By Ted Belman
With the looming American withdrawal from Iraq, Caroline Glick, in Naming things by their name, summarizes America’s failure in the ME and the reasons for it. First and foremost it refuses to name the enemy but rather made war on a tactic. In its desire not to be identified with dictators because they are hated by the people, America helped to bring down allies of the US, Quaddafi and Mubarek (the enemy of my enemy is my friend) and choose instead to align with her enemies, made easier by having not named them.
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HOW HAS this situation arisen? How is it possible that the US finds itself today with so few good options in the Arab world after all the blood and treasure it has sacrificed? The answer to this question is found to a large degree in an article by Prof. Angelo Codevilla in the current issue of the Claremont Review of Books titled “The Lost Decade.”
Codevilla argues that the reason the US finds itself in the position it is in today owes to a significant degree to its refusal after September 11, 2001, to properly identify its enemy. US foreign policy elites of all stripes and sizes refused to consider clearly how the US should best defend its interests because they refused to identify who most endangered those interests.
The Left refused to acknowledge that the US was under attack from the forces of radical Islam enabled by Islamic supremacist regimes such as Saudi Arabia and Iran because the Left didn’t want the US to fight. Moreover, because the Left believes that US policies are to blame for the Islamic world’s hostility to America, leftists favor foreign policies predicated on US appeasement of its enemies.
For its part, the Right refused to acknowledge the identity and nature of the US’s enemy because it feared the Left.
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Rather than fight to defend the US, the US went to war to transform the Arab world from one imbued with unmentionable religious extremism to one increasingly ruled by democratically elected unmentionable religious extremism.
The lion’s share of responsibility for this dismal state of affairs lies with former president Bush and his administration. While the Left didn’t want to fight or defeat the forces of radical Islam after September 11, the majority of Americans did. And by catering to the Left and refusing to identify the enemy, Bush adopted war-fighting tactics that discredited the war effort and demoralized and divided the American public, thus paving the way for Obama to be elected while running on a radical anti-war platform of retreat and appeasement.
Since Obama came into office, he has followed the Left’s ideological guidelines of ending the fight against and seeking to appease America’s worst enemies. This is why he has supported the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. This is why he turned a blind eye to the Islamists who dominated the opposition to Gaddafi. This is why he has sought to appease Iran and Syria. This is why he supports the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Syrian opposition. This is why he supports Turkey’s Islamist government. And this is why he is hostile to Israel.
And this is why come December 31, the US will withdraw in defeat from Iraq, and pro- American forces in the region and the US itself will reap the whirlwind of Washington’s irresponsibility.
There is a price to be paid for calling an enemy an enemy. But there is an even greater price to be paid for failing to do so.
After 9/11, the US had to do something but balked at doing the right thing.
In response to this US failure, her former allies, Israel and the monarchies, are banding together in defense of their interests namely to stop Iraq. Maliki is doing what he can to strengthen the Shiites and to open the door for Iran. According to Glick,
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[..] the administration abjectly refused to intervene when Maliki stole the elections or to defend US allies in the Iraqi military from Maliki’s pro-Iranian purge of the general officer corps. And by refusing to side with US allies, the Obama administration has effectively sided with America’s foes, enabling Iranian-allied forces to take over the US built, -trained and -armed security apparatuses in Iraq.
Thus what must be done is to create an opposition to this in Iraq by uniting and supporting the Sunnis and the Kurds to stop Maliki and Iran. Saudi Arabia and Israel would be the natural patrons of the Sunnis and Kurds, respectively. Similarly this same cooperation must extend to Syria which has a large population of Kurds and Sunnis.
Stayed tuned.
Ron,
You’re a sincere fellow, or I wouldn’t bother responding to you. When I said “Caroline Glick has been taking stupid pills for this one”, I implied that I normally highly respect the things she says; but on something she said in this piece, she falls so short of her usual high standard, she seems like someone who is under the influence.
I don’t expect you to fully grasp this, Ron, but try: Israel is in a war — a war that is as much Jew against Jew as it is Jew against everyone else. The God of Israel, who is a just and holy God, is in the business of doing something for the benefit of those who love Him, whether they be Jewish, Catholic, Agnostic, bewildered or ignorant: He is defending His holy name before all mankind, and He is doing so by standing with the people who are called by His name. He is not on an ego trip, nor are those who speak on His behalf on ego trips. What’s more, the people who are called by His name, such as Caroline Glick, are not all-around white-hatted hotshots; and if you yourself consider yourself one of this company, as do I, neither you nor I are hot shots either. In everything we say or do, we need to take careful aim: The last shot we popped off may have hit the mark or gone astray; it doesn’t matter; we need to zero in on our target, fire, and let God pin the medals on people when it’s all over.
Caroline’s big mistake, which you seem to have missed, is that she’s describing things in “Right/Left” terms; and because of this, she is framing things in such a way that her readers (who tend to be black/white thinkers) will tend to lump the bad with the good. George W. Bush is very much a Republican, very much a Christian and very much a “Conservative”, if there even is such an animal anymore. In his heart (and I honestly think he has one), I think he even considers himself pro-Israel. Being thus well-labeled and well-intentioned, he has done as much wickedness toward Israel, in his time in office, as Barack Obama has done in his. This isn’t a “Right/Left” matter; and those who think it is, are in danger of being led down the same path as Bush and Obama. None of us has a white hat here: We all wear muddy, dingy gray. That said, we all need to be attentive to Hashem and to what He is doing.
God bless and keep you, Ron. Shalom shalom.
Bland you don’t know what you are talking about. your not even in her league. Caroline has forgotten more than you know.
Your all over the place and making no sense, I don’t know who you are trying to impress.
Time to take a break, a few glasses of Milk of Magnesia should do the trick.
Caroline is a great American and a great Israeli.
I’m afraid Caroline Glick has been taking stupid pills for this one.
RIGHT-wing President George W. Bush refused to identify the RIGHT-wing Saudis as the enemy, because he feard losing THEIR business. The LEFT doesn’t figure into this at all.
I had to read through a lot of “Right/Left” slop, before coming to the part about Iraq. Southern (Shiite) Iraq is in the Iranian sphere of influence. Northern (Sunni) Iraq, both Arab and Kurd, is in the Turkish sphere of influence. Let the two have at each other. My money is on Obama backing the Turks; so that, with access to the Iraqi oil fields, they will be a great power on a par with the UK and France.
The Iranian nuke threat has to be dealt with IMMEDIATELY. This does not involve Iraq. The Turks will very likely fill the vacuum left by Iran’s weakness (and NATO support in making Syria their colony). That is the most likely scenario. The beaten Iranians will then join them, to be on the winning side. So will the Libyans and Sudanese.
That is the most likely scenario. It is also Ezekiel 38. I do not long to see it happen; but for God’s sake, Israel, open your eyes and see what’s happening right in front of them! Glick is concerned about a minor internal conflict that will soon be overtaken by events; and she has ironically backed the wrong horse. It is the Kurds and Sunni Iraqis, allied with the Turks, who will be part of a major power confronting Israel long before the Iranians get to profit substantially from their Shia cousins in Iraq.
It’s the oil, stupid. Turkey wants it, and Turkey is Obama’s darling. The Iranians are a lowly snake whose fangs are getting nuclear. De-fang her, and she’s just a lowly snake.
yes to Iraqi Sunnis annexing with Saudi Arabia.
The Kurds need to collect from the USA and UK for their betrayal in 1919 and 1923. Once Free Kurdistan has sovereignty and a land corridor to the Med for their own pipeline, then the Kurds can ally with Israel. Sorry, but the Kurds have enormous support on their own merits.