by Bruce S. Thornton<\/p>\n
FrontPage Magazine<\/em><\/p>\n Given our economic doldrums and the still metastasizing debt, the legislation raising the debt ceiling won\u2019t keep the economy from dominating the nation\u2019s attention until next year\u2019s election.This means foreign affairs will continue to be an afterthought, at a time when dangerous developments in the Middle East and the war against jihad are happening every day.<\/p>\n Start with Iraq and Afghanistan. The progress made in those conflicts over the last decade remains fragile. Terrorist violence continues in both states: the most recent attacks include seven Taliban suicide bombers killing 21 civilians in relatively stable Kabul, a day after the assassination of the mayor of Kandahar, itself merely the latest in a series of murders of government officials and tribal leaders. In Iraq on the same day, explosions killed 12 soldiers in Tikrit, the site of 3 earlier assaults that left over 150 dead. This June was the deadliest month for American soldiers in two years, some of the attacks perpetrated by Shia militias trained by Iran, whose influence in Iraq is increasing. Though much reduced from previous years, this level of violence \u2014 created in part by still unresolved sectarian, tribal, and ethnic conflicts, as well as governmental dysfunction and corruption \u2014 bodes ill for the stability of both countries once US forces leave, their departure creating space within the disorder for the rebuilding of jihadist organizational infrastructure. This \u201cpull-out fever\u201d afflicting American citizens and politicians alike runs the risk of repeating the debacle of Vietnam, when a costly victory won on the battlefield was squandered by domestic politics and a collective failure of nerve.<\/p>\n Speaking of al Qaeda, the death of bin Laden and the degradation of its leadership by drone attacks in Pakistan have not put that lodestar of jihadist terror \u201con the run,\u201d nor do they mean we can anytime soon \u201ccripple al Qaeda as a threat to this country,\u201d as newly minted Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has asserted. According to Michael Leiter, who recently stepped down as head of the National Counterterrorism Center, \u201cthe core organization is still there and could launch some attacks,\u201d and \u201cPakistan remains a huge problem.\u201d Pakistan is still a duplicitous and unreliable partner in destroying al Qaeda sanctuaries and rooting out jihadist networks, something that cannot be achieved just by drone attacks, which are hostage to Pakistani political disorder, sympathy for the jihadists, and factional interests. Moreover, the center of al Qaeda gravity has shifted to Yemen, which is disintegrating from a civil war pitting the regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh against various tribal militias and jihadist militants, including al Qaeda fighters who are gaining experience and weapons in this war. Yemen is also the hideout of one of al Qaeda\u2019s most dangerous leaders, the American-born, tech-savvy Anwar al-Awlaki, the inspiration and mentor for the Fort Hood murderer Nadal Malik Hasan, the Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and the Times Square bomber Faisal Shazad. Though the latter two attacks failed, we should not rely on the incompetence of al Qaeda\u2019s recruits to keep us safe forever, particularly if Yemen becomes for al Qaeda what Afghanistan was in the 1990s.<\/p>\n Then there is the so-called \u201cArab Spring,\u201d a wish-fulfilling false analogy with 1989 that blinds many to the dangers of the ongoing revolts against various despotic regimes in the Middle East. In Egypt, the tweeting and telegenic Westernized youth \u2014 who convinced many in the West that democracy was on the march in the Arab world \u2014 have been shoved aside by the more numerous Islamists, including the Muslim Brothers we keep hearing are pragmatic reformers. A few days ago Islamist demonstrators filled Tahrir Square in Cairo, chanting \u201cIslamic, Islamic, neither secular nor liberal,\u201d while a few dozen secular activists cowered in a tent until they were driven away. One Islamist student made a simple point lost on many Western idealizers of democracy: \u201cIf democracy is the voice of the majority and we as Islamists are the majority, why do they want to impose on us the views of minorities \u2014 the liberals and the secularists?\u201d Why indeed. Without the foundational ideals of individual human rights, separation of church and state, freedom of speech, and the primacy of law over religious or tribal loyalties, democracy is just machinery that can be used for all sorts of ends, including illiberal ones.<\/p>\n \u00a92011 Bruce Thornton<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine Given our economic doldrums and the still metastasizing debt, the legislation raising the debt ceiling won\u2019t keep the economy from dominating the nation\u2019s attention until next year\u2019s election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[22,230],"tags":[319,161,119,48,181,674,1040,1061,459,1043,296,197,162,1016,95,1070],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-Dj","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2406,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/liberating-libya-for-jihadists\/","url_meta":{"origin":2437,"position":0},"title":"Liberating Libya for Jihadists","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 30, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine The fall of Muammar Gaddafi is making some in the West giddy with the usual \u201cArab Spring\u201d wishful visions of democracy and freedom flourishing throughout the Muslim Middle East, even as the last binge of democratic intoxication, the fall of Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Libya"","block_context":{"text":"Libya","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/libya\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7515,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/our-bad-habit-of-negotiating-with-terrorists\/","url_meta":{"origin":2437,"position":1},"title":"Our Bad Habit of Negotiating with Terrorists","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 2, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce Thornton \/\/ FrontPage Magazine \u00a0 Every parent should be happy for the Bergdahl family, whose son was returned to them after five years of captivity among the Taliban. But every parent is not the president of the United States, whose primary responsibility is to protect the security and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Pakistan"","block_context":{"text":"Pakistan","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/pakistan\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/800px-Tourists_Are_Terrorists_2528475983-500x333.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5208,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-folly-of-apology\/","url_meta":{"origin":2437,"position":2},"title":"The Folly of Apology","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 26, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Americans need to muster the necessary grit to win. by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers The stories about the video of US troops burning the bodies of dead Taliban are disgusting\u2013\u2013but not because of anything our troops may have done to the corpses of fanatical murderers. What\u2019s disturbing is the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1071,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/another-disgraceful-apology-frenzy\/","url_meta":{"origin":2437,"position":3},"title":"Another Disgraceful Apology Frenzy","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 18, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine Two recent news stories about Afghanistan reveal the delusional mentality of those conducting our foreign policy. The first is about some Marines who urinated on the corpses of Taliban fighters. Such behavior, of course, is mild compared to the sort of brutal treatment of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":971,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-assault-on-americas-prestige\/","url_meta":{"origin":2437,"position":4},"title":"Obama’s Assault on America’s Prestige","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 14, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine In 1868, a British army led by Sir Robert Napier sailed from India to Abyssinia (Ethiopia) to rescue several English and European hostages from the mentally unstable, sadistic King Theodore. Theodore had become enraged a few years earlier because his letter to Queen Victoria\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2731,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-bow-to-the-muslim-world-round-ii\/","url_meta":{"origin":2437,"position":5},"title":"Obama’s Bow to the Muslim World, Round II","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 24, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine In September 1938 English Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, explaining why he was flying to Germany a third time in order to make peace with Germany, recited the old nursery rhyme: \u201cIf at first you don\u2019t succeed, try, try, try again.\u201d Cynical wags in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2437"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2437"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2438,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2437\/revisions\/2438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}