You have to feel sorry for Lebanon. Yesterday, its tourism minister was threatening to sue the makers of the American thriller series, Homeland, for its "serious misrepresentation" of Beirut as "a city of Kalshnikovs and war" - only for a car bomb to explode near the offices of the anti-Damascus Christian Falangist party earlier today, killing eight people and wounding 80 more. The assumption is that Syria - or its supporters inside Lebanon - were responsible, and there are fears that this could be the start of yet another war.
That's one of the many problems with the region: the claims made on behalf of Muslim countries by its Pollyanna-ish supporters in the West (including David Cameron, Barack Obama and just about the whole of the EU) so often turn out to be misleading. Just look at Egypt: the Arab Spring was supposed to replace a hard-nosed dictator with a touchy-feely, Western-style democrat - and they elected the Muslim Brotherhood. As for Iran, Obama assured us, all we had to do was reach out to them, show that we were sorry for everything we'd ever done to upset the poor little dears, and everything would be fine - but then their Jew-hating President stole an election and they're on track to have an operational nuclear weapon some time next year.
Let's face it, Muslim countries in the Middle East tend to be a graveyard of liberal Western fantasies (and for many of the people who live in them, of course).
If you suspect that the world would be a happier, more peaceful place if only nasty old troublemaking Israel didn't exist, and that the Arab Spring has on balance been A Good Thing, and that President Obama's penchant for bending over the nearest desk whenever one of America's enemies hoves into view (while showing nothing but contempt for his country's allies) marks him out as a true statesman, Caroline Glick's recent lecture at the David Horowitz Freedom Center will strike you as right-wing Zionist propaganda.
If, on the other hand, you think Obama's foreign policy is borderline-deranged, you'll be awed by her enormously adult, pellucid analysis of a terrifying disaster-in-the-making. Her lecture's last for nearly 50 minutes - but I think it's worth it:
Apart from all her serious academic and diplomatic credentials, Caroline Glick is also the editor of Latma, a donor-funded satirical Israeli website which produced this spoof music video about the Iranian nuclear bomb back in 2010:
YouTube took the video down on copyright infringement grounds soon after it went up, but - as Latma put it at the time - "you're messing with the wrong Jews."
Stimulating, but depressing post. Caroline Glick a most impressive performer. Her analysis has two echoes from Britain's own history:
ReplyDeletePalmerston stated that Britain has no eternal friends or perpetual enemies, but only eternal and perpetual interests. Also, the appeasement brigade of the 1930s put this country in great peril and caused the loss of thousands of additional lives because the armed forces had to enter WWII undercooked in terms of army numbers, training, appaling generalship and, above all, dud equipment due to underinvestment.Appeasement just never works.
Ms Glick dramatically points out that the 1973 war was a very close run thing in spite of the fact Egypt was armed with some pretty ropey Russian kit, but now their army has modern American weapons systems. But is no longer controlled by their former ally Mubarak who Obama abandoned in favour of the Muslim Brotherhood. Also, another four years of Obama during which time Iran will acquire nuclear weapons and the plan to run down their own military capability is a dire prospect for us all.
Good intentions [or postures] are all very well, but have no place in Realpolitik. As the lady says, a strong USA is irreplacable. We have enough pusillanemous political blocs and politicians on this side of the Atlantic - we cannot afford to have some leftie drip in The White House with his increasingly meaningless rhetoric any longer.
I try not to get worked up about politics, but your Ms Glick has got me worried. Perhaps we are witnesssing the emergence of a new Golda Meir? Anyway, a most stimulating post. To descend to the ridiculous, are you bird-dogging the activities of Vaz? He has gone off the radar.
So sorry. Mis-spelt "pusillanimous". Great loss of face.
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