May The Arab Countries Never Have A Democracy!

Senior Editor of National Review, Jay Nordlinger, writes:

I remember meeting with Saif Qaddafi, the Libyan dictator’s son, along with other journalists in Davos. He had an explanation for why the Arabs had lost all their wars against Israel: Because Israel is a democracy, and those other countries are not democracies. In a democracy, explained young Qaddafi, merit is key, so that those who rise to the top levels of the military are apt to be capable. In the Arab countries, said Qaddafi, cronyism prevails, so the commanders tend to be no good. That’s why Arabs keep losing wars.

“May you never have democracy,” said an Israeli journalist under his breath. I have never forgotten it, and one can certainly understand it.

I have to disagree with Mr. Nordlinger--the reason that Arabs keep losing wars against Israel is not because of cronyism. The reason they keep losing is that they keep getting second (and third and fourth chances). If the Arabs were to not only lose a war, but also allowed to suffer the consequences of that defeat--that would go a long way towards resolving the Middle East crisis.

In Groundhog day in Gaza,The Belmont Club writes about how the very organizations that should be preventing war and bloodshed have instead imposed themselves in such a way that the natural resolution of conflicts is prevented and continued war is guaranteed:

Almost unnoticed in the course of this absurd tragedy is the assertion that third parties, like the UN and the EU, have some acquired the right to determine what is proportionate force between belligerents. In the past belligerents were free to determine what, within accepted usages, constituted a casus belli. And they approached the problem with the knowledge that if they went to war rashly or foolishly, they would pay the price of defeat and possible loss of territory. But today the right to determine when and where to fight back against aggression has been usurped by a bunch of bureaucrats in the UN and in Brussels. Aggressors all over the world are no longer so reluctant to cause trouble, secure in the knowledge that the UN will always be there to save them from a knockout count with their sacred bell.

Today nations neither suffer the consequences of aggression nor the benefits of righteous self defense. In its place the 'International Community' has create a perpetual limbo in which a continuous trickle of misery is considered an acceptable price to pay so that the authority of the 'International Community' can be upheld and its vanity embellished. Not actual peace but the protection of this perverse 'International' system has become the actual goal of diplomacy. In order to pay for it, Palestinians will be left abandoned to their oppressors, for employment as human shields while Israelis will be admonished to die without whimpering. Not in order to achieve a solution, but simply to turn the page of the calendar. Even the 20th century holds few examples of such political immorality and futility.

War is sometimes the price nations have to pay to win peace. But only the United Nations, and the sadly the European Union too, can create a system where war is endured only to guarantee more war -- and the prerogatives of the International System. All in the name of Peace, too.

Two years ago, Amir Taheri put it this way:

For a war to be won, it is not enough for one side to claim victory. It is also necessary for one side to admit defeat. Yet in the Arab-Israeli wars, the side that had won every time was not allowed to claim victory, while the side that had lost was prevented from admitting defeat. Why? Because each time the United Nations had intervened to put the victor and the vanquished on an equal basis and lock them into a problematic situation in the name of a mythical quest for an impossible peace.

It is time for the West to step back and allow Hamas to earn the consequences of firing rockets at the innocent civilians of another country.

And they are only the first in line.

Crossposted at Soccer Dad

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