Tag Archives: Middle East

by | August 12, 2014 · 7:30 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 139

ISRAEL AND HAMAS

When Israel and Hamas have their battles every few years you can depend on a number of things being repeated. There is the start of the conflict provoked by some aggressive act by Hamas, a raid from a tunnel or the launch of missiles from Gaza into Israel. We have also seen repeated cease fires, some lasting days, some a few hours and others never getting started. We can also count on some bumbling by the State Department. Secretary Kerry is a world-class bumbler. In the end, Israel’s air, ground, and artillery forces prevail and the fighting stops until the next time. 

During the conflict all the anti-Israel liberal voices in America and Europe bleat their moronic chants. They need no practice. It is always the same. “Israel needs to be controlled. They are not trying to avoid civilian deaths, the citizens of Gaza under Hamas’s leadership are fighting for their independence. If only Israel would end their occupation of Gaza and withdraw to the 1967 borders there would be no more violence. Israel won’t negotiate. The government (America’s) needs to pressure Israel to act responsibly.”

I know the radical left (today’s liberals) dislike facts unless the facts are theirs, but here goes in constant hope the truth will prevail.

(1) Hamas always starts the mini wars. Mostly with an increase in missile attacks. An increase because Hamas has launched missiles into Israel several times every month. How many nations would remain defensive in the face of rockets and mortars landing in civilian centers? Hamas missiles have poor or no guidance systems beyond the burning of the missile’s engine. So Hamas has no capability of avoiding population centers. In fact, population centers are their targets but poor guidance capabilities and the effectiveness of Israel’s “iron dome” missile defense and civilian missile shelters have spared Israeli population centers from heavy damage.

(2) No nation can negotiate with an enemy whose clearly stated goal is the total destruction of Israel and the Jewish people. What’s to negotiate?

(3) Hamas diverts cement and building materials, the Israelis permitted to cross the border, to the building of tunnels and other military facilities.

(4) Without support from radical Muslim nations, Hamas could not wage war.

(5) Hamas cares little about improving the lives of their citizens.

It is hard to understand why liberals equate the actions of a designated terrorist state with those of the only democracy in the Middle East. Except the liberal history is to always blame America or Israel. I think this blame America attitude has it roots in the liberal belief you can negotiate with anyone. If you show willingness to compromise your adversary will reciprocate. This history is shared by high officials in our government. How else can you explain the reckless reliance on negotiations and sanctions? Nations whose goal is to destroy us, use negotiations to buy time. If the end game is critical to our enemies, they will embrace the trade of continued negotiations and possible sanctions for time.

Israel is our only real ally in the Middle East. Why should we not use our influence and power to encourage the growth of democracy? Even in Muslim states. The book describing wars between democratic nations has not yet been written. The source material is just not there. I guess it never will be. On the other hand, there is great source material for the attacks of Muslim states on both other Muslims states and non-Muslim states. What is ISIS about? Has it shown tolerance for Christians or heretical Muslims? (Muslims who do not fit their definition of acceptability.) Is the ISIS movement’s mission to reinstitute a  strict Muslim rule over the territory its armies spread the Muslim religion in the 700s AD?

For more about the Obama Administration and the world, read “INSIGHTS: Transforming America — Is this what we fought for? Available in hardcover, Kindle Free and paperback at Amazon. 

by the author of the Brandon mystery/thriller novels.

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by | July 12, 2014 · 7:30 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 126

WHEN TRUST FAILS

Forget for a moment about your biases, whether you’re pro- or anti-Israel, and look at the options the prime minister of Israel has in this growing conflict. He has no good options. He can’t count on the United States to keep the rest of the Arab countries out of the conflict. He must take action.  israel flagHe doesn’t have the luxury of doing nothing but talk. Rockets are falling on Israeli population centers. He knows, as everyone does, that the rockets are being fired from the Gaza Strip by Hamas, a  recognized terrorist organization. It wasn’t very far in the past that Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip at urging from the West that has struggled, painfully and ineffectively, to establish peace in the Middle East. A peace that the respective combatants don’t believe is possible. Both sides present goals that the opponents are not willing to offer.

