially threatening architectural blueprints for new housing, the administration says, pose a dire threat to U.S. troops and interests. Or, as Vice President Joseph Biden put it, referring to a new housing project in Jerusalem, as reported by Yedioth Ahronoth: "This is starting to get dangerous for us. What you're doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan." In other words, maybe it's not the Muslim-made IED planted in the roads of Helmand Province that's the problem; maybe it's the Jewish-built condo in Jerusalem. Such is the babble of the jihad-blackmailed. And the problem with giving in to blackmail is that it never ends.

...

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