Errors by the party in power can get America into trouble; real catastrophes require consensus.
Rarely have both parties been as unanimous about a development overseas as they have in their shared enthusiasm for the so-called Arab Spring during the first months of 2011. Republicans vied with the Obama Administration in their zeal for the ouster of Egypt’s dictator Hosni Mubarak and in championing the subsequent NATO intervention against Muammar Qaddafi in Libya. Both parties saw themselves as having been vindicated by events. The Obama Administration saw its actions as proof that soft power in pursuit of humanitarian goals offered a new paradigm for foreign-policy success. And the Republican establishment saw a vindication of the Bush freedom agenda.
“Revolutions are sweeping the Middle East and everyone is a convert to George W. Bush’s freedom agenda,” Charles Krauthammer observed in February 2011. “Now that revolution has spread from Tunisia to Oman,” Krauthammer added, “the [Obama] administration is rushing to keep up with the new dispensation, repeating the fundamental tenet of the Bush Doctrine that Arabs are no exception to the universal thirst for dignity and freedom.” And William Kristol exulted, “Helping the Arab Spring through to fruition might contribute to an American Spring, one of renewed pride in our country and confidence in the cause of liberty.”
They were all wrong. Just two years later, the foreign-policy establishment has fractured in the face of a Syrian civil war that threatens to metastasize into neighboring Iraq and Lebanon and an economic collapse in Egypt that has brought the largest Arab country to the brink of state failure. Some Republican leaders, including Sen. John McCain and Weekly Standard editor Kristol, demand American military intervention to support Syria’s Sunni rebels. But Daniel Pipes, the dean of conservative Middle East analysts, wrote on April 11 that “Western governments should support the malign dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad,” because “Western powers should guide enemies to stalemate by helping whichever side is losing, so as to prolong their conflict.” If Assad appears to be winning, he added later, we should support the rebels. The respected strategist Edward Luttwak contends that America should “leave bad enough alone” in Syria and turn its attention away from the Middle East—to Asia. The Obama Administration meanwhile is waffling about what might constitute a “red line” for intervention and what form such intervention might take.
The once-happy bipartisan consensus has now shrunk to the common observation that all the available choices are bad. It could get much worse. Western efforts have failed to foster a unified leadership among the Syrian rebels, and jihadi extremists appear to be in control of the Free Syrian Army inside Syria. Syria’s war is “creating the conditions for a renewed conflict, dangerous and complex, to explode in Iraq. If Iraq is not shielded rapidly and properly, it will definitely slip into the Syrian quagmire,” warns Arab League Ambassador Nassif Hitti. Iraq leaders are talking of civil war and eventual partition. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, meanwhile, warned on May 1, “Syria has real friends in the region, and the world will not let Syria fall into the hands of America, Israel or takfiri [radical islamist] groups,” threatening in effect to turn the civil war into a regional conflict that has the potential to destabilize Turkey. And the gravest risk to the region remains the likelihood that “inherent weaknesses of state and society in Egypt reach a point where the country’s political, social and economic systems no longer function,” as Gamal Abuel Hassan wrote on May 28. Libya is fracturing, and the terrorists responsible for the September 2012 Benghazi attack are operating freely.
Read More at meforum.org . By David P. Goldman .
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A Matter Of Trust
I don’t mind doing in-depth analysis. I do a show that treats you like critical-thinking adults, not low-information voting children who can only handle enough truth and data to fit into a single Tweet.
But sometimes in-depth analysis isn’t required. Sometimes all the data and argumentation in the world simply comes down to one question—who do you trust?
The details surrounding the aptly named “gang of eight” immigration bill and Benghazi are complicated for sure. For those of us out here in the cheap-seats, they’re also largely unattainable. We simply don’t have the resources it requires to investigate them exhaustively. Therefore, we rely on those who do to make it plain for us.
But what happens when there are conflicting accounts of those details? Then, it becomes a matter of trust.
Over the years, I’ve often been accused of demanding perfection; but that’s not true at all. What I demand is the same thing you demand of me—integrity. Integrity isn’t perfection because only one Man is, which is why the rest of us need Him.
Integrity is a consistency between right belief and right behavior. Even the best of us fall down, make bad calls, have blind spots, and commit terrible mistakes at times. But over the long haul of someone’s life and calling, you either see that consistency or you don’t. They either get it right much more often than they get it wrong or they don’t.
When it comes down to Benghazi, who has integrity here?
Is it Gregory Hicks, a man the Obama Regime once thought enough of to make him their second in command in all of Libya? Or is it President Obama? Is it Hicks, who has faithfully served administrations in both parties during a 22-year career in the U.S. State Department that has spanned six countries (and has been awarded a dozen merit pay or honor awards during his tenure)? Or is it Obama, the man who tells the child killers at Planned Parenthood “God bless you,” tries to make Christian institutions and companies provide abortifacients for their employees, and has disregarded the Constitution countless times already?
That one is a no-brainer. But so is this next one.
When it comes to illegal immigration, who has the integrity here?
Is it former U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (the man now at the head of the Heritage Foundation), or is it the group of current U.S. Senators that make up the “gang of eight?” I really admire DeMint, but he isn’t infallible (and I have disagreed with him before.) But if you could only choose one to get into a Constitutional foxhole with, who would you rather have your back? Jim DeMint, or John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Bob Menendez, and Charles Schumer?
Case closed.
(Learn more about Steve Deace’s nationally-syndicated radio show at www.stevedeace.com, or follow him on Twitter @SteveDeaceShow)