Daniel Greenfield

Showdown in Syria

The architects of the Libyan disaster in France, the UK, the United States and Qatar have decided that Syria is the next step in replacing dictators with Muslim Brotherhood allied "democratic" parties. But no matter how eager they are to roll the Arab Spring forward with a month of bombing raids, this won't be a relative cakewalk like Syria. Gaddafi isolated Libya through his own craziness and then his alliance with the West, which left him with no friends when Sarkozy, Cameron and Obama turned on him in the name of Arab Democracy. Assad is often described as isolated because the Arab League has taken a firm stand against him, but he has a firm ally in Iran, which has few options and is likely to do whatever it takes to keep him in power.

Guns, Butter, Jobs and Birth Control

The old totalitarian paradigm was guns or butter. The Soviet Union could provide its people with the basic food groups or it could run a military race to conquer as much of the world as possible. As a totalitarian ideology, it naturally chose the latter. The modern incarnation of the hammer and sickle, the liberals who took it slow, working from within the system instead of seizing the reins and executing anyone who got in the way, isn't big on guns. The Clinton and Obama administrations both inflicted massive cuts on the military because it was extraneous to their domestic goals. They didn't want guns, but they didn't want butter either. They wanted a third thing.

The Obama Doctrine

The Obama Doctrine can be summed up as the assertion that for the United States to have influence and standing on the global stage, it must first abandon its interests and its allies.

Power and Weakness in Zion

The liberal deconstruction of Zionism begins with the Jews as the victims and ends with the Jews as oppressors. To understand their mindset it is enough to see a protest banner of the Star of David transformed into a Swastika paralleling the journey from concentration camp victim to concentration camp guard.

The Liberal Uses of Race

Racism is about many things, but it isn't about race. To understand the uses of race in American liberalism requires understanding its place in the political culture. When American liberals speak of race, they aren't speaking in the genetic sense; what they are doing is clumsily piggybacking class onto race and adding one dubious construct to another. The placement of racial politics at the center of liberal advocacy coincided with a growing national prosperity that seemed to be on the way to making class warfare of the old kind irrelevant. Previous liberal civil rights activity had been a subset of class, but class now became a subset of race. And both were a means of liberal self-definition as the people concerned with the plight of the downtrodden.

A Tale of Two Wars

There are two possible conflicts on the table in Washington. One is with Iran and the other with Syria. The Iran conflict is the one that Washington doesn't want. Its most likely trigger at this stage is an Israeli assault on Iran's nuclear program. Like most of the wars centering around Israel, this one is existential and of no interest to the philosopher kings in D.C. who wage wars with the grand purpose of making the world a better place.

Playing the Percentages

After occupying the headlines for far too long, Occupy Wall Street was dispersed by a combination of inclement weather, mayoral irritation and having served their purpose. Occupy Oakland will go on doing what it can to depress the economy of an already economically depressed city by attacking its ports. The other Occupations are being moved along back to the Starbucks that spawned them.

The Economic Sabotage of the West

By combining an opposition to free enterprise with an opposition to industrialization, the left has adopted not one, but two platforms that doom the economic survival of their host societies. Even the Soviet Union and Communist China, systems which were the worst embodiment of leftist economic ideology did not throw out the industrial baby with the capitalist bathwater. Had they done so both countries would still be hopelessly feudal today, instead of crony capitalist mafia states with a lot of available consumer goods that create jobs and make life easier.

A UN Farce in Syria

If anyone is to blame for Russia and China's vetoing of the Syria resolution in the UN Security Council, it's Barack Obama. Last year the United States and the Arab League brought forward a No Fly Zone to the UN Security Council. Instead of enforcing a No Fly Zone, Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy instead used it as an excuse for an invasion and regime change. If Russia and China refused to take another plan from the same suspects at face value, the blame lies with an administration that abused a No Fly Zone. The message from Russia and China is fairly clear. Fool me once, shame on you. But don't even think about trying it twice.

A Tale of Two Republican Parties

There are two Republican parties. One is fairly liberal, it is hostile to the left but it also believes in stealing their thunder by adopting moderate versions of their policies.

Countdown to Zero in Tehran and Jerusalem

There was a time when Israel did not deal with existential threats by urging the Americans to do something. That time was fairly recent. When Saddam decided he wanted to have his own nuclear reactor, fourteen Israeli Air Force jets put an end to his dream. The year was 1981. The Reagan Administration supported a UN resolution condemning Israel which stated that it was in "clear violation of the Charter of the United Nations and the norms of international conduct" and which fully recognized "the inalienable sovereign right of Iraq, and all other States, especially the developing countries, to establish programmes of technological and nuclear development."

A Free Market Solution

In her article, Three Cheers for Romneycare, Ann Coulter insists that Romneycare and its mandate was a Free Market Solution. Of course a government mandate to buy a product is not a "free market" solution, it is a slave market solution. Using a government mandate may be a market based solution but there is nothing free about it. The purchaser isn't free not to buy. The seller is only able to move the product through coercion and has to qualify with the government to be able to force-sell the product.

Muslim Firsters and Israel Firsters

If you were to suggest in a public forum that just possibly Israel's failure to reach a peace agreement with a terrorist organization, run by kleptomaniacs and homicidal maniacs, which still continues to applaud the murder of Israeli children, might possibly be due to the terrