How the US beats allies and concedes to enemies
Carter turned Iran from friend to foe, now Democrats plan a repeat with others
Polls consistently show that less than five percent of Americans are interested in foreign affairs. The American unawareness of global history and geography is embarrassingly famous. Yet, the world counts on American leadership.
America’s shallow knowledge of world affairs has left her with one effective tool: The formidable military. When America is angry and flexes her muscles, all other nations take shelter. When America sheaths her sword, the world goes back to chaos.
Many world governments have noticed their need to neutralize America’s military power. The anti-war movement, born out of opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, helped promote lobbies that work for alien governments, such as Iran. These lobbies pounce on the idea that America should never go to war, ever again.
The Quincy Institute, a Washington think tank managed by pro-Iran regime activists, has been putting out literature and holding panels aimed at making Americans feel embarrassed about their military superpower. The Iran lobby in America has even come up with dumb foreign policy ideas that famous senators, like Elizabeth Warren, have endorsed, such as devising “a foreign policy that works for the middle class.”
But since when does foreign policy run along socio-economic lines rather than along the lines of national interests? And does a foreign policy for the middle class also work for the classes with low income, or the poor should not worry about world affairs?
What Warren and other American foreign policy simpletons do not realize is that America’s military power is the cornerstone of the world order. Because of America’s power, the world population trusts the US government the most, and as long as this is the case, the American currency will be the most-trusted global reserve, a perk that no other country, including behemoths like China, enjoys. The power of the dollar gives America a genuinely free market, unlike China whose untrustworthy currency forces it to stock on dollars, and thus apply capital controls to prevent capital flight.
Many Americans, mainly Democrats, are unaware that returns on investments in the US military are immeasurable. Free market means free ideas, and free ideas mean innovation and protection of personal freedom, liberty, the cornerstone of the American democracy.
Because Democrats like Warren, Senator Bernie Sanders and others are too focused on their virtue signaling and have no awareness of how the world works and what makes America the superpower it is, they think all America needs to do is stop being strong, because strength is unfair, and because if such strength is neutralized, the world will live in harmony.
But without the American superpower, lesser global powers with Medieval ethics — such as Russia, China and Iran — will dominate the world and spread their maxim that “might makes right.” If America lets go of its power, the world will not be more peaceful, but more dangerous.
Perhaps the closest domestic similarity to deflating America’s superpower (by trimming its defense budget and throwing its allies under the bus) is the Democratic demand of defunding the police. A year after many counties reduced their police funding, crime has surged across America.
This is not to say that Democrats do not have a point in trying to treat the root cause of crime, mainly be reducing poverty. But eliminating poverty takes enormous resources, and cannot happen before the next election cycle. And until poverty declines and crime levels fall, policing will remain the only tool available to keep crime in check.
Now apply this domestic example to foreign policy. Until America can build nations and make them democratic, Washington will need its superpower to keep bad actors in check. Using power as a tool to solve problems is not the ideal course of action, but the world changes, power remains the only tool available to keep the globe safer. Using power often leads to the loss of innocent lives, but not using it always leads to the loss of even more innocent lives.
Foreign policy practitioners have already noticed that even under an unskilled president, like Donald Trump, Iran never raised its uranium enrichment beyond five percent while Hamas never dared to hurl rocks at Israel (even after Trump had proclaimed Jerusalem the capital of Israel). But the minute Trump left the White House to the poised and professorial team of President Joe Biden, Iran raised its enrichment to unprecedented levels, while Hamas happily engaged in war with Israel.
Enemies of America and its allies stop warring, under war presidents like Trump, and resume wars under peaceful presidents like Biden. Unlike America, world actors are not seeking peace when given the opportunity, but looking to exploit any perceived American weakness to further their nefarious agendas, before the next Republican president wins office.
By incorrectly believing that world peace can be achieved only if America acts on its values, never on its interests, Democrats have helped transform allies into enemies. In 1976, Democratic President Jimmy Carter started applying immense pressure on Iranian Shah Reza Pahlavi in order to curb human rights violations committed by his fearsome Savak police. Carter honestly believed that, without repression, the Iranian people will be free to choose, and will choose correctly. What happened was that the Iranians chose the Medieval Khomeini. The West thought Khomeini would be a good replacement for the ailing Shah, since as an Islamist Khomeini could placate Iran’s Communists.
Khomeini was not America’s enemy at first, but fearing being outflanked by the global Left (that always claims moral superiority), Khoemeini slid on a slippery slope that made him America’s worst nightmare. By applying pressure on the Shah, in the name of human rights, America flipped its ally Iran into an enemy, whose human rights record is much worse.
Similarly, America today is applying pressure on Israel, on behalf of Palestinians and human rights. America wants Israel to grant all Palestinians equal rights like it does Israelis, which is a noble demand, but one that assumes that if Palestinians are granted such rights, the two ethnic groups will live happily, and in harmony, in Israel.
What Democrats, including the Biden Administration, do not realize is that Palestinians themselves are not interested in becoming citizens of Israel. They want to replace Israel with Palestine, and there is no indication that such Palestine will necessarily be a better democracy than Israel, or that Palestine will even be America’s ally. It is more probable that — given the behavior of Hamas that commands the support of one third of the Palestinians — if Washington pressures the Jewish State to the end, America’s ally, Israel, will be replaced with Iran’s asset, Hamas’s Palestine.
Alternatively, fearing for its existence, Israel might choose to switch sponsors from America to China and Russia, both of whom never pressure their allies on account of fairness or human rights. Just check out how Turkey has successfully turned its back on America and became Russia’s best friend and its Trojan horse inside NATO.
Furthermore, Democrats make it easier for nations to choose. By pressuring allies, like Iran’s Shah and Israel today, while being nice to enemies, like Iran today, Washington makes it more attractive for countries to be America’s foes rather than friends.
Yours truly supported the Iraq war, the spreading of democracy and nation building that ensued. But building democracies takes more resources and patience than America is willing to invest, which means that most world governments will never become as democratic as Western countries, Japan and South Korea. And as long as most world governments are not democracies, spreading democratic ideals, like human rights, will remain tricky.
America should keep the pressure on bad actors, like Russia, Iran and Belarus, to minimize their bad behavior as much as possible. When America’s allies commit violations, Washington should impress on them in private to change course, not discipline them in public.
Perhaps Democrats see in foreign policy a tool to win domestic support without expending political capital. But this is not leading, and this is not in the interest of America. Until Democrats understand this, their foreign policy will remain as disastrous as it has been since 2009.
Pretty much sums up much of human history on most topics, from passing restrictive gun laws that spark record levels of gun sales, to killing off all the vultures in India leading to huge increases in feral dogs and human disease spread: "By applying pressure on the Shah, in the name of human rights, America flipped its ally Iran into an enemy, whose human rights record is much worse."