“All the forces that we see building in Egypt are the forces that should be naturally aligned with the US, [and] should be aligned with Israel,” he told attendees of the Florida fundraising event.

“I’m actually confident that 10 years from now we’re going to be able to look back and say that this was the dawning of an entirely new and better era,” he added. The US president expressed his hope that the new era would be one in which “people are striving not to be against something but to be for something.”

I can probably go with “some,” but not “all”. Really? “All?” Mr. President? “All?“such as the forces that decided it would be fun to attack Lara Logan in Tahrir Square while shouting “Jew! Jew!”? Such as the forces that decided to invite Sheik Qaradawi to spew hatred of Jews to the throngs there while preventing the advocate for democracy Wael Ghonim from speaking? Such as the ones that murdered a woman’s father because he did not kill her in an honor killing for having a relationship with a Christian, then burned down the Coptic Church terrorizing the town’s Christians, and followed that by triumphantly holding prayer services on the site of the burned down church? How about the forces that are demanding an end to the peace treaty with Israel? Those forces?

If you see those forces as naturally allied with America and Israel, Mr. President, I don’t think you have an understanding of the values of America and Israel or those of the forces about whom you speak. Simply opposing one form of tyranny, nationalist dictatorship, while backing another that is potentially far worse, theocracy, hardly qualifies as being naturally allied with America and Israel, even if there is a democratic election that brings it about. Advocacy for free elections does not mean at all that there is a desire that those elections produce a government that would be allied with America and Israel.

Mr. President, some of those forces building in Egypt would burn down your own church if they had a chance. They would certainly torch my synagogue. And if a mosque were to publicly condemn their actions, it would probably get torched too. They murdered a man for not murdering his daughter. I don’t think they would have qualms about flicking a Bic.

Is there reason for hope in the region? Yes. Is everything a reason for hope? Are “all the forces building in Egypt” those that give us reason to hope? If the answer for you is “Yes?” I must ask what kind of shrooms were served at that dinner? We might need to call the Narc Squad in.

Mr. President, you ran on a platform of hope. I too hope. I wish to see the good out there. I too hope to see good triumph. But I am not blinded by hope. Nor am I responsible for the future of the world as to a extent you are as President of the United States and that is what scares me. Mr. President, I hope that you are right about Egypt. Unfortunately, I’m worried that your vision is but a hope and a false hope at that.

Why do I fear that you are wrong? Mr. President, you might as well have said that you have spoken with the enemy and they have promised “peace in our time.” Meanwhile, minorities go into hiding, women are attacked, churches burn and freedom remains at a distance, perhaps even having retreated.

Because it is abundantly clear that some of the forces building in Egypt are anything but ones naturally allied with America and Israel, I know that your understanding that “all” should be allied with us cannot be correct. I just hope that you are not so incorrect as to result in disaster.

The last time a leader talked about “peace in our time”, things did not work out very well.

In Zawiya, 30 miles (50 kilometers) west of Tripoli, an army unit attacked the city’ Souq Mosque, where regime opponents had been camped for days in a protest calling for Gadhafi’s ouster, a witness said. The soldiers opened fire with automatic weapons and hit the mosque’s minaret with fire from an anti-aircraft gun, he said. Some of the young men among the protesters, who were inside the mosque and in a nearby lot, had hunting rifles for protection.

The witness said there were casualties, but couldn’t provide exact figures. He said a day earlier an envoy from Gadhafi had come to the city and warned the mosque protesters, “Either leave or you will see a massacre.” Zawiya is a key city near an oil port and refineries.

“What is happening is horrible. Those who attacked us are not the mercenaries, they are sons of our country,” he said, sobbing. After the assault, thousands massed in the city’s main Martyrs Square, shouting “leave, leave,” in reference to Gadhafi, he said.

“People came to send a clear message: We are not afraid of death or your bullets,” he said. “This regime will regret it. History will not forgive them.”

This is petulance:

The bill sparked massive protests. Last week local teachers called in sick and jammed the capitol building in Madison; by the weekend, the crowd had swelled to 70,000. As unions across the country bused in protesters, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka showed up to rally the masses, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson arrived to lead them in “We Shall Overcome.”

But — overcome what? Democracy in action? Overcome who? The voters and taxpayers of Wisconsin?

The (baby boomer) presidents of the teachers and public employees unions told Wisconsin State Journal reporters that workers would do “their fair share” to narrow the budget gap. If that were true, though, they’d actually have to contribute far more than the governor has requested:

In the past 10 years, says the Wisconsin Department of Employee Trust Funds, taxpayers paid more than $8 billion for state workers’ health care coverage, while the workers put in only $398 million. And from 2000 to 2009, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, taxpayers spent about $12.6 billion on public employee pensions while the employees contributed only $8 million.