Israel wants its Arab neighbors to recognize its right to exist as a nation state, more or less with existing boundaries. The Muslims want  Israel to retreat to borders prior to the 1967 war.  President Obama has stated the 1967 boundaries should be the starting point for negotiations. Israel believes the resulting Israeli nation would be untenable militarily and economically. Hamas and its West Bank partner would accept those boundaries as a starting point but at the same time render the whole process meaningless by their refusal to formally recognize Israel’s right to exist, regardless of any border. The main player, barely behind the scenes, Iran, has stated repeatedly it intends to wipe Israel off the map. Iran, a Muslim Shia state, funds, arms, and supports Hamas and Hezbollah, even though Hamas is Sunni while Hezbollah is predominately a Shiite organization. Without the aid and support of Iran and formerly Syria, neither group could survive.

Okay, that is the back story. What has changed?

The relationship between the American president and Israel has changed dramatically. Israel heard President Obama’s pro-Arab bias loud and clear. His disrespect of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the latter’s visits to America was off the charts. Israel has realized it can no longer count on American support or the word of its leader.

When the trust of America that Israel could count on previously disappeared, their options became more limited. When Hamas, Iran, and Hezbollah, who also heard our president speak, no longer believe America is a player on the world scene their options increased.

The might of the United States is off the both the field of arms and the negotiating table. If there is to be peace in the Middle East, it will have to come from the Sunni powers that do not want war and the economic disruption that comes with it. Let us hope that the next administration will revert to supporting our only democratic ally in the region.

 

 

 

 

 

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by | July 8, 2014 · 7:31 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 125

NEW MAP NEEDED

Put your old map of the Middle East in the pile of historical documents. For a hundred years, the national boundaries of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon followed the contours of the lines diplomats drew to show the demise of the Turkish Empire. Their inked lines paid little or no mind to the impact those lines would have on language groups, cultural and religious realities, and tribal territories.iraq

Iraq is not now and never has been a nation with the common things that make a nation, a nation. Instead, it worked around religious animosities, language differences, and conflicting tribal affiliations. The work around was only possible due to the harsh policies of a Sunni aristocracy that had no hesitation about using brutal tactics to subjugate Shia and Kurdish minorities. The Kurds have wanted and fought for their own nation for decades. At times they have sought Western support only to be betrayed time after time. The Shia are pulled eastward to the strong Persian and Shia  state of Iran, the same state that the Sunni leadership in Iraq fought a brutal war with in the 1980s. During that war, poison gas was used against the Iranians. Saddam Hussein was an equal dispenser of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). He also used poison gas on the Shia and the Kurds. Only ruthless cruelty and fear kept Iraq a nation.

Vice President Joe Biden, who almost got nothing right in his entire political career unless he copied it from someone else, stumbled on the right solution at the wrong time when he proposed dividing Iraq into Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish areas, provinces, or whatever. It was not to happen. His solution was too far outside the box for most of us.

President Obama made all the wrong moves and gave the wrong signals when he took power and pulled all our forces out of Iraq. But let’s be fair. The only way for Iraq to exist as a nation was to put a ruthless Sunni dictator back in power. That wasn’t going to happen. In its wisdom, the Bush Administration destroyed the Sunni-led Iraqi Army and ruling political party, clearing the way for weak Shia leaders to win or manipulate a democratic voting process that prepared the path for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to run a Shia regime that looked eastward to Iran for support and guidance, turning Iraq into an Iranian province.

Our president, who has a strong Sunni bias, knew he could not provide real military support to assist a Shia faction to battle a Sunni force. So all the hand-wringing over the number and kind of troops  sent now to Iraq and what the president should do is wasted. Iraq is history. Now we need to seek common goals among the Sunnis and Kurds.

Either way, this is a perfect issue for President Obama to follow his mantra, “the issue is never the issue.”  He never tries to solve issues anyway, he only uses them to destroy the opposition.  In Iraq, doing nothing is close to being the perfect solution. The Republicans will find some way to use the Iraq issue against themselves.

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by | May 13, 2014 · 6:50 pm

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 114

A DANGEROUS TOLERANCE

Tolerance is part of the American heritage and it has served us well. There are times when tolerance is a questionable response to a dangerous situation.  There is nothing in our Constitution that tells us that we must be tolerant in the face of danger. Constantly showing tolerance for the excesses of radical Muslims is counter-productive. Jihadism or radical Islam is a threat to Americans and our way of life. They will not be satisfied until America and what it stands for is destroyed. The threat from radical Islam will not go away. It is not a fad or something that will go away if we just understand it and tolerate their hatred. Progressives led by President Obama, who also want to weaken American economic and military power, will someday understand that they, too, are marked by jihadists for elimination.

