In Certain Circles, Two Is a Crowd

By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM
NY Times Published : Nov 16, 2006

CHANCES are that in the last week someone has irritated you by standing too close, talking too loud or making eye contact for too long. They have offended you with the high-pitched shrill emanating from the earphones of their iPod or by spreading their legs unnecessarily wide on a packed subway car.

But what makes you feel hostile toward ''close talkers,'' as the show ''Seinfeld'' dubbed people who get within necking distance of you when they speak? Or toward strangers who stand very near to you on line? Or toward people who take the bathroom stall next to yours when every other one is available?

Communications scholars began studying personal space and people's perception of it decades ago, in a field known as proxemics. But with the population in the United States climbing above 300 million, urban corridors becoming denser and people with wealth searching for new ways to separate themselves from the masses, interest in the issue of personal space -- that invisible force field around your body -- is intensifying.

Scientists who say Americans share patterns of movement and behaviors to protect their personal space have recently found new evidence in a cyber game.

Researchers who observed the avatars (digital representations of the humans that control them) of participants in Second Life, a virtual reality universe, found that some of the avatars' physical behavior was in keeping with studies about how humans protect their personal space.

In other words, the digital beings adhered to some unspoken behavioral rules of humans even though they were but pixels on a screen.

Humans tend to avert eye gaze if they feel someone is standing too close. They retreat to corners, put distance between themselves and strangers, and sit or stand equidistant from one another like birds on a wire.

The study, which was accepted for publication in the journal CyberPsychology & Behavior, found that virtual environments may be another platform to study physical social interaction. It specifically found that the unwritten rules of personal space are so powerful, people even impose them on their cyber selves.

''The fact that they show up in the virtual world shows how deeply ingrained they are,'' said Nick Yee, a graduate student in the department of communication at Stanford University and a lead author of the study along with Jeremy N. Bailenson, his adviser. ''We don't think about them. They're very unconscious.''

According to scientists, personal space involves not only the invisible bubble around the body, but all the senses. People may feel their space is being violated when they experience an unwelcome sound, scent or stare: the woman on the bus squawking into her cellphone, the co-worker in the adjacent cubicle dabbing on cologne, or the man in the sandwich shop leering at you over his panini.

But whether people have become more protective of their personal space is difficult to say. Studies show people tend to adapt, even in cities, which are likely to grow ever more crowded based on population projections.

Yet studies involving airlines show the desire to have some space to oneself is among the top passenger requests. In a survey in April from TripAdvisor, a travel Web site, travelers said that if they had to pay for certain amenities, they would rather have larger seats and more legroom than massages and premium food. And a current advertisement for Eos Airlines, which flies between New York and London, is promoting the fact that it offers passengers ''21 square feet of personal space.''

While people may crave space, they rarely realize how entrenched proxemics are. Scholars can predict which areas of an elevator are likely to fill up first and which urinal a man will choose. They know people will stare at the lighted floor numbers in elevators, not one another.

''In order to overcome the intimacy, you have to make sure you don't make eye contact,'' said Dane Archer, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who studies proxemics.

They know commuters will hold newspapers in front of them to read, yes, but also to shield themselves from strangers. And they know college students will unconsciously choose to sit in the same row, if not the same seat, each class.

''If you videotape people at a library table, it's very clear what seat somebody will take,'' Dr. Archer said, adding that one of the corner seats will go first, followed by the chair diagonally opposite because that is farthest away. ''If you break those rules, it's fascinating,'' he said. ''People will pile up books as if to make a wall -- glare.''

Edward T. Hall, an anthropologist and the father of proxemics, even put numbers to the unspoken rules. He defined the invisible zones around us and attributed a range of distance to each one: intimate distance (6 to 18 inches); personal distance (18 inches to 4 feet); social distance (4 to 12 feet); and public distance (about 12 feet or more).

