In July 2006, in the middle of Israel’s war on Lebanon that ultimately killed approximately 1,200 people – the overwhelming majority of them civilians – then-United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice nobly cast the onslaught as the “birth pangs of a new Middle East”.While the metaphor was no doubt appropriately Orientalist, it did raise some questions since the objective of the birthing process is not usually to kill the baby. What role Rice and her boss, then-US president George W Bush, were meant to play in the metaphorical arrangement was also debatable, but “bloodthirsty obstetricians” was one potential option. This was particularly so, given the US decision to rush-ship bombs to the Israeli military to assist in the forging of the “new Middle East”.Secretary Rice invoked the “birth pangs” analogy in support of the US argument that a ceasefire should be thwarted at all costs to prevent a return to the “status quo ante” in Lebanon. Insofar as the “status quo ante” signified a country where apartment buildings and villages had not been converted into bomb craters and rubble, the delivery was a rousing success.
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