"Europe has abdicated. It has no coherence, no leadership, no influence."

Conrad Black writes in American Greatness,

...the decline of Europe, not its rise, is now the threat that should worry foreign policy specialists.

The United Kingdom, renowned throughout the world and for more than 300 years for good government with continuous though gradually self-reforming institutions since the Magna Carta in 1215, is suffering its worst failure of government since the American Revolution. Britain, in addition to having voted to leave the European Union, and now having failed to negotiate a soft exit and Parliament having declared that it does not want what the people voted for, is stretched between a narrowly pro-exit population and an anti-exit Parliament. The performance of Theresa May’s government has been so incompetent that the normal solution to such an impasse—a general election—probably would elevate the Labour Party now led by a Marxist anti-Semite, Jeremy Corbyn. That would lead to the implosion of the country into a state of ignominy and political degradation not seen since Richard III strangled the princes in the tower, and Corbyn would do nothing to clarify Britain’s position with the European Union.

...Instead of putting the horrors of the Third Reich and the difficult Cold War years of a divided Germany into the past and stepping out as one of the world’s great powers, with allies all around it, Germany—with the world’s fourth-largest economy—has stalled. It’s two main political parties have slowly eroded, and a coalition between them can barely agree on anything, let alone command a Bundestag majority. There are four other parties, the far left—a detritus of the old Communist East Germany—the Greens (relatively extreme eco-warriors), the Alternative—half reasonable, half-far right, and somewhat xenophobic—and the worthy Free Democrats, who are sensible, small business-oriented, and bourgeois.

Angela Merkel is an agile leader but terribly cautious; she is about pass Konrad Adenauer as the third longest serving German chancellor, after Bismarck and Helmut Kohl. But she has frittered away the preeminence of her party and is leaving it to an unprepossessing successor facing the likelihood of more voter fragmentation and multi-party coalitions. Chancellor Merkel shut down the entire nuclear power system to appease the Greens, (although nuclear power is the safest of all economically viable energy sources), and has committed Germany to dependence on Russian natural gas.

...Europe has abdicated. It has no coherence, no leadership, no influence. The president of the United States has cut America loose from the nonsense of the Paris climate and Iran nuclear agreements, popular with the Europeans, and is making direct arrangements with the other major powers—China, Japan, India, and even possibly Russia.

...The Western alliance can be revived, but only when Europe recovers its political will and common sense. Except for a few purposeful countries formerly under Soviet occupation, the whole continent is, in de Gaulle’s phrase about the French Fourth Republic, “crossing the desert.” It will get to the other side; the administration, in its way, is trying to help, but only Europe can do it.

Read more here.

"Burying its head in the sand"

In Israel Hayom, Prof. Eyal Zisser writes,

Europe is burying its head in the sand. Due to their desire to maintain political correctness, European governments have failed to stand in defense of Christian communities in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, just to avoid drawing fire and being perceived as enemies of Islam.

Read more here.

On being risk-friendly rather than risk-averse

David Goldman writes in PJ Media,

As the hundredth anniversary of World War I approaches, we will hear endless variations on a lament for Western Civilization. All of them go more or less as follows: At the height of its prosperity, scientific discovery, and artistic achievement the nations of Europe inexplicably plunged into a mutual slaughter that prepared the ground for the greater slaughter of 1939-1945. That is simply wrong. Europe had done this sort of thing twice before, first in the Thirty Years War of 1618-1648 and again in the Napoleonic Wars of 1797-1814.

...The Europeans fought the Great War of 1914 to avoid becoming what they are today.

As I argued in a 2010 essay, that helps explain why Israelis so often play classical music better than anyone else. Not only did they inherit many of the best Central European teachers, but as a nation they are risk-friendly rather than risk-averse, and it is a sense of risk that informs great interpretations.

...We despise the culture because we abominate authority, tradition and loyalty, that is, virtues that Asians still cultivate. We abhor art that demands of us the recognition of higher authority - of genius subordinated to tradition and precedent - and prefer a levelling popular culture with which we can identify as supposed equals (see American Idolatry, Asia Times Online, August 29, 2006). But there is a dimension to Western art - its risk-friendliness, as it were - that most Asians will have difficulty understanding.

