Gaza, Egypt, Iran, Israel and Libya

            The Middle East is again in turmoil (or it should be stated that it is still in turmoil).  In my book, I stated that when people of nations with dictators rise up against the dictator, we should support them.  Support should be in the form of an immediate pronouncement that we stand with the opposition (assuming that the current government has a bad track record on human rights).  I also repeated Henry Kissinger’s wisdom that once a revolution begins; we never know who will be in charge when it ends.  What Mr. Kissinger was saying was that altruistic youth most frequently start the process of overthrowing a totalitarian dictator, but a more organized group normally steps in after the dictator is gone.  That is exactly what happened in Egypt.  The Muslim Brotherhood is now is control.  The altruistic youth that camped out in Tahrir Square were not organized or capable enough to establish a political party – so the Muslim Brotherhood filled the leadership vacuum.  However, the people of Egypt know that the United States supported their desire for freedom.  One day, when the Egyptian’s actually achieve a representative government, they will remember that the United States was with them at their crucial time in history.

My book calls for the United States to pronounce our support of all such opposition groups.  However, I draw lines on where we should actually provide military support.  We do not want anymore nation building as we did in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

The point is that we must support people in their pursuit of freedom.  We should not worry about whether the new government that takes over will be friendly towards us (as the Muslim Brotherhood may not be).   We are the United States of America and any new government of a rebuilding country will need us much more than we need them.  We should not worry about maintaining the current dictator in power - even when we have already bought him off and know that we can demand for him to maintain civil stability.

If we continue to support freedom fighters, eventually more and more nations will have true freedom: freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press and the right to vote.  Once a country has true freedom, their government must be representative of its people’s wishes or they will be voted out of office.  And, once a government is representative of a people that remembers the United States supported their fight for freedom – they will be a friend of America.

The most important thing for the United States to do is to fully support countries that already have true freedom.  That is whey we have NATO.  NATO is an alliance of countries with true freedom that pledge allegiance to each other to help each preserve these fundamental human rights of true freedom.  The NATO pact includes military support among the participating nations to preserve such freedoms.  NATO was formed to thwart the Soviet Union’s attempt to conquer the world – but it retains its purpose to maintain freedom.  We also have a treaty with Israel that pledges our allegiance to help them preserve their sovereignty and freedoms.  Our demonstration of such commitments shows the world that we are serious about freedom for all the peoples of the world.

Our commitment to Israel demonstrates to those countries in the Middle East that we are serious about freedom.  It is our commitment to Israel that frightens those countries that do not want to provide true freedom to their people.  This is why we must stand with Israel as though they were the fifty-first state of America.  The Middle East is a region of significant national interest (a.k.a.: oil).  Everything we do should be toward bringing stability to this part of the world.  An unflinching support of Israel is chief among such things.

Now what is going on in Gaza?  I have no facts to back this up but I suspect that either Egypt or Iran is behind the latest violence.  Maybe both of them are instigating the violence.  Things are not going well in Egypt.  They have a newly elected government but the people are not happy that the military retained significant control.  In addition, their economy is suffering.  The people of Egypt are not satisfied with the results of their hard fought freedoms.  One way to divert the Egyptians attention from the troubles at home is to have the Israelis engage in war against their fellow Arab Palestinians.  One thing most (but not all) Egyptians have in common is hatred of Israel.  By focusing the Egyptians attention on Israel, pressure is taken off the Egyptian military and civilian government to address their domestic problems.

 Israel engaging in a war with the Palestinians is also good for Iran.  Whenever the Israelis defend their homeland from rockets being fired into their land, the world press always portrays Israel as the bad guys.  Just imagine if Mexico or Canada fired a couple hundred rockets into the United States.  We would be demanding total war to stop such inhuman aggression.  Why does Israel get a bad name for doing the same thing we would do?  Anyway, the worse Israel looks to the world community, the more the Iranians can get away with in their ever continuing pursuit of nuclear weapons.  By the way, the terrorist group, Hamas, gets most of its rockets from Iran – many smuggled in through tunnels from Egypt to Gaza.

Then we have Libya.  Our own elected leaders are conducting a political assault on each other over what may or may not have happened in Libya.  We do require all the facts and those facts should not be taking as long as they have to be brought to the light of day.   However, the world is very turbulent right now.  What the world needs to see is a solid, united America.  I agree with the Republicans’ demands for the facts.  I disagree with making the demands through the press.  Specific demands for information should be made behind closed doors with agreed upon deadlines for providing the answers.  If the deadlines are not met, then it would be time to spout off talking points to the press.  That is how our politics need to be conducted.  The rest of the world (particularly the less developed nations of the world) does not understand how our democracy works.  For that reason, we should be more discrete about conflicts between our political parties.  This would portray a vision of a united America.  Unity is needed for quick decisions regarding thwarting threats against the United States or even threats against the stability of the world.  When America is viewed as united – other nations thinks twice about upsetting the stability of the world.

So what is needed right now?  1) Less public bickering over Libya; 2) answers from the current administration about Libya; 3) a bi-partisan approach to address the issues uncovered by the Libyan facts; 4) a bi-partisan demonstration of support for Israel as it faces down Hamas; and 4) an unwavering, bi-partisan pronouncement of support for Israel and all that Israel needs to do to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Such actions by our elected leaders would demonstrate to the world that America is back.  We have had our elections.  We have debated our differences and have now put them behind us – at least as much as is required to be united in our governing.  We have a working government that will once again demonstrate to the world that we stand for freedom and we support those that fight for freedom.  Most importantly, we support those that already have freedom from those that wish to take it away.