The ever-brilliant Victor Davis Hanson has a very perceptive column on why charges of American "unilateralism" and bias towards Israel is nothing new. Hanson mentions how the Europeans denied the US the right to fly over Europe to aid Israel, but gave the Soviets carte blanche to help the Syrians continue their invasion during the 1973 Yom Kippur war. Powerline also notes this interesting column from Caroline Glick in the Jerusalem Post on the prominent Jewish historian Bat Ye’or that gives more background on Europe’s surrender to virtual dhimmitude on issues of Islamic radicalism in the name of multicultural sensitivity.
The fact is that the United States is very deliberately upsetting the apple cart in the Middle East. We’re attempting a long-term strategy to systematically and permanently alter the sociopolitical environment in the Middle East. The status quo in the region is the hereditary autocracy that gives lip service to modernity while embracing Islamic radicalism and the most primitive of hatreds. This status quo threatens the peace and stability of the region and of the world. Eliminating this knd of fundamentalist autocracy is as critical to world peace as eliminating Communist expansionism was during the Cold War – if not more so. While the Soviets could be counted upon to follow a rational calculus that would allow things like nuclear deterrance to be effective, the same theory does not apply to al-Qaeda.
Just as Europe frequently impeded the ability of the US and its allies to fight against Soviet domination, the same historical pattern is repeating itself in the war on terror. Just as the fall of the Iron Curtain showed the world the tyranny of Communism, the fall of Iraq shows the massive human cost of Ba’athism and Arab national socialism. Continuing this conflict, even above the cries of the Euro apparatchiks is critical to the stability of the world.
