A complex story is unfolding on the world stage at this time
but little of it can be told as of now because the story is still in the early
stages of development. What we can do, however, is create a fictional story and
develop it along the lines of what we know is true about the real story, and
what we project will happen.
We imagine that the world is represented by a hotel. It has
been around as an institution for a long while, and was run by a multitude of
managers and sub-managers. It has seen chefs and sous-chefs, and masters of
ceremony of all kind, come and go. These individuals served for a while – some
for a long time, and some a short time – and then left on their own accord or
were let go for one reason or another.
One chef from among the multitude of all the chiefs that
came and went, stands out because he lasted longer than anyone. Moreover, when
he was asked to step aside, he did not simply disappear. Even though he is
officially no longer in charge of anything at the hotel, he lingers on inside
the premises where he passes unsolicited judgments on everyone and everything …
behaving as if he owned the place.
In the real life that is unfolding on the world stage, that
chef is actually a political pundit named Eric Trager. He just passed judgment
on what's happening on the world stage, putting his thoughts in the form of an
article that came under the title: “Trump's speech in Riyadh puts ball squarely in court of
Muslim-led governments to fight terrorism,” published on May 21, 2017 in the
New York Daily News.
When you read the article, you cannot help but develop an
image of the unemployed chef of the fictional story, going into the dining room
of the hotel just after a banquet in search of something. In reality, he is
hungry and looking for leftovers to eat; and he is hungry to find something to
criticize ... and perhaps get his old job back. Indeed, Eric Trager used to be
the voice that everyone took into consideration when looking for guidance on the
Middle East , but is no longer what he used to
be in this domain or any other.
And so, making light of the fact that circumstances on the
ground in the Middle East have changed a great deal since the day that former
President Barack Obama visited Cairo eight years ago; and since the time that
former President George W. Bush was in office sixteen years ago – Eric Trager
draws comparisons between the approaches that were taken by the three
Presidents.
Eager to build a case that jibes with the vogue that's currently
propagated by the mob of Jewish pundits, he asks the question: “Can this
step-up-and-defend-yourselves strategy work?” and answers it like this: “There
is ample reason for skepticism.” This paves the way for him to conclude the
article in the image of a chef that just gorged himself on leftovers, and then
took one last bite just to spit it out. He did so while crying out with scorn
that this dog food is inferior to his own cooking.
And so, in the space between Trager's question and his
conclusion, a scornful writer attributes the changes that came to the Middle East – not to the evolving local circumstances
over sixteen years – but to the changes in the strategies that were adopted by
the various American Presidents.
He begins to describe that line of thought with this
observation: “[Trump's] address reflected a more substantive break” from the
approach taken by his predecessors. He goes on to explain that Trump focused on
the governments and on terrorism rather than the people and the “conditions
that catalyze volatility and violence” in the Middle East .
His intention is clear, he wants the world to know that Trump is making a
mistake by dropping the Jewish line of using “freedom” and “democracy” as
weapons to dominate the world . Here are his words:
“Nor did Trump link terrorism to the absence of democracy or
freedom within the Muslim world … Trump's speech didn't include the words
'freedom' or 'democracy' anywhere … 'We are not here to lecture – we are not
here to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be, or how to
worship,'” he quotes Trump as saying.