An excellent overview of the current "Muddle" East by historian Victor Davis Hanson at NRO.
"...where does the ongoing Middle East mess leave America? We should restore
close relations with an Israel that is becoming wealthier and stronger
all the time, and is the only consistently pro-American, democratic
nation in the entire region. The Obama administration has demonstrated
that any hint of daylight between the U.S. and Israel does not win over
the Arab world, but only persuades it that Israel is more vulnerable."
Correct.
"The wisest course will be to depersonalize our Middle East policy and
simply state that the U.S., to the extent that it weighs in on the
turmoil, supports constitutional government (rather than plebiscites):
To the degree that a society is transparent, respects human rights, and
remains consensual, we support it; to the degree that it does not, we
are more likely to oppose it. In fact, that would soon place us at odds
with most of the theocratic movements that are slowly strangling their
secularist counterparts."
I sure hope Mitt Romney is reading VDH (I bet he is). Mitt's doing a great job so far. I think the trip to the UK, Israel and Poland was a beautiful message to voters-'it's going to be different'. What better message to send than a trip abroad to America's most undervalued traditional allies-the countries that have been trashed by the Obama administration.
Well played, Mitt Romney. Plus-extra points for making the Palestinians screech and howl about racism when confronted with the rather benign but totally accurate observation that they have an uproductive culture of death.