Show Muslims love, understanding, and compassion and you show them weakness and a lack of commitment to freedom and liberty, two concepts that do not flourish now and never have in any Muslim state. Muslims are not required to turn the other cheek in the presence of violence or love their neighbors or respect the weak. It appears their love and compassion does not extend outside of their faith. When the Twin Towers were brought down by Muslim terrorists, all the Arabs and other Muslims dancing in the streets of their various homelands were not al-Qaida members or jihadists. They were what progressives like think to represent moderate Muslims. These moderate Muslims tolerate and support radical jihadists by not speaking and acting to stop the senseless killing. These same moderates often support the imposition of sharia law, the mutilation of young Muslim girls, the abuse of Christian minorities and the lack of education for Muslim females.

There is nothing reciprocal about Christians showing kindness and understanding to Muslims. In America ,we allow Muslims to build mosques nearly anywhere they want. We believe in and practice freedom of religion. Name any Muslim nation that allows Christians to build churches with the freedom to convert Muslims to Christianity. There is an inherent conflict between the tenets of Christianity and those of Islam. Our leaders who have shown a decided lean toward Islam in the practice of foreign policy, need to recognize this conflict and demand reciprocity. When that doesn’t happen, which it won’t, then we have to examine the wisdom of a policy that provides freedom to a religion bent on destroying America and the West.

 

 

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by | February 14, 2014 · 7:51 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 98

IRAN AND THE BOMB

Let’s begin with a few facts the Obama administration seems to overlook.

It is hard to believe any White House could assemble a more naive team that can’t even find the ball, let alone watch it. You don’t even need inside information to tell you where to start. It is all there for all of the former players now pacing on the sidelines.  Why should Iran want a nuclear weapon? Not a bad starting point. The only friends the Shia Moslem nation of Iran has are those like Russia, China, North Korea, and France who view them as a lucrative market for all their wares and as an anti-American supplier of oil. They have no friends among the Sunni Moslem nations. The Iranians fought a long and bloody war against Iraq when it was under Sunni rule. Today, decades later that bloody war is still remembered by Iraqis who lost family members in the fighting.

Iran’s exporting of terrorism through its puppets Hamas and Hezbollah has alienated Lebanon. Iran is hated by the Israelis and pays for its uneasy partnership with Syria. Iran is without loyal allies. That is a weak position from which to dominate the Middle East, unless they become a nuclear power. That’s is their number one strategic goal. How can anyone think they will negotiate away their top priority national security goal?

A military strike by Israel or the United States would destroy or set back Iran’s time table to achieve nuclear status. The sanctions, before the Obama administration eased off on them, were causing hardships in Tehran. Not all Iranians want to make sacrifices to achieve nuclear weapons. For internal political reasons the religious leaders decided to roll out a strategy of negotiating to buy time and get concessions from the West on the crippling sanctions. This strategy had worked before. Why not dial back the anti-American rhetoric and pretend to negotiate on their nuclear program?

Of course the Obama administration jumped at the bait and became the leader of the “let’s negotiate” flock. He thinks it makes sense to use all possible diplomatic endeavors before resorting to any military action. That is generally true but not when it is obvious that the other side is playing you. Iran is so confident that the Obama administration is below the paper tiger level that they have blatantly tested an ICBM capable of destroying Israel and hitting several American targets. Big clue. Yes! No nation has ever spent treasure on developing a long-range ballistic missile unless they were positive they could mate it with a nuclear weapon. There is no other rational explanation. Yet our president is resisting his own party’s effort to ready additional sanctions to ensure Iran lives up to the agreement.

Officials from the administration and learned talking heads will tell us that it will be some time before Iran can weaponize a nuclear device. Don’t believe that fairy tale. North Korea and other nations that are not admirers of the U.S. and Israel would sell the Iranians whatever they need in a heartbeat.

To sum up the administration’s position: They are confident that even though the Iranians have put much treasure and time into developing a nuclear weapon they can be talked out of completing the task. After buying hundreds of centrifuges, building underground facilities to house them, and developing long-range missiles, how can anyone believe they can stop Iran’s long, expensive effort to acquire nuclear weapons by negotiating from a weak position? The administration’s followers will point with pride to the Iranian destruction of highly enriched uranium. This not true. The Iranians didn’t destroy anything, they merely converted the enriched uranium into another form that can easily be reversed.

Don’t be surprised if the Iranians test their bomb while Secretary Kerry is having tea in Damascus.

By the author of the Jack Brandon novels.

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