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Israel’s war cabinet has agreed to retaliate for Iran’s drone-and-missile barrage last night. It’s not pleasant to contemplate, but it has to happen. The only Western nation in the Middle East can’t avoid a response to the first direct attack on it by its mortal enemy of forty-five years.
Iran’s proxies are still busy as well. Northern Israel had to deal with forty Hezbollah rockets even as the Iranian direct attack was going on.
And the situation in Ukraine looks despondency-inducing. President Zelensky says ““It’s important to specifically address the Congress: if the Congress doesn’t help Ukraine, Ukraine will lose the war.”
I would not be the first observer to point out an ironic symmetry of shamefulness on the part of the post-American Left and Right.
We got to the juncture at which we find ourselves in the Mideast due to the need of John Kerry, Wendy Sherman and Barack Obama to seek personal validation in the form of accolades for being visionaries ushering in an era of peace for a perfectible human species. Kerry in particular was willing to undergo repeated humiliations from Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif at the interminable meetings that led to the hammering out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. And once that was signed, on the day of Obama’s next State of the Union address, Iran took the opportunity to seize two US Navy boats and hod the crew hostage, disseminating for worldwide consumption photos of the captives on their knees with their hands behind their heads. Various top Iranian military leaders and, indeed, the Ayatollah Khomeini made clear that the US was still Iran’s number-one enemy.
And it continued to fund and support terrorist groups throughout the Middle East.
And Democrat appeasement continues apace. At least Congress put the kibosh on unfreezing the $6 billion held in Qatar, but then came this:
. . . a sanctions waiver to allow Iran to access upwards of $10 billion in electricity revenue once held in escrow in Iraq. The waiver allows Baghdad to continue purchasing electricity from Iran and, in a change from past policy, for Iran to convert its revenue into euros and draw on the money for budget imports out of Iraq and Oman.
The extension comes just over a month after Hamas — a terrorist group armed and funded by the regime in Tehran — conducted a surprise attack on Israel, killing 1,200 Israelis and kidnapping more than 240. Other proxies financed and armed by Tehran have attacked U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria with rockets and drones.
By the way, the Biden administration has already pleaded with Israel to respond “diplomatically” to last night’s attack. (That’s in addition to its threat to change its basic Israel policy if Israel goes into Rafah in southern Gaza to finish off the remaining Hamas brigades.)
The Right has contributed its own set of signals being sent to the world about post-American rudderlessness.
There was the take of the Very Stable Genius on the Russian invasion of Ukraine right after it occurred:
Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday described Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as “genius” and “savvy,” praising his onetime counterpart for a move that has spurred sanctions and universal condemnation from the U.S. government and its trans-Atlantic allies.
“I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, ‘This is genius.’ Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine — Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful,” Trump said in a radio interview with “The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show.” “He used the word ‘independent’ and ‘we’re gonna go out and we’re gonna go in and we’re gonna help keep peace.’ You gotta say that’s pretty savvy.”
His recklessness hasn’t abated in the two years since:
Former President Donald Trump on Saturday said he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to any NATO member country that doesn’t meet spending guidelines on defense in a stunning admission he would not abide by the collective-defense clause at the heart of the alliance if reelected.
“NATO was busted until I came along,” Trump said at a rally in Conway, South Carolina. “I said, ‘Everybody’s gonna pay.’ They said, ‘Well, if we don’t pay, are you still going to protect us?’ I said, ‘Absolutely not.’ They couldn’t believe the answer.”
Trump said “one of the presidents of a big country” at one point asked him whether the US would still defend the country if they were invaded by Russia even if they “don’t pay.”
“No, I would not protect you,” Trump recalled telling that president. “In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay. You got to pay your bills.”
I’m not trying to peddle any conspiracy theories here. I don’t think Squirrel-Hair is some kind of Manchurian Candidate-style Russian asset. I just think he’s a not-too-bright man-child whose only motivation in life is self-glorification and who lacks any kind of filter on his mouth.
Current House Speaker Mike Johnson is giving indications that he would now like to see the Ukraine aid package voted on and even approved, but he has drool-besotted zombie-eyed slugs posing as human beings such as Marjorie Taylor Greene breathing down his neck. Not every federal legislator of her basic bent publicly expresses such an extreme position - Matt Gaetz doesn’t like her motion-to-vacate talk - but lots of folks buy the hooey the likes of Senator J.D. Vance are spewing, trying to use the very real southern border crisis as an oh-look-a-squirrel specious argument that the US can’t afford to take its focus off that border situation.
So the world gets signals from the United States - coming from internally opposite camps, but to be taken by the world as components of a “coherent” policy - that it will let the axis that hates Western predominance proceed with dismantling it.
It’s said that the inhabitants of the narrow sliver of terrain will have to exercise patience over the next several election cycles to become enough of a viable movement to offer the country and the West an alternative to its current choices, that ground-level legwork and coalition building is the primary task at hand at present.
Do we have that long?
I suppose all we can do is keep fighting the good fight. I believe in the West and in America, but it looks like we have dark times ahead. Still, I’m not quite ready to embrace George Will’s pessimism. There were times during the Depression when it looked like America was very nearly over and Nock and Mellon and others likely thought they were watching American decline.