But personal space is not merely a numbers game. Preferences differ from culture to culture. Scholars have found that Americans, conquerors of the wild frontier, generally prefer more personal space than people in Mediterranean and Latin American cultures, and more than men in Arab countries.

''In the U.S., it's very closely linked to ideals of individuals,'' said Kathryn Sorrells, an associate professor of communication studies at California State University, Northridge, is writing a book, ''Globalizing Intercultural Communications.'' ''There's an idea that you have the right to this space,'' she said, noting that it was born of a culture that prizes independence, privacy and capitalism.

Dr. Archer tells of a Brazilian man he interviewed who, when speaking to the American waiters with whom he worked, used to casually touch them for emphasis. The man's overtures of friendship toward his co-workers were always rejected and he wanted to know why. So when business was slow he observed how the Americans interacted. And eventually he arrived at this conclusion: Americans hate to be touched.

''He's absolutely right,'' Dr. Archer said. ''He figured it out by himself and no one ever told him. The sad thing about these nonverbal rules across cultures is you're on your own.''

The Brazilian man's experience also shows how people are quick to judge those who break the unwritten rules, unless we are attuned to the cultural differences.

John Bringardner, 26, a staff reporter at IP Law & Business, said that when he was studying philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris, he lived next door to an Algerian man who had a habit of standing mere inches from his face. ''His spittle would get in my face,'' said Mr. Bringardner. But he did not back away. ''If it were an American guy that close,'' he said, ''it would have been a different situation.''

Yet it is rare for people to have confrontations about personal space. ''No one will ever turn to the nice person from Italy or Greece and say 'I like you but you're standing too close to me,' '' said Dr. Archer, who has videotaped strangers' responses to personal-space violations.

Rather, they will likely angle and inch their bodies away from anyone they feel breached their buffer zone. Blood pressure may rise, the heart rate may go up and the palms may sweat, said David B. Givens, the director of the Center for Nonverbal Studies in Spokane, Wash. ''All animals tend to have an aversion to being touched by a strange critter,'' he said.

Proxemics, however, is not merely about interactions between individuals. On a larger scale, it helps developers, urban planners and executives in various industries understand how people move through public spaces, how they shop, even what type of restaurants they find most comfortable.

Paco Underhill, the author of ''Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping'' and the chief executive of Envirosell, a research and consulting company whose client list includes Bloomingdale's, Saks Fifth Avenue, Starbucks and McDonald's, discovered that most consumers will walk away from whatever they are looking at in a store if a customer inadvertently brushes against their backside, disturbing his or her personal space.

And so, what may seem like a minor behavioral tic can help department stores determine how far apart to place racks of clothes, bistro owners figure out how to configure the bar area and college campuses to design residence halls.

Yet there are paradoxes to personal space, and one is that people do not always want it.

''If you've gone to see a funny movie in an empty theater, you can appreciate the facilitative effects of the presence of others,'' said Robert M. Krauss, a professor of psychology at Columbia. ''We went to see 'Borat' and every seat in the theater was full, and I have no doubt that it enhanced our enjoyment of it.''

Being crowded in a dance club or running the New York City Marathon is far different from being packed into a train car during rush hour or stuck on a freeway (yes, proxemics has been linked to road rage).

''In these spaces, when you're not commuting, you feel fine,'' Dr. Givens said. But in both positive moments of closeness and those that make the blood boil, one tenet of proxemics is the same: the near presence of people is arousing. ''It will enhance the amount that you enjoy things that are enjoyable,'' Dr. Krauss said. ''It will make more aversive the things that are not enjoyable.''

And when people want to avoid someone who is less than enjoyable, they employ a variety of tactics. Some scholars say this goes a long way toward explaining the iPod craze, which turns city streets and commuter trains into islands of individuality.

The same principle makes it easier to get close to strangers in low-lit places. ''Visually, you're not getting as much information,'' Dr. Givens said, adding that if the lights were suddenly flipped on in a dim bar, ''everybody would spring back.''

