In “ISIS Tightens Grip on Swath of Libya, Giving It a Fallback,”  David D. Kirkpatrick, Ben Hubbard, and Eric Schmit, describe how ISIS, on the defensive in Iraq and Syria, has established a foothold in Libya amidst the chaos left behind in the wake of the NATO-assisted overthrow of the government of Muamar al-Qaddafi four years ago. The decision by the Obama administration and NATO to abandon Libya following the overthrow of its leader made the ensuing chaos inevitable, but that decision has received scant public criticism and indeed is not mentioned in the article.

One wonders what the response would have been had President Bush abandoned Iraq to its fate of inevitable bedlam after the U.S.-led coalition overthrew the government of Saddam Hussein there in 2003. Would the public have displayed the same equanimity currently displayed towards President Obama’s abandonment of Libya in place of the withering condemnation the Iraq incursion commonly evokes to this day? Leaving aside the wisdom of overthrowing either government, don’t we have the responsibility to try to restore a country’s stability once we elect to overthrow its government?

Note.  The Times did not publish any letters on this article.

Here is the Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/world/middleeast/isis-grip-on-libyan-city-gives-it-a-fallback-option.html?ref=topics&_r=0

What if Bush had withdrawn from Iraq after overthrowing Saddam Hussein, leaving that country in a state of civil war—that is, what if he had done what Obama did in Libya? Would we view US intervention in Iraq as negatively as we now do? Would we view it with the equanimity that we view Obama’s intervention in Libya? Which behavior do you consider more moral?

It would be unfortunate if the furor over Mr. Netanyahu’s remarks, which he has subsequently clarified, caused us to minimize the participation of the leader of the Palestinian Arabs at the time, Haj Amin al-Husseini, in the Holocaust.Whether he or not he influenced Hitler, al-Husseini supported the extermination of Jews in Palestine in word and deed well before the war.While Ms. Rudoren notes that “the mufti’s promotion of genocide over mass deportation of Europe’s Jews was discussed in the Nuremberg war crimes trials,” she quickly diminishes this fact with “but he was never prosecuted.”However, the mufti was arrested for war crimes by the Allies, but escaped while under French custody.Finally, as noted in the final sentence of Ms. Rodoren’s article, the mufti vigorously encouraged the Nazis to extend the Holocaust to Palestine.

Adams’ and Walt’s recommendation that the United States align itself with Russia in the fight against ISIS is both morally and strategically misguided.   The authors argue that a Russian alliance would provide us a “link” to the Assad regime, “working ties with the Iranian” regime, and “an intelligence-sharing agreement” with Iran “that could well include Iranian allies like Hezbollah.”   However, Assad’s regime is responsible for most of the quarter of a million casualties in Syria’s civil war, Iran is an expansionist country and the chief backer of terrorism in the Mideast, and Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. Russia under Putin is responsible for the ruthless crackdown of Muslims in Chechnya. For the sake of our standing vis-à-vis moderate countries and peoples in the Mideast, we must distance ourselves from such unsavory parties.   To be, or even appear to be, allied with parties that threaten our allies in the region would erode the already much-damaged respect and credibility of the United States.

The Times editorial board correctly characterizes as “hallucinatory” the Obama administration’s strategy of seeking to support nonexistent forces in Syria that are both opposed to ISIS and not opposed to the Assad regime. But the recommendation of “ironing out of stark differences between the United States and Mr. Assad’s chief backers, Russia and Iran” is no more realistic. Iran is an extremist, expansionist regime that threatens US interests and our moderate allies in the region and is now strengthened by Russian support and by the benefits in finances and prestige accrued through the recent nuclear deal. The United States must respond to the current geopolitical reality from a broader regional perspective. What is required is a refocusing of US policy towards a balance-of-power strategy. Russia and Iran together are more than capable of defeating ISIS without the support of the United States. Let them knock themselves out doing so. By focusing on ISIS, the United States appears to our moderate Sunni allies to be allied with the Shiite block, an impression that our recent behavior in the region has quite reasonably fostered. Instead, the United States must focus on mending fences with our moderate allies in the region and supporting them in resisting the threat posed by the Russian-backed Iranian-Shiite sphere of influence extending through Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.  These allies include moderate Sunni countries, moderate Sunni forces such as Iraqi warlords and both Iraqi and Syrian Kurds, and Israel.  We must also demonstrate genuine concern in word and deed for the humanitarian crisis created by Mr. Assad’s forces, including by the creation of a safe haven for refugees in Syria.   These steps would do much to restore the credibility and respect of our allies in the region and to counteract the growth of Iranian influence and power.