Just wanted to point out the difference.

The Iranians are crushing their citizens’ skulls again. Word is that Hezbollah imports are doing much of the beatdowns.

The UN Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements was sponsored by Lebanon, now nearly fully Iran’s client state. And Iranian ships are passing through the Suez Canal for the first time since 1979. (And sure, they’re not carrying weapons. They’re just going to stop in Lebanon for the tourist attractions.)

But the major problem needing fixing in the Middle East today? Why, of course, it’s the Israeli-Palestinian issue. No peace in Israel, no peace in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, etc., etc., etc. The UN condemns Israel at every opportunity.

Seriously?

The European Union is telling Israel that growing instability in the Middle East makes it imperative to immediately resume the stalled peace process with the Palestinians.

Hungary’s foreign minister Janos Martonyi, whose country currently chairs the EU, told his Israeli counterpart Avigdor Lieberman on Tuesday that time is pressing and that the Israeli-Palestinian talks remain the core issue.

A Palestinian state would have stopped Ghaddafy from firing on his people? It would have stopped the Iranians from bashing in the heads of democracy protesters? It would have stopped the rest of the Middle East from rising up against their autocratic rulers and demanding freedom? That’s what the establishment of a Palestinian state would have done?

I think I’m going to call bullshit on that. Yes, I most definitely am. (Insert several eye rolls here.)

Morons.

Americans believe that power is derived from the will of the people. We decry despotism. Yet our sense of fairness often drives us to allow the mob to rule even when we know that its rule is unfair. That contradiction results in another, namely a contradiction between the belief that the rights of every person are sacred and the belief that the will of the majority, even to trample upon the rights of the minority, must be followed.

Today we are witnessing upheaval in the Middle East. Mob rule threatens to overturn despotism. Ethically, we must support the mob because power should derive from the will of the people. Yet also ethically, we must oppose the mob’s efforts should they gain power, to create a tyranny of their own. Our conflicted minds think, “Down with the dictator! Beware the victors!”

I wish that I could say that this conflict was limited to foreign lands. It is not. This week, both on the left and the right of the political spectrum, mobs gather to press their voice, to press their power, in states across our Union. They speak and act in righteous indignation at affronts, at unfairness, or in religious fury. I will not for a moment declare all of these groups wrong to do so and, in this place, will not even criticize a one. What I offer here is one man’s sense that times are changing. The majority is feeling empowered to act as a mob. Minorities, both ethnic minorities and those who hold minority views, are under increasing threat.

Thus, when I hear the words of those advocating for the United States to support condemnation of Israel precisely because the majority of nations do and when I can note that this reasoning seems to be starting to resonate, I find myself, as I do today, becoming increasingly concerned. I am concerned not only for Israel. Israel has friends. Israel has strength. Israel may take care of itself. I am concerned that the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s will be reborn and that Israel’s purpose as a safe haven for the persecuted Jew will be made manifest again. I am concerned that the rights of minorities in America and throughout the world will be under threat because the masses so wish. I am concerned that the rule of law will be increasingly unable to be sustained against the will of the masses.

There is little or no difference between the resolution proposed in the UN Security Council today in condemnation of Israel and many others that have been proposed before. The real difference is in the sense that standing up for the persecuted minority, or even standing apart with a minority, increasingly appears to be seen as unreasonable and even as unrighteous.

Should the United States today vote to support the majority for that sole reason, it will be a shameful day in our nation’s history and a frightening omen for the future.

Today is Purim Katan, “Little Purim”. Today is the 14th of the First Month of Adar. Today, though we are not required to read the Megillah, the Book of Esther, as we will be required next month on Purim, we are reminded of the persecution of minorities everywhere in the world. We are reminded that the tide may swiftly change against us and others. We cannot forget.

If we are vigilant, we may live the blessing from the Book of Esther, “And the Jews had light and Gladness and Joy and Honor.” Kein yehi ratson!

This political blunder comes on the heels of what amounts to disgraceful incompetence in the foreign intelligence arena, with the DNI arguing that the Muslim Brotherhood is “a largely secular organization!” And of course, that after this administration appears to have been completely blindsided by the events in Tunisia and Egypt. Let’s not forget whole host of issues related to Iran. There are certainly many more issues that could be raised.

Why does this administration seem to be blindly blundering in the Middle East?

My own answer to this question is that this administration is full of people who feel that a certain type of foreign policy had never been given a real chance, namely reaching out to the Arab world as a friend instead of as a power. Further, that in spite of the dismal failure of this policy thus far, the administration is being urged to go “all in” by its proponents.

To answer my question specifically, people in this administration understand that traditional foreign policy has not brought them what they wish for, which is peaceful coexistence (something they actually deeply down believe is possible). In their minds, traditional foreign policy has promoted hatred of the United States as exceptional (which of course it is).

