Pay back versus Diplomacy and the Rule of Law

World War II plunged many countries into the grim and costly business of payback. We were attacked at Pearl Harbor; we were justified in going to war with Japan, and the Axis powers, Germany and Iraly. During the ensueing Cold War, the policy of "containment," being willing to go to war, and diplomacy kept the world out of a nuclear holocaust. We remembered that retribution always has consequences.

The escalation from feeling victimized, to aggravation and wanting to stop the aggression, to pay back, to violence, is all too familiar. I am mystified about why victims and aggressors have such blind spots about consequences--what might happen-- when they are unable to stop their escalations.
CNN's news from the Middle East is grim (see title link.)

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the Israeli military have approved
a widespread campaign against specific security targets in the wake of a suicide bombing that killed five Israelis and wounded 28 others, a Sharon adviser told CNN on Thursday.

Another CNN story comes from Iran.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad quoted a remark from Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of Iran's Islamic revolution, who said that Israel "must be wiped out from the map of the world."

The current investigation of White House leaks of the identity of a covert CIA agebt is also about pay back. Administration officials were determined to go to war in Iraq almost immediately after 9/11/01. They felt victimized because the CIA would not help with appropriate intelligence to justify a preemptive attack. Retribution came in the form of "outing" non-cooperating Ambassador Wilson's CIA operative wife. Hardball or illegal payback, that is the question today. Quoting from a NYT article:

Mr. Fitzgerald has focused on Karl Rove and I. Lewis Libby Jr., who is Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. Both have been advised that they could be charged with wrongdoing, possibly for false statements to the grand jury about their conversations with reporters. Other possibilities are obstruction of justice or perjury charges, and possible violations of the statute that makes it a crime to disclose the identity of a covert intelligence agent. Some lawyers have suggested that Mr. Fitzgerald may also have investigated possible conspiracy charges or violations of an espionage law that makes it illegal to communicate classified information to people not authorized to receive it.

The difference is stark between pay back in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and pay back between the CIA and the White House, now being investigated by Mr. Fitzgerald. Fortunately we live in the land of the rule of law. The investigation will lead to consequences that stay within the rule of law.
Because so many of the conflicts in the Middle East are not within the force of the rule of law, violence is seen as the only answer. That is the way the war in Iraq happened. We should have imposed the logical consequences of 9/11 in a legal war in Afghanistan and finished the job there. But we did not and are now mired in Iraq beset with insurgencies.
The question now seems to be whether more of the violent conflicts between Iraqi factions can come under the rule of law. There are very small glimmers of hope in Iraq as the various factions begin to prepare for the elections in December. The Shi'ite coalition is holding together. And the Sunnis are forming a coalition hoping to gain more influence. Juan Cole has a very good post about both of these new coalitions. He states:

Three small Sunni parties formed a coalition list on Wednesday. The Iraqi Islamic Party, the National Dialogue Council and the People's Gathering will join forces to contest the December 15 elections.

Are these promising developments? Only time, and much emphasis by the United States on the difficult work of diplomacy, will tell. Our Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, have their work cut out for them. It is the hard work of helping the Iraqis building their own rule of law in a climate of incredible violence.
It is ironic shame that the current administration has such a neocon blind spot about Israel. Did they give up on the diplomatic path from the beginning? No significant efforts seem to ever have been made to get a permanent settlement of the conflict. It would almost lead me to believe that we, like the Israelis and the Palestinians, sometimes desire unjustified retribution and pay back more than the rule of law.