In general most people understand the rules of personal space and heed the cues. Then again, the world is littered with clods. As Dr. Archer put it, people generally view personal-space rules in one of two ways: ''the wrong way and my way.''
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Weapon Of Mass Destruction

By Larry Kahaner, Washingtonpost
Sunday, November 26, 2006; B01

In the grand narrative of World War II, the Battle of Bryansk is a minor conflict, barely deserving of a footnote. But Bryansk has another place in history. It was there that a then-unknown tank commander named Mikhail Kalashnikov decided that his Russian comrades would never again be defeated. In the years following the Great Patriotic War, as Soviet propagandists dubbed it, he was to conceive and fabricate a weapon so simple, and yet so revolutionary, that it would change the way wars were fought and won. It was the AK-47 assault rifle.

The AK-47 has become the world's most prolific and effective combat weapon, a device so cheap and simple that it can be bought in many countries for less than the cost of a live chicken. Depicted on the flag and currency of several countries, waved by guerrillas and rebels everywhere, the AK is responsible for about a quarter-million deaths every year. It is the firearm of choice for at least 50 legitimate standing armies and countless fighting forces from Africa and the Middle East to Central America and Los Angeles. It has become a cultural icon, its signature form -- that banana-shaped magazine -- defining in our consciousness the contours of a deadly weapon.

This week, the U.S. military's presence in Iraq will surpass the length of time that American forces were engaged in World War II. And the AK-47 will forever link the two conflicts. The story of the gun itself, from inspiration in Bryansk to bloody insurgency in Iraq, is also the story of the transformation of modern warfare. The AK blew away old battlefield calculations of military superiority, of tactics and strategy, of who could be a soldier, of whose technology would triumph.

Ironically, the weapon that helped end World War II, the atomic bomb, paved the way for the rise of the lower-tech but deadlier AK-47. The A-bomb's guarantee of mass destruction compelled the two Cold War superpowers to wage proxy wars in poor countries, with ill-trained combatants exchanging fire -- usually with cheap, lightweight and durable AKs.

When one war ended, arms brokers gathered up the AKs and sold them to fighters in the next hot spot. The weapon's spread helps explain why, since World War II, so many "small wars" have lingered far beyond the months and years one might expect. Indeed, for all of the billions of dollars Washington has spent on space-age weapons and military technology, the AK still remains the most devastating weapon on the planet, transforming conflicts from Vietnam to Afghanistan to Iraq. With these assault rifles, well-armed fighters can dominate a country, terrorize citizens, grab the spoils -- and even keep superpowers at bay.

When German forces employed the lightning war, or blitzkrieg, in World War II, it was a marked change from how wars had been fought. Instead of static fighting -- hunkering down in trenches for weeks or months at a time as in World War I -- the blitzkrieg concentrated forces at one point in an enemy's defensive line, broke a hole and then thrust deep into enemy territory, catching opponents off guard and subjecting them to waves of brutally efficient invaders.

In late September 1941, the German juggernaut reached the outskirts of Bryansk, hard against the Desna River southwest of Moscow. In the battle, the Nazis destroyed about 80 percent of the town and killed more than 80,000 people. Kalashnikov, who was 21, was wounded in his left shoulder when his tank came under artillery fire. He eventually made it to a hospital on foot after a harrowing two-day trip. He suffered nightmares about the Germans slaughtering his comrades.

Kalashnikov became obsessed with creating a submachine gun that would drive the Germans from his homeland. In his hospital bed, he sketched out the simplest automatic weapon possible. His obsession would later lead him to a metal shop, where he developed a prototype submachine gun; later to a technical school, where he invented a carbine; and finally, to the creation of the Avtomat Kalashnikova 1947 (AK-47) , approved for production that year. It combined the best characteristics of a submachine gun (light weight and durability) and a machine gun (killing power). By the end of 1949, arms plants had turned out about 80,000 AKs.

