As U.S. Election Looms, Terror Bombings at Home & Marginalization in M.E. Portend a Difficult Year Ahead
Frederick Krantz
As the November Presidential election approaches, several recent events underline the U.S.’s increasingly dangerous domestic and foreign situations.
A series of bombing incidents (the perpetrator, an Afghan Muslim terrorist, was quickly caught) occurred across the September 17-18 weekend. One exploded pipe-bomb caused 29 casualties in Manhatten, another exploded harmlessly in a Jersey Shore town, and one, undetonated, was found in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
And as the East Coast bombs went off, nine people in a St. Cloud, Minnesota knife-attack were wounded by an Islamic State-claimed killer shouting “Allahu akbar”. Shot and wounded, the attacker was taken into custody.
These multiple incidents—the first explosions in New York City since 9/11–once again brought home the deepening crisis of ongoing Islamist terrorism in America.
And also, once again, municipal and state "authorities" were quick, initially, either to discount the attacks as (Islamic) terrorism or to downplay possible "external" (i.e., Islamic State) sources.
A subdued Hillary Clinton immediately counselled caution in attributing the assaults. But Republican Presidential candidate Donald J. Trump, reflecting the public’s reaction to these events (and the fact that they clearly strengthen his candidacy), immediately termed them terrorist bombings. Trump called for quick action to stem the widening incidence of Islamist terror across the U.S.
Abroad, over the same weekend, America’s disastrous Syrian policy (or, better, lack of policy) worsened, as yet another fragile cease-fire, tortuously negotiated by John Kerry with Bashar Assad’s Russian enablers, collapsed. Assad refused to honor it, blocking emergency food convoys into besieged Aleppo, this as the Americans made a dreadful air-attack targeting mistake, resulting in over sixty Syrian army deaths.
Although the US immediately admitted and apologized for the mistake, Assad claimed the US consciously targeted the Syria troops, and Russia called an emergency Saturday night Security Council meeting at the UN.
(U.S. UN ambassador Susan Powers, sounding a bit like Gertrude in “the lady doth protest too much” scene from Hamlet, shrilly attacked the Russians, calling their action a “stunt” and “hypocritical”: one assumes Hillary Clinton’s infamous “reset” policy with Russia’s Putin, inaugurated as she assumed the Secretary of State title, is now definitively over.)
The Syrian situation is turning into a potentially explosive tinderbox, a Hobbesian bellum omnium contra omnes or “War of all against all”, which risks setting off a wider M.E. conflagration.
U.S.-Russian and Turkish-Kurdish tensions are growing. magnified by conflicts between the various anti-Assad militias, the Islamic State “caliphate” and other Islamist forces, and Assad’s army and airforce, backed by Iranian and Hezbollah troops, And of course tensions with Israel, on both the northern Golan and southern Lebanon borders, must also be factored in.
Behind the Syrian scene, but very much part of it, is Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, which has already funneled ca. $35 billion (cash!) into the coffers of the world’s leading terror-supporting state (and hence into the bank-account of its pro-Assad Lebanese client, Hezbollah).
Meanwhile both Iraq and Afghanistan are falling apart, and post-coup Turkey may well follow suit. And Libya–already rent asunder (thanks to Hillary’s knocking off of Gaddafi without making provision for a replacement)—is replacing Turkey as the jumping-off point for continuing waves of Muslim migrants. Desperately trying to escape an imploding Middle East, they seek entry into a Europe destabilized by the rise of nationalist political parties and still reeling from Britain’s E.U. “Brexit”.
To these disastrous M.E. Obama-Clinton foreign policy debacles must be added the unchecked and aggressive Chinese South China Sea expansion, “crazy state” North Korea’s nuclear and intercontinental missile tests, Iran’s risky Persian Gulf challenges to the U.S. Navy, and Russia’s ongoing threat to Ukraine and the Baltic states.
And these foreign policy woes are aggravated by a continuingly sluggish American economy yet to return to pre-2008 recession levels. Real unemployment is estimated at well above the official 4.9-5.0% rate, ninety-five million people are either unemployed or have ceased looking for work, and the national debt is rapidly approaching $20 trillion.
Hence the coming American election, now two months away, is of decisive importance. A period of global and regional instability and tension may well be upon us, as–no matter who wins–the new President will surely be tested by powerful adversaries sensing any indecision or weakness.
As the ancient Chinese curse has it, May you live in interesting times. Still, for those of us who, products of an even older civilization, have lived to see the miracle of reborn Israel, let us hope and pray that the New Year 5777, arriving this month, will bring peace and only good things for us and for Israel. And let us, as our Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, enjoins, Choose life.
(Prof. Frederick Krantz, Editor of the Isranet Daily Briefing, is
President & Director of the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research)
