If the intention of Martin Indyk was to paint and display in prose a true picture of the situation in the Middle East today, credit him for doing a good job.
Indyk wrote an article under the title: “The Price of
Retrenchment,” and the subtitle: “What the Ukraine Crisis Reveals About the
Post-American Middle East” in which he faithfully described what he saw without
altering or decorating the reality of the landscape with deeply felt sentiments
or with moral principles he might have pondered but chose to suppress.
What the Martin Indyk description reveals is that the
American President Joe Biden is doing well with regard to the newly developed
crisis involving Russia and Ukraine where America did not have as much history
as it did in the Middle East. Biden has rallied nations from Asia and Europe,
says Indyk, to the causes that America has always defended, such as every
nation’s freedom (including Ukraine’s) to choose whom to ally itself with.
But while Joe Biden is succeeding at making new friends,
says Martin Indyk, America seems to be losing its old friends and allies. This
is shown in the fact that neither the old friends nor the allies, support
America’s stance against Russia with regard to the situation in Ukraine.
After explaining in great detail how the relationships
between America and four of its Middle Eastern allies (Egypt, Kuwait, Israel
and Saudi Arabia) have cooled, Martin Indyk allowed himself to express an
opinion concerning where America stands now in relation to the nations of the
Middle East. He did so in a closing paragraph that stands as an icon of
gobbledygook. Here is that paragraph, replicated verbatim:
“The Ukraine crisis has spotlighted a cruel paradox for U.S.
policy in the Middle East. Even though it has downgraded its interests there,
which should have allowed for a greater assertion of American values, the
return of geopolitics is forcing the Biden administration to adopt a new
realism. Whatever good intentions the United States might have in the region,
its interests there are increasingly taking priority over its values”.
Martin Indyk seems to be saying that Joe Biden was forced
by the return of geopolitics to adopt a new realism despite the fact it was America
that downgraded its interests in the Middle East. And so, whatever good
intentions America may still have, interests and not values are shaping its attitude
with regard to the region. And that’s a cruel paradox spotlighted by the
Ukraine crisis, explains Martin Indyk.
I still don’t get it. Where is the paradox? Please
explain, Martin my friend. Is it true or is it false that America is a free
nation that makes choices for itself and gets them realized because it has the
power to impose its will? If false, tell who is so powerful as to have forced
America to adopt a new realism? But if it is true that America’s power is second
to none, then there is no paradox that the country cannot push aside and move
ahead to implement the plans it has for the world.
Until we get answers to these questions, we are allowed
to speculate as to who or what might be the force that’s greater than
America’s. In trying to do so, we develop the image of a school of piranhas
devouring a water buffalo in minutes. But we dismiss this image because it
suggests that the world is ganging up against America, forcing it to do what
goes against its grain — and this has never been the case.
And so, we develop another image. It is that of a single
virus entering the body of a mammal. It goes into a healthy cell, and like a
Fifth Columnist, cons the cell into producing more viruses. Each of these
viruses then goes into a new healthy cell and cons it into producing still more
viruses … and so goes the chain reaction till the mammal’s body is overwhelmed by
the viruses and dies.
This being meant as analogy, who could be playing the
role of virus in America? At first, the original settlers in the New World
thought that the Irish newcomers were a threat to them, thus mistreated them.
But in time, the firsters realized that the Irish, like themselves, wanted
nothing more than to work hard and live the good life the same as everyone
else. Then came the Italians who were treated badly by the firsters who now
included the once despised Irish. But in time, the Italians too came to be
accepted by those that preceded them. And the story repeated itself over and
over with the Poles, the Chinese, the Pakistanis and just about every race that
settled in America.
In fact, it happened even to the Jews who were treated
badly for several decades in America till the Second World War produced the
Holocaust. This caused everyone to back off on their open enmity towards the Jews.
But instead of seizing the opportunity and blending nicely with the other
ethnic groups and races, the Jews seized every opportunity to signal that they chose
to be different.
In fact, the Jewish signals also carried the message that
the Jews view themselves as being superior to everyone else. And everything
they did, were aimed at cementing — by laws, by rules and by
regulations —
the privileges that told the rest of society the Jews are an honored lot
because they are superior to all.
And it is that perpetually created and recreated false
paradigm which promotes the visceral hatred for Jews such as we see around the
world today, as it was seen yesterday, and will be seen tomorrow and all the
tomorrows after that.
It is a bleak
picture and only one act has the potential to break the vicious cycle. It is
for America to let Israel naturally develop on its own the way by which it will
lead a peaceful coexistence with its neighbors and the rest of humanity.