Thursday, December 7, 2017

Trump to blow up the world

Soon, real soon.  So Trump did what some previous presidents said they would do but didn't.  In typical form, Trump throws out the common wisdom of the day that says we must stay the course, even if the course has gotten us nowhere fast. 

For most of the world, the best approach to the Middle East is to give the various Arabic peoples what they want.  I think the world sees Israel as an artificial imposition on the Arab states, and so defaults to their sensitivities when it comes to finding ways to bring peace.  All of this assumes, of course, that the Arab states really want peace.

Imagine, for a moment, that the Arab states were really the United States.  How many people, especially left of center, would accept the notion that the United States had ulterior motives about the Israel question?  Yet to suggest that about the various Middle Eastern countries is to be met with charges of racism and Islamophobia.

Nope.  Just noticing that the world seems to think that if anything bad is brought to the table, it's from the pro-Israel side, and that the path to peace rests in giving the Arabic/Islamic people what they want. For my whole life, that approach has typically brought us full circle back to where we were to begin with in terms of violence and conflict.

Maybe it's just me, and perhaps that's an area where I agree with President Trump, but if something has been tried and failed multiple times for decades, I'm OK with looking for an alternate approach.   Just like North Korea.  If the same strategy yields losses and failures time and again, heck, let's go crazy and try something else.

What will happen remains to be seen.  I see even Pope Francis has sided with the international community and called on Trump not to make this move.  We'll see. 

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