The Wall Street Journal complains about "Hashemite Hokum" - 17-Mar-07 - Generational Dynamics

Last week, Jordan's King Abdullah told a joint session of Congress that the Palestinian issue is the core issue in the Mideast. Abdullah gets nothing but abuse from stupid Americans when he says this.

I've pointed out many times how ABC's George Stephanopoulos looked like an idiot in November because Jordan's King Abdullah had to tell him five times of the importance of the Israeli/Palestine situation, but he was still clueless.

Just to show that this is independent of politics, the stupidity of the liberal George Stephanopoulos has now been matched, and more, by an editorial on the conservative editorial page of the Wall Street Journal. The writer left the editorial unsigned, which was probably the only smart this moron did.

Jordan's King Abdullah II, addressing a joint session of Congress on March 7 (Source: CNN)

The editorial is called "Hashemite Hokum," referring to the Hashemite ethnic group. King Abdullah is Hashemite, and the official name of his country is the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. So the WSJ editorial writer not only exhibited his ignorance and stupidity, he did it in a way that is ethnically offensive. No wonder so many people hold Americans in general and American journalists in particular in such contempt. I wouldn't approve of foreign journalists making ethnic slurs about an American president, and I don't approve of American journalists making an ethnic slur about the leader of a foreign country, a staunch ally to boot.

"This is not the first time such sentiments have been expressed, nor is King Abdullah the only one who believes them. For decades, conventional wisdom held that the conflict between Arabs and Israelis lay at the heart of most of the Middle East's troubles. Does anyone seriously believe that anymore?

On Monday, 38 Iraqis were killed and 100 injured by a car bomb in downtown Baghdad. Apparently, King Abdullah would have us believe that the Sunni terrorists behind that massacre of their fellow Arabs were registering a protest against Israel's occupation of the West Bank. Perhaps he also thinks that the murder in 2005 of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri was a function of Israeli policies, and not of Syria's desire to dominate its neighbor. Ditto for the internecine fighting among Palestinians, repression in Egypt and al Qaeda's efforts to unseat the House of Saud.

Jordan is a friend of America; it played a significant role in killing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi last year. Too bad its king can't match the hard-headedness he's shown in private with some candid public speaking about the real source of the Arab world's woes."

You can see how these "great thinkers" of our time reduce everything to trivial politics. The Democrats think that al-Qaeda has nothing to do with what's going on in Iraq or the world, but if we'd only invade Pakistan and find Osama bin Laden, then all our problems will be solved.

Mideast, showing Israel/Palestine, Muslim countries, and Orthodox Christian countries. Somalia and Eritrea are in east Africa.

The Republicans think that al-Qaeda is the ONLY problem, and that if we'd only invade Syria and kill them, then all our problems will be solved. These politicians, in both parties, are so stupid that it's amazing to me that they can figure out how to get out of bed in the morning.

Anyone who just looks at the adjoining map of the Mideast can see what the problem is. Except for the orange of the Orthodox Christians in the north, the entire region is massively green -- representing Muslims -- except for that tiny red dot in the middle, representing Israel. American politicians have no sense of all of this; to them the entire Mideast is neither red nor green, but uniform grey, which means they see nothing. But to someone who lives in the midst of this region, let's say hypothetically the King of Jordan, that red dot has enormous significance.

I guess what amazes me, besides the sheer stupidity of these politicians, is their unwillingness to at least give a little deference to King Abdullah. Instead of treating him like a hack politician, it would be nice if they thought about his arguments, and even wondered if he might possibly know something that they don't. But no, Washington politicians know everything. They're in the center of the universe, and their words are the Golden Words of Truth, even when they change their minds five times a week.

These people are supposed to be our leaders. They're supposed to know what they're talking about, so that the citizens of our country can listen to them and know what's going on in the world. The stupidity of politicians came to public attention in November, when Jeff Stein, national security editor for Congressional Quarterly, wrote an article showing that Washington politicians and analysts, even analysts specializing in the Mideast, don't know even the simplest facts about what's going on.

So it's no wonder that my readers, who are not required to be experts, are so confused about what's going on. What are they supposed to think when politicians insult the King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, or when politicians come up with one moronic, hysterical policy proposal after another about "getting out of Iraq"? What is any citizen supposed to think, when Washington is populated by clowns?

One thing that I sometimes hear from readers, and have been told by more than one friend in person, is that oil is the only important thing in the world. One person in a blog recently wrote that my site talks about "a world war over oil." Geez, where did I say that? I rarely even talk about oil.

The obsession with oil is common to both parties, but it's expressed mostly on the left, and it's part of the paranoia that Halliburton is controlling the world. This leftist paranoia has its roots in the early 1900s, when John D. Rockefeller gained monopoly control of the oil market through his company, Standard Oil, and became a hated symbol of the right in the 1900s. He became the world's first billionaire, and when he died he gave a great deal of money away to philanthropic organizations. This is where the oil paranoiacs get the phrase "oil money"; anything coming from Rockefeller's century old fortune is considered to be as evil as they believe he was.

The oil paranoia was given a boost in 1974 when John's grandson, Nelson Rockefeller, became Vice President of the United States after Richard Nixon's resignation. Nelson's father, David Rockefeller, had just formed the Trilateral Commission, a worldwide philanthropic organization with members from many ideologies and countries. If you read stuff from the paranoics of the time, you'll see (as I recall) that they were saying that Nelson Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger and Paul Volcker were amassing wealth for themselves by controlling all the oil in the world. As I recall, the paranoics even claimed that the Trilateral Commission was controlling the White House and the world; this belief was expressed when it turned out that several members of the Trilateral Commission were in President Carter's administration, and that Carter himself was a member.

