By Ted Belman
In my article The Shifting Sands of the ME, I wrote
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To make matters worse, the opinion makers in the US and the EU have come out in favor of lifting the blockade which in effect is in support of Hamas, a terrorist organization. And Obama is on their side.
The strengthening of Hamas effectively strengthens Iran, strangles the peace process and scares the bejeesus out of Egypt and Jordan.
Subsequently, Caroline Glick in Hamas rises in the West made the same point
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By backing the terrorist group against Israel, western countries are backing Hamas against Fatah and Islamist states against ME moderates.
Extreme Makeover drives home the same point.
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Obama’s Middle East policy may soon shift away from moderates in favor of extremists
President Barack Obama’s point-man for his latest approach to the Muslim world is John Brennan, the White House’s counterterrorism czar, recently described by the Washington Post as one of the president’s most trusted advisers. Two weeks ago Brennan explained to a Washington audience that “we need to try to build up the more moderate elements” within Hezbollah, Lebanon’s Shia militia. The State Department rushed in to explain that there was no change in U.S. policy toward a group it has designated a terrorist organization—however, this was the second time Brennan had spoken of reaching out to Hezbollah “moderates” (and the second time he was corrected by the State Department), which means he has the president’s approval.
In reality, there is no such thing as Hezbollah moderates. The party itself claims there is no difference between what the British incorrectly describe as Hezbollah’s political and military wing. And so identifying Hezbollah “moderates” is just political cover for the real work, which as Brennan, a longtime CIA hand, surely knows, is speaking to the hard men, the extremists, since they are the only people worth speaking to.
This is news: Moderate Muslims, the darlings of the George W. Bush Administration’s foreign policy, don’t matter, or so Obama has concluded. Ever since he was on the campaign trail Obama has promised to reach out to Iran and Syria, state sponsors of terror and Hezbollah’s patrons, and now the reason why is clear: because he believes that it’s Middle East extremists who call the shots. Someday soon, the Obama Administration is going to reach out to Hezbollah, as well as other terrorist organizations, in Afghanistan, Gaza, and elsewhere in the Muslim world.
Indeed, the Middle East’s savviest rulers have already read the writing on the wall. Look at Turkey. The Bush Administration believed that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP government represented the model of a moderate and democratic Islamic state that would influence its neighbors, especially Iraq. Now, under the Obama Administration, Turkey will still serve its traditional role as a bridge to the Muslim world—not to the moderates but to the extremists. As if to polish up his résumé for this new direction, Erdogan stacked the Mavi Marmara with activists from the IHH, as if to prove that he has relationships with Hamas. Now, when Washington wants something from the armed gang that runs Gaza, they can use Ankara as a mediator.
Obama, it seems, doesn’t care about moderate Muslims for the same reason that he doesn’t make much noise about human rights and democracy promotion in the Middle East: For all his talk of hope and change, he takes a much more pessimistic—and more realistic—view of the region’s political culture than the Bush Administration did.
And the truth is that the Bush White House was never entirely serious about backing up its talk about moderate Muslims with action. Sure, the White House rode Cairo and Riyadh hard for their human-rights abuses, but it still wound up describing Egypt and Saudi Arabia as “moderate” Arab states—meaning that they were less bad than Iran. Worse yet, the Bush Administration committed the cardinal sin of Middle East politics: failing to protect its (moderate) allies and punish (extremist) enemies. Take the case of the late former Prime Minister of Lebanon, Rafiq Hariri, an exemplary moderate Muslim politician, whose foundation provided tens of thousands of scholarships to students from all confessions while Hezbollah’s culture of resistance turned the Shia community into a death cult. And yet five and a half years later, after Hariri was killed in a car-bomb explosion in Beirut, there’s not even an indictment in his murder. The message is clear: There’s not much use for Middle East moderates since, like Hariri and Anwar Sadat before him, their moderation only gets them killed by extremists.
President Obama has keyed in on Muslim extremists because his own history shows that it’s the strategically sound choice. The lesson that extremism is the foundation of political legitimacy in politically charismatic communities was driven home to the president, Sunday after Sunday, as he sat in Jeremiah Wright’s church for 20 years. Obama, a half-white community organizer from Hawaii by way of Harvard Law School, did not seek to establish his bona fides in Chicago’s black community by attending the church of some middle-class black pastor who would speak about the glories of mowing the lawn every Sunday. The politically ambitious Obama chose to sit in the church of a man who spouted lunatic conspiracy theories about how the CIA was killing black babies not because he believed it, but because he knew back then that extremists confer legitimacy—especially when you are an outsider hoping to curry favor with the locals, as he is now with the Muslim world.
