Posts Tagged → islamist
Middle East ain’t like Mid-Town Manhattan
Despite President Trump’s best efforts at creating “peace” or at least the absence of violence, for a while, in the Middle East, the latest agreement, deal, whatever we call it, is failing.
Of course it is failing. The Gaza “ceasefire” was declared to be the “peace in our time” of most-mistaken Neville Chamberlain, without anything backing it up beyond President Trump’s own public standing. Which is taking a beating now that Hamas has killed a bunch of Israelis, in violation of the supposed ceasefire terms.
Vice President JD Vance said that there is “no mechanism to dis-arm Hamas”, which means the Trump Administration rejects the only mechanism there is: the IDF. Vance is going to Israel momentarily, mostly to strong-arm Israel into not responding militarily to Hamas violence against Israel. This is just going to result in more ceasefire failure and policy failure and more one-sided violence.
President Trump has oddly placed his own personal credibility in the hands of those who support Hamas, Qatar and Turkey.
I give Hamas some credit, for returning the twenty remaining living Israeli hostages. Hamas did get a hell of a boost to their fighting ranks, however, with the simultaneous release of over 2,000 hardened criminals held in Israeli prisons, most of whom with innocent blood on their hands. So it was a careful calculus that Hamas did. Had nothing to do with peace, and everything to do with rebuilding its obliterated ranks.
The mistake that all Westerners make when dealing with Arabs and Muslims in the Middle East (versus the Muslim Arab American guy in the cubicle down the hall from your own office here in America, who has a chance of being fairly acculturated into American values) is believing that if we are nice, they will reciprocate, and that their pledges mean something.
Their pledges -hudna, takiya- don’t mean anything, except for buying time, so Hamas et al can regroup and go back to war better than before.
President Trump is a good man, with good intentions, good hopes, good dreams. He is trying to do good in the Middle East, but he is failing. Badly. He is trying to do a deal there like he would do a real estate construction deal in mid-town Manhattan, where the shared win-win 360-degree rising tide of financial success floats all boats whether they are contractor, union, supplier, or whomever. This is a fine model for rational problem solving in America, and we certainly do need more of it here.
But the Middle East is not Manhattan, and it is not New York, or America, or even Europe, yet. Rather, the Middle East is the martyr-littered place that the Christian Crusaders attacked for hundreds of years, sometimes successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully. It is the place that is riven by a million bloody blood feuds, run by back-stabbing and suicide bombing and civilian murder as a matter of course. Western ideas of mercy, fairness, kindness, earnestness, honesty etc have no place in the Middle East, and President Trump is only now beginning to learn this hard fact.
Because Israel will go along with most of what President Trump wants or needs, it is natural for the Trump Administration to lean ever more heavily on Israel to acquiesce and bend and absorb the foolish notions, rather than push harder on Qatar, Turkey or Hamas, who will never bend or acquiesce. They will lie, at best. But Israel will once again be put in a weakened position, and this will incite the blood lust of its enemies, and the cycle of violence will begin anew.
Because the Trump Administration wants to “be nice.” For God’s sake.
Similar foolish mistakes:
- Forcing Israel to stop bombing the evil Iranian regime when it was at its most vulnerable and the most change could be brought to the region. President Trump believed that showing the Iranian mullahs mercy would inspire them to act like Westerners and acquiesce. But nope. Iran says they will get the nuclear bomb and the ICBM means to shove it up America’s ass no matter what. Iran learned nothing from Trump’s largesse, and Trump gained nothing from his largesse, and the world is a more dangerous place because of his largesse.
- Giving evil terrorism sponsor and Hamas-hiders Qatar protection from Israel. This inspires Qatar to double down on its active terrorism and rotgut far-left academic investments in American universities.
- Failing to hold Egypt accountable for its unwillingness to accept fellow Arab Muslim refugees from Gaza, and for creating a huge offensive military buildup in the Sinai Peninsula, contrary to the peace agreement with Israel.
- Failing to hold Turkey accountable for its Islamist terrorism machinations and imperialist dreams.
- Failing to help establish Kurdistan once and for all.
- Giving the psycho sadist ISIS and Al-Qaeda terrorists in Syria any credibility.
The list of policy failings in the Middle East grows longer every day, and as a result the world becomes less safe and less stable. Again, President Trump deserves credit for trying something new, but now that we all see that it has failed and that his empty threats against Hamas are laughed at (and that his real threats against Israel for retaliating against Hamas ceasefire violations damage Trump’s standing even more), it is time for this incredible president to stop being Mister Nice Guy.
It is not working, so stop it, for your own good.
No Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to President Trump, despite him earning it a hundred times over. No recognition was given to him by the Islamist-run United Nations. Absolutely zero of the so-called self anointed “peace” organizations gave Trump any credit for his peace-making efforts. So, Mister President, forgetaboutit, as they used to say in the Bronx when they spoke American there.
You want to create peace in the Middle East?
Here is how: Tell Qatar that they and their oil fields now belong to America, and that the royal family will enjoy a generous stipend, but that they also no longer run the tiny country. Same goes for the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. Take their oil, take their lands, make it ours, and we will see peace like you never believed possible begin to reign across that crazy region. Hell, we will see peace right here in America and in Europe like we have not seen since the 1950s!
This is real out of the box thinking, and it is exactly the realpolitik that everyone in that region understands fully. It will work. The issue is whether or not the Trump Administration has the stomach for it.
Good luck, President Trump! We still love you. We just know what is best for you better than you do. You are blinded by good intentions.