John Bolton never sounded as panicky as he does in his
latest article. It came under the title: “The Mideast 's
problems are ours” and the subtitle: “Obama's inaction and inattention have
helped fuel the current chaos.” It was published on Aug. 27, 2014 in the New
York Daily News.
The thrust of his argument is that America cannot pivot to
Asia away from the Middle East because the latter is doing badly now, and when
it goes past the point of no return – which should happen soon – America will
greatly suffer economically. He does not say how so, except that he mentions
the vast reserves of oil in the Arabian Peninsula .
But this is an odd thing for him to do given that he has been lauding the use
of new technologies by which large amounts of oil are extracted from American
soil. He always said this will make America
self-sufficient, and have enough leftover to supply Europe thus lessen its
reliance on Russia .
We must, therefore, dismiss that excuse as the reason why he
wants America to remain in
the Middle East on a continuous basis, as he
put it. That leaves one plausible reason only, which would be the protection of
Israel .
But there is a problem here; one that is better expressed in the form of a
question: If you are a Jew and you want to argue in favor of protecting Israel without
being open and honest about it, what do you do?
Well, let me tell you something, my friend. Every time I
come across a similar question, I remember a little anecdote I once heard when
I was a child. So let me tell it to you first. Some monks take a vow of silence
which they can break only to help someone else in distress, never to serve the
self. Since they live in a monastery where there is no one else but other
monks, the one in distress has to be another monk.
And so it happened one evening that all the monks of the
monastery sat around the table to have supper. One of them saw a cockroach in
his soup and could not eat. Forbidden from talking to serve the self, he
signals the waiter to approach. When he does that, the monk whispers in his
ear: “The brother on my right is missing a cockroach like the one I have in my
soup.”
This is the kind of talk you should expect to hear from a
Jew because he will never admit he is in distress and in need of help. On the
contrary, he will describe an exaggerated situation if not a false one to get
someone to do the things that will fulfill his needs. And this is what Bolton is doing in his article. Starting with “the Middle East 's problems will become our problems,” he
dresses a list of problems which he says are plaguing the region. To document
the claim, he says: “Libya 's
fragmentation is merely one example.” He then mentions Iraq and Syria .
Of course, he does not say that the troubles in Libya and Iraq
were the work of the United States ,
and he does not say that there would not have been a Syrian problem were it not
for Iraq .
He is not saying it because if he did, he would reveal himself as the arsonist
that is disguised as a firefighter – one that is going around setting fires
while pretending to put them out; a ruse designed to prevent someone else from
doing the job.
In fact, other than those three places and Israel where
chaos reigns, the rest of the Middle East, which contains something like three
dozen Arab and non-Arab nations, looks no worse than it ever did -- in fact, it
looks better than it did in times past. But to confuse the perception of the
situation, Bolton pulls a dirty trick. He
drags into the discussion the sub-Saharan nations of Somalia ,
Niger , Nigeria and Mali .
This done, he reiterates the false notion that the Middle
East and North Africa are burning, which is why he maintains that President
Obama should not give in to his two delusions: negotiating a nuclear deal with
Iran, and a peace deal for the Palestine question. He also wants that “the United States
expunge the notion of pivoting anywhere.” Why is that?