Their goal with what I would call “Naive Foreign Policy” (literally a foreign policy lacking in experience) is to experiment with alternatives to the tried and true. This is a generation whose actions throughout life have been sheltered by parents and by society. They’ve been able to experiment with drugs. They went through the sexual revolution. They treat religions like they do their cars, trading them in for new ones when they go out of style. And for all of their experiments, they have suffered very little that they can see. Thus, they see no real problem in experimenting with new foreign policies. What real harm can be done? We can always trade it in for a new model later. Worse, they believe not only in microwaving food, but in microwaving societal transformations and even global ones. They actually believe that peace is possible tomorrow, if only the necessary actions were done today.

Reason and rationality are not the basis of this foreign policy. Hope in the common humanity of their fellow men and women is the basis.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one in which both sides violate this utopian ideal. Historical fact violates this ideal and we therefore cannot use history as the basis of our actions now. The President has not used those exact words, but he might as well have. Remember what President Obama said in his speech to the UNGA in September of 2009? I will never forget it:

The time has come to realize that the old habits, the old arguments are irrelevant to the challenges faced by our people. They lead nations to act in opposition to the very goals that they claim to pursue and to vote, often in this body, against the interests of their own people.

They build up walls between us and the future that our people seek. And the time has come for those walls to come down. Together, we must build new coalitions that bridge old divides, coalitions of different faiths and creeds, of northern and south, east, west, black, white, and brown.

The choice is ours. We can be remembered as a generation that chose to drag the arguments of 20th century into the 21st, that put off hard choices, refused to look ahead, failed to keep pace because we defined ourselves by what we were against instead of what we were for. Or we can be a generation that chooses to see the shoreline beyond the rough waters ahead; that comes together to serve the common interests of human beings and finally gives meaning to the promise embedded in the nation given to this institution, the United Nations.

That is the future America wants; a future of peace and prosperity that we can only reach if we recognize that all nations have rights but all nations have responsibilities as well. That is the bargain that makes this work. That must be the guiding principle of international cooperation.

We have a foreign policy in which history is irrelevant. Anyone find that frightening?

Egypt could be expected to aid flotillas into Gaza and to make it much easier for arms shipments and other deliveries to enter Gaza. Israel would then likely need to retake the Gaza border with Egypt and/or would need to place more troops on that border than ever before. Israel would additionally need to dramatically increase its military strength all along the Egyptian border because Egyptian troops would not be trusted to prevent incursion by militants, even if they could be trusted not to participate or directly aid in the incursions. Obviously, all previous agreements between Israel and Egypt would be in question either officially or unofficially.

The Palestinian Authority faces the possibility that its greatest supporter, Egypt, would suddenly become a supporter of its arch enemy, Hamas. The PA has been holding “We love Mubarak” rallies throughout the West Bank. Suddenly the PA’s best ally will be Israel. *I guess that I shouldn’t say this publicly because the PA would then be accused of being traitors to the Arab cause. Israel must be a hated enemy and the cause of all evil.

Jordan would have its best allies (Egypt and America) fomenting rebellion within its borders. It is almost a certainty that Jordan’s rhetoric regarding Israel in the months ahead will be much more hostile than it has previously been. This will be so as to avoid being accused of being a friend of Israel. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority’s leadership all have applied for and received Jordanian citizenship. This, just in case Jordan turns into a Palestinian state after all.

Saudi Arabia would face a highly hostile Egypt battling for hegemony in the region that will attempt to foment Islamist rebellion in the kingdom at every turn. Worse, for the King and his family, is the clear indication that the United States would abandon its close ally at the drop of a hat in favor of a hostile democratic rebellion within its borders.

So, looking at what is actually happening in Egypt, is it any wonder that the Saudis have told the Obama Administration where to place its proverbial oil rig? Is it any wonder that the Saudis have come to the aid of Mubarak, threatening to replace any aid that America would deny, and likely will or are coming to the aid of the leaders in Jordan and Yemen as well? Is it any wonder that America is no longer seen as a friend and supporter, but now as a potential threat for emboldening revolt? It is indeed a wonder that among Egypt’s best friends, among the Palestinian Authority’s best friends, among the Saudi’s best friends, is Israel!

We now look at a Middle East in which the peoples and nations that were/are at war with Israel find common cause with it against Iran, against Political Islam, and against America’s foment of insurrection.

It is indeed a strange new world.

Sometimes, democracy can bring about a worse tyranny. The majority can install a government that is oppressive of minorities. Without a real desire to limit the power of the majority and an iron clad agreement to do so such as a constitution with required judicial oversight, democracies may become more oppressive of minority rights than even some of the worst despotic monarchies.

