Wow. President Obama got a medal from Israel. That must have been a comfortable moment, put on the spot on Israeli turf with a vow to defend the small¹ against longtime Muslim foes. The president knows that whatever happens in the Middle East, the U.S. is not going to do anything until after the fact except listen to John Kerry drone on in hopes of putting everyone involved into a coma.
Our problems in the Middle East have one thing in common that isn’t discussed very often. America has a heritage of Christian values and religious beliefs that constrain our actions and stay our hand. Not all countries have to cope with this, including bellicose North Korea.
Do America’s Christian values protect state terrorism?
Christian values make our foreign relations difficult. The U.S. is the big dog on the international block and being the biggest has its advantages. Too bad our beliefs put us at a disadvantage when it comes to dealing with troublemakers. In a moral vacuum we would have a lot more options.
Much as Iran’s leader despises the U.S. and our allies, he is lucky we don’t share his religion. The same goes for Kim Jong-un, his anti-religious empire and conviction that the outcome of the Korean War is still up for grabs. If we thought like they did, neither country would be around to bother us.
Centuries of killing in the Middle East and fears that Muslims have again used chemical weapons speak to the tolerance we can expect from that corner of the globe. Western religious beliefs and values don’t condone this kind of violence, at least not yet. What if things were different?
The U.S. believes in diplomacy. We impose sanctions. We talk. We condemn state terrorism and aggression. We talk some more. With John Kerry as Secretary of State the talking is going to be painfully verbose:
With respect to North Korea – and let me say one other thing on the thing – and partly in answer to the question before, too. The President’s purpose here, and I think everybody’s purpose, is to try to minimize the killing, is to try to end the killing, end the violence [in Syria].²
Try to end the killing? Why bother. Killing in the Middle East, Africa, and other parts of the globe where Islam flourishes is often less a matter of right or wrong and more a matter of who has the upper hand (see: Americans Are Not to Blame for Savagery in the Muslim World). Our Muslim allies of today may well turn out to be the slaughterers of tomorrow.
If the U.S. embraced Islam, we could use nuclear diplomacy.
President Obama’s smile must have frozen solid when Israel’s president stressed his nation’s dependence on U.S. support. Peres spoke to our president of the “enemies of peace,”³ an ironic phrase considering that the absence of peace is the defining characteristic of relations in Israel’s part of the world.
Just think of the possibilities if America washed its hands of Christianity, became a Muslim nation, and combined our military might with the extreme bad behavior we are continually coping with in and from the Middle East. We could stop worrying about whether sanctions will work. No more talk. No more shaking our heads and muttering about consequences. Nuclear diplomacy could rule the day. Threats from Iran? Iran’s desert would make a nice, shiny pane for aircraft to navigate by. Chemical weapons in Syria? Why take chances, since we can never be certain who our real enemy is? North Korea? They don’t fall under the umbrella of the Muslim Middle East, but what the hell. Their lack of religion probably makes them worse and they could be gone in a flash. We just need to make sure we do it on a day when the wind is blowing away from Japan and South Korea, assuming they will still be our allies.
What an incredible irony that foreign powers that endorse state terrorism are saved from our wrath by the religious beliefs that limit our response. If America was a Muslim nation our lives could be a lot easier and our enemies fewer. Of course, the whole world might become a smoking, poisonous pile of rubble. That will happen anyway if the Assads, Kim Jong-uns, and Ahmadinejads of the world have their way and the way things are going, they probably will.
Killing in the Middle East is a way of life. The Muslims have been terrorizing each other and neighboring countries for as far back as anyone can remember. There have even been Muslim killings in our country. Our Christian belief that talk and sanctions will stop the killings and there will be peace between the nations is a joke. This has never worked in the past and will not work in the present and will only get worse. These radicle Muslims don’t care who they kill just as long as they kill someone.