twilight struggle
Credit: iStock & Eblis
Opinion by Ben Everidge for Thomas
in the cradle of civilization …
Okay, let’s take on one of the most contentious issues imaginable in the 2024 election cycle – the Israel-Hamas War.
The Middle East has been a cauldron of hate for as long as humankind can remember, back as far as Cain and Abel. War has been a constant in a region that the world recognizes as the cradle of civilization.
An October 7th massacre of 1,139 innocent Israelis by the terrorist group Hamas, a radical Sunni Islamist political and military group currently governing strategic parts of the occupied Gaza Strip since 2007, set off the latest battle the likes of which the world has only witnessed a few times in modern memory.
Israel, predictably, responded with an intense military response that has killed 27,000 Palestinians and injured more than 67,000 others; many in both categories have been women, children, and the elderly.
If Hamas wanted war, then Hamas got its wish and then some.
Until then, foreign policy officials and members of official Washington were hopeful that efforts for normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia were bearing fruit and might reduce the United States’ role in the region so we could focus on other critical priorities.
America’s nemesis in the region since 1979, Iran, had other ideas fermenting unrest by funding and training militias like Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthi in Yemen. These Iranian militias attacked U.S. forces in the Middle East on more than 160 occasions before killing three American service people and injuring 30 more at their base in Jordan with an undetected drone attack on January 28th.
The United States, which had been attempting to keep the Israel-Hamas conflict from broadening into a wider regional war, launched reprisal attacks against militia facilities in Syria and Iraq. The U.S. reprisals for the Jordanian event were in addition to other reprisals the U.S. and allies like Great Britain had launched against Iranian-backed Yemeni militia members who had been attacking commercial shipping and U.S. Naval vessels in and around the Red Sea, negatively impacting freedom of navigation.
The Biden Administration, believing that helping broker a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas would help relieve pressure on the United States on the Red Sea and around the Middle East, announced through U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in the final days of January that the United States is not at war with Iran.
Substantial evidence to the contrary indicates that Iran is most definitely at war with the United States and many Western governments, despite Washington’s denials otherwise.
A significant criticism of the Biden Administration is that they do not have a clear and consistent foreign policy. In fairness, the Trump Administration was just as erratic with its foreign policy. The absence of a coherent U.S. foreign policy for the past seven years at least has harmed American foreign interests, not only in the Middle East region but globally, I would argue.
In my book, Hoya: The Watchmen, Waketh, my fictional 47th president of the United States, to better protect the United States from threats both from within and outside our shores, advocates for a foreign policy he terms the Three Trinity Doctrine.
Fictional 47th President Zack Greyson argued that U.S. foreign policy needed a new doctrine to be more impactful and unambiguously address challenges posed by problematic regimes worldwide.
If that foreign policy is somewhat redundant, he said he was okay with that, too. Redundancy, President Greyson and I noted, saved lives in the space program. It kept profits in business. It held reputation in law. Redundancy is a good thing.
My counsel in the book is that Independents can see the Three Trinity Doctrine as representing the responses that should be recommended when certain situations develop, requiring a clear and concise response from or through the United States.
The objective of the Three Trinity Doctrine, which I now advocate for the United States today, is neither aggressive, unilateral, nor even reactive or overtly interventional. It is not passive or complacent either. It is proactive and does not reward appeasement. To the contrary, this doctrine is determined, mission-driven, and designed to protect the interests of the United States, its citizens, and its allies at the point of challenge, even if that effort might be redundant.
In another manner, you could also call the Three Trinity Doctrine the If, Then Doctrine.
Thomas invites you to read: The Watchmen Waketh
I believe three specific broad threat levels exist in foreign and defense policy today.
A direct threat where a clear and present danger to the United States of America has been identified. That is the immediate threat that Iran is posing to the United States.
An allied threat exists where one of America’s formal allies’ interests is measurably in jeopardy. That is the allied threat to Israel by Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.
A case threat, the third level of threat, exists where a nation-state’s interests are challenged in a manner that the United States believes to be detrimental to its interests long-term. That is the case threat that China and Russia present today.
The Three Trinity Doctrine also has three threat levels to consider as well:
Level One threats pose a risk but are not specific to a particular country.
Level Two threats are those addressed above specific to a particular country like Iran, Hamas et al., and China.
Level Three threats are those that require a military response, an economic response, a diplomatic response, or all three
Military responses reinforce right when economic and diplomatic measures have failed or are deemed failing.
Economic responses are where sanctions, restrictions, and other financial tools can better foster greater collaboration and cooperation from challenging regimes.
Diplomatic responses are where United States foreign policy officers believe that negotiation can accomplish desired outcomes or progress that can be made in that direction where disagreement or competing objectives exist.
In this book, published in 2017, I wrote that “I believe God – my God, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of us all – has brought us to this moment in time….”
Fiction has tragically become a reality in this case.
The United States must realize that Iran and its proxies in the Middle East are at war with the United States. This Level Three threat requires military and economic responses from America and its allies.
Israel has the right to defend itself from Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. The October 7th attack was not a response to the exaggerated containment policy by Israel; it was murder, and it led to war.
The Palestinian people deserve to have a homeland. But pro-Palestinian demonstrators, especially here in the United States, need to protest for their homeland free of Hamas and Iran. The aggressor in this case was Hamas and Iran. The interventional response was assured by Hamas’ and Iran’s calculations—hard stop.
Innocent men, women, and children should not be the further victims of the atrocities that Hamas and Iran leveled on the world. Diplomatic solutions must come through direct collaboration with Middle Eastern leaders interested in the outcome of this war and any chance of finding genuine and lasting peace.
Egypt, Jordan, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates are critically essential partners in this peace cause that the United States President, and not just his Secretary of State or head of the Central Intelligence Agency, should be negotiating with on the ground in some neutral territory, like Europe if an end to the death and bloodshed is to come to a quicker end.
Our God – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of us all – has no lesser expectation of us.