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The Only Refugees in the World Denied the Right of Resettlement
The news that hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza drowned last week when the boats in which they were trying to reach Europe sank once again highlights the hypocrisy of the world's attitude toward the Palestinians. After all, the "international community" has designated two-thirds of all Gaza residents as bona fide refugees, even though the vast majority of them were born in Gaza and have lived there all their lives. And as bona fide refugees, they shouldn't have had to board rickety smugglers' boats in a desperate attempt to reach Europe; they should have been able to apply to the UN for orderly resettlement right from their refugee camps, just as thousands of other refugees do every year. But they can't, because Palestinians are the only refugees in the world who are denied the basic right of resettlement.
The news that hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza drowned last week when the boats in which they were trying to reach Europe sank once again highlights the hypocrisy of the world's attitude toward the Palestinians. After all, the "international community" has designated two-thirds of all Gaza residents as bona fide refugees, even though the vast majority of them were born in Gaza and have lived there all their lives. And as bona fide refugees, they shouldn't have had to board rickety smugglers' boats in a desperate attempt to reach Europe; they should have been able to apply to the UN for orderly resettlement right from their refugee camps, just as thousands of other refugees do every year. But they can't, because Palestinians are the only refugees in the world who are denied the basic right of resettlement.
Granted, they are also the only "refugees" in the world for whom refugeehood is an inheritable status that can be passed down to one's descendants in perpetuity, generation after generation. Under the definition used by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which deals with all the world's refugees except Palestinians, only a few thousand elderly Gazans who were personally displaced in 1948 would be considered refugees today, rather than the 1.2 million actually on UN rolls. So if the "international community" were to argue that Gazans don't deserve a right to resettlement because they aren't really refugees, that would be perfectly legitimate.
But it doesn't. In fact, not only has the world adopted the unique definition of refugeehood promulgated by the Palestinians' personal refugee agency, UNRWA, but it actively supports this definition by funding UNRWA's ever-expanding budget to keep pace with its ever-expanding number of "refugees." And once having accepted the claim that these born-and-bred Gazans are actually refugees from an Israel they've never seen, the international community is morally obligated to ensure that they enjoy the same rights as all other refugees.
Instead, Palestinians are the only refugees in the world who are denied the right of resettlement. Whereas UNHCR resettles tens of thousands of refugees every year, UNRWA hasn't resettled a single refugee in its 65 years of existence. On the contrary, the schools it runs for Palestinian refugees indoctrinate them from kindergarten on that there is one, and only one, way for them to end their refugee status: by "returning" to the towns or villages in Israel that their ancestors fled–which most of them have never seen, and some of which no longer even exist. In short, since Israel would never voluntarily accept all five million "refugees" on UNRWA's rolls, it's telling them that the only solution to their refugeehood is Israel's destruction.
According to a poll taken in late August, a whopping 43 percent of Gazans would like to emigrate. Many of these would-be emigrants are presumably among the two-thirds of Gazans registered as refugees, meaning they ought to be entitled to resettlement aid. So here's a modest proposal: Western countries, which are UNRWA's main donors, should take a big chunk of the over $1 billion a year they give UNRWA and spend it instead on resettling those Gazans who want to leave. Not only would that help the Gazan refugees themselves, but it would save money in the long run by significantly reducing the number of refugees under UNRWA's care.
Alternatively, they could tell UNRWA they're no longer willing to go along with the fiction that its five million "refugees" are really refugees, and from now on will provide funds only for those refugees who actually meet UNHCR's definition. The remaining money would go to the governments under which most of UNRWA's registered refugees live–primarily Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, and Lebanon–to help them provide the services UNRWA now provides.
But to continue defining Palestinians as refugees while denying them the basic right to resettlement is unconscionable. And all those Westerners who claim to be so concerned over Palestinian rights should be the first to protest this hypocritical and discriminatory practice.
Miracle at Philadelphia
On this day in 1787, delegates to the Federal Convention voted to approve a new Constitution, which was submitted to the states for ratification (which occurred on June 21, 1788).
On this day in 1787, delegates to the Federal Convention voted to approve a new Constitution, which was submitted to the states for ratification (which occurred on June 21, 1788).
How this event came to pass is among the most extraordinary stories in human history. "It appears to me, then, little short of a miracle," Washington wrote to Lafayette on February 7, 1788, "that the Delegates from so many different States (which States you know are also different from each other), in their manners, circumstances, and prejudices, should unite in forming a system of national Government, so little liable to well founded objections."
Catherine Drinker Bowen's 1966 book Miracle at Philadelphia is among the best accounts of what occurred. She captures the drama and suspense, the intense arguments and the despair, and the moments of high purpose and nobility. She also captures superbly well the voices of the delegates–including some of the most notable names in American history (Washington, Madison, Hamilton, Franklin, Dickinson, Wilson, and Morris)–who gathered in secret sessions from May through September, not to revise the Articles of Confederation, which was the stated purpose, but to write a new constitution. "The situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth," is how 81-year-old Benjamin Franklin described it.
And what a political truth they found. The governing charter they created has become the oldest written national constitution in the world and among the greatest political achievements ever.
But it was not just human intellect that carried the day in Philadelphia; it was the product of a certain kind of human character. Ms. Bowen describes it this way:
The Federal Convention, viewed from the records, is startlingly fresh and "new." The spirit behind it was the spirit of compromise, seemingly no very noble flag to rally round. Compromise can be an ugly word, signifying a pact with the devil, a chipping off of the best to suit the worst. Yet in the Constitutional Convention the spirit of compromise reigned in grace and glory; as Washington presided, it sat on his shoulder like the dove. Men rise to speak and one sees them struggle with the bias of birthright, locality, statehood – South against North, East against West, merchant against planter. One sees them change their minds, fight against pride, and when the moment comes, admit their error. If the story is old, the feelings behind it are new as Monday morning. "If all the tales are told, retell them, Brother. If few attend, let those who listen feel."
The Founders were imperfect men and the Constitution an imperfect document. But all things considered what happened at Independence Hall was little short of a miracle. And for a group of fiercely proud and independent individuals to rise above such deep difference for the sake of the public good, to comprise in order to advance justice and human dignity, was a rare and wonderful thing. It's something worth aspiring to in our time, when excellence and high-mindedness in public life seem to be hidden away on distant hills.
The NFL and the Sum of our Sins
It's open season on the National Football League this week as politicians, pundits, activists, and celebrities are venting their outrage about the misdeeds of some of its athletes. All of this anger about the behavior of Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson is justified. But as this wave of indignation flows over the NFL and its embattled commissioner Roger Goodell, it's worth pondering just how much good will come of an effort to pin responsibility for all the evils of society on a sports business that is being excoriated all over the dial for only wishing to make money rather than doing good. But as much as the sport deserves a good beating, this is a moment when cooler heads might do well to observe that the sudden willingness to see football as synonymous with domestic violence makes no more sense than the league's pretense to stand for all that's good in American culture.
It's open season on the National Football League this week as politicians, pundits, activists, and celebrities are venting their outrage about the misdeeds of some of its athletes. All of this anger about the behavior of Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson is justified. But as this wave of indignation flows over the NFL and its embattled commissioner Roger Goodell, it's worth pondering just how much good will come of an effort to pin responsibility for all the evils of society on a sports business that is being excoriated all over the dial for only wishing to make money rather than doing good. But as much as the sport deserves a good beating, this is a moment when cooler heads might do well to observe that the sudden willingness to see football as synonymous with domestic violence makes no more sense than the league's pretense to stand for all that's good in American culture.
Let me confess that I find the NFL's present discomfiture somewhat amusing. As much as I like to watch football (and have wasted countless hours every autumn of my adolescence and adult life being disappointed and infuriated by the New York Jets, a team that can always be counted on to invent new ways to humiliate itself and its faithful fans) the league's smug, corporate conceit of itself as "America's Game" is insufferable. The elevation of the Super Bowl to an endless and boring secular rite of winter that all of us, even those of us that despise the teams that are playing in the championship, feel compelled to watch so as to be able to comment on the commercials lest we appear out of touch with the zeitgeist, is similarly obnoxious.
The NFL surpassed baseball in terms of television ratings and general popularity (as opposed to actual attendance) largely on the basis of the fact that it is the perfect sport to watch on television (as the small minority of fans who attend games can attest, you can actually see more of the game at home than at the stadium) and the popularity of the largely illegal gambling on the point spreads on each week's schedule of games. That has given the league and its teams an income stream that has allowed it to do pretty much anything it liked.
The conundrum about the NFL is that the more violent the game has become and the more atrocious the injuries that are inflicted on a regular basis on its players (a function in part of the fact that those who now play in the NFL are far bigger, stronger, and faster than those who strapped on leather helmets in the sport's pre-World War Two ice age), the more the league has tried to present itself as the embodiment of community service do-gooding. The league's ubiquitous United Way commercials were just the tip of an iceberg of public-relations baloney intended to portray a game predicated on, in George Will's memorable quip, "violence punctuated by committee meetings," as something more public spirited if not elevated.
The point is, you can love football without buying into the NFL's conception of itself. But having foisted this airbrushed NFL Films image on the country, neither Goodell nor any of its teams are in any position to ask that their players be judged by the same standards as anyone else. If you ask people to treat you as gods, you can't complain when they find out you have feet of clay and start talking about tearing down the altars where false deities are worshipped.
But even though there's something slightly satisfying about watching NFL owners squirm, the notion that this league is uniquely responsible for domestic violence or abuse of children is a bit much.
Goodell opened himself up to this sort of treatment when he gave Rice a mere slap on the wrist with a team game suspension after he was found to have knocked his then fiancée unconscious in an Atlantic City elevator. When the surveillance tape of the events was publicized months later, the world got to see just how tough the Ravens running back could be when facing up against a defenseless woman. Goodell's problems grew when it became clear he might not have told the truth when he claimed not to have seen the video before his initial ruling.
That was made even worse when news broke about Peterson's indictment for child abuse in Texas after he was observed beating and injuring his son with a tree branch. Peterson was held out of this past Sunday's game but, since he is innocent until proven guilty, will apparently be allowed to play until his case his decided. The same is true for some other football players accused or found guilty of a violent crime. Like the initial lenient treatment accorded Rice, this is all seen as further evidence of the NFL's whitewashing of a record of violence for which it should be held accountable and justification for pontifications about how the violence of the game is somehow responsible for the private behavior of its players.