Although the AK came too late to see action in World War II, the Soviets knew their assault rifle could become the most important weapon of the modern era, and they worked hard to keep it hidden from the West. Soviet soldiers carried their AKs in special pouches that disguised their shape; they picked up spent cartridges to keep the newly sized ammunition a secret.

The 1956 uprising in Hungary compelled Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to dispatch the Red Army to Budapest. The episode required the first large-scale public use of the AK, and it performed well in an urban environment where tanks became bogged down in narrow streets against crowds wielding Molotov cocktails. The protests were squelched, and as many as 50,000 Hungarians were killed compared with about 7,000 Soviet soldiers.

By the late 1950s, the Soviet Union had begun using the AK to spread communism. In the early years of the Cold War, both Moscow and Washington tried to curry favor with uncommitted countries through sales and gifts of arms. Compared with the United States's offering of the M-1 and later the M-14, the AK proved vastly superior; its ruggedness was well suited to severe environmental conditions and the lack of gun repair facilities in poorer countries. The Soviets also distributed free licenses to produce the AK-47 to "fraternal countries," including Bulgaria, China, East Germany, Hungary, North Korea, Poland and Yugoslavia.

U.S. weapons experts did not embrace the superiority of the AK, clinging instead to old notions of warfare embodied in the M-1. The rifle had performed flawlessly during World War II, prompting Gen. George S. Patton to call it "the greatest battle implement ever devised." But it was heavy, clunky and held only eight rounds in its magazine, and was not an automatic weapon. Warfare was changing, and the M-1 was falling behind.

It was not until the Vietnam War -- the first major proxy battle against the Soviets -- that U.S. troops faced the AK-47 in action. They would pay dearly for their government's failure to recognize the power of Kalashnikov's simple weapon.

One key problem the United States faced in Vietnam involved basic weaponry: For all their military might, U.S. forces did not have an infantry weapon that could stand up to the AK in the pattern of warfare that was emerging. Confrontations often consisted of jungle patrols from both sides finding themselves unexpectedly face to face, and the side that could pump out the most rounds the fastest won.

After many years of bureaucratic wrangling, the U.S. military had finally introduced its own assault rifle, the sleek and sophisticated M-16. More than 100,000 of them were ordered by the summer of 1966 and shipped to the Asian war zone. By October, however, some unexpected reports were coming in.

M-16s were jamming in combat.

U.S. troops were found dead with their rifles in mid-breakdown, trying to undo the cause of the misfire while under attack. Morale plunged as they thought they could not trust their weapon. And as the Viet Cong learned of these problems, they became emboldened: The sight of the "black rifle," as they called it, was now less threatening. Although the Army tried to minimize the public relations fallout, reports reached Congress through the parents of servicemen as well as from soldiers who felt betrayed. A congressional subcommittee investigating the issue heard testimony about American troops routinely removing AKs from enemy dead and using them instead of their own M-16s.

The culprit, it turns out, wasn't the gun, but the ammunition. M-16s jammed because authorities had insisted on changing the cartridge propellant, and residue clogged the mechanism after repeated firing. But even after problems were addressed, it was too late. The AK came to be perceived widely as the world's top infantry weapon, and one that could beat the West's best offering. It was low-tech Soviet style vs. high-tech American style, and the communists won the war of perception.

If the Vietnam War gave the AK its credibility, it was the Soviet war in Afghanistan and the subsequent demise of the Soviet empire that accelerated the weapon's dissemination, placing it in the hands of insurgents and terrorists who embraced it as an icon of anti-imperialism.

Strategically, the initial Soviet invasion of Afghanistan seemed successful: Fewer than 70 Soviet troops died, most of them from non-combat-related accidents. Soviet planners anticipated a stay of no more than three years -- a timetable that seemed realistic considering that the Afghan fighters were short of modern weapons.

