\tWhen we read a book, watch a movie, or enjoy an episode of one of our favorite dramas on television, we expect conflict. Usually it will be a battle between good and evil, whether it is man against nature, philandering husband against faithful wife, a teenager\u2019s dream that her parents don\u2019t recognize, or cops against robbers. Sometimes it will be crusading do-gooders fighting \u201cthe man.\u201d In all stories, we find villains raging against the virtuous.<\/p>\n
But in real life, it isn\u2019t always so black and white. Sometimes there are no good guys. Instead, we realize that it wouldn\u2019t bother us if both sides lost. <\/p>\n
I think the first time I fully grasped this sad possibility was back in the 1980s when Iraq and Iran went to war with one another. Iran, at the time, was notorious for what it had done to Americans during its \u201cIslamic Revolution.\u201d For four hundred forty-four days fifty-two Americans were held hostage. Clearly, the Iranians were \u201cbad guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the other hand, Iraq was run by Sadaam Hussein, a dictator and thug. Clearly not a good guy, either. Moreover, I was close friends with a recently arrived Iraqi. He was a physicist who had worked in Iraq\u2019s nuclear program before his arrest and expulsion by the Iraqi government. His crime? He had led Bible studies and prayer meetings. Being a Christian in Iraq was not particularly healthy.
\nSo it was impossible to root for either participant in that war. Both sides were awful.<\/p>\n
Today, when I look at the so-called \u201cArab Spring\u201d and witness the downfall of various dictators across the Middle East, ranging from Khadafy in Libya to Mubarak in Egypt, my initial thought is to feel joy at the downfall of brutal thugs. But then, it quickly becomes obvious that those deposing the thugs are no better than the thugs themselves. Mubarak was replaced by the Muslim Brotherhood, a terrorist group who attempted to impose Islamic extremism on the Egyptian population: women were oppressed, the minority Christians were systematically persecuted, and anti-American and anti-Semitic attitudes remained dominant. A year later, the Egyptian military\u2014after the largest protests in world history\u2014deposed the Muslim Brotherhood, establishing a \u201ctransition\u201d government. But Egypt remains gripped by dictatorship, oppression, anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism. The only change has been some shifting in who gets targeted for oppression. No matter how often you rearrange the deck chairs, it is still the Titanic.<\/p>\n
In Syria, there\u2019s a rising opposition against another brutal dictatorship. Unfortunately, those battling the dictator are dominated by Al-Qaida\u2014the same people who brought us Osama Bin-Ladin and 911. And the same people who oppress women, hate Jews and Christians, and think stringing gay people from light poles is a fine idea.<\/p>\n
Sometimes it is necessary to choose the \u201clesser of two evils.\u201d But in these disruptive times in the Middle East, it seems impossible to find much\u2014if any\u2014difference between the evils. This brings to mind another clich\u00e9: \u201ca pox on both their houses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Our founding fathers, particularly George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, warned us against foreign entanglements. Their words are sometimes used to argue for isolationism and against any and all involvement with foreign nations. But I don\u2019t quite think that was their point. After all, Washington\u2019s administration worked to make a treaty with Morocco in Africa (the first nation to recognize the independence of the United States) in an attempt to solve a problem with international piracy\u2014while Thomas Jefferson waged economic war with Britain and consistently supported French interests against the English. Jefferson happily twisted the law so that the U.S. could make the Louisiana Purchase from a France run by Napoleon, effectively doubling the size of the United States. The Revolutionary war itself would have failed had it not been for Ben Franklin\u2019s success in bringing the French into our conflict with Great Britain, and Jefferson later served as an ambassador in France shoring up our relations with them while the American Constitution was being drafted.<\/p>\n
Rather, Washington and Jefferson, when they warned of alliances, were reminding us that there is great danger in getting too involved in conflicts not our own, so make certain it\u2019s really worth it. At the time of their warnings, the United States was not the overwhelmingly dominant military power on the planet that it is today. We were weak and backward. Getting involved in the conflicts engulfing Europe in those days could have destroyed us. <\/p>\n
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century the various European conflicts burning the continent were clashes between various shades of evil, not between men in white hats and black hats. The French government\u2014which had helped us in our Revolution\u2014was corrupt and oppressive. The French people overthrew it, only to replace it with a dictatorship run by extremists who subsequently murdered tens of thousands with the guillotine. What had replaced King Louis the XVI was not better\u2014any more than what later replaced the head-chopping extremists\u2014the self-proclaimed Emperor and dictator Napoleon\u2014was better.
\nThe real world tends to just replace one scoundrel with another. Most of the time it is best to just sadly shake our heads and walk away, while wishing them all the best. We are the friends of liberty everywhere, but guardians only of our own. As badly as you feel when you hear your neighbors arguing, unless they set fire to the back yard or start shooting at you, it\u2019s just not your problem.<\/p>\n
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