But though it's hard to sympathize with Goodell or any of the other rich people that arrogantly preside over the sport, the rage against the league is as disproportionate as the league's swaggering image. Like other industries, including other forms of popular entertainment, the NFL employs its share of thugs. But contrary to the pop psychology being spouted on the networks about football and domestic violence, this might be a good moment to point out that criminal louts were beating their wives, girlfriends, and children, long before Yale's Walter Camp sketched out some of the key rules that differentiated American football from rugby and Princeton played the sport's first college game against Rutgers.
I'm entirely sympathetic to the notion that an entertainment business should not employ or help glorify criminals. No one, and especially not someone who has become notorious for violent behavior, has a right to play professional football so if Rice, Peterson, and anyone else labeled as a bad actor never play again, so much the better. And it sends a good message to the nation that such behavior is disqualifying for inclusion in the country's top sports TV shows. But banning them or firing Goodell won't fix this country's social pathologies to which football has only the most tenuous connection. Nor will any amount of soul searching by the game's leaders or hearings at which members of Congress might grandstand on the issue (the next, almost inevitable step). Football is, after all, a game, albeit a rough one, and not, contrary to the invocations of countless coaches, a metaphor for life, the embodiment of the American way, or any other such superannuated nonsense. The NFL is not the sum of our sins any more than it is the embodiment of our virtues as a nation.
The intense focus on the NFL is just another symptom of the 24/7 news cycle which will move on to something else once there are no more developments or something else comes along. But as much as that shouldn't mean less attention should be paid to domestic violence, no one should be under the illusion that the current anger at Goodell or any of his players is anything more elevated than any other pop culture feeding frenzies.
About That Iran Talks Deadline?
Last year when the United States and its allies signed an interim nuclear accord with Iran, Secretary of State John Kerry made it clear to the world that the subsequent round of talks to arrive at a final resolution of the problem would not be allowed to go on indefinitely. Unlike past diplomatic exchanges with Iran, the negotiations would be limited to a period of six months after which there would either be a satisfactory agreement to end the nuclear threat or Iran would face serious consequences. But a low-key announcement from the European Union about a diplomatic assignment demonstrates that what Kerry said would never be allowed to happen is exactly what will occur.
Last year when the United States and its allies signed an interim nuclear accord with Iran, Secretary of State John Kerry made it clear to the world that the subsequent round of talks to arrive at a final resolution of the problem would not be allowed to go on indefinitely. Unlike past diplomatic exchanges with Iran, the negotiations would be limited to a period of six months after which there would either be a satisfactory agreement to end the nuclear threat or Iran would face serious consequences. But a low-key announcement from the European Union about a diplomatic assignment demonstrates that what Kerry said would never be allowed to happen is exactly what will occur.
The announcement concerned European Union foreign-policy chief Catherine Ashton who will, we are informed, continue on in her role as chief negotiator for the P5+1 talks with Iran even after her term on the EU Commission expires in November. Rather than her designated successor, current Italian Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini, assuming the responsibility for leading the Western delegation in the negotiations, Ashton will soldier on in this thankless task. But aside from any qualms about Ashton's past performance in the role, which inspires little confidence in either her willingness to press the Islamist regime or her commitment to ending the danger of an Iranian bomb, there is one other little problem.
If the final round of the P5+1 talks were only supposed to last six months, why will Ashton's services still be required more than a year after the interim accord was signed?
The answer is all too obvious. Despite the pious promises from Kerry and all of the other defenders of the interim accord that the West had learned its lesson about being strung along by the Iranians, they have in fact fallen for the same trick again. Having been suckered into an interim deal that weakened sanctions on Iran just at the moment when the enormous economic and military leverage over the regime seemed to provide an opportunity to pressure it to come to terms without the use of force, Western negotiators have now found themselves trapped in a device of their own making. They gambled everything on the belief that Iran was ready to sign a final accord that would allow President Obama to fulfill his campaign promise to stop Iran. But after several months of talks that demonstrated anew that the Iranians will never give up their nuclear program or agree to any terms that will effectively prevent them from building a bomb, the U.S. and its allies feel they have no choice but to keep talking even if there is no end in sight.
The announcement about Ashton is significant because even when the P5+1 group formally extended the Iran talks after the six-month mark was passed this summer (Iran had already been allowed to delay the start of the clock), Congress and the public were assured that this would not mean they would go on indefinitely. But with the Iranians digging in their heels recently on a variety of issues, including inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency and their uranium refinement and stockpile of nuclear fuel, there seems no chance that the next round of negotiations to be held in New York during the meeting of the General Assembly of the United Nations will be anything but a continuation of past frustration for the West and delaying tactics by the Iranians.
The notion of Iran running out the clock in these talks has always been crucial. That's because for the last decade it's been obvious that doing so merely gives them more time to reach their nuclear goal after which it will no longer be possible for the West to take meaningful action. That was the case when similar prevarications worked to allow the North Koreans to pass the nuclear threshold, something that should be painfully familiar to Wendy Sherman, the head of the U.S. delegation to the talks Ashton chairs, who was performing the same role with the North Koreans.
It is apt to remember that when critics of the interim accord raised questions about its lenient terms, the loosening of sanctions, and the Iranians' stalling the West again, they were labeled "warmongers." Attempts by a majority in both houses of Congress to enact new, tougher sanctions on Iran that would go into effect only when the next round of negotiations would be declared a failure were denounced by the administration as an unwarranted interference in what they considered to be a productive diplomatic stream.
Had those sanctions been enacted last winter rather than being spiked by procedural maneuvers by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Obama's veto threats, Ashton and the P5+1 negotiators would have some real leverage over the Iranians at this point. But instead of allowing diplomacy to flourish, the defeat of sanctions was a gift to the Iranians who now feel empowered to return to the dilatory tactics of the past.
Iran's position is further strengthened by the situation in Iraq and Syria where the rise of ISIS (due in no small measure to other foreign-policy blunders by the administration) has made the administration even more loath to offend Tehran. Having a common foe with the United States seems to have empowered the Iranians to think they have nothing to worry about. They also benefit from the conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine, as Moscow now seems inclined to offer the Iranians an outlet that will render sanctions less effective.
Seen in that light, Ashton may have reason to believe that she will have more or less permanent employment in a P5+1 process that could drag out well into the future. But this admission not only gives the lie to Kerry's promises about the interim accord's time limits. It also gives the ayatollahs confidence that the West no longer is serious, if indeed it ever was, about preventing them from realizing their nuclear ambitions.
Media Bias and the Benghazi Scandal
Former CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson, writing in the Daily Signal, tells the story of former State Department official Raymond Maxwell, a well-respected 21-year diplomat who personally contributed to Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Mr. Maxwell has told lawmakers that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's closest aides–including her chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, and her deputy chief of staff, Jake Sullivan–privately removed politically damaging documents before turning over files to the Accountability Review Board, the independent board investigating the Benghazi terror attack.
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Former CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson, writing in the Daily Signal, tells the story of former State Department official Raymond Maxwell, a well-respected 21-year diplomat who personally contributed to Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Mr. Maxwell has told lawmakers that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's closest aides–including her chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, and her deputy chief of staff, Jake Sullivan–privately removed politically damaging documents before turning over files to the Accountability Review Board, the independent board investigating the Benghazi terror attack.
Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz confirmed to Fox News that last year, in a private interview, Maxwell told him and other lawmakers that Hillary Clinton's aides oversaw the operation, which allegedly took place on a weekend in a basement office of the State Department.
"What they were looking for is anything that made them look bad. That's the way it was described to us," Chaffetz said. (State Department spokesman Alec Gerlach has denied the allegations.)
Ms. Attkisson sets the scene this way:
According to former Deputy Assistant Secretary Raymond Maxwell, the after-hours session took place over a weekend in a basement operations-type center at State Department headquarters in Washington, D.C. This is the first time Maxwell has publicly come forward with the story. …
When he arrived, Maxwell says he observed boxes and stacks of documents. He says a State Department office director, whom Maxwell described as close to Clinton's top advisers, was there. Though the office director technically worked for him, Maxwell says he wasn't consulted about her weekend assignment.
"She told me, 'Ray, we are to go through these stacks and pull out anything that might put anybody in the [Near Eastern Affairs] front office or the seventh floor in a bad light,'" says Maxwell. He says "seventh floor" was State Department shorthand for then-Secretary of State Clinton and her principal advisors.
"I asked her, 'But isn't that unethical?' She responded, 'Ray, those are our orders.'"
This charge needs to be fully examined and Mr. Maxwell's account needs to be corroborated or refuted. (The House investigation into this matter begins tomorrow and will hopefully shed more light on it.) But if Mr. Maxwell's report is true–and on the surface he appears to be a credible witness–it would amount to a very serious coverup and evidence of widespread corruption that would almost surely have to involve Mrs. Clinton.
The elite media's indifference to this story continues to be quite telling. The vast number of journalists decided a long time ago that they were utterly indifferent to the Benghazi story, regardless of the facts, and for reasons that undoubtedly have to do with their political bias. Among many reporters the bias is so pronounced and endemic they aren't even aware of their blinding double standards. But the rest of us are.
I can promise you that if the details of the Benghazi story were identical but it had happened in the Bush, Reagan, or Nixon administration, there would be a fierce, relentless, around-the-clock investigation led by the major media outlets. There would be a gleam in the eye of every political reporter who lives in the Acela Corridor. Journalists would be eager to afflict the comfortable, speak truth to power, hold politicians accountable, and seek to wipe misconduct from the face of the political earth. Every managing editor would want to emulate Ben Bradlee; every reporter would want to be Woodward and Bernstein.
It would be a feeding frenzy in the name of Truth, Justice, and the American Way.
But not in this case. Not with the Obama administration. Not with Hillary Clinton. Because many in the elite media have a narrative–the truth about what happened about Benghazi doesn't really matter–and they're sticking to it. Some reporters may go through the motions now and again, but that's all. There's no driving ambition to get to the bottom of this story. They would really rather not know. And the fact that they would really rather not know tells you a very great deal of what's wrong with American journalism today. Elite journalists are as infected by ideology and motivated reasoning–in this case, by motivated reporting–as members of the DNC or the Obama White House. But at least those being paid by the DNC and the White House don't pretend to be objective.
Don't Call It a Comeback: Interventionism Was Hiding in Plain Sight
A spate of stories in today's news offers a convincing answer to those asking how a war-weary nation–as we are told we are, again and again–is suddenly on the verge of multifront military intervention. The first story is that the U.S. is committing troops to the fight to contain Ebola in West Africa. This seems a fairly sensible, better-safe-than-sorry approach to an epidemic spreading rapidly.
A spate of stories in today's news offers a convincing answer to those asking how a war-weary nation–as we are told we are, again and again–is suddenly on the verge of multifront military intervention. The first story is that the U.S. is committing troops to the fight to contain Ebola in West Africa. This seems a fairly sensible, better-safe-than-sorry approach to an epidemic spreading rapidly.