But that changed when the CIA began funneling extensive aid to the guerrilla fighters via Pakistan, including hundreds of thousands of AKs (mainly from China, where production of the Soviet weapon was booming). The CIA favored AKs because of their reliability, low cost and availability. In addition, Soviet weapons in the hands of the mujaheddin would not be easily traced to the United States, thus offering Washington official deniability. Years later in congressional testimony, CIA officials estimated that by 1984, $200 million had been sent to the Afghan mujaheddin, and that by 1988 the sum had reached $2 billion through CIA channels alone.

Graft and corruption notwithstanding, the CIA-led arms pipeline helped keep the rebels well stocked. By the mid-1980s, the war was stalemating, despite at least 100,000 Soviet troops on the ground, and the public back home was increasingly unhappy with what seemed like a no-win conflict.

When the last Soviet troops left Afghanistan on Feb. 15, 1989, the vast arms infrastructure did not disappear. Operating for a decade, it had become ingrained in the economy and culture of Afghanistan and neighboring countries. Even before the Soviet withdrawal, Western newspapers took note of the huge supply of AKs in the region, and the notion of a "Kalashnikov culture" entered the lexicon. In Pakistan, for example, a substantial part of the country's economy -- including gangs who robbed and kidnapped, drug kingpins who followed established arms routes, and the small village arms makers who bought, sold, repaired and produced their homemade versions -- depended on the ubiquitous AK.

The AK's international reach expanded further as the USSR collapsed and former Soviet bloc countries auctioned off their arms stockpiles. AKs began selling for bargain-basement prices throughout Africa, where countries were fragmented into tribal groups with long-standing ethnic resentments. In Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia and elsewhere, AKs prolonged small conflicts that previously would have petered out. The weapon became so much a part of daily life in some areas that it was dubbed the "African credit card" -- you could not leave home without it.

In Latin America, AKs ended up in the hands of drug cartels and anti-government rebels. Just as the CIA shipped AKs to Afghanistan, it did the same in Nicaragua in the early 1980s, sending arms to the contras in their fight against the Soviet-backed Sandinistas. AKs fueled civil war in El Salvador as well as political and drug-related violence in Colombia. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez recently announced the purchase of 100,000 AKs from Russian stockpiles. He also announced plans to produce AKs in his own factory -- the first time the weapon will be made in the Western Hemisphere.

Before the Soviet invasion, Afghanistan had been considered a moderate Islamic country, but the war emboldened a more virulent strain of Islam, one fueled by accessible weapons and a devastated economy. In the mountainous border area near Pakistan, Saudi-born millionaire Osama bin Laden grew more radical in his views on a holy war -- first against the Soviet invaders, and later against the United States and the West.

Just before the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, bin Laden distributed the first of several videotapes warning the West about reprisals. In these tapes, the al-Qaeda leader is seen with an AK either next to him or propped up in the background. The typical stock footage shows a white-robed bin Laden firing an AK, a symbol to the world that he is a true anti-imperialist fighter.

In their battles against U.S. forces, many al-Qaeda fighters and tribal groups still carry the same AKs that the CIA had purchased more than a decade earlier. The first U.S. soldier to die by hostile fire in Afghanistan -- Sgt. 1st Class Nathan Ross Chapman of San Antonio -- was killed by a teenager shooting an AK.

The AK is also the weapon of choice in the latest "small war" that a superpower believed would be brief and painless: Iraq.

Although coalition bombing in 1991 destroyed much of Iraq's air force, Scud missiles and tanks, Saddam Hussein's regime retained its small weapons, including AKs. By March 2003, when Operation Iraqi Freedom began, Iraqi arsenals included seven to eight million small arms. These weapons -- which U.S. planners did not consider a major threat when the invasion began -- would prove deadly for American troops once major hostilities ended. During the chaos that followed the swift victory, millions of small weapons (mainly AKs) were looted from Hussein's armories. They landed in the hands of nervous law-abiding citizens, but also in the hands of Baathist loyalists and other opponents of the U.S. occupation who used them to start a protracted urban war.