Free elections result in the will of the majority of voters coming to pass. If the will of the majority is to assure rights and liberties for all, things are going to be just fine. If the will of the majority is to seek revenge against the minority that previously ruled, things are going to be very bad for the minority. If the will of the majority is to impose draconian religious restrictions, if you are not part of that majority and not interested in living under such restrictions, you might not like majority rule.

The situation in many countries in the Middle East today is as follows:

A nationalist, sometimes fascist, ruling party supported by a minority of the overall population, but which controls the military, is headed by a dictatorial leader. These nationalists face Political Islamist groups of substantial size.

Political Islamist groups are those seeking to install sharia law as the law of the land as opposed to modern civil (secular) laws. They also seek to coordinate their efforts across national boundaries in an effort to create a larger Arab led Islamic entity, sometimes called the “Islamic Caliphate.” Political Islamists often harbor dreams of restoring Islamic empires of the past and reclaiming for Islam lands lost to Western powers or to Western ideals.

A relative minority in most of the nations in the Arab world favors secular democratic principles and fewer still favor those principles in such a way that they would be willing to fight and die in order to protect the rights of hated minorities.

In the conflicts going on in most of the nations where unrest is found today, democratic protesters relatively few in number, are being backed by political Islamists who hope that by joining with the democratic protesters they might be able to overcome the rule of the nationalists. For those interested in freedom and democracy following the fall of nationalist governments, this should be of grave concern because the combination of democratic protesters and political Islamists working together will lead to the political Islamists coming to power and simply installing a different set of anti-democratic laws and oppressive rules.

The vital idea to note is that a modern democracy requires that the majority be willing to fight and die in order to protect the rights of hated minorities. No nation failing this test may call itself a free nation. Tyranny of the majority is still tyranny.

The only way to avoid a tyrannical alternative to the nationalists dictatorships currently ruling in many Arab states is for the nationalists to work with those seeking democratic reforms and for the two of them to create together a free society that values and protects the rights of minorities.

Failing this, nations will simply move from one form of despotism to another, suffering and violence will continue, and the Arab world will continue to deteriorate further down a path of hopelessness and hatred.

A longer version.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

For more than a half-century, the region’s politics revolved around Arab nationalism. Individual states sought to have influence, leadership, or just to survive. The Arab-Israeli conflict was an important issue in this framework, though not the sole or even the most significant one.

Now, as Celine Dion sings, “Those days are gone.” Today, the centerpiece is a struggle between two blocs, one well-organized, the other weak and facing internal conflict. The former is the Tehran-led alliance of the HISH (Hamas-Iran-Syria-Hizballah); the latter is just about everyone else, call it the coalition of the unwilling.

So how do the moderate Arab states deal with this?

Still, their behavior is understandable. They want to use the radical appeal of Arab nationalism, Islamism, anti-Americanism, and xenophobia to divert attention from their own failings while mobilizing support for themselves as the true defenders against all those big and little satans out there. At the same time, they are happy to appease their foes if possible.

A particularly blatant example is Kuwait’s foreign minister who denounced those who want to wage a false jihad at home. He explained that instead of murdering innocent Muslims, young people should kill Israelis instead. Much of the regimes’ “anti-terrorist” rhetoric is merely really aimed at shifting the targets away from themselves.

On one hand, the Saudis host a global interfaith dialogue conference; float a peace initiative toward Israel, fight domestic terrorism, and battle Syria and Hizballah in Lebanon. On the other hand, they aid terrorists and spread extremist forms of Islam. Egypt is horrified by radical Islamism but refuses to go all-out against Hamas. The official media demonize the West and Israel, while the official Islamic religious apparatus endorses terrorism against Israel and in Iraq.

I’d say that this is a somewhat generalized form of what Dr. Rubin writes in “The truth about Syria,” in that the Assads use all means at their disposal to deflect criticisms of themselves and preserve their family’s tenuous hold on power.

So how does the West respond. I once wrote in a letter to the editor that every time Hafez Assad or Yasser Arafat sneezed it was interpreted as a signal of moderation. It appears that I was more or less correct.

By apologizing, conceding, refusing to defend themselves, or by negotiating, exaggerating the potential for moderation, and dropping sanctions, they can strengthen the extremists and undercut the regimes. When that happens, the regimes know they might better cut their own deal. So while there are arguable reasons to bargain with Hamas, Hizballah, Iran, or Syria, such a strategy splits the anti-HISH alliance and starts a race toward appeasement.

In the Dion song, “Love so distant and obscure, Remains the cure.” But this is politics. The best one can hope for is the wisdom to build on coinciding interests and courage to stand up to unrelenting enemies

And strengthening the extremists, no matter how well they keep the trains running on time, does not help.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.