Redstate

 If the substance of your post is that that Israel is an important American asset that we have a vested interest in seeing remain intact and remain pro-American, thus providing us with in-region intelligence and a safe haven from which to launch our own operations, whatever they may be, great.

 But:

Happily, Israel needs no material or military support; she is perfectly capable of taking care of herself, which is in part why -- and sometimes I wonder if Americans realize this -- she is such a valuable ally.

 This isn't really a correct portrayal of the situation, is it? We gave Israel somewhere over 2 billion specifically in military foreign aid for at least the past 2 years, and I've read that Israel represents approximately 1/3rd of all American foreign aid. I imagine much of the military aid comes back when Israel purchases American defence products, but it doesn't seem accurate to suggest Israel is even remotely close to being a self-sustaining nation capable of defending itself, let alone that their 'independence' is their value to us anyway.

 They're in a strategically important geographic position, they openly profess support of America and our interests, and I would guess they do in fact allow us to do whatever we want and provide some kind of material support back to us 95% of the time we ask. That is their value to America, and no doubt worth the expenditure.

Hence the folly of our policy of Democracy as Antidote.

Matter of fact, it seems that that insult was created for the man.  It certainly fits him like a glove.  IMO, of course.

You listen to the man speak, and you're left scratching your head and saying to yourself--"Huh? Is that REALLY what he wants to do?  He REALLY thinks that's a good idea."

Why this guy is Hugh Hewitt's guest host-of-choice escapes me.

In my view the conventional story of Israel's military might being a function of American aid is an oversimplification at best and a distorting caricature at worst.

(1) In two of her earlier, and more close-run wars (1948 and 1956), US aid was essentially nonexistent. Israeli arms came from the Soviet Union through Czechloslovakia, if you can believe it. By 1967 we were more openly-friendly, but ambiguity remained.

(2) Israel makes a tank that is widely-acknowledged as one of the very best; I am sure they make alot of impressive weapon-systems.

(3) It's not as though the Saudis and others in the Arab world aren't flying American-made fighter planes as well.

I don't think Babbin is a fool at all.  I disagree that we should jump right into this conflict militarily but he makes some points that are undeniable:

Endgame conservatives understand that our enemy is moving slowly toward its own endgame. The radical Islamists are committed to win, and nothing will do more than slow their progress until they are defeated decisively, or until they win.

I think most commenters here agree with this statement and realize we will, at some point, have another major military conflict in addition to Iraq and Afghanistan.  This will inevitably involve Iran, either directly or indirectly.  Babbin is merely advocating engaging the enemy now rather than later.  There are some fairly persuasive reasons for doing this.  I don't subscribe to this aproach but I don't think it should be summarily dismissed as foolish either.

To make this a regional war is not in our interest; the decision to do it may be necessary, but it is Israel's decision to make. How can the US be more bellicose on this matter than Israel herself?

To my ears Bolton's statements at the UN are hardly Carteresque:

I think before you get to cease-fire you have to look at what the causes of the conflict are. I think you would have a cease-fire in a matter of nanoseconds if Hezbollah and Hamas would release the kidnapped victims and stop engaging in rocket attacks and other acts of terrorism against Israel.

The only problem I see with the statement is that the political power of Hamas, at this moment, is a function of our policy, and, to some extent as well, Israeli policy. The pacifist and self-loathing factions of Israeli politics are potent ones just as they are in ours.

Jed Babbin at The American Spectator urges less restraint:

If this White House truly believes feckless UN debating is decisive action, we have been the worst victims of campaign fraud since 1976 when Jimmy Carter bamboozled some of us into believing he was a conservative. We could have gotten this result by staying home in 2004.

. . . .

The proper direction of Israeli force is to attack and destroy the enemy's centers of gravity. Those are found in Damascus and Tehran, not in Gaza or Lebanon.

. . . .

 What is happening now in Israel, Lebanon, and Gaza is not the decisive battle. Fearing a regional war, Israel won't press its advantage and remove the Assad regime. It lacks the ability to remove Ahmadinejad and the ayatollahs. This round of fighting will go on for weeks or months, and then -- unless Iran and Syria choose to raise the stakes -- it will end, again. Temporarily, again. Until they decide to attack, again. What Israel's enemies -- our enemies -- have learned is that we will allow them to choose the time and place of the decisive engagement. That must change.

The conventional wisdom, of course, is that Israel and the US do not have the resolve to do what is necessary to actually win.

the Israelis would be better off with the civil war that would likely result in Syria with the destruction of the Syrian regime, he is insane.  The likely result would be yet another Islamist, revanchist state on Israel's border, and to the extent that such a state was formally democratic, so much the worse.  As we've seen in Egypt, Iraq, and Lebanon, and conversely have not seen in Saudi Arabia or Jordan, when the people of the Middle East express their will, their governments become more obdurately anti-Israel, and thus more actively anti-American.  In states where the people aren't consulted, one need only deal with or intimidate the ruling faction, which typically has its own reasons for accomodation.  I suppose this makes me "morally obtuse" or some such, but the last thing we should want is democracy for a bunch of people who want to kill us.

Is Baghdad still paying Jew-bounty to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers?

No, but the violence continues.  Perhaps the bounty was not that important.  I doubt, too, that you would find that the Iraqi "man in the street" now has a more favorable opinion of Israel than he did in 2002.  And now he gets to vote his preferences.  

Has Saudi Arabia put the overseas Wahabbist mosques and madrasshas it funds on notice to cut out the anti-Western Hatin' or risk being de-funded?