In Iraq, the AK had taken on symbolic power, too. Hussein had been so enamored with the weapon that he had built a Baghdad mosque sporting minarets in the unique shape of AK barrels. His son Uday commissioned gold-plated AKs. And when Hussein was captured, two AKs were found in his underground hideout.

Even the newly forming Iraqi army -- trained by the U.S. military and civilian contractors -- refused American-made M-16s and M-4s. When the Coalition Provisional Authority was planning to outfit Iraqi forces, they were surprised to find that the Iraqis insisted on AKs.

"For better or worse, the AK-47 is the weapon of choice in that part of the world," said Walter Slocombe, senior adviser to the CPA. "It turns out that every Iraqi male above the age of 12 can take them apart and put them together blindfolded and is a pretty good shot."

Now 85, tiny, feeble, nearly deaf, his right hand losing control because of tremors, Kalashnikov is often haunted by the killing machine he has bestowed upon the world. "I wish I had invented a lawnmower," he told the Guardian in 2002.

In Iraq, Sierra Leone, Sudan and elsewhere, today's wars are hot conflicts in urban areas, with guerrillas holding their own against better trained troops. Sophisticated, expensive arms seem no match for AK-wielding rebels who need little training and know the local terrain better. Some call this the new reality of small conflicts.

This sentiment was expressed by Maj. Gen. William J. Livsey Jr. the commandant of Fort Benning, Ga., in the early 1980s, when the military was first integrating computer chips into smart weapons. "Despite all the sophisticated weapons we or the Soviets come up with," he warned, "you still have to get that one lone infantryman, with his rifle, off his piece of land. It's the damn hardest thing in the world to do."

The AK has pierced through popular culture, too. In 2004, Playboy magazine dubbed it one of the "50 Products That Changed the World," ranking it behind the Apple Macintosh desktop, the birth-control pill and the Sony Betamax video machine. Rappers Ice Cube and Eminem mention AKs in their lyrics. And in the movie "Jackie Brown," actor Samuel L. Jackson captures the weapon's global cachet: "AK-47. The very best there is. When you absolutely, positively got to kill every [expletive] in the room."

Yet, for all of his weapon's influence, Kalashnikov receives no royalties for his invention. Recently, he began selling his own name brand of vodka, which has been a hit in Europe and the Middle East and is slated to reach the United States next year.

At times, he remains defiant and aloof, blaming others for the AK's misuse.

"I invented it for protection of the motherland," Kalashnikov told an interviewer. "I have no regrets and bear no responsibility for how politicians have used it."

Larry Kahaner is the author of "AK-47: The Weapon That Changed the Face of War" (Wiley).

Gun M1

Source world.guns.ru

gun, M1,

What the U.S. Has Failed to Learn in Lebanon

Viewpoint: Throughout the Middle East, Washington has repeated its tragic mistakes of the early '80s in Beirut
By SCOTT MACLEOD/CAIRO, Times Magazine
Posted Thursday, Nov. 23, 2006

The gangland-style slaying of Lebanese cabinet minister Pierre Gemayel this week is an echo of Lebanon's tragic past. It may also be a glimpse into a future Middle East that looks increasingly troubled.

In Beirut in the early '80s, I watched as the Reagan administration threw its weight behind two other Gemayels, Pierre's uncle, Bashir, and father, Amin, in a radical project to re-make Lebanon as a bastion of pro-Western liberalism, aligned with Israel and free from Syrian domination and Iranian influence. That effort failed: Bashir wound up dead; Amin went into temporary exile; U.S. credibility evaporated and Americans remaining in Beirut became kidnap targets; and Israel got mired in an 18-year military occupation. By contrast, Syrian and Iranian influence in Lebanon swelled.

History appears to be repeating itself, and not only in Lebanon. Syria and Iran have been fighting U.S. plans to re-make Iraq and the wider Arab world, and as America struggles, they are emerging as the winners. And once again, the casualties include pro-U.S. Arabs like the Gemayels.