As the New York Times reports, the troops will help with the construction of medical treatment facilities, distribution of aid, and will take the reins in coordinating a regional response. The administration expects to deploy as many as 3,000 to Africa in the effort. Some health experts are calling for an even greater response from the U.S., saying the focus on Liberia is not enough; Sierra Leone and Guinea are also in dire need.
If the crisis worsens, so will disorder, border chaos, and perhaps even a refugee crisis of sorts, not to mention the need to protect all these treatment centers and medical storage facilities. This is not an overnight mission, nor a relatively quiet one like sending forces to help track down African warlords, as we have also been doing.
So that's one kind of military intervention–to fight a disease epidemic across the ocean. The other major story today was on the administration's shaky attempts to wrangle support for military intervention in Iraq and Syria to combat ISIS.
The plan is to use airpower to hit ISIS from above. But there are a couple of ways this could escalate. First is the possibility that since the U.S. is not coordinating attacks in Syria with Bashar al-Assad's regime, Assad's forces could target U.S. aircraft. As the AP reported, "The United States would retaliate against Syrian President Bashar Assad's air defenses if he were to go after American planes launching airstrikes in his country, senior Obama administration officials said Monday."
Another complication is the fact that no one seems to believe airstrikes alone would be enough to accomplish the mission–though the mission itself isn't quite clear enough for some of the members of Congress on the fence about the plan. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked about mission creep and said success may, in fact, require boots on the ground in Iraq. "My view at this point is that this coalition is the appropriate way forward. I believe that will prove true," Dempsey said. "But if it fails to be true, and if there are threats to the United States, then I of course would go back to the president and make a recommendation that may include the use of U.S. military ground forces."
We should also not forget that on his recent trip to Estonia attempting to counter Russian aggression, "Obama also announced the US would send more air force units and aircraft to the Baltics, and called Estonia's Amari air base an ideal location to base those forces." The U.S. has since repeatedly reaffirmed its commitment to protecting NATO allies in the region, but it hasn't stopped Russia from sending veiled threats it may test that promise.
So to sum up: we're sending troops to one, and possibly three or more, African countries to deal with Ebola; we're sending the Air Force to the Baltics, with promises to confront Russia with more troops if need be; and we're contemplating the possibility of sending troops to Iraq while striking at one, possibly two sides in a three-way Syrian civil war while arming the third side, which may or may not have agreed to a truce with one of the sides we're bombing.
How is it that the American public can be war-weary and also quite clearly interventionist at the same time? The answer is: piece by piece. Americans are tired, in an abstract way, of "policing" the world and fighting open-ended military campaigns. But the individual issues here scramble that message.
According to Rasmussen, half the country is worried about Ebola. According to the Washington Post/ABC poll, most are concerned about ISIS, and thus by clear majorities support airstrikes in both Iraq and Syria. That same Post/ABC poll finds more than 40 percent think Obama has been "too cautious" on countering Russia's aggression in Ukraine. That might be because, according to Pew, Americans see Russia as the country's top looming threat.
In other words, when Americans' retrenchment instincts clash with real-world crises, their concern for the latter tends to win out. And that's also why we suddenly see a diverse coalition of hawks, at least on the right. Those who prefer less intervention may be learning from the Obama administration's bungled retreat from the world stage that there is such a thing as a power vacuum, and nature does indeed abhor it.
A stable world order promoted by American power can in many cases make later military intervention unnecessary. Intervention is sometimes the most rational response from noninterventionists.
And as the Ted Cruz-IDC dustup has shown, Americans tend to be a diverse country full of people who strongly believe the United States has a responsibility to protect various at-risk populations around the globe. Here, for example, is the closing sentence of Ross Douthat's column on the controversy from Sunday:
The fact that he was widely lauded says a lot about why, if 2,000 years of Christian history in the Middle East ends in blood and ash and exile, the American right no less than the left and center will deserve a share of responsibility for that fate.
This is, I find, a strong argument for intervention. It's also an argument, however unintended, for intervention that never materialized in Darfur, and perhaps the consideration of such in Burma, where the Rohingya Muslims might very well be the target of such a campaign. And it's an argument for intervention in a broad array of crises. It is, in fact, a neat summation of Samantha Power's foreign-policy philosophy. Douthat sounds about as much a realist here as John McCain is.
And Douthat's not wrong about the need to save the besieged Christians of the Middle East! That's the point. There are times when the United States is treaty-bound to intervene on behalf of allies. And there are times when the United States must intervene out of strategic interest. And there are times when the United States seems obligated to intervene out of sheer moral responsibility.
It all adds up to an active, interventionist American role in the world. And the support for that foreign policy goes on periodic hiatus, but it always returns.
Why Scots Leader Compares Israel to ISIS
It might have been assumed that among Scottish nationalists, there would be a certain sympathy for Israel. Perhaps they would see some parallel between Zionism and their own efforts to regain sovereignty after many centuries without it, to revive an almost unspoken language long after most people in Scotland had lost the ability to so much as string together a sentence of Scots Gaelic. But, as a matter of fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Scottish nationalism appears to have aligned itself with a radically anti-Israel impulse, one that enjoys substantial popularity with the wider public. And if there was any doubt about just how extreme that reflexive hostility toward Israel really is, we need only observe Scotland's first minister, Alex Salmond, comparing Israel to ISIS.
It might have been assumed that among Scottish nationalists, there would be a certain sympathy for Israel. Perhaps they would see some parallel between Zionism and their own efforts to regain sovereignty after many centuries without it, to revive an almost unspoken language long after most people in Scotland had lost the ability to so much as string together a sentence of Scots Gaelic. But, as a matter of fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Scottish nationalism appears to have aligned itself with a radically anti-Israel impulse, one that enjoys substantial popularity with the wider public. And if there was any doubt about just how extreme that reflexive hostility toward Israel really is, we need only observe Scotland's first minister, Alex Salmond, comparing Israel to ISIS.
During a BBC television interview that took place yesterday, Alex Salmond was discussing the latest ISIS beheading, this time of a British national. Salmond pointed out that British Muslims shouldn't be held responsible for ISIS. Well, leaving aside the fact that many British Muslim families have members off on jihad in Iraq and Syria, Salmond's point stands. But what he went on to say reveals just how second nature negativity toward Israel has become among Scottish nationalists. For, having referred to ISIS's actions as "unspeakable barbarism" for which British Muslim's shouldn't be blamed, the first minister went on to add: "I mean, just like a few weeks ago, the Jewish community of Scotland wasn't responsible for the policies of the State of Israel."
First of all, that will come as news to many in Britain. During the war in Gaza, British Jews experienced a tremendous rise in anti-Semitic attacks, many of which in some way referenced Israel, and Scotland was no exception in this. But the comparison was clear; two evils in the Middle East, and two religious minorities in Britain who are not to be blamed for those evils.
Breathtakingly, some in Britain's Jewish leadership have actually defended Salmond's remarks, arguing that he had not intended any direct comparison between ISIS and the Jewish state. Well, yes, no doubt if questioned Mr. Salmond would not maintain that Israel and ISIS are morally indistinguishable. Yet the casual throwaway categorization was entirely evident. Quite simply Salmond's point was that ISIS's actions are "unspeakable barbarism," and so were Israel's in Gaza. There was no hint that Israel's war might have been justifiable; Salmond's remark makes clear that that's beyond question. But as an enlightened and tolerant man, he simply asks that Scotland's Jews not be held responsible.
Such attitudes are the norm among Scottish nationalists. Salmond's second in command–and prominent face in the campaign for independence–Nicola Sturgeon was recently the headline speaker at Glasgow's "Women for Gaza" rally. Also on the line-up was Yvonne Ridley, a prominent convert to Islam who has often voiced her support for terrorist groups, Hezbollah among them. Ridley recently called for a "Zionist-free Scotland." So with the leading lights of the Scottish nationalist movement sharing a platform with those advocating a Scotland free of "Zionists," one has to wonder just how serious they really are about not extending their antipathy for the Jewish state to Jews in general.
Mercifully, Scotland's devolved government has no authority over foreign policy. Yet during the recent war in Gaza, the nationalists, who dominate the Scottish parliament, released eight separate condemnations of Israel. Salmond's government even called for an arms embargo against Israel as the Jewish state attempted to halt the barrage of rockets and maze of tunnels directed against its civilians. And such sentiments are shared by much of the Scottish public. During the referendum campaign nationalists have reminded Scots that if they left the union they could be free of David Cameron's pro-Israel stance. It was, after all, with considerable public approval that Glasgow city hall recently flew the Palestinian flag as an act of solidarity with Scotland's Palestinian cousins.
And that is how one senses Scottish nationalists view the Palestinians; as Arab cousins. The same attitude is visible in Ireland, and among Welsh nationalists—the founder of the Welsh nationalist party was said to have hated the Jews as much as the English and harbored sympathies for European fascism. But to understand why these parts of the United Kingdom have become particularly hostile to Israel, one should look to Belfast. There the Catholic and Republican neighborhoods fly the Palestinian flag, but the Protestant and Unionists are more likely to be flying the Israeli one. The Celtic parts of Britain, rather bizarrely, seem to have conceived of themselves through the lexicon of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, with the English firmly framed as the Israelis. It's only disappointing that the rest of England doesn't identify accordingly.
On reflection, perhaps it's not surprising Scottish nationalists couldn't identify with Zionism, the national liberation movement of a people persecuted and destitute in the world. Scottish nationalism has in no small part sustained itself on a diet of anti-English rhetoric; they have done well out of the politics of jealousy and resentment. No wonder it's the Palestinians that Salmond feels a certain kinship with.
U.S. Credibility and the Anti-ISIS Coalition
Last week a congressman asked me: Should I support President Obama's anti-ISIS strategy even though it is likely to fail? Good question. And it's not only lawmakers who are asking themselves that question. So are actual or potential U.S. allies from Europe to the Middle East. The most important people to be asking themselves that question are Sunni tribes in Iraq and Syria whose support is vital to defeat ISIS. But should they risk their lives in what could well be a losing cause?
Last week a congressman asked me: Should I support President Obama's anti-ISIS strategy even though it is likely to fail? Good question. And it's not only lawmakers who are asking themselves that question. So are actual or potential U.S. allies from Europe to the Middle East. The most important people to be asking themselves that question are Sunni tribes in Iraq and Syria whose support is vital to defeat ISIS. But should they risk their lives in what could well be a losing cause?