I suppose they haven't.  On the other hand, they were sufficiently serious about internal security that OBL was unable to operate from their territory, and instead sought refuge in one of those broken, failed states, viz. Afghanistan, that the Jed Babbins of the world would see the US military create across the middle east.  Besides, why should the Saudis care more about our internal security than we do?  If we've become convinced the Constitution is really a suicide pact, they can hardly hope to stand in our way.  Maybe we should shut down those mosques.  You don't see Billy Graham holding revivals in Riyadh.  But, the Saudis know who they are.

How has the Realist accomodation of thuggish regimes ("our sons-of-b***es"), and their externalizing of internal discontent, brought us any better result?  There weren't free elections in Saudi when fifteen of their young men boarded flights on 9-11-01.

Yet there are free elections in Iraq, (and Lebanon), and the "free" people of Iraq are throwing fifteen or more of their young men at our forces every day.  Maybe they didn't get the e-mail.  Try using "Reply to All."  Elections are not a panacea.  Sometimes, there just aren't any simple, final solutions to problems.  Sometimes, you just have to keep managing them.  

..beating the war drums for months now. I agree with their assessment of Iranian intentions, but disagree with their prescription-preventive war. Ahmadhi-Nejad's fanaticism must be allowed to be his undoing.

...if he insists on the decisive engagement now. We are not ready. Martial impulses must be ruthlessly subordinated to political aims. The Roman Empire lasted only as long as the Romans remembered that maxim.

The IDF will destroy Hezboallah, and in so doing, remove an arrow from the Iranian quiver. A rather valuable arrow that would have been useful to the Iranians during the decisive battle.

Re: The point of this parallel, as I see it, is that a small quarrel, reacted to in sufficient folly and truculence, can become a regional war, or even a global war, faster than anyone can defuse it.

Fortunately there are no ironclad alliances in place like those which locked the European nations into war with each other in 1914. Russia and China may lean toward supporting Iran but I don't see either country rushing in with their militaries if Iran is attacked. And the world are graced with better leadership than much of Europe had in 1914. Putin, for example, is not God's gift to Russia, but he is vastly superior to poor Tsar Nicholas.

We make alliances not for their own sake, but for a purpose.  That they are based on principals is the evidence that this country has them.  The relative strength or weakness of our ally does not matter.

Say what? Why should the character, the potential, the will of our allies no matter? What sense is there in the pretense that such calculations do not matter. Of course they matter, and saying so does not efface in the least the shared principles and values.

would argue that, despite the horrors of the 19th century, it can be counted as the greatest ever on earth.

That's a defensible judgment, though I have some difficult seeing the relevance. My own reply to that would be this. What must be accounted against the Nineteenth and early twentieth century (the world shattered by the Great War) is the errors and blunders laid up by its complacency. The application of Darwinism to the question of race; the acceptance of a unspeakably destructive notion of Progress; a heresy of economism that still, in this day, has not been extirpated -- all these poisonous ideas were bequeathed to the world by the insufferable and morbid optimism of classical Liberalism at its height.

 Re: 1; "From 1949 through 1965, U.S. aid to Israel averaged about $63 million per year, over 95% of which was economic development assistance and food aid. A modest military loan program began in 1959. From 1966 through 1970, average aid per year increased to about $102 million, but military loans increased to about 47% of the total."

 I wouldn't argue your point here, but that's the situation 50 years ago, and if Israel received aid from USSR then it seems to support the idea that it has always required assistance in order to defend itself.

 Re: 2; "In addition to the foreign assistance, the United States has provided Israel with $625 million to develop and deploy the Arrow antimissile missile (an ongoing project), $1.3 billion to develop the Lavi aircraft (cancelled), $200 million to develop the Merkava tank (operative), $130 million to develop the high energy laser anti-missile system (ongoing), and other military projects."

 I don't dispute that Israel has excellent brainpower re: the military crafts, and my assumption is that the U.S. also received back the benefit of the military technology that we help them fund. Nevertheless, they don't appear to be able to produce these things, such as the tank, without the benefit of U.S. aid.

 re: 3; No dispute there either, but it isn't really relevant to the question of Israel's dependence on U.S. aid.

 My intent isn't to disparage Israel as being incompetent or without heart or will. It is a country with only 6-7MM people, comparable in population to Virginia, surrounded by hostiles - can they be expected to stand on their own?

 "From 1971 to the present, U.S. aid to Israel has averaged over $2 billion per year, two-thirds of which has been military assistance."

 But we ought to keep a realistic and rational perspective on the costs and benefits of America's considerable military and economic aid to Israel...

 [quotes source]

We make alliances not for their own sake, but for a purpose.  That they are based on principals is the evidence that this country has them.  The relative strength or weakness of our ally does not matter.  What matters is that there is a convergence of principal and action.  In dark times it may be necessary to ally with countries who do not share our values, but without the dire conditions that make such alliances necessary for survival we should eschew them.

Some people feel that alliances are for their own sake, but we must remember that without those underlying values they are useless pieces of paper, and just political fodder.        

I would argue that, despite the horrors of the 19th century, it can be counted as the greatest ever on earth.  Evils arose from war, but they were also vanquished.  The catalog of good that has come from it exceeds its horrors by a wide margin, and as long as we learn from it we need not repeat its mistakes.  

...Saddam was in power?  Is Baghdad still paying Jew-bounty to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers?

Has Saudi Arabia put the overseas Wahabbist mosques and madrasshas it funds on notice to cut out the anti-Western Hatin' or risk being de-funded?

Just asking...

How has the Realist accomodation of thuggish regimes ("our sons-of-b***es"), and their externalizing of internal discontent, brought us any better result?  There weren't free elections in Saudi when fifteen of their young men boarded flights on 9-11-01.

--furious