Yes, the regimes in Syria and Iran are bent on undermining U.S. policies, including support for Lebanese Prime Minister Fuoad Siniora, who came to office in last year's pro-democracy Cedar Revolution. But a key reason for the U.S.'s setbacks in the Middle East is it's chronic refusal to wholeheartedly address the root causes of conflict, such as the lack of a negotiated end to Israel's occupation of Arab lands, the failure to establish a Palestinian state and Western support for repressive Arab regimes. Instead, Washington labors under the fantasy that its political and military strength alone can win the day. With that approach fanning an unprecedented number of crises in the region, amid the largest long-term deployment of U.S. military forces in Middle East history, it is past time for Washington to learn from its mistakes.

Early-'80s Lebanon ought to have served as a cautionary tale heading off the U.S.'s more recent adventure in Iraq. In 1982, the U.S. backed an Israeli plan to invade Lebanon and destroy the Palestine Liberation Organization, kick out Syrian troops and install a pro-Western, Israel-friendly government led by Lebanese Maronite Christian leader Bashir Gemayel. Israel drove out the PLO, only to start negotiating with Yasser Arafat after a Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza trip a few years later. Suspected Syrian agents assassinated Bashir Gemayel days before his presidential inauguration. His supporters retaliated by slaughtering hundreds of Palestinians in the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps in Beirut. The U.S. dispatched troops to quell the unrest, while Reagan's envoys negotiated a peace accord between Israel and Amin Gemayel who had taken his brother's place.

But, after militants with suspected ties to Iran and Syria bombed the U.S. embassy and the Marine base in Beirut, Reagan abruptly withdrew the soldiers and abandoned Gemayel. Syria forced Gemayel to abrogate his deal with Israel, and Hizballah, the Lebanese Shiite Muslim group founded by Iran, began a guerrilla war that eventually forced out the Israelis in 2000. That triumph that made Hizballah the most powerful faction in Lebanese politics, enabling it to trigger this summer's war with a cross-border raid into Israel and more recently threaten to topple Siniora's government.

So, what could the U.S. do differently? There's no simple answer to the challenge of political Islam, terrorism and authoritarianism. But by using its considerable capacity to decisively address the root causes of conflict, the U.S. would bolster moderate forces like Siniora and isolate governments and groups that exploit unresolved grievances to justify violence. Otherwise, existing trends will continue and the region will see further polarization, extremism and war-and perhaps the deployment of U.S. troops to additional trouble spots.

Lip-service aside, the Bush Administration has largely ignored the 58-year-old Arab-Israeli conflict, which provides pretexts for wars, feeds political extremism and bolsters authoritarian regimes. Syria's price for good behavior in Lebanon and Iraq is the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel for nearly 40 years. Labor governments negotiated towards that end with Syria, but the current Israeli government insists that the Golan is part of the Jewish State.

The Palestinian problem is the most important issue to revolve. The Hamas-led Palestinian government elected this year, which like Hizballah is also backed by Syria and Iran, refuses to recognize Israel, but that is hardly the only impediment: for decades, Israel has blanketed the West Bank with Israeli settlements that make it nearly impossible to create a viable Palestinian state. One of the factors in the continuing intifadeh and Hamas's political rise is Arafat's failure to win Palestinian statehood despite years of peace negotiations after he recognized Israel's right to exist.

This summer, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described Israel's pummeling of Lebanon as "the birth pangs of a new Middle East." A return to the old Middle East, more like it. Israel withdrew its forces from Lebanon, despite achieving few of its objectives. But U.S. support for Israel's bombardments gravely undercut the pro-American Siniora government to which Pierre Gemayel belonged and that now may not survive Hizballah's bid for greater power. As I watch dramatic events in Lebanon yet again, the U.S. looks no more able to direct events than it was two decades ago when Pierre Gemayel's uncle lost his life and his father was deserted by Washington.

Is this Altantuya?

Altantuya Shaariibuu, Altantuya, Mongolian model, Razak Baginda