The Trap Into Which We’ve Been Led

Originally published in Gulf Coast News on Sept. 12, 2012

As many of you know, I am a former Foreign Service Officer. I have been on both sides of the embassy wall when disturbances and protests and mobs and anarchy and violence have broken out. I have been on the floor and on my feet and in my bed and even on the toilet when shots rang out (you have no idea how terrifying a military automatic assault weapon sounds in comparison with ordinary rifles) and bullets landed overhead and all around me, and bombs exploded and the ground shook, and firefights raged in the dark of night, awakening me from sleep. I have seen the bodies and the blood in the streets, seen the bullet holes in the walls. I have had ill-trained soldiers point their weapons at my heart at close range with no way to retreat, and have been surrounded by massive angry mobs when attacks and counter-attacks began from both sides in their dispute. And I have had colleagues killed by terrorists while in the course of their daily, routine jobs, jobs no different than I went to every day for 11 years. So I am not speaking from some ivory tower of academia or the media or the opinion bloggers or tweeters or idiotic and unknowledgeable online response posters.

I also have been a student of the Middle East (under both the Minimalist and Maximalist definitions) and Islam in all its aspects for more than 30 years, have studied Arabic, lived and traveled in the Islamic world, have close friends (some of whom have had family members and friends butchered by Islamic terrorists), and even have had two wives who are Muslim and from the region. And I was an intelligence officer whose portfolio and back-up portfolio included Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, and the erstwhile Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and also was someone called up frequently on the ground in the region for my insights that often seemed to supersede those whose official job it was to have such insights. So I have that side of things, too.

I see what has now happened in Egypt and in Libya, and I see the tepid and apologetic response not only of American embassy Cairo, but of our Administration and State Department, and I am outraged. While it is always hard to postulate a hypothetical response, I think were I serving in the Foreign Service today that I might well resign, and would urge a massive resignation of my colleagues worldwide. I would feel exposed and betrayed by a gutless Administration and supposed leaders that not only apologize for our basic values and are afraid to offend those who hate us and our values, leaders who fail to demonstrate even a basic understanding of what motivates our enemies, or how no apology, no matter how misguided and inappropriate, will placate those who attack us, but only encourages them further.

What is even worse are the policies and actions and decisions that led us to this point. In my view — and I know I am not alone in this view — few things have been more predictable and documentable than the trap into which this Administration has led us in Egypt and Libya and all across the Middle East, arguably the world’s most volatile and dangerous region and the one that poses the greatest threat today to us, our way of life, and the very peace and stability of the world. Given the threat that Iran has posed to us and the world over the past 33 years (and which increasingly few Americans today seem to have any grasp of), I now see how this threat has not only been allowed to, but actively encouraged, to metastasize, mutate, fragment, and vastly expand. We are now facing not one monster with a few supporters, but multiple monsters covering an enormous spread of geography containing hundreds of millions of people and tremendous resources. And for all the differences and disagreements and divisions between those monsters, they are united in one thing, and that is their common enemy: The West, and most notably the United States, and their values and beliefs.

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Ancient Arabic proverb.

So all those enemies of us become friends of one another. And we see this when the ancient enmity between Sunni and Shi’a is set aside to oppose the Great Satan, being us.

I try not to be prophetic or to be taken in by apocalyptic visions or fears or conspiracy theories. But I see — or rather can see what I prefer not to raise to the level of a prediction at this point — that we are the brink of an historic and catastrophic conflagration. Perhaps not a war, as past wars, with clearly defined fronts and campaigns, but an enormous and devastating conflict that can stretch on for many more decades to come. I feel like we are facing a threat as great, or greater, than that posed by a Hitler, with all the resolve and understanding of a Chamberlain. We have substituted “Democracy in our time” for “Peace in our time,” not understanding that there can be no democracy among people (and I am speaking of the real power brokers, not the ordinary people on the streets the media make such a big deal over) who neither believe in nor want true democracy, any more than there could be peace with a regime that wanted not peace but world domination.

I have to laugh when I hear, as I did just now, that the timing of yesterday’s events “. . . was no coincidence — that is one theory.” Theory, indeed. Need one have any more proof of abject delusion or, worse, deliberate deceit practiced at the highest levels in this Administration?

And while Rome burns, Nero has time to go on Letterman and cavort with celebrities and raise funds, but has no time to meet with the prime minister of our closest ally in the Middle East, on the very verge of a go/no-go decision on attacking Iran’s nuclear capability, potentially unleashing this conflagration that I prefer not to predict. It is so true to form.

I have no expectation or even hope that Obama and his minions will suddenly come to their senses and realize what is going on and take a total change of tack. In fact, I believe they are totally within their senses and what they have created is deliberate and their desired results (admittedly with some unintended and undesired consequences and some inconvenient truths becoming increasingly evident). But there is still a chance to take this country back to a correct course. It is probably too late to undo much of the damage already done, but at least we can limit the damage done in the past four years (and yes, much done in the eight before that, too, and even some going back before those), and to once more deal from a position of strength and not weakness and apology.

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Frank Yacenda is a former journalist, U.S. diplomat, and intelligence analyst who covered the Middle East, and is an occasional commentator on current affairs. © 2012, all rights reserved.