The childless, hedonistic Europeans of today are the same people who fought and died in their millions for king and country in 1618 or 1814. Anything worth living for is worth dying for; if we can think of nothing we would die for, it means that we have nothing to live for, either - like today's Europeans. Europe learned at length that blood and soil, Kultur and Grandeur, were not worth fighting for. But Europe could find nothing to live for after it forswore the national gods of its violent past. It is dying of enervation and ennui, disgusted with its past and unconcerned for its future, unwilling to bring sufficient numbers of children into the world to ensure its survival for another century.

Read more here.

"No society can last when its rulers are perpetually at war with its people and that is what Europe is today. At some point, the people will join the war."

Z Man writes,

...Read through all of the news accounts and commentary about the Berlin attack and nowhere do you see any questions about whether it was wise to import a million barbarians. That’s just assumed. Instead, the speculation is over how the natives somehow drove this poor barbarian to fulfill his purpose as a barbarian. The European media reads like the patient newsletter at an insane asylum.

One cause of this is the Cold War. For close to fifty years, Western Europe was America’s daycare center. Americans did all the heavy lifting with regard to the defense of Western Civilization both militarily and economically. European elites were allowed to play dress up and pretend to be in charge, but everyone knew the Americans were in charge. If something broke, America fixed it. If someone got an ouchy, America would salve their boo-boo. The Pax Americana allowed the West to remain in a state of perpetual adolescence.

The result was at least one generation of leaders lacking any training in responsible government. They dress up like proper rulers, but they have no idea what it means to defend their people. In fact, they don’t even think about the hoi polloi as their people. They are just the great unwashed, an undifferentiated mass of greedy mouths and grasping hands. They were free to evolve this way because the Americans were always there to make sure nothing bad happened. As the protective bubble is removed, all of this being exposed.

...Whether or not it is too late to save Europe is open for debate. It is also possible that more sober minded politicians will rise up, push aside the reckless and begin the task of rebuilding their countries. The future is not written and there is no such thing as the tide of history. Even so, it appears Europe is headed for a very ugly and perhaps bloody reckoning. No society can last when its rulers are perpetually at war with its people and that is what Europe is today. At some point, the people will join the war.

Read more here.

Right wing populism makes big gains across Europe

Have you noticed how right wing populism has surged across Europe?
This map from UK Express show the countries where the right wing has made the biggest gains. Just as in America, the policies of Socialist administrations are the right wing's biggest friend!

h/t David Adams

Why is Putin in the Middle East? The enemy of your enemy can also be your enemy!

Russian leader Vladimir Putin and President Obama in Antalya, Turkey, Nov. 16. Photo: pool/Reuters

Remember Garry Kasparov, the brilliant Russian chess player? Wikipedia tells us,

Kasparov announced his retirement from professional chess on 10 March 2005, after which he devoted his time to politics and writing. He formed the United Civil Front movement, and joined as a member of The Other Russia, a coalition opposing the administration and policies of Vladimir Putin.

Kasparov has written an important article today in The Wall Street Journal in which he asserts,

The U.S. and its allies can defeat ISIS. Joining with Putin, Assad and Iran’s regime would be immoral.

Three days after coordinated terror attacks in Paris killed at least 129 people and put the lie to President Obama’s recent claim that Islamic State was “contained,” Mr. Obama took to the podium on Monday. Speaking from Antalya, Turkey, where he was attending a G-20 meeting, he threw the full weight of his rhetoric behind solidarity with France and behind the French military response against Islamic State, or ISIS. But he offered no policy changes. In other words, once again America is leading from behind.

Mr. Obama’s remarks in Turkey came after he sat down for an impromptu discussion with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, who has shipped troops and military hardware to Syria to prop up the Bashar Assad regime and to produce desperately needed new war propaganda back home. A suggestion gaining currency in recent days—encouraged by the Putin-Obama photo op—that the U.S. and NATO cooperate with Mr. Putin against ISIS is ludicrous on many levels. The most obvious one being that Russian forces aren’t in Syria to fight ISIS.

Even after the death of 224 people—most of them Russian tourists—in the Oct. 31 Metrojet crash in Egypt that was almost certainly an ISIS terror bombing, Mr. Putin remains focused on his goals. He is in Syria to help Iran and Mr. Assad destroy any legitimate alternatives to the status quo. What is that status quo? The Assad regime and its Iranian backers controlling the region by force.

The Kremlin also wants to maintain a stream of Syrian refugees pouring into Europe. The migrant crisis is useful to Mr. Putin in two ways. It distracts European attention from his continuing military campaign against Ukraine. And the flood of refugees will enhance the fortunes of far-right European parties that openly embrace Mr. Putin, increasing pressure on the European Union to lift sanctions against Russia. If one of the terrorists in the Paris attack slipped into Europe with Syrian refugees, so much the better.

President Obama and other Western leaders desperate to resolve the conflict in Syria should keep in mind that the enemy of your enemy can also be your enemy. For the U.S. and the West, allying with Iran, Mr. Putin’s Russia and the Assad regime would be morally repugnant, strategically disastrous and entirely unnecessary. The immorality of such an alliance is self-evident: The U.S. officially designates Iran and Syria as state sponsors of terror.

The argument in favor of such an alliance cites the World War II precedent that the Allies joined Stalin to defeat Hitler. The comparison is inapt. First, NATO doesn’t need the help of Mr. Putin or Iran to defeat ISIS; NATO simply needs the resolve to do it. Second, such an alliance would only undermine the effort. Seeing the U.S. working with Mr. Assad and the Shiites of Iran—who essentially control Baghdad, too—would further convince the region’s Sunnis that they have no choice but to turn to ISIS for protection.

Americans above all should realize the importance of the Sunnis. The 2007 U.S. military surge in Iraq was so successful because it included the protection and recruitment of Sunni tribes to fight Sunni extremists. The Obama administration’s hasty exit from Iraq left the Sunnis at the mercy of a hostile Shiite government in Baghdad. Conditions were made ripe for the rise of Islamic State.

Even with France’s stepped-up bombing campaign against ISIS in Syria, and U.S. vows to intensify its own bombing effort, the fact remains: You can’t win hearts and minds from 30,000 feet. The problem with an air-power-only offensive is not only that you don’t always kill the right people, but that you can’t protect anyone. The people of Syria and Iraq need the protection and stability that will starve ISIS of its main source of recruits. No bombs, whether American or French, can provide that. Airstrikes will inspire as many ISIS volunteers as they kill, while also creating countless new refugees. Destroying infrastructure makes the refugees’ eventual return less likely.

“Boots on the ground” is the phrase that must never be mentioned, but mention it we must. Anything less than a major U.S. and NATO-led ground offensive against ISIS will be a guarantee of continued failure and more terror attacks in the West. It is immoral to continue putting civilians—Syrian and Western alike—instead of soldiers on the front line against terrorists.

Pacifying the region and protecting its people from the predation of terrorists and brutal dictatorships is the only path left. It is also the only way to ever repatriate the millions of refugees the Syrian civil war has created. We must support these people now, not watch from afar as they are slaughtered and enslaved, paying attention only when the horror makes its way into our capitals. Our fate is tied to theirs.

Heartfelt expressions of solidarity and candlelight vigils for the victims won’t stop ISIS unless that goodwill is turned to action. Playing defense is hopeless. The world today is too small, the threats too big. The only solution is to fight the problem at its source. You cannot have liberté, égalité, fraternité without sécurité.

h/t American Power

Financing Iran's nuclear program, terrorism, annihilation threats against Israel

Soeren Kern writes at Gatestone Institute that Europeans are rushing to profit from the Iran deal.

Middle East expert Ilan Berman points out that for Iran, trading with Europe is actually the perfect self-defense, a virtual guarantee that it will not face military attack if it cheats on its obligations under the nuclear deal.

Sanctions will also be lifted on Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's $95 billion business empire, as well as on Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which operates a vast network of companies and industries. No wonder European media outlets are referring to Iran as the "new El Dorado," the "chance of a century," and the "last untapped market."

"Conducting business with the Iranian regime means to finance the nuclear program, the annihilation threats against Israel, Holocaust denial, the export of Islamist terror and the oppression of the Iranian population."

The lifting of sanctions on Iran, a market of 80 million consumers (the second-largest market in the Middle East after Turkey in terms of GDP) creates the potential for staggering business opportunities.

...Within days of the agreement's signing, the European Union approved the deal, and senior officials from Germany, France, Italy and the European Union rushed to Tehran to pursue business deals; leaders from Austria, Spain and Sweden are planning to lead trade missions to Iran in September and October.

On August 12, Switzerland — a neutral country that is not a member of the European Union — announced it would unilaterally lift sanctions on Iran effective immediately, presumably providing Tehran with access to technology and the Swiss banking system.

Analysts say the flurry of European activity implies that international sanctions on Iran are crumbling, and if Tehran violates its commitments under the nuclear deal, efforts to re-impose them are unlikely to succeed.

Saeed Ghasseminejad, an Iran analyst with the Washington-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, said:

"President Obama's promise about the snapback sanction has no truth in it. When international companies go to Iran and commit themselves and their shareholders to long-term multi-billion dollar investments, there will be no snapback sanction mechanism.

"It took the U.S. almost a decade to convince Europeans to leave Iran's market, as the European companies were deeply invested in the country. Those who promise an immediate return of sanctions in future are either naïve or they are not telling the truth."

Read much more here.

The need for more American engagement with Europe

Walter Russell Mead writes in The American Interest that it is time for a pivot in American foreign policy, a pivot to Europe:

...If the twenty first century goes well, the model of the EU — an international organization based on democratic and liberal ideas that protects the rights of individual states while working for their common good — will have more and more impact on the world. Regional associations in Africa, Latin America, South East Asia and the Middle East will offer more people worldwide the freedom and prosperity that Europeans now share. Promoting this kind of international system has been the chief goal of American foreign policy for more than 100 years, and it is hard to see any other potential American agenda that would be as good for American security and prosperity — and would be more welcome or more successful abroad. The prestige and the drawing power of the EU is one of the most important elements of the soft power that makes the American ideal of a rules-based, peaceful and commercial international order globally attractive, and trouble for the European Union means trouble for the American world project as well.

Against that background, the weaknesses in Europe’s policymaking that the Greek crisis places in such a harsh spotlight are grounds for deep concern in the United States. Poverty in Africa, and mounting instability in the Middle East is creating a major migration crisis to Europe’s south. The wars in Syria and the rise of ISIS (and evidence of a jihadi Fifth Column inside Europe itself) present a new kind of security threat which requires new thinking about European defense. An aggressive Russia is pressing on Europe’s weak eastern flank. Unless the EU gets its groove back, a divided, inward-looking EU is not going to be very effective dealing with the growing threats to its east and south, and the already difficult challenges facing American foreign policy will become significantly harder to manage.

...Instead of facing this honestly and sharing the pain, the rich European governments decided to let their banks off the hook and throw all the costs onto the Greeks. This was a terrible betrayal of the European ideal, and the damage that has resulted (and not only in Greece) will reverberate for years to come. In a just world, the losses would be divided between creditor and debtor alike — and the IMF has made this point more than once. The citizens of debtor countries are being squeezed too hard, and the rich countries aren’t facing up to their co-responsibility for the disaster.
Arguably, German unity means that Europe needs America more. We need to be in the mix, not as a rival to Germany or trying to thwart it in some kind of 19th century balance of power game. Far from thwarting Germany, the American presence in Europe since 1945 greatly assisted Germany’s recover and reintegration into Europe, and promoted and helped secure the foundation of Franco-German cooperation on which everything else in Europe rested for many years. The next American presidential administration is going to have to take Europe seriously again. Bilateral relations with all the leading European countries need to be deepened, and the United States also needs to think much more intensively about the nature of Europe’s difficulties and the things we can do that would promote the health of the Atlantic partnership in a dangerous world.

The world doesn’t work well when Europe is a mess, and Europe doesn’t work well when America is absent. Those are the two most important lessons of the tragic twentieth century; we forget them at our peril.

Read more here.