What Obama knows about extremists and moderates was not lost on our founding fathers, who understood that the great and vast moderate majority anywhere are a bunch of saps who will gladly follow the knave who knows how to play on their grievances and lusts. The moderate majority is the hash you get when you have made a virtue of human nature by balancing off competing prejudices, fantasies, fears, and vanities; and if you want to deal with this moderate majority you must go to their leaders, the men of fierce purpose who nurture the worst in mankind.
It is typically assumed that the president’s history, his family background, and the time he has spent in the Muslim world have made him deeply sympathetic to the Muslim masses. Another possibility is that it has left him wary of what he has seen and heard. As someone with a Muslim father who grew up partly in a Muslim country, and who embraced radical political tropes, it is notable that Obama chose to become a Christian and reject his father’s religious faith. Both his critics and defenders are quick to argue that his choice must have been motivated by naked political expediency. But what if it was a conscious decision to distance himself from a Muslim world he found distasteful?
In any case, Obama sees, correctly, that the real choice isn’t between moderates and extremists, but between cutting a deal with the extremists or making war against them. The fact is that a war against all the extremists in the Muslim world—Sunni and Shia, from the Persian Gulf to Western North Africa—is effectively a war against Islam. And a decades-long war of civilizations is not a war that an economically damaged United States can afford to wage. We have neither the money, nor the manpower, nor the will. A total war of the kind that appears to be on offer would change U.S. society in ways that are unimaginable and would make the Bush years look like an idyllic holiday. Our few remaining allies—with the exception of Israel—would no longer wish to fight beside us and would make deals of their own, if they already haven’t.
So, instead, we’re going to bargain with the actors who have the final say over war and peace: the extremists.
The present moment is not the first time the United States has had to choose between war with Muslim extremists and appeasing them. As Israel’s ambassador to the United States Michael Oren detailed in his 2007 book Faith, Power and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present, America’s first policymakers considered paying off the Barbary Coast pirates and the local sultans on whose behalf they took captives and booty, as the French and British did. After a public outcry, they decided to make war. Taxes were then levied to establish the U.S. Navy, tasked to defend American commerce on the high seas and take the fight to the enemy.
Looking back to the origins of the United States’ blue-water navy is a reminder that the founding fathers judged that fighting, rather than paying tribute, was what best suited the character of the American people. And there’s little doubt that U.S. citizens will again rebel against policymakers who have chosen appeasement, especially since the extremists will negotiate by killing more of us, in the streets of U.S. cities as well as in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is unclear whether the political damage that the incumbent will suffer because his countrymen are dying is sufficient to change his thinking, which is that it is more cost efficient for a weakened United States to buy off extremists than it is to run the rest of the world at the end of a gun.
But negotiating with extremists will look like war, just that only one side will be fighting while the other side—the United States—tries to stop the bloodshed by petitioning the extremists to accept more ransom. The way Obama sees it, the upside is that it will not be a war without end, like the war on terror. All the extremists in the Muslim world want is money and the power that will flow their way as the consequence of the U.S. withdrawal from the Persian Gulf. The faster the United States leaves, the cheaper the cost. This is why the Jewish state is isolated today and why Washington stands with her only reluctantly: Distancing ourselves from Israel is part of the deal we are preparing to strike.
In Flotilla Thriller, J.E.Dyer argues Obama must put a stop to the proliferation of flotillas (Iran and Turkey) before they become a threat to world order.
Earlier I had commented that Obama appears to have sided with the power (Iran) rather than the purse (Saudi Arabia).
Matter of fact, yes she was now that I recall. Buildings in old part of Amsterdam very narrow so they build upwards. Actually the bedroom fronted a canal, that really stunk in summer.
Ted another comment here went missing/ This Time for really no apparent reason. Very frustrating
All of us I think have some personal Masterpieces were proud of, Still trying though to discover what mine were.
Not to worry Sheeb, but If I were 25-30 years younger you might really have something to worry about. 🙂
Say Hi, from me and congratulations to both of you.
Was she on the side with the open window overlooking an Amsterdam canal?
Not hiding, just had an awesome busy day. My head is spinning, school is out and my oldest granddaughter is now at the office with her younger sister.
I love them both very much but too much distraction when you are busy. It’s pop pop I need paper, can I have a folder, pop pop I want to sit at your desk and work with you.
I don’t know what I would do with out them.