That, unfortunately, is the issue that will confront retired General John Allen, who has been tasked with assembling an anti-ISIS coalition. American credibility reached a low point a year ago when Obama threatened air strikes against Syria but then lost his nerve. Obama's credibility has never recovered either with American voters or American allies. As one analyst in the UAE (one of the countries Obama is relying upon for help), recently told the Washington Post, "We have reached a low point of trust in this administration. We think in a time of crisis Mr. Obama will walk away from everyone if it means saving his own skin."
The president does nothing to enhance his own credibility when he overrules the best advice of his own military commanders by refusing to commit U.S. "boots on the ground" to help anti-ISIS fighters in Iraq and Syria became a more credible military force. Most serious military analysts believe a substantial force of American advisers and Special Operations Forces will be required. Kim and Fred Kagan, for example, argue for 25,000 personnel in Iraq and Syria. I have suggested a figure of 10,000 to 15,000. By limiting the entire U.S. presence to 1,600 personnel so far, and by refusing to let U.S. advisers operate with units in the field, Obama has made it much less likely that the U.S. could achieve the objectives he set out.
And those objectives are themselves problematic. Obama said he is out to "degrade and ultimately destroy" ISIS. If his objective is really to destroy the group, why include the word "degrade"? Did FDR commit the U.S. after Pearl Harbor to "degrade and ultimately destroy" German and Japanese power? No, he committed the U.S. to do whatever was necessary to achieve he unconditional surrender of the enemy–the "degrade" part was assumed as being necessary on the road to ultimate victory. Because, however, Obama makes clear that his immediate objective is only to "degrade" ISIS–and because Pentagon officials have been leaking that the administration envisions a multiyear effort that will be handed off to the next administration–he raises the suspicion that he is intent only on "degrading" not on "destroying" ISIS.
Secretary of State John Kerry does not help matters, either, when he denies that the U.S. is at war with ISIS–he says it's simply a "major counterterrorism operation that will have many different moving parts." That kind of language hardly inspires men to risk their lives.Kerry had to backpeddle on Sunday, saying that, yes the U.S. is "at war" with ISIS but the damage had been done–it shouldn't be a matter of debate whether the U.S. is or is not at war.
This exquisitely nuanced and cerebral president needs to understand that war is, above all, a matter of willpower–that, especially when you are engaged in a conflict against an adversary utilizing guerrilla or terrorist tactics, the winner is usually the side with the greatest will to win. Alas, the president is doing little to convince anyone that he has committed every fiber of his being to crush ISIS. And until allies are convinced of our seriousness they are not likely to hazard much to help us.
Obama Was Right Not to Ransom Foley
In our era of a bifurcated media, it's not every day that both the New York Times and Fox News take up the same cause with almost equal fervor. But that's the case with the efforts of the family of slain hostage James Foley to castigate the Obama administration for their handling of the negotiations with ISIS over the captive's fate. The natural sympathy felt by all Americans for the Foleys combined with a story of government indifference and hypocrisy makes an irresistible story for both liberal and conservative media. But as much as any parent can identify with the sorrow and frustration of the family, in this case criticism of the administration is not justified.
In our era of a bifurcated media, it's not every day that both the New York Times and Fox News take up the same cause with almost equal fervor. But that's the case with the efforts of the family of slain hostage James Foley to castigate the Obama administration for their handling of the negotiations with ISIS over the captive's fate. The natural sympathy felt by all Americans for the Foleys combined with a story of government indifference and hypocrisy makes an irresistible story for both liberal and conservative media. But as much as any parent can identify with the sorrow and frustration of the family, in this case criticism of the administration is not justified.
The Foleys' complaints revolve around both what they consider the duplicitous handling of the affair by the government as well its hypocrisy. When ISIS reached out to them with a ransom demand for their son, they contacted the FBI but what followed gave them little satisfaction and ended in tragedy. The Bureau not only informed them that paying ransoms was against U.S. policy. They also threatened them saying it was a crime to send money to terrorists even if the motivation was saving a hostage. What's more, they also kept secret from them the fact that their governments were ransoming Europeans that were also held by ISIS. It was only after they learned that some of Foley's fellow hostages were being freed after ransoms were paid that the family defied the government and began the process of raising money to gain their son's release.
Yet the moment that convinced them that the administration had abandoned them was when news broke that the U.S. had obtained the release of Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdhal from the Taliban in exchange for five Taliban members that were being held at Guantanamo Bay. Releasing terrorists under any circumstances is, at best, controversial, even if it means ensuring that no U.S. soldier is left behind. But given Bergdhal's questionable conduct—there are allegations that he deserted his post and may have surrendered to the enemy voluntarily that have yet to be resolved—the exchange was widely criticized and left the Foleys and other hostage families believing they had no choice but to act on their own.
Even the government's July 3 effort to rescue the hostages comes in for criticism from the Foleys. They believe its failure was due to lack of sufficient resources being devoted to surveillance of possible ISIS sites which caused delays that led to the victims being moved before U.S. forces arrived.
In the end, James Foley was murdered by ISIS to send a message to the U.S. about the price of intervention against their efforts to overrun all of Syria and Iraq. That left the Foleys grief stricken but also angry with they way they were treated by the Obama administration. They were, they say, consistently ignored and believe their son's death is the direct result of the callous indifference to his plight displayed by American officials from the top down.
Is their anger justified?
Let's state upfront that the Foleys, and every other hostage family, deserve our complete sympathy. Even if one is inclined to view the behavior of anyone like Foley or the other hostages who ventured into Syria the past few years as reckless, that is not something for which his family need apologize. Any parent would seek to move heaven and earth to save their child. Just as important, any parent would damn any government official, no matter how principled their behavior, if they did not do everything in their power, including breaking every rule in the book, to save that child.
But this illustrates the difference between personal priorities and those of the nation. However much we may sympathize with the Foleys, the administration did exactly the right thing by refusing to pay ransom to ISIS whether it was the reported $130 million they demanded or a lower amount.
It should be understood that ISIS's military success this year was largely funded by the ransoms paid by Europeans for their hostages. Paying that money merely ensured that more people would be kidnapped, thus endangering more lives as well as worsening an already terrible situation in the Middle East. If you want to stop the kidnapping as well as to stop the onslaught of bands of murdering fanatics, the only way to begin is to stop paying ransoms and to start making the terrorists pay a price for their crimes.
The Foleys are right to complain about the hypocrisy of the Bergdahl deal. But, as much as its terms were disgraceful, that soldier was in harm's way as a result of his army service. Exchanging POWs—even when the price is too high—is not the same thing as paying ransoms to kidnappers. Foley was in Syria of his own accord and as much as we would all have liked to see him saved, his desire to pursue freelance journalism in a war zone with terrorists did not give him, or his parents, the right to alter U.S. foreign or defense policy in order to bail him out of trouble or to endanger other Americans who would then be even more vulnerable to terrorist attacks.
The dynamic of hostage families influencing governments to pay off terrorists is a familiar one. It led President Reagan to trade arms with Iran. And it has repeatedly caused Israeli governments to make decisions that would free thousands of terrorists—many of whom ultimately return to terrorist activity—to free a handful of captive Jews. But while these decisions are understandable and maybe even inevitable (especially in Israel where the question of captured soldiers transfixes the nation), they are not wise and almost always do more harm than good.
There is much in President Obama's conduct and policies on Iraq and Syria that is worthy of condemnation and I have often written here to articulate those concerns. The current alarming situation there is largely due to the president's poor decisions that led him to delay action on Syria and to bug out of Iraq. But when he upheld existing policy against paying ransom for hostages, he was right. And, though it did not succeed, the president did the right thing when he ordered a rescue mission.
So while Fox and the Times may be assisting the Foleys in their campaign to blame the president for their son's death, this is not a cause the media should embrace. While we grieve with the Foleys for their son, the best way to ensure that other families will not suffer in the future is to defeat and wipe out ISIS, not to pay them off.
Bill Clinton: Bibi Derangement Syndrome's Patient Zero
Ever since leaving office, Bill Clinton's fabrications about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process have only become more fanciful and self-serving, the consistent element of which is his adamant refusal to tell the truth. But there's another common thread to Clinton's world of make believe: he is patient zero of the ensuing epidemic of Bibi Derangement Syndrome.
Ever since leaving office, Bill Clinton's fabrications about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process have only become more fanciful and self-serving, the consistent element of which is his adamant refusal to tell the truth. But there's another common thread to Clinton's world of make believe: he is patient zero of the ensuing epidemic of Bibi Derangement Syndrome.
The latest episode of Clinton's condition took place at the Harkin Steak Fry in Iowa, when Clinton was goaded into defending his Middle East policy by a pro-Palestinian activist. Caleb Howe has the transcript of the video captured by C-Span cameras:
Activist: If we don't force [Netanyahu] to make peace, we will not have peace.
Clinton: Wait, wait, wait. First of all, I agree with that. But in 2000, Ehud Barak, I got him to agree to something that I'm not sure I would have gotten Rabin to agree to, and Rabin was murdered for giving land to the Palestinians.
Activist: I agree. But Netanyahu is not the guy.
Clinton: So, they got … I agree with that, but we had, I had him a state, they would have gotten 96% of the West Bank, land swap in Gaza, appropriate water rights … and East Jerusalem! Something that hasn't even been discussed since I left office.
And by the way, don't forget, both Arafat and Abbas later said they would take it. They said, they said, 'we changed our minds, we want it now' and by then they had a government wouldn't give it to them.
Let's unpack this. First of all, Clinton agrees that Netanyahu must be forced by the U.S. to make peace. Presumably Clinton doesn't agree with Samantha Power that the U.S. should invade Israel to force this peace, but he never says exactly which gun he'd prefer be held to Bibi's head. (Perhaps holding up weapons resupply during wartime, as President Obama has done?)
He also agrees with the protester that Netanyahu is "not the guy" with whom such a peace agreement can be signed. This will likely not make Israelis too happy, because they know from experience that when Clinton doesn't want an Israeli prime minister in office, he jumps right into the elections to try to arrange his preferred outcome.
In 1996, this meddling took the form of Clinton pretty much openly campaigning for Netanyahu's opponent, Shimon Peres. In 1999, this meant Clinton's advisors helping to run Ehud Barak's campaign. The first time he was nearly successful–if memory serves, many Israelis went to sleep with Peres leading the election returns and woke to prime minister-elect Netanyahu. The second time he was successful.
But all along it was personal animus that guided Clinton–a deeply dangerous and thoroughly irresponsible way to conduct foreign policy, which helps explain why Clinton's foreign policy was such a mess. Say what you will about George W. Bush's case for regime change in Iraq, but it rested on more than "There's something about this guy I just don't like." The same cannot be said for Clinton.
