The last two weeks have provided some object lessons in rallying rationality in defense of the realm of Western civilization, happy examples of both creative resistance to and triumph over the sanctimonious cant and devious practices of leftist elitism. First, fully 47 U.S. senators, all Republicans, had the character and resolve to sign onto an “open letter” to the ayatollahs of the Islamic Republic of Iran apprising the mad hatters that no bad deal agreed to between them and Obama&Co. would, by that fact alone, have lasting force and effect without the U.S. Senate’s proper consent, under America’s constitutional system. Reading between the lines: If Obama’s negotiating team, wittingly or unwittingly, agrees to a deal that would enable Tehran to develop a militarized nuclear capability, the U.S. Senate can and will withhold its consent to such a deal, effectively making it fully revocable once Obama leaves office.
The lamestream media are in high dudgeon at such temerity on the Republican senators’ part. However, far from being an “arrogant power grab” of the president’s authority in foreign policy, the senators’ assertion is fully consonant with the Senate’s constitutional authority to consent to treaties and other foreign-policy agreements requiring joint authorization (viz., U.S. Const. Art. II, Sec. 2). Predictably, the Left and its media allies will scream against any move by the newly Republican Senate to interdict Obama’s mad imperious drive to degrade American power and influence overseas, and the security of our true allies, even if such caterwauling serves primarily to advantage America’s sworn enemies. The signing senators, though, like the millions of Americans who voted them into office, perhaps smell a stench of impending perfidy from the knaves of the Kerry klan; to paraphrase the Bard, there’s likely something rotten in the state of Foggy Bottom. But, if these senators can collectively manage to keep a stiffer upper lip through the barrage of invective launched against them, Obama can be expected to up the ante somehow. Watch as he makes a very public trip to New York City soon to gain the imprimatur of the UN as sanction for the deal that is ultimately struck with Iran. After all, why do these Republican bitter clingers think they can thwart the machinations of America’s first cryptoMarxist president?
Second, and equally dramatically, Bibi Netanyahu handily won reappointment as Israel’s leader in a heavily contested election. Netanyahu’s electoral triumph and return to power with a greater plurality than before – which came as no surprise to this writer – was all the more compelling for its surmounting of the covert participation by Obama campaign operatives sent to Israel to get out the Arab vote for the anti-Likud Arab “Joint List” parties. The irony of a hard-left U.S. president who trumpets “transparency” sending paid minions to sway a national ally’s free election against an antagonistic conservative incumbent is acute for those who remember the shrill leftist calumny heaped on President Reagan in the 1980s for helping to preserve non-communist leadership in Central American countries.
Most happily for Israel and rational reality, in the days leading up to the election Netanyahu acted to rally his core supporters to get out to the polls by finally, publicly, disavowing his earlier-asserted allegiance to a “two-state solution” that would see the Palestinians become sovereign in some of the land won by Israel in 1967’s Six Day War and still under its effective control. Even though, as of today, he appears to have moderated his disavowal somewhat under diplomatic pressure and American threats to “re-evaluate” America’s posture towards Israel, Netanyahu’s true heart on the matter is now a matter of public record.
From both a Biblical (viz., Numbers 33:50-56, Judges 2:2-3) and pragmatic perspective, Israel would likely be courting a security disaster of existential proportions if it were to create a Muslim Arab nation state out of Judea and Samaria (colloquially known as “the West Bank”) and east Jerusalem. Its secure future as a Jewish nation-state depends for all purposes on maintaining full territorial integrity and military control from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. Ultimately, the sooner all Muslims now living in the “disputed territories” can be encouraged, with financial help, to emigrate peaceably to Muslim-majority countries, the sooner Islamist provocateurs and terrorist cadres will be better and permanently blunted in their continuous efforts to murder Jews in Israel.
In the face of these recent positive developments, what can be expected of Tehran’s leaders and the several Sunni Muslim extremist groups going forward? All remain dedicated to advancing their power and control, and imposing Islamic Shari’a law, in new territory. Concerning Iran: Regardless of what they agree to with the P5+1 countries, the ayatollahs will continue their drive to develop nuclear weapons, militarily aid the Syrian and Iraqi armies to crush Islamic State, and further extend their influence by arming their proxies in Lebanon and Yemen. Abetted by the P5+1’s lack of resolve, they will achieve their atomic aims unless they are (i) thwarted by military force exerted by another power (almost certainly Israel, with with possible Jordanian and Saudi assistance), or (ii) overthrown by some internal military coup, perhaps triggered by an indigenous uprising akin to the abortive one that occurred in 2009. Faced with a likely nuclear missile assault by the IDF, senior Iranian military officers may decide that discretion is the better part of valor — in the name of self-preservation at least. Whatever the allure of the Shi’ite Mahdi’s arrival, there will be no Islamic Goetterdaemerrung (lit., Twilight of the Gods) for them, thank you very much.
Concerning the Sunni Muslim extremist groups: Over time, they are likely to coalesce loosely, like Boko Haram has done with Islamic State, for purposes of strategic coordination and perhaps even tactical planning. As a result, Western nations from Europe to North America to Australia will experience more random terrorist attacks against institutions and people perceived as anti-Islam, and will therefore will have ever greater incentive to militarize the fight against them in countries where they can (viz., Iraq, Syria). But perhaps an even greater threat, short-term at least, especially here in America, is the possible reaction of the current administration to a well coordinated array of multi-city domestic terror attacks against highly populated targets such as sports stadia, schools, concerts halls, and shopping malls. If an infamous dictum of former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is truly a working canon for Obama&Co., a horrific crisis of such expanse would not be allowed to go to waste — and an iron curtain of militarized, police-state control could well be dropped hard and precipitately on the Land of the Free. Think of it as akin to an American Reichstag fire, with all of the descent into ugly tyranny that followed that notorious event. We’re all watching now.
William Pippin
The Rational Empiricist