How Trump Can Repair the Weak U.S.-Israeli Alliance

February 15, 2017 Topic: Security Region: Middle East Tags: Donald TrumpDefenseISISIsraelTerrorismAlliesIslam

How Trump Can Repair the Weak U.S.-Israeli Alliance

President Trump must keep his promise to restore close ties with Israel and smash ISIS.

Radical Shiism also gave birth to Islamic terrorism as we know it today, including the horrific practice of suicide bombings. The beginnings of radical Islamic terrorism were evident in the bloody purges carried out by the victorious ayatollahs against pro-monarchy elements, intellectuals and religious minorities in Iran immediately after the success of their revolution.

After removing threats at home, the Iranian regime began to export its terror against regional targets, with its first efforts being focused on Lebanon. That country’s large Shia population provided support for Iran’s adventures, especially through Hezbollah, its dominant political and military organization.

Thus “Islamic terrorism” first really came to our attention in the West when, in 1983, two truck bombs were driven onto a peacekeepers’ base in Beirut, killing 241 U.S. Marines, fifty-eight French soldiers and six civilians: 305 people in all.

Also dead in Beirut were the two drivers. It was evident that the terror masters considered their deaths an insignificant price to pay for such a significant and deadly strike. It has always been evident that Middle East regimes care little or nothing for individuals, but the spread of suicide bombing to embrace thousands of young Muslims (against the cynical promise of a reward in heaven) brought this great moral deficiency home to the rest of the world.

And so, in pretty short order, the Islamists trumped the communists in wreaking havoc in the Middle East. Since 1983 the Islamists have rapidly gained ascendancy, to the point that outright Marxists or other radical socialists have not been able to organize into effective terror or other “liberation movements” in the region in recent times.

This change from Marxist to Islamic terrorism has taken place in Palestine too. The Marxist “liberation movements” that conducted terror attacks against Israel have given way to Hamas (the Islamic Resistance Movement), which not only is responsible for most of the terror perpetrated against Israel, but also runs Gaza as a political organization.

Iran has supported Hamas (with money and weapons) even though it is a Sunni Arab movement. This is simply because Iran hates Israel more than it hates any Sunni movement or government.

The rise of Al Qaeda, and later ISIS, as with Hamas before them, are among the most notable consequences of Iran’s creation of radical Islamic terrorism. These terror groups combine the radical, theocratic ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt by Hassan al-Banna in 1928, with the methods introduced by the Islamic Republic of Iran. All of these groups, and their offshoots and affiliates (such as the Nusra Front in Syria and Boko Haram in Nigeria), are predominantly made up of Sunni Muslims.

Because, as Sunnis, these groups provide a counterweight to Shia Iran, several of the Sunni Arab regimes (as well as wealthy individuals) have given support to the groups. Some supporters believe they can achieve a political or strategic advantage by doing so. Thus, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have given money to Hamas (to keep in the good graces of the Palestinians), and Qatar has supported the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt to shore up the ruling Qatari family against potential threats from radical Islam.

The Obama administration was a disaster in its policies towards the Middle East. Not only did it weaken the U.S.-Israel alliance, which has long stood as the bedrock of American policy in the region, it caved to Iran by ending sanctions and sending $150 billion to that bloodthirsty regime—without eliminating its nuclear program or forcing it to stop promoting terror in the region. Iran is the mortal enemy of Israel and other U.S. allies in the region, including moderate Arab regimes and Turkey.

And there are other significant Obama administration failures in the region. The administration squandered the peace achieved in Iraq through the surge of U.S. forces and the establishment of a democratically elected government. It left Afghanistan in turmoil by announcing plans for U.S. troops to withdraw before they embarked on a surge. It got involved militarily in Libya without a plan for the post-Qaddafi era, leaving the country in chaos. The administration also threatened military action in Syria, but then stood by and watched as half a million people were killed and millions made refugees. The Obama administration annoyed and let down one ally after another in the region.

The book of Job (28:28) offers an insight that could serve those who would seek peace in the Middle East: “Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.” With Marxism in the Middle East largely irrelevant now, the forces roiling the region are fundamentally religious, and need to be seen as such. Any true understanding of the players in the region and any durable peace achieved among them will have to take religious forces into account.

Religion is ultimately a much more powerful force than political ideology, and as such is more difficult to deal with. Wisdom is necessary. The Muslim world is far from monolithic. The vast majority of Muslims seek normal things in their lives, including peace and prosperity. These are potential allies for peacemaking, as are some of the truly spiritual movements, known as Sufis. The Sufi approach to Islam is focused on self-discipline and good deeds, not revolution and terror.

I have spent time with Sufi groups in Egypt, Jordan and Sudan. In every case, I found participants in dhikr, the Sufi form of devotion, to be sincere in their faith and concerned with serving others. A Sufi sheikh in Omdurman, a city across the Nile from Khartoum, told me that the main Muslim Brotherhood ideologue of Sudan, the late Hassan al-Turabi, had on several occasions tried to recruit him and his followers to the government’s cause (at that time, Turabi was the power behind President Omar al-Bashir). The sheikh had always declined.

The ultimate solution to Islamist terrorism is for the Muslim world to purge it completely from its midst. This begins with education, which has long been corrupted by hate-filled speeches by imams in countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and espoused in the media by major Muslim leaders, like Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi on Al Jazeera.

In the meantime, Washington must be unrelenting and unabashed in calling Islamic terrorism what it is, and in working with allies to stamp it out. With Washington unequivocally on the side of moderate and peace-loving governments and movements, those allies will be encouraged to be strong as well, together creating an effective anti-terror alliance.

Obama is a secularist. He was surrounded in youth and young adulthood by communists and other intellectuals of the Left who find their home in academia and left-wing organizations. He never abandoned their sphere of influence, as we learned over his years as president.

Secularists are afraid of radical Islam, as they are of other expressions of strongly held religious belief. In today’s world, however, almost all religious-inspired violence comes from the Islamic world. With little or nothing to fear from Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist or other religious movements, the only real danger comes from Islamic extremism. Without understanding the power of the religious force driving that extremism, but fearing what it senses nonetheless, the secularists believe the best response is appeasement.

Obama’s approach to America’s sworn enemies was typically appeasement, whether through the Iran nuclear deal or the accommodation with Cuba’s Communist Castros. He didn’t really want to take on Russia’s empire-building Vladimir Putin or Syria’s Baathist Bashar al-Assad. If the evil is real, appeasement never works, and the Obama foreign-policy legacy is dismal as a result.

So what would a wise Middle East policy look like?

The beginning of foreign-policy wisdom towards the Middle East is to recognize and align with real allies, and then work with them to build strong ties through which we can together overcome the evil forces that plague the region and prevent peace.

First on the list is Israel. There are bonds between America and Israel forged out of guilt over the Holocaust, but much more important than these are the shared values. The Jewish state has deep religious, cultural and intellectual roots that are inextricably entwined with those of the United States, which was founded by wise (yes, God-fearing) and enlightened people.

Second, there are stable and friendly countries in the Middle East that are critical to forging peace. These include Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and all the Gulf states. Although some of these relationships lack certain elements that bind us to Israel, we share many things in common, including a commitment to stability and peace. Then, too, Islam in its moderate expressions is perfectly able to serve as the religious underpinning for modern states.

Many of the people of these states still lack the freedoms we enjoy under our Bill of Rights. But all of them are sufficiently close to us in objectives to be well worth investing in, whether in economic, cultural, or security and military arenas.

On the foundation of a recreated alliance of the good, the United States can press for policies that will bring about the demise of bad actors and the rise of peaceful states based on mature and fair government.