One Israel considers legitimate or one that Israel is confident actually has effective control of the population and any agreement will thus be honored?I'm unsure why you say that political sovereignty erodes as a result of the pervasiveness of western norms? I'd also suggest that your "read: criminalization of non-Western regimes" linkage does not seem to apply universally....Does the erosion of political sovereignty as a result of the pervasiveness Western norms (read: criminalization of non-Western regimes) contribute to the generation of small wars?
As an aside, I disagree with Paul Van Riper and would suggest that in the case of Iraq, the contributing factor to the initiation of the insurgency was not the absence of a formal surrender but rather the fact that the Iraqis did not believe they had been defeated -- not the same thing at all.
Saddam told us up front what he was going to do; release all prisoners, arm the populace, set loose the Miliitias, the whole bit -- we totally ignored him and those problems. Iraq was a significant intel failure and a case of massive military overconfidence (and post operation / insurgency lack of training and preparedness) on our part. The insurgency was programmed, we blew it; the only effective preemption would have entailed a total, massive defeat of the Iraqis and much waste to the countryside -- not a good idea in this era.
As opposed to western norms, a formal document in the ME means little and I seriously doubt the existence of one would have changed anything.
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