Lesson of Hamlet: Not knowing the future leads to tragedy.

Lesson of Macbeth: Knowing the future leads to tragedy.

The first due to inaction, the second due to overconfident, reckless action. There’s a special providence somewhere.

The great Islamic scholar Bernard Lewis here explains why the Israel-Palestine has occupied a predominant place in the western, indeed in world, consciousness over all other conflicts involving Muslims¹ [words in square brackets were added by me]:

“Israel is one among many points—Nigeria, Sudan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Chechnya, Sinkiang, Kashmir, Timor, Mindanao, [Nagorno-Karabakh in the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict,] et cetera—where the Islamic and non-Islamic worlds meet [in conflict]. Each of these is the central issue for those involved in it, and an annoying digression for others. Westerners by contrast tend to give the greatest importance to those grievances which they hope can be satisfied at someone else’s expense. The Israel-Palestine conflict has certainly attracted far more attention than any of the others, for several reasons. First, since Israel is a democracy and an open society, it is much easier to report—and misreport—what is going on there. Second, Jews are involved, and this can usually ensure a significant audience among those who for one reason or another are for or against them…. [He then goes on to discuss the Iraq-Iran war, from 1980 to 1988, as an example.]

“A third and ultimately the most important reason for the primacy of the Palestine issue is that it is, so to speak, the licensed grievance—the only one that can be freely and safely expressed in those Muslim countries [i.e., nearly all of them] where the media are either wholly owned or strictly overseen by the government. Indeed, Israel serves as a useful stand-in for complaints about the economic privation and political repression under which most Muslim peoples lives, and as a way of deflecting the resulting anger. This method is vastly helped by the Israeli domestic scene, where any misdeed of the government, the army, the settlers, or anyone else is at once revealed and any falsehood at once exposed by Israeli critics, both Jews and Arabs, in the Israeli media and parliament. Most of Israel’s antagonists suffer from no such impediment in their public diplomacy [since they are dictatorships].”

Thus Lewis explains why the Israel-Palestine occupies a predominant place in the world consciousness over all conflicts involving Muslims, some of which are arguably more serious and all of which are more important to the parties involved in the conflict. First, Israel is a democracy, while the Muslim countries (or would-be countries, such as the Palestinians) are dictatorships.  But the conflict between Pakistan and India (referenced as Kashmir by Lewis) also involves a democracy, India. The third reason is that the Israel-Palestine conflict is the only conflict or grievance to which Muslims are permitted to give expression in Muslim dictatorships.   While true, this reason fails to explain why the Israel-Palestine conflict is the only conflict involving Muslims that is distinguished in this way. That leaves the second reason: “Jews are involved, and this can usually ensure a significant audience among those who for one reason or another are for or against them.”   I leave it as an exercise for the reader to find a nation that is “for” the Jews, but surely such a nation would be exceptional, indeed. Thus, the primary reason why the Israel-Palestine conflict occupies a unique position in world consciousness is the prevalence of antisemitism in this world, a hatred that is exploited by Muslim dictators and terrorist leaders. The more fool the world, to fail to see how they are being manipulated. Even if they are antisemitic, most pride themselves on not being fools.

¹ Bernard Lewis, “The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror,” The Modern Library, NY, 2003, pp. 92-93 [Words in square brackets added by LB.]

The findings of social science are so obvious, except when applied to oneself–then they’re false!

There will be peace when the world cares more about the Palestinians than they hate the Jews.