Indeed, it wasn't as though Netanyahu was intransigent on matters of peace with the Palestinians. Once in office, Netanyahu too struck deals with Arafat. He agreed to the Wye River accords despite his belief that Clinton went back on a promise to free Pollard, and he agreed to redeploy troops from Hebron while continuing to implement Oslo.
Next, we have Clinton's assertion that giving Palestinians sovereignty in East Jerusalem is "Something that hasn't even been discussed since I left office." This is obviously untrue. During the Bush presidency, Ehud Olmert made such an offer to Mahmoud Abbas, who walked away. Not only that, but even Netanyahu has hinted at a willingness to divide Jerusalem.
That also undercuts the latter part of that claim by Clinton, that Abbas regretted saying no but by the time he wanted such a deal it was off the table. It was not off the table; it was offered, again, to Abbas directly.
So is anything Clinton said true? Actually, there is a kernel of truth–no doubt purely accidental–in what he said about Barak and Rabin. But it further undermines his point. Rabin was far from the two-state-cheerleader the left makes him out to be. He was far more reluctant to consider dividing Jerusalem and establishing a fully independent Palestinian state than his later successors–including Benjamin Netanyahu. Bibi now is to the left of where Rabin was then on pretty much all the main issues.
So is Barak, of course, which was Clinton's point. But the real story here is the fact that you can't simply jump from Rabin to Barak: Netanyahu was in between, and he played a significant role by forcing the right to accept and implement Oslo in order to govern and by showing the Israeli right could be talked into withdrawing from territory, even places as holy and significant as Hebron. The rightist premiers that followed Barak continued withdrawing from territory and offering peace plans to the Palestinian leadership.
When it comes to Israel, liberal politicians tend to fall into one of two categories: either they're ignorant of Israeli history and politics, or they assume their audience to be. For Clinton it's almost surely the latter, which makes it all the more ignoble.
Iranian's Death Exposes Iran's Syria Strategy
Culturally Americans are very direct. We say what we mean, and we don't often beat around the bush. When George W. Bush declared, in the wake of 9/11, "You're either with us or against us," he captured in a phrase something a like-minded European politician might have taken an hour to say.
Culturally Americans are very direct. We say what we mean, and we don't often beat around the bush. When George W. Bush declared, in the wake of 9/11, "You're either with us or against us," he captured in a phrase something a like-minded European politician might have taken an hour to say.
The same thing holds true with regard to foreign affairs. When the United States engages militarily, it is often quite direct. Bill Clinton did not send American troops into Somalia or Bosnia secretly, nor did he try to hide the fact that he had ordered a cruise missile strike on Sudan and Afghanistan in the wake of the East Africa embassy bombings. George W. Bush declared the war on terrorism, which combined not only the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq but also deployments to the Philippines. Likewise, Barack Obama has announced the deployment of American forces to places as far afield as Uganda, Iraq, and Liberia.
Many other countries obfuscate when they send troops into harm's way. Hence, Russia has consistently denied that its troops were fighting in Ukraine, even as Russian journalists uncovered graves in Pskov, home of the 76th Guards Air Assault Division, of Russian special forces based there but whom the Ukrainian government had announced killed over the previous weeks in Ukraine.
Likewise, the Iranian government has long denied that its forces are actively fighting in Syria. When the Syrian opposition has captured Iranians inside Syria, Tehran has dismissed its culpability saying that the young, fit, military-age men were simply pilgrims. This, of course, is nonsense. Heading into the midst of war-torn Syria on religious pilgrimage is like going to Acapulco for the cross-country skiing.
It seems with the United States projecting weakness and with President Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, and their team willfully blind, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has stopped hiding its direct involvement in the Syrian fighting, at least in Persian. Hence, this story in the semi-official Iranian Students' News Agency today, which announces the death of one Hoseyn Tabesteh which it identifies as a member of the "10th of Moharrem" IRGC Unit. Qasem Malekdar, the head of the Martyrs Foundation of Semnan Province, told the news agency that Tabesteh would be buried today in Semnan's Shahrud county with several parliamentarians and provincial officials in attendance.
It is absolutely necessary to counter ISIS, wherever it might be—in Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Jordan, or Lebanon. At the same time, journalists and analysts are right to ask whether targeting ISIS inside Syria is simply going to empower Bashar al-Assad and his noxious regime. The answer, of course, is not necessarily: there are more than two forces fighting inside Syria. While I am dubious about the Free Syrian Army, its moderation, and its capabilities, the Syrian Kurds are a more capable force than their Iraqi counterparts and have a far better track record against both ISIS and the Syrian regime. The problem is, though, that the White House and Pentagon continue to see Syria as an isolated, contained problem. President Obama's strategy assumes the United States will act, and that no one else will interfere in the sandbox.
But if this story from Iran's conservative press is to be believed—and there is no reason why it should not—then the IRGC will do its darnedest to ensure that once U.S. strikes against ISIS begin in Syria, Iran will be in a position to seize maximum advantage for Assad. This is not a reason for inaction against ISIS; rather, it is long past time that the White House and the Pentagon make clear that the IRGC inside Syria cannot expect immunity from American action regardless of the ongoing talks over Iran's nuclear program. Iranians may culturally be indirect, but America should not be. To ignore the reality of Iranian action and strategy will simply empower Iran to augment its strategic position on the back of U.S. force, again.
It's Not About What ISIS "Wants"
ISIS continues to behead its hostages. The latest victim of its brutality was British aid worker David Haines, whose execution video was released over the weekend. Pretty much the entire world has united in condemnation of these evil actions, which have raised so much outrage in the U.S. that most Americans now support military action in Iraq and Syria against ISIS. But, some analysts suggest that this is precisely what ISIS wants–that the beheadings are simply a plot to draw us into a guerrilla war we cannot win. Can this be? Is it possible that we are playing into their hands by taking action against them?
ISIS continues to behead its hostages. The latest victim of its brutality was British aid worker David Haines, whose execution video was released over the weekend. Pretty much the entire world has united in condemnation of these evil actions, which have raised so much outrage in the U.S. that most Americans now support military action in Iraq and Syria against ISIS. But, some analysts suggest that this is precisely what ISIS wants–that the beheadings are simply a plot to draw us into a guerrilla war we cannot win. Can this be? Is it possible that we are playing into their hands by taking action against them?
A similar suggestion was made about 9/11–some suggested that al-Qaeda struck the Twin Towers and the Pentagon to ensnare the U.S., like the Soviet Union before it, into a guerrilla war in Afghanistan. So too it was sometimes suggested that the Iraqi army folded during the conventional U.S. invasion in the spring of 2003 so that Saddam Hussein could pursue guerrilla warfare against our troops. There is not, however, much evidence, much less proof, that this was ever our enemies' intentions; even if the upshot of their actions was indeed to draw us into military expeditions in the Muslim world, that was probably not their intent.
If al-Qaeda had been expecting a U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, it would have been better prepared. Instead its cadres, including Osama bin Laden, had to scatter willy-nilly. Many of them were caught or killed by U.S. forces; others went into hiding. The Taliban were also caught off guard and it took them years to launch an insurgency, which they could not have done without Pakistan's help. There is not much evidence of premeditation here. In all likelihood bin Laden was expecting the kind of response al-Qaeda had seen earlier, when Bill Clinton had lobbed a few cruise missiles at them. Neither bin Laden nor his ally Mullah Omar was prepared for an American-enabled offensive by the Northern Alliance that drove al-Qaeda and its ilk out of power and into hiding.
What about Saddam? Although he had prepared some Saddam Fedayan irregular fighters, who shocked the U.S. invasion force with their fanatical and suicidal resistance, and although some of his henchmen became instrumental in launching an insurgency against the U.S., there is not much evidence that he expected to lose the war or that he was prepared to wage guerrilla warfare if he did so. Saddam, too, would have been better prepared for defeat if he had expected it–instead he went on the run and was pulled out of his spider hole by U.S. troops at the end of 2003. The bulk of the evidence points to the conclusion that the insurgency developed as a result of circumstances–such as the dissolution of the Iraqi security forces and the excessive de-Baathification campaign–that could not have been foreseen in advance.
I doubt that ISIS can foretell the consequences of its actions any better than Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden could. In fact the group's brutality has backfired before, by sparking the Anbar Awakening in 2006-2007. Ayman al Zawahiri, then the deputy head of al-Qaeda, now its head, even armed Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, then the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq (the predecessor of ISIS), against excessive brutality such as videotaped beheadings of hostages and mass murder of Shiites. All of this, Zawahiri said, would turn public opinion against AQI. But Zarqawi was so fanatical he ignored this good advice. So too now Zarqawi's successor, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is indulging his blood lust and trying to instill respect for his group the only way he knows how–by lopping off heads. He probably imagines that this will frighten and cow his enemies. Instead it is having the opposite effect, by galvanizing opposition.
But let's say I'm wrong and the beheadings are actually a diabolical plot to draw the U.S. into the wars in Iraq and Syria. What should our response be then? Should we simply ignore ISIS's brutality if it actually wants us to intervene? Hardly. Because ISIS would win a victory–in fact it is winning today–as long as the U.S. does little to resist its evil designs.
At the end of the day, whether ISIS wants us to intervene or not is irrelevant. As President Obama recognizes, we have to intervene whether we like it or not–but we must ensure that our intervention is so successful that even if Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi actually wanted to draw us in, he will come to regret his decision.
Of Talents and Truants: the Absurd D.C. Public Education Bureaucracy
Wow. If anyone out there still needs evidence (and as we all know, sadly, they do) of the extreme bureaucratic toxicity to children of the public school system, they need look no further than this pretty breathtaking Washington Post story from our nation's capital.
Wow. If anyone out there still needs evidence (and as we all know, sadly, they do) of the extreme bureaucratic toxicity to children of the public school system, they need look no further than this pretty breathtaking Washington Post story from our nation's capital.
Avery Gagliano is 13, and a piano prodigy. She performs Mozart and Chopin across the globe; she is an international music ambassador for the Lang Lang Foundation; in March, she won the junior grand prize at the Chopin International Piano Competition.
Unfortunately for Avery, she is (or was) also a (straight A) student at Washington D.C.'s Alice Deal Middle School. And as far as the D.C. public school (DCPS) bureaucracy is concerned, traveling the world playing concerts and winning competitions–while maintaining a stellar academic record–is simply not any better a reason to miss more than ten days of school than, say, hanging out, smoking dope, and playing video games. So, when her admirable musical accomplishments took her over the ten-day limit, Avery officially became a truant–something for which her parents could be prosecuted.