Uncle I have been out of the loop and I am not sure who is related to whom.
Damn I miss Ayn, like Uncle Nahum (Yamit) said, G-d if you were our neighbor we would break your windows.
My masterpiece. She’s seventeen and just graduated from high school. After the dust settles here, she gets a free trip to Europe from old Mom because she got straight A’s in AP courses. Good kid. Now to the part that interests you: she is built like a brick shithouse. You will, however, keep your hands to yourself.
I hope so. I just spoke with her, breaks my heart to see her in such pain. I understand it but it’s hard because I feel not only empathy but worse helplessness. I hate to feel helpless.
I meant every word I wrote, so lets talk about # 6 . Poor ron is hiding I think.
How old is Jr.?
Thanks for the compliment. I appreciate being flattered by you, rather than being flattened like the Dutch girl.
I think staying near her kids will do Joy a world of good because she will be in the role of mother rather than mourner. At least that’s the plan.
All I mentioned was worth. I never paid for sex in my life. I once had 4 women compete for me over a two year period and one divorced her husband as a result. I once lived with for quite a long time with a girl who was a house model for Dior in Paris. She was Dutch. Wanted to get married till one night in my sleep I threw her off the bed. She never got over that even though I swore I was sleeping and not responsible.
I have no expectations and certainly don’t expect you to be Sarah. Sorry if you got that impression. You are you, Joy is Joy and Sarah was Sarah, each of you is a unique individual. You can’t escape though what you all three have in common and that commonality comes through in many of what you and Joy say in your comments. It seems what I liked and loved about Sarah is what I can see in the comments of both you and Joy.
That is the greatest compliment I can pay to another person, certainly to another woman.
You expect too much of me. Laura may think I’m Ayn Reagan, but I’m not up to speed on the comedy routines like she was. Okay, so what obvious comeback am I missing? Does it involve genitals? This is an area of great expertise for me. Just ask husband-in-waiting #6.
Hearsay testimonials are good but not very trustworthy, say again, any guy? Meaning I’m not any guy?
I fed you a good line here.
Walk up to any guy, mention Shebrew, and observe his look of pure satisfaction.
Before I answer, how do I know your worth any of it?
I will definitely show this one to Joy. On second thought, it might create a relapse because she has always been the Sarah wannabe.
How much you got?
She does; with an IQ to match and a lot of expensive jewelery stashed away for safe keeping. How much can you wear at any one time? I know stupid question, it was rhetorical.
Shebrew Warrior’s way of speaking sounds an awful lot like Ayn Reagan.
Shebrew warrior’s way of speaking sounds an awful lot like Ayn Reagan.
And what’s the problem with a war against islam? Islam is already in a war against us even if our political leaders won’t ackowledge it.
That’s what nuclear weapons are for. We need not engage in a decades long war sapping our economy.
Since extremism is going to be rewarded perhaps Israel needs to take heed and act as crazy as the muslims in order to gain international respect.
I think you scared in off or he’s having hot flashes fantasizing.
I answered this question hours ago,
Thanks
I answered this question hours ago, but it is nowhere to be found. Condensed version: No zoo. Lots of beach. Shebrew Warrior now darker than Zulu Warrior. Joy going to visit kids, will return and decide if she really wants to live in this house containing so many memories. Shebrew and Shebrew Junior will hold down fort. #5 going home to TCB. Vacancy in Shebrew’s bed. If Ron Grand wants to take advantage of golden opportunity, better be built like King Kong if you know what I mean.
No zoo. Lots of beach. Shebrew Warrior is now darker than your average Zulu Warrior.
Joy needs to be out of this house for awhile, just too many memories. She is going to visit her kids for a couple weeks. When Joy returns, we’ll decide where to go from there. #5 has some business to take care of at home, so Shebrew and Shebrew Junior will hold down the fort.
What that means, Ron Grand, is that there is a vacancy in Shebrew’s bed. Before you try to exploit the situation, remember that a small penis to Shebrew is like garlic to a vampire. Only champion mattress acrobats need apply!
I thought Hamas is siding with Israel?!
How was the zoo? How is Joy? Where is Joy?
Ah, Shebrew is back among us 🙂
They can’t beat us, but we can beat ourselves.
Obama is siding with Hamas against Israel. Boo hoo. Israel is a dynamic international powerhouse, and Hamas is the Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang. If the combined armies of the Arab world can’t beat the Jews, how do you think the Hamas/Israel conflict is going to turn out? Obama or no Obama, Hamas is going down hard.