So Israel agrees to a truce with Hamas - got to say didn't think that'd happen - although I guess there is a logic to it, Israel has to appear as if it gave peace a chance - and possibly they figured they'd 'won' enough by demonstrating the effectiveness of the Iron Dome missile defence system [there's also an indication that Israeli intelligence thinks there's a chance Morsi's days are numbered and possibly figured a move into Gaza might act as a rhetorical lifeline for him]. Still, don't see anything solid in the agreement that suggests Egypt will commit itself to clamping down on the smuggling of arms into Gaza - so it's very hard to see this truce as something other than a weak illusion that will be short lived. Certainly, the growing sophistication of Hamas' long range missile capabilities is not a threat Israel is going to leave to the Islamists in Egypt to rectify.
So, until the return of hostilities the most interesting thing about all this is how it throws a harsh, unflattering light on the world according to Obama - in other words, what has the delusion of hope and change wrought?
Everything is worse, nothing is better - on the foreign front, in the Mideast Islamists are stronger, America is weaker, Israel more vulnerable, Iran closer to a bomb; Russia is back under Putin's kleptocratic pseudo democracy and still a meddlesome wild card; Europe is in apparent irreversible decline; China steadily encroaches bit by bit on American supremacy, showing absolutely no signs of welcoming political liberalization and slowly but surely moving towards open conflict with its increasingly uncomfortable neighbors. On the domestic front growing divisiveness along cultural, ethnic, racial, economic lines; class warfare alive and well; a brewing antagonism between those who distrust big gov't and those who are increasingly dependent upon it or sympathetically wedded to it for other reasons - and America doubling down on its slide towards the dysfunction, economic stagnation, bankruptcy and the inevitable decay and decline of a European styled social welfarism. Everything's worse, nothing is better.
Not that I of course blame Obama for all this - the ideology he's a manifestation of and extols is certainly responsible for some of it and is definitely from my vantage not suitable at all for the mitigating of these sundry woes or the bettering of our long term prospects - but also of course some of this mess is more or less not amenable to American desires regardless of a president's best guesses - the forces of history do get a say after all - still, the point is the man was swept into power on an ecstatic wave of naive rhetoric that didn't merely suggest electing the charismatic black guy would change everything, it proclaimed such as if it were gospel. He and his maenads most certainly can be rebuked and vilified for the widening gap between the actual and what was ludicrously promised or, to put it more cynically, the lie that was foolishly believed. In fact one could argue it's vitally important for the health of the republic that they be rebuked and vilified for this nonsense - yet, instead, he gets re-elected.
Hard not to see that as symptomatic of a something bad - and what really disturbs is that the American left and its media cohorts, both at home and abroad, still talk and act as if the country has either newly entered a golden age or is on the cusp of one - hell, Krugman, economic guru of the uber left, wrote an article the other day that flattered itself with sweet nothings by suggesting that all that's necessary is that we start taxing the rich at the 91% rate they were ostensibly taxed in the 50s and this golden age would magically grace us like a gift from heaven - this is beyond absurd, beyond delusional - it's madness.
