WhatsappThe Middle East may or may not be the most explosive powder keg of the coming decade. Iran poses a threat, until the Ayatollahs lose power. Moderate Arab countries like the UAE and Bahrain have made major moves in the right direction. But the rest of the Middle East is very fluid. They will probably end up going in whichever direction suits their national interests. One can be opposed to Donald Trump’s policies on many levels, but on the Middle East, he has been right on, as opposed to Barack Obama.
The Obama administration basically used the appeasement strategy in order to work on a plan to bring stability to the Middle East. The goal did not include a strong Israel and a dominant United States that threw it’s weight around. The Obama administration had a view that avoided any kind of an idea that placed the United States at the epicenter of world dominance. And it certainly did not place the State of Israel as the beacon of light in the Middle East. It placed the Arab countries, like Iran in a more dominant posture, and actually threatened the very existence of the State of Israel. No less than that. Just like Neville Chamberlain may have had good intentions when he met with Adolf Hitler and announced that there would be “peace in our time,” Obama and John Kerry genuinely cling to the ideas that you can “work it out” with dangerous leaders like the Ayatollahs in Iran. History has proven countless times that this is patently false. The only thing that dangerous tyrants truly understand is force. That does not mean that meeting with them is fruitless. But, if the leaders don’t fully understand what they have to lose, they will continue to become more and more dangerous. Ronald Reagan understood this and so does Donald Trump.
What about Joe Biden? The odds are that he also understands this – to a certain extent – but it doesn’t matter. The Democratic Party has begun a dynamic of a strong swing to the left and a strong swing to progressive attitudes. That precludes doing things like bombing Iran and drying up the Iranian economy. That is perceived in modern leftist terminology as non-progressive and overreaching. Joe Biden does not have the strong personality, and perhaps no longer the mental acuity, to fight against the forces in the Democratic Party on these matters. The Democratic Party representatives in Congress and the Senate are largely out of touch with many realities. They do indeed pose a danger to national security via their attitudes to foreign policy. What goes on in the Middle East effects the entire world – including the mainland of the United States.