Here's how DCPS greeted Avery on her return from winning the Chopin competition: with a truant officer. And with this email to her parents from one Jemea Goso, "attendance specialist" with the "Office of Youth Engagement" (can't you just hear Mr. Orwell chuckling?): "As I shared during our phone conversation this morning, DCPS is unable to excuse Avery's absences due to her piano travels, performances, rehearsals, etc."
Appeals to DCPS's better nature failed. And since Avery's parents can't afford some $36,000/year in private school tuition (take note, scholarship offices at Sidwell Friends, Cathedral, and Georgetown Day), not to mention a court case, she is now being home-schooled.
As a former DCPS parent conversant with the sludge of mediocrity that passes for a DCPS education, I could go on and on about how Avery isn't missing much (besides the company of her friends).
But suffice it to say, score one for the Office of Youth Engagement!
The End of American Naval Supremacy?
One of the most depressing things when I first went to Iraqi Kurdistan in the year 2000 was that while so many Iraqis understood that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's wars and decisions had frozen them in time, few truly understood the exponential advance of the rest of the world. Fourteen years ago, for example, students at Sulaimani University were still learning BASIC in their computer classes and faculty trained in the East Bloc had little concept of email let alone the Internet.
One of the most depressing things when I first went to Iraqi Kurdistan in the year 2000 was that while so many Iraqis understood that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's wars and decisions had frozen them in time, few truly understood the exponential advance of the rest of the world. Fourteen years ago, for example, students at Sulaimani University were still learning BASIC in their computer classes and faculty trained in the East Bloc had little concept of email let alone the Internet.
So it seems to be the case with the United States and our military planners now. Four days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel spoke of how American forces would soon be at pre-World War II numbers. Sequestration will force a further retraction. Adm. James "Ace" Lyons, U.S. Navy (retired) has noted that he commanded more ships in the Pacific Ocean during the Carter administration than exist in the entire U.S. Navy today. Whereas Democrats and Republican administrations both once sought the capability to fight two major wars simultaneously, the Pentagon now would have trouble mustering forces for one such conflict. This, of course, would be an open invitation for rogues and adversaries to take action while the United States is down or distracted. Enemies don't take a pause just because Congress does. China most certainly has not.
Since World War II, the Navy has provided the backbone of America's military strength, enabling the projection of force across the globe. And the aircraft carrier is the pride of the Navy, a veritable floating city and an immense system melding people with technology. This is certainly the case with the USS Gerald R. Ford, the Navy's newest carrier officially launched this past November, and the first of the new, post-Nimitz Class carrier. The Navy has invested more than $12 billion in the Ford and its new Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System. If carriers have a lifespan of 50 years (assuming the Pentagon can conduct regular maintenance and overhauls), then will the Ford last until 2064?
Not if China has its way. China's economic health and internal stability might be exaggerated, but its military build-up is not. China doesn't try to do everything the U.S. military can do, but it has instead concentrated on negating America's strengths while pursuing its own, for example, with hypersonic aircraft. The Chinese make no secret of their work to develop anti-satellite weaponry, but it is their work to develop carrier-killer missiles that should really frighten Congress and American military planners. Imagine: a single hypersonic missile that can sink a ship carrying 5,000 Americans without any efficient defense. Like a car accident in slow motion, it appears that defense and naval analysts acknowledge the problem but yet the United States appears unable or unwilling to invest in what is necessary to counter the threat. Instead, as the Chinese continue to develop and deploy the missile, the Chuck Hagel defense simply seems to be stay beyond the range of the missile, effectively ceding Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and most of Southeast Asia to a Chinese sphere of influence.
It's not just the carrier-killer missile which is a problem. This past June, the National Defense University released a report charting China's continuing progress developing new, faster, and more precise cruise missiles. The authors note:
The potentially supersonic speed, small radar signature, and very low altitude flight profile of cruise missiles stress air defense systems and airborne surveillance and tracking radars, increasing the likelihood that they will successfully penetrate defenses.
Continuing to outline the report, The Diplomat explains:
Moreover, cruise missiles can be produced cheaply, allowing China to acquire large quantities of them. This is important because it could allow the PLA to exploit simple arithmetic in overcoming U.S. and allied missile defense systems. That is, the PLA could launch enough cruise missiles to simply overwhelm existing missile defense systems. Indeed, the report states Beijing believes that cruise missiles possess a 9:1 cost advantage over defenses against them. Thus, the PLA might exploit a quantity over quality approach, the exact opposite of the kind of force structure the U.S. military has outlined for its future. "Employed in salvos, perhaps in tandem with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles could saturate defenses with large numbers of missiles arriving at a specific target in a short time," the report notes.
On September 10, China's official television's Xinwen Live News program discussed and described new work on China's C802A and C602 anti-ship cruise missiles:
Senior Guan told us that the gross weight of this missile is only about one ton, but it can hit targets more than a hundred kilometers away and can quickly hit and sink or seriously damage 3,000-ton battleships. Does this small missile really have such great power?
[Guan Shiyi,missile expert from the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation] This is because the warhead has a characteristic, which is called armor-piercing explosion. It will pierce through first and then explode inside the warship. Therefore, its kill effect is very good.
There is a serious problem when adversaries develop technologies to neutralize the next generation of America's Navy even before that generation is fully deployed. The United States has not lost a carrier in battle since World War II. Ignoring problems or convincing ourselves that the unthinkable will not happen, or believing that diplomacy can neutralize the vulnerability, is policy malpractice. Not only does it waste tens of billions of dollars but it puts the lives of American servicemen at risk and the security of America's allies.
Perhaps it's time to ask Secretary Hagel what he sees the second-order effects of losing uncontested naval supremacy might be, whether he sees uncontested naval supremacy as a worthwhile goal, and, if so—nothing can be taken for granted in the age of Obama—how the United States will maintain its naval supremacy in the face of Chinese anti-ship cruise and carrier killer missile developments.
John Kerry's Stupid Condescension
There is a certain kind of personality that not only can't admit an error, but becomes stupidly condescending when they are asked to explain their error. Barack Obama is one such person; Secretary of State John Kerry is another.
There is a certain kind of personality that not only can't admit an error, but becomes stupidly condescending when they are asked to explain their error. Barack Obama is one such person; Secretary of State John Kerry is another.
Let me explain what I mean. Face the Nation's Bob Schieffer asked Secretary Kerry to clarify whether or not the United States is at war with ISIS (also known as ISIL). The reason the clarification is necessary is because the Obama administration, in the course of a few days, has had high-ranking officials say we're both at war and we're not at war with ISIS. Kerry himself said on Thursday that our mission was not a war but a counter-terrorism operation. By yesterday, in his interview with Schieffer, Kerry said we were at war with ISIS. In other words, Kerry was saying we aren't at war with ISIS before he was saying we are.
When asked about all this, Kerry didn't admit he was wrong. Here's what he said instead:
Well, Bob, I think there's, frankly, a kind of tortured debate going on about terminology. What I'm focused on obviously is getting done what we need to get done to ISIL. But if people need to find a place to land in terms of what we did in Iraq: Originally, this is not a war. This is not combat troops on the ground. It's not hundreds of thousands of people. It's not that kind of mobilization. But in terms of al Qaeda, which we have used the word war with, yeah, we went — we're at war with al Qaeda and its affiliates. And in same context, if you want to use it, yes, we're at war with ISIL in that sense. But I think it's a waste of time to focus on that. Frankly, let's consider what we have to do to degrade and defeat ISIL. And that's what I'm frankly much more focused on.
Memo to Secretary Kerry: the reason there's a "tortured debate going on about terminology" is because the administration you work for is sending out not just different, but contradictory, messages about the nature of the conflict we have with ISIS. And while you may think it's a "waste of time" to focus on whether we're at war or not, it actually matters. The citizens of this nation deserve to know whether or not we're at war; and one might expect a minimally competent administration to be saying the same thing rather than conflicting things. To dismiss these matters by saying he'll answer the question "if people need to find a place to land" is quite patronizing, which raises this question: What exactly has Mr. Kerry ever achieved to make him believe he's above the rest of us? He's been wrong on virtually every major foreign-policy matter since the 1970s.
Beyond that, the semantics are important because they reveal the cast of mind of those in the administration. If the president and his top advisors are conflicted about whether even to call this a war, you can bet they don't have the determination and strength of purpose to actually wage and win one. And oh-by-the-way: If Messrs. Obama and Kerry believe we can defeat ISIS without prosecuting a war–if they think a counterinsurgency operation is enough–they are living in a fantasy world.
The Obama administration increasingly resembles a clown act. If they were in charge of a circus, that would be one thing. But the fact that they are in charge of American foreign policy is quite another. The damage being inflicted on America's national interests and the international world order by the ineptness of Mr. Obama, Mr. Kerry, Susan Rice & Co. is beyond immense. It now qualifies as incalculable. Those are not grounds for being haughty and supercilious.
Connecting the Dots Between Euro Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism
Yesterday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel took a strong stand against the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Europe when she appeared at a Berlin rally against Jew hatred. Lamenting the attacks on Jews throughout Europe but especially in the country that had supposedly done the most to learn the lessons of the Holocaust, she vowed that her government would do everything in its power to fight against the revival of Jew hatred. But the question is not so much her undoubted commitment to this task but whether other European leaders and opinion leaders will draw the proper conclusions from the connection between the anti-Israel invective they have encouraged and the rising tide of anti-Semitism.
Yesterday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel took a strong stand against the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Europe when she appeared at a Berlin rally against Jew hatred. Lamenting the attacks on Jews throughout Europe but especially in the country that had supposedly done the most to learn the lessons of the Holocaust, she vowed that her government would do everything in its power to fight against the revival of Jew hatred. But the question is not so much her undoubted commitment to this task but whether other European leaders and opinion leaders will draw the proper conclusions from the connection between the anti-Israel invective they have encouraged and the rising tide of anti-Semitism.
Speaking at the rally Merkel said the following:
It is a monstrous scandal that people in Germany today are being abused if they are somehow recognizable as Jews or if they stand up for the state of Israel. I will not accept that and we will not accept that. … It's our national and civic duty to fight anti-Semitism. … Anyone who hits someone wearing a skullcap is hitting us all. Anyone who damages a Jewish gravestone is disgracing our culture. Anyone who attacks a synagogue is attacking the foundations of our free society.
Merkel deserves credit for putting herself and her government on the line on this issue at a time when this issue is becoming more of a concern. The atmosphere of hate that she references is the result of a combination of factors in which the influence of immigrants from the Arab and Islamic worlds has combined with traditional Jew hatred as well as the willingness of many European academic and political elites to countenance verbal assaults on Jews and Israel in a way that would have been inconceivable in the first decades after the Holocaust.
But the key phrase in her speech was not so much the much-needed statement that attacks on Jews are attacks on all Germans and German democracy. It was that the people who are being targeted aren't just those whose clothing indicates Jewish faith but the targeting of anyone who would stand up for Israel.
Over the course of the last several years as anti-Semitism has moved from the margins of European society back to its mainstream, Israel has become the focus of anti-Semites. Seeking to veil their hate with the guise of legitimate political commentary, they have sought to draw a distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, a difference that even many Jews continue to accept. But Merkel's pointed remark including support for Israel in her recitation of those under threat should alert her listeners to the fact that the line between hatred of Israel and that for Jews in general has long since been erased.
The idea that anti-Zionism is legitimate in a way that anti-Semitism is not has long been more a matter of nuance and semantics than reality. Those who would deny to the Jews the same rights—to a state in their ancient homeland and its right of self-defense—that they deny to virtually no other people on the planet is, by definition, an act of bias and acts of bias against Jews are anti-Semitism, pure and simple.
While it is perfectly acceptable to criticize the policies of any government of Israel—Israelis do it every day—those who are dedicated to the destruction of Israel and opposed to any means of self-defense on its part, as opposed to just wishing to change its borders or government, are not engaging in legitimate political argument. They are, whether they initially intend it or not, actively supporting those who wish to commit ethnic cleansing and/or genocide against the six million Jews of Israel, as Hamas has openly stated as its goal.
What we have witnessed this year is that anger over Israel's refusal to allow itself to be attacked with impunity by Islamist terrorists is blurring any distinctions between socially unacceptable anti-Semitism and anger at Israel that has been deemed mere politics rather than hate speech. The violent rhetoric against Jews and Israel that has spilled over into the attacks on Jews Merkel referenced is no accident. Nor is it a surprise that those who would delegitimize Israeli Jews and demonize their actions would extend this to the Jews in their own midst, whether or not they are Zionists or religious. While theoretically one can oppose Israel without wishing to kill all Jews, it is no coincidence that those who espouse the former slip so easily into the rhetoric aiming at the latter.
In order for this scourge to be effectively halted, it will thus require more than admonitions for Europeans to mind their manners and to treat others as they would themselves like to be treated. What it will take is an understanding that so long as Israel is considered a fair target for extermination, it is impossible to pretend that every other Jew on the planet will not be considered fair game by Islamists or more traditional varieties of bigots.
Chancellor Merkel has made a start in this respect, but unless Europe's leaders make it clear to their people that Jewish genocide is unacceptable wherever it might occur, the rising tide of Jew hatred will not abate.
End of an Era: UN Peacekeepers Stop Pretending to Keep Peace
The United Nations has come up with a strange follow-up to Israel's credible accusations that UN facilities allowed themselves to be used essentially as human shields for Hamas in Gaza: the UN is now, apparently, using Israeli soldiers as human shields up north. Somehow I don't think that's what Israeli authorities had in mind when they protested the UN's one-sided wartime behavior.
The United Nations has come up with a strange follow-up to Israel's credible accusations that UN facilities allowed themselves to be used essentially as human shields for Hamas in Gaza: the UN is now, apparently, using Israeli soldiers as human shields up north. Somehow I don't think that's what Israeli authorities had in mind when they protested the UN's one-sided wartime behavior.
What appears to have happened, and which has been confirmed by UN spokesmen, is that UN peacekeeping forces on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights are in retreat. They have, in fact, left Syria. The phrase "peacekeeping forces" should have made them aware of the fact that they would not be supervising a game of hacky sack. A peacekeeping force, theoretically, would arrive during a period of temporary peace to ensure it becomes a permanent peace. The UN forces see it differently.
An AP story today very gently and generously breaks the news, and in doing so buries the lede a bit:
The United Nations said Monday it has withdrawn its peacekeepers from many positions on the Golan Heights because of escalating fighting in the war between Syrian government forces and opposition fighters.
Which positions on the Golan Heights? Asked and answered:
The situation has deteriorated severely over the last few days and advances by armed groups posed "a direct threat to the safety and security of the U.N. peacekeepers" along the Syrian side of the border and in Camp Faouar where many troops are based, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. He said all troops in those areas have been relocated to the Israeli side of the border.
The Syrian side of the border! That's seems pretty significant. Indeed, it's the end of an era, as AP notes:
The 1,200-strong U.N. force has patrolled a buffer zone between Syria and Israel since 1974, a year after the Arab-Israeli war. For nearly four decades, U.N. monitors helped enforce a stable truce between Israel and Syria, but the spillover from the Syrian war has led to the abduction of peacekeepers four times since March 2013, made troop contributors wary, and led several countries to withdraw their soldiers.
But all is not lost. It's possible, says the UN–though they don't know for sure–that someone affiliated with the UN is still in Syria, somewhere, keeping some kind of peace:
U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told The Associated Press earlier that he doesn't think every single post has been vacated.
Seems like an important detail. But never mind. The important thing is that the UN peacekeepers are safe, hiding behind Israelis.
I don't want to make light of the danger of patrolling a war zone; UN troops have been abducted a few times and the conflict is not going anywhere. But at the same time, isn't this what peacekeeping troops sign up for? And if not, what's the point?
Additionally, what do they think they'll accomplish on the Israeli side of the border? They will be utterly irrelevant. They obviously won't command Israeli forces, and they clearly can't be sent on any dangerous missions beyond their new base.
That's not to say they won't be doing anything constructive. Each time there is war on or near Israel's border, UN forces put a thumb on the scales against Israel and in favor of the terrorists Israel is fighting. Whether it's covering up terrorist abductions, revealing sensitive IDF troop movement information, or having their facilities used to hide weapons or facilitate attacks on Israel, the UN can be trusted to act as an adjunct of whoever is trying to destroy the Jewish state.
So having UN troops retreat from a war zone into the comforts of Israeli protection is helpful because it will at least prevent them from playing their usual, anti-Israel role in armed conflict. Looked at from that perspective, then, this retreat may be the best move UN forces have made in years.
More than anything, this is yet another reminder that the international community ought to be far more judicious in pressuring Israel to withdraw from territory and put their security in the hands of others. Peace plans tend to suggest that Israel pull back farther than Israeli military leaders are comfortable with, having their place taken by a coalition of international troops. It is clear–as it has been for a while–that this is rarely a feasible option.
The international community also likes the idea of considering the Golan Heights occupied Syrian territory. They should ask the UN peacekeeping forces if they'd like the land to which they've currently retreated to still be on the Syrian side of the border. They should ask that question, by the way, while there still is technically a country called Syria.
Israeli Reality Check for Liberal Critics
Israel's American critics viewed the latest conflict in Gaza as more evidence of how the Jewish state needs to be saved from itself. That is particularly true of Jewish groups like the left-wing lobby J Street whose attacks on the Netanyahu government and support for Obama administration pressure on Israel have continued even as anti-Zionist and pro-BDS (boycott, divest, and sanction) efforts have intensified. But the latest opinion poll from Israel illustrates yet again just how out of touch these liberal know-it-alls are with reality as seen by the majority of Israelis.
Israel's American critics viewed the latest conflict in Gaza as more evidence of how the Jewish state needs to be saved from itself. That is particularly true of Jewish groups like the left-wing lobby J Street whose attacks on the Netanyahu government and support for Obama administration pressure on Israel have continued even as anti-Zionist and pro-BDS (boycott, divest, and sanction) efforts have intensified. But the latest opinion poll from Israel illustrates yet again just how out of touch these liberal know-it-alls are with reality as seen by the majority of Israelis.
A new opinion poll from Israel's Channel 10 provides sobering results for those who continue to hope that Israelis will listen to them and both push for a new prime minister and resolve to begin leaving the West Bank. While many, if not most Americans, actually believe the press when they call Netanyahu a "hard-liner," the perception of his conduct at home is very different. Far from convincing Israel to start ceding more territory to the Palestinians, after their 50-day ordeal during the summer as thousands of rockets fell on their heads and a new threat of terror tunnels made them feel even less safe, more Israelis seem inclined to view Netanyahu as not tough enough.
Netanyahu's personal approval ratings dropped once the fighting ended and many of his countrymen were disappointed with his failure to end the threat from Hamas-run Gaza once and for all. These latest numbers confirm that the big winner if elections were to be held today would be the prime minister's most strident critic on the right. Even more discouraging for the "save it from itself" crowd is the fact that the right-wing parties as a whole are gaining strength while those on the left are dropping even lower in public esteem.
The Channel 10 poll shows that the public would give Netanyahu's Likud Party 26 seats in a new Knesset. That's less than the 31 it got when it ran on a joint ticket in 2013 with Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beytenu Party. But that right-wing rival would get 14, representing a gain of four for the two natural coalition partners. But the big winner would be Naftali Bennett's Jewish Home Party which has been highly critical of what it considers to be Netanyahu's timid approach to Gaza and negotiations with the Palestinians. It would get 16 in a new election, an increase of four over their current total.
While these three men are more or less continually at each other's throats, it must be understood that the combination of the three—which represent the core of any center-right government—would stand at 56, almost enough for them to govern on their own and reminiscent of the old days of Labor Party dominance when the left ruled the country for its first three decades. That would give Netanyahu the option of putting together a right-wing government with the religious parties that would, however fractious its character, dominate the Knesset.
At the same time, the biggest losers would be the parties that Israel's critics are counting on to form the core of a new "pro-peace" Cabinet. The centrist Yesh Atid Party led by current Finance Minister Yair Lapid is the big loser in the poll, going down to only 8 seats from its current 19. That leaves any potential center-left coalition led by Labor, which went down to 13 from its current 15 seats, hopelessly short of any sort of majority. Even if you added in the seats that may be won by a new party focused on economics led by former Likud minister Moshe Kahlon to the total of all the left-wing, centrist, and Arab parties, it adds up to only 49. And that is an inconceivable coalition since in all likelihood Kahlon and his supporters would join any Cabinet led by Netanyahu.
What does this mean?
The first conclusion is that although anything can happen in the two or three years between now and the next election, barring some sort of spectacular and currently unforeseen collapse, Netanyahu will almost certainly lead the next Israeli government.
Second, Lapid's party appears fated to follow that of every other centrist party in Israeli political history. Voters are always hungry for alternatives to the old left and right choices but even though circumstances occasionally thrust a centrist to the fore, they are inevitably, as Lapid has been, marginalized by the continued centrality of war and peace issues on which they cannot compete. Lapid also made the same mistake of all his predecessors (including his father) of joining a government and thus became both tarnished and diminished by the hard choices any Cabinet must make on economics or peace. These poll numbers also lessen Lapid's leverage in the current budget dispute he's been waging with Netanyahu.
Third, and most importantly, these numbers reflect the fact that, unlike most liberal Jews–or most Americans for that matter–Israelis have been paying attention to events in the region. They know the continued rule of Hamas over Gaza and the Islamists' increased popularity among Palestinians at the expense of the supposedly more moderate Fatah and Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas renders any idea of withdrawing from the West Bank, as was done in Gaza, an impossibility. No sane Israeli leader would risk turning that far larger and more strategic territory into another Gaza.
This will, no doubt, heighten the frustrations of American left-wingers about Israel. But their anger tells us more about them and their refusal to think seriously about what Palestinians have done and believe than it does about what Israel should do. Israelis want peace as much if not more than American liberals. But they understand that dreams of peace are meaningless to Hamas and Palestinian rejectionists. Those who claim to be pro-Israel as well as pro-peace need to come to terms with the fact that the people who understand their country's dilemmas far better than they could are still firmly rejecting their advice.
Teaching U.S. Officials About Radical Islam
When American forces first began fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, criticisms abounded about the lack of troops' cultural awareness when they entered the Middle East or South Asia. Some of the criticism was unfortunately true, although by the second or third years of fighting, American troops had a better sense of the region and religion than many of those lobbing cheap criticisms.
When American forces first began fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, criticisms abounded about the lack of troops' cultural awareness when they entered the Middle East or South Asia. Some of the criticism was unfortunately true, although by the second or third years of fighting, American troops had a better sense of the region and religion than many of those lobbing cheap criticisms.
But while deploying troops must sit through countless hours of cultural awareness training to learn about the region in which they will soon live and fight, many with whom I have talked over the years voice a common criticism about the programs: They are subject to basic, politically correct descriptions of Islam that seem detached from the reality of their missions. U.S. troops who have fought in Iraq and still fight in Afghanistan are fighting not peaceful Muslims who abide by the most benevolent Koranic interpretations, but rather radical jihadis who seek to disfigure and murder in the name of religion.
The same is too often true with Department of Justice training. After having been criticized by Islamist advocacy groups for focusing too much on radicalism, the Justice Department has largely sanitized its training. It avoids controversy by allowing groups like the Council on American and Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA)–which embrace or apologize for some of the worst groups–to help set the bounds of permissible interpretation. Letting CAIR determine what can and cannot be taught about Islamist terrorism is like letting the Taliban have final say on the U.S. Army's counterinsurgency manuals. To have ISNA have sway on how Muslim military chaplains are credentialed suggests a lack of seriousness about combating radicalism.
While no religion has a monopoly on terrorism, cultural equivalence also rings hollow: There is a far greater problem right now with Islamist terrorists operating across the globe and who use theological exegesis to motivate and justify their actions than with groups which root themselves in Christianity, Judaism, or Hinduism. It is disingenuous to suggest otherwise. To teach counter-terror analysts only about the "Five pillars of Islam," commonalities between the Koran and the Old and New Testaments, and explain only the most sanitized interpretations of the Koran is simply policy malpractice made worse when questions regarding radicalism go unanswered.
Basic theology is not hard to understand. But if U.S. military officers and Department of Justice officials are truly going to understand the environments in which they serve and the adversary against whom they seek to protect the United States and all Americans, then it becomes essential that U.S. officials are able to understand and explain not only what the five pillars of Islam are, when the Prophet Muhammad was born, or what the 21st century definitions of Greater and Lesser Jihad are, but rather be able to discuss:
- The passages of the Koran which extremists use to justify suicide bombing and precise theological arguments moderate clergy might use to refute those (beyond simply saying Islam forbids suicide).
- The evolution of Islamic interpretation of the Koranic passages which promote beheading of prisoners.
- They should also learn that, contrary to common rhetoric, the Koran is not always the same, either historically or in translation and interpretation.
- All religions evolve. Few Christians would advocate publicly burning at the stake women who might publicly recite the Bible. After all, this is no longer the 14th century. Likewise, while it is important to understand contemporary interpretations of jihad, it is likewise important to recognize that the concept of jihad has evolved over time. That said, when militant groups seek to build a society based on their notion of how Islamic states might have acted 1,350 years ago, it behooves analysts to understand what theological interpretations predominated then.
- The theology that Osama Bin Laden embraced and expounded, and that advanced by Ayman al-Zawahiri or Abubakr al-Baghdadi. If these men preach something un-Islamic, then an official with understanding should be able to explain why–not simply ignore their theology.
Teaching about radicalism is not Islamophobic nor should those who wish to protect or even advocate for Islam agitate against it. After all, the chief victims of radical Islamism are the moderates.
President Obama may have sought to project seriousness when he outlined a strategy to combat ISIS on September 10. But until the U.S. government—whether the Defense Department focused abroad or the Justice Department at home—refines its curriculum to address rather than avoid tough questions of theological interpretations, any officer or official participating in the fight will not only be entering it blind but, more damningly, will be entering it blind based on the political desire of their leadership. It's time to equip those manning our front lines with real cultural awareness, not the religious equivalent of My Little Pony.
Does Ken Burns Blame TR for Iraq?
PBS is broadcasting the premiere of Ken Burns' latest blockbuster documentary—The Roosevelts: An Intimate History—this week so it is to be expected that the film will rekindle a host of controversies about his subjects. That is especially true of Theodore Roosevelt, on whom most of the first episode that aired last night focused. But while in recent years the 26th president has taken more flack from right-wingers like Glenn Beck for his role in the birth of the progressive movement, Burns gave significant airtime to those who are angry about TR's attitude toward war and American power. In doing so, they told us more about the politics of the 21st century than the last decade of the 19th.
PBS is broadcasting the premiere of Ken Burns' latest blockbuster documentary—The Roosevelts: An Intimate History—this week so it is to be expected that the film will rekindle a host of controversies about his subjects. That is especially true of Theodore Roosevelt, on whom most of the first episode that aired last night focused. But while in recent years the 26th president has taken more flack from right-wingers like Glenn Beck for his role in the birth of the progressive movement, Burns gave significant airtime to those who are angry about TR's attitude toward war and American power. In doing so, they told us more about the politics of the 21st century than the last decade of the 19th.
The Roosevelts rightly notes that the key moment that facilitated Teddy's rise to national prominence resulted from the U.S. decision to fight Spain in 1898 and his subsequent heroism during the American invasion of Cuba. But the loudest voice in the film's account of TR's remarkable story in this chapter of history is Evan Thomas, author of The War Lovers, a book I reviewed in COMMENTARY in March 2010 alongside another liberal critique of the first President Roosevelt by James Bradley. Thomas's thesis was that the Spanish-American War was the precedent that served to entice Americans to wage other seemingly small wars over the course of the next century but especially the conflict in Iraq. In his reading of Roosevelt's behavior, TR committed the original sins not only of imperialism and military adventurism but also embodying a lust for blood and war that should be regarded as evidence of madness, not courage. Burns allows Thomas to brand TR as "a dangerous figure" whose "glorification of war can't be a good thing in the long run."
In this opinion, Thomas is echoed by conservative writer George Will, another Iraq war critic, whose lack of enthusiasm for Roosevelt is also a product of his disgust for his willingness to expand the power of the executive at the expense of the Constitution. Will says the fact that TR "liked war" and thought "might makes right" gives an "unpleasant dimension" to his legacy and should cause us to view him with "dry eyes."
Are they right both about the consequences of the drive to war with Spain, and should TR's attitude toward war cause him to be viewed negatively?
Roosevelt's rhetoric about manifest destiny smacked of the popular social Darwinism that was so popular in this time and is therefore tough to take in our own more politically correct time. It is also true that cynicism about the role the sensational "yellow" press of the time had in fueling sympathy for the Cuban independence movement as well as the likelihood that the U.S.S. Maine was not destroyed by Spanish sabotage when it blew up in Havana harbor—the incident that helped set off the war—has made the U.S. decision to declare war look more like aggression than support for U.S. positions against tyranny and for self-determination.
But viewing both TR and his war through the prism of 21st century American political obsessions (which have themselves recently undergone a transformation as horror about the decision to invade Iraq has lately been replaced by a realization that the U.S. must intervene again to defeat the ISIS terrorist movement) is an anachronism that does more to confuse viewers of Burns' film than enlighten them.
In this formulation the drive for war is explained as the need for an otherwise effete patrician to vindicate his father's failures. The same is true on a broader scale as Thomas depicts the push for America to take its place on the world stage as a function of the blood lust of a group of swells that were as mad as Roosevelt. But both of these points ignore more basic truths about TR and the choices America faced in those crucial years.
It is, admittedly, tough to explain why a 39-year-old man with a highly responsible government position (under secretary of the navy), bad eyesight, asthma, a sick wife, and six children would choose to gamble his life by heading to the front lines. For Thomas, the only explanation is that TR was made with "bloodlust" and a "war lover," terms that he also applies to his son Ted, Jr. (who, at the age of 57, would lead American forces ashore onto Utah Beach during D-Day in 1944) in his book. Thomas is incapable of recounting the stirring exploits of either man without irony, something that says more about him than his subjects.
But while few of us could imagine ourselves doing as they did, would our country really be better without their example? If Teddy Roosevelt has always been admired by both conservatives and liberals as one of our country's greatest presidents it is in no small measure because so many of us—regardless of our politics or our views about imperialism and the progressives—instinctively like his spirit of adventure, his belief in service and sacrifice for our nation, as well as his personal valor. Roosevelt went to war for the same reason he took on other political and personal quests: Because he believed that life was a constant struggle between right and wrong and thought neutrality or non-involvement in these battles was not an option.
It may be hard to get too enthused about the cause of Cuban independence today (do Thomas, Burns, or anyone else really think acquiescing to Spain's brutal and repressive rule of the island was an attractive option for the United States?), but Roosevelt's vision of America as a global power for which that war was the lynchpin is entirely defensible.
Even more to the point, do the critics of the first President Roosevelt really want to contemplate what the history of the 20th century would have been like if he had not helped drag his countrymen onto the global stage? Would those who urge us to view him with "dry eyes" or with horror for his embrace of military glory (an attribute that he shared with Winston Churchill) think the world would have been a safer or freer place had the West been left to face fascism and Japanese imperialism and then Communism without the global American power he helped forge?
Ken Burns's films are always beautifully made, entertaining, and often enlightening excursions into history. But in the first episode of his Roosevelts, he clearly erred in allowing Iraq war critics to taint our view of his embrace of heroism and American power. As influential as his documentaries have become, I expect that his critiques, as well as those of people like Beck, will never succeed in diminishing enthusiasm for a man who embodied the idea of personal courage for his own generation and those that followed.