Chaos, cruelty, and corruption.

Netanyahu and Trump take two different approaches to world affairs. Netanyahu’s is: I am ruthless, I know where you are, and I am going to get you. Trump’s is: I am crazy, you have no idea what I might do, so you better be nice to me. Each of these approaches might bring short term success (or not), but neither would be an approach you would learn at any university in the world, and neither can possibly lead to long term stability.

But these two approaches are playing out in the current conflict with Iran.  We know that every Iranian government official and nuclear scientist believes themselves to be potential targets of Israel. We know that every Iranian citizen fears United States involvement. We know that no Israeli, American, or Iranian knows what will happen when the fighting stops.

If given the choice, though, anyone would rather be in Iran today than in Gaza. Gaza shows the ultimate failure of Netanyahu’s policy. Fear of being targeted doesn’t work if you can’t be located because “I know where you are” is not always factual, and if your evasive activity is successful because you don’t care about the safety of the people over whom you rule. In that case, Netanyahu’s approach results in massacres. And Trump’s approach, to paralysis.

No answers here today, only analysis. And pretty basic analysis at that. And unfortunately, there appear to be no answers anywhere. But maybe that is always the way it is during bad times. And these are bad times.

Of course, the Trump and Netanyahu approaches are not the only ones. There is always the Putin approach. The Putin approach is simply expansionist. It is: my people deserve to be at the heart of a great empire and we are going to create or recreate that great empire and if you live on land meant to be ours, that is too bad for you. (But, Arthur, forget Putin for once. He is irrelevant to this post.)

And then there are those who operate on conflicting signals being given by the same God. God says three things at once. He says: Jews, the promised land is yours: go forth, take it, and multiply. He says: Muslims, the world is yours; conquer it and never relinquish it. He says: Christians, the end times are near; the Jews and Muslims will destroy each other, and only you will be the winner, so sit back, prophesy, and enjoy.

Perhaps neither Trump nor Netanyahu, nor the Arab nor Iranian leaders, believe this. Or let’s put it another way. Perhaps they do believe this, but don’t know that they believe this. That is more likely.

We may not think very often about these end-times Christians. But they sare around. We know about Mike Huckabee, now ambassador to Israel. And now we know about Ted Cruz, who told Tucker Carlson that he supports Israel because the Bible tells him to. Carlson was aghast: the Bible tells you to support today’s political state of Israel? Yes, said Cruz. What should we learn from Cruz’ answer?

Okay, end-times for this post. Did we get anywhere today?

Chaos, Cruelty, and Corruption.