If you'd like to read some of this paranoic stuff about the Rockefellers, oil, and controlling the world, just type the words "rockefeller oil" into google, and you'll get many examples.

However, coming back to reality, oil is important in today's world, but it's about 10th or 20th on the list of important things. The Palestinian issue is way more important. The price of tortillas is more important than oil; in fact, food in general is far more important than oil (food is becoming increasingly expensive, and you can't eat oil). Water is far more important than oil (there's a growing water shortage, and you can't drink oil). The increasingly rapid militarization of China is more important than oil. The fact that America owes China hundreds of billions of dollars is more important than oil. Russia's increasing xenophobia is more important than oil. I could go on and on, and after naming five or ten more important issues, I'd probably come to oil.

Another complaint I hear, though less often, has to do with Iran. The issue was best expressed by this message from a reader, who wondered why Iran doesn't appear on my Conflict Risk Index graphic:

"I sit in wonder how is it Generational Dynamics has the Arab/Israeli conflict at high risk 3 but you have NOT even listed the America/Iran risk????

In my opinion, this is ONLY the most dangerous situation in the world today but you think it is not even worthy of a rating?????

It is a 3 easily, in my opinion -- that is if one frees oneself of Cognitive Dissonance over the the strong prevailing view that war with Iran just has "what me worry?" status (sorry about the snarky that remark)."

I've only changed the risk levels on the Conflict Risk Index graphic once, and it's now been over a year since I've changed the risk levels on the current graphic. Here's how I set the risks on February 9, 2006:

Conflict risk level for next 6-12 months as of: 9-Feb-2006

W. Europe

Arab Israeli

Russia Caucasus

Kashmir

China

North Korea

Financial

Bird flu

Key:

1=Low risk 2=yellow

2=Med

3=High 4=black

4=Active

Conflict risk level for next 6-12 months as of: 30-May-2005

W. Europe

Arab Israeli

Russia Caucasus

Kashmir

China

North Korea

Financial

Bird flu

Key:

1=Low risk 2=yellow

2=Med

3=High 4=black

4=Active

If you compare the two, you'll see that I made three changes: I lowered the risk level for North Korea, and I raised the risk level for Arab/Israeli and Kashmir. You can read the referenced article for the reasons.

But why isn't Iran even on this graphic? Isn't war with Iran far more likely than some of the others, as the reader claims? Aren't American or Israeli warplanes just about to bomb Iran almost any moment now, if only to get their oil, as many on the left including nutcases like Seymour Hersch believe, and isn't that riskier than anything else on the graphic?

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the danger from Iran isn't even close to the danger from the others on the graphic.

If you read my long, rambling analysis of Iran that I just wrote, you'll see that a lot of the problems with Iran have to do with the President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The situation with Iran may look highly risky for political reasons, but from the point of view of Generational Dynamics, it's not. That's because Iran is in a generational Awakening era. Even if America or Israel bombed Iran (which is far from certain, despite views of political pundits), it would not with certainty trigger a wider war, any more than the Iraq war or the summer Lebanon war did.

The six regions shown on that graphic were chosen because those are the six regions where a regional war would lead to a world war. (See my November, 2004, article"The Six Most Dangerous Regions in the World.") That's because of (1) international treaties, and (2) the participants are in generational Crisis eras. Neither of those conditions holds in the speculative scenario of bombing Iran.

Now, the semantic/philosophical issue is, what does it mean to "trigger" or "lead to" a wider war? You could argue that bombing Iran would bring in China or the Palestinians; but they have no treaty obligation to join the war, so there's no imperative. You could argue that they might come in anyway, but in that sense, anything could be a trigger, as the Danish cartoon controversy has shown.

I'm certainly not saying the Iran situation isn't dangerous. Of course it is. But it's not nearly as dangerous as, for example, the situation between the Jews and Palestinians. A war between them would certainly lead to a world war, but bombing Iran would probably not. In fact, the irony of the situation is that the chances of bombing Iran are made more likely by the fact that everyone understands that it wouldn't lead to wider war; but bombing North Korea is less likely, because everyone understands that it WOULD lead to a wider war.

As I've developed Generational Dynamics over the past 5+ years, it's become increasingly apparent to me that many of its conclusions are counter-intuitive. This has been true in the Mideast, in Darfur, in Iraq, and in other cases as well. It's like being in the middle of a cold wave and predicting that the weather will get hotter next summer: It just doesn't seem possible when you're freezing your butt off, but the long-term trend predictions are more important than today's thermometer reading.

Right now, there's little doubt that the Israeli/Palestinian issue is the most dangerous situation in the world, though the relations between China and Taiwan are a close second (and I really ought to change my Conflict Risk Index graphic to reflect that). If you believe that al-Qaeda is the only evil we have to deal with, then you should be aware that Hamas is closely related to Egypt's radical Muslim Brotherhood, which is increasingly closely linked with al-Qaeda.

It's tempting to blame all the world's woes on our presence in Iraq, but every Muslim in the world knows that we just want to "pull out" and go home; al-Qaeda's objective is to humiliate us as much as possible in doing so.

But every Muslim in the world also knows that Israel is not going to "pull out." Muslims know that unless Israel is destroyed militarily, it will be there forever. That's why al-Qaeda's goal is not to humiliate Israel, but to destroy Israel. And a war between Palestinians and Jews would draw in one country after another in the region, and numerous countries around the world including, of course, America. That's why the Arab/Israeli conflict has a Risk Level of High, even though Iran and oil aren't even on the graphic.

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 17-Mar-07
The Wall Street Journal complains about "Hashemite Hokum"

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 17-Mar-07 The Wall Street Journal complains about "Hashemite Hokum"

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 17-Mar-07
The Wall Street Journal complains about "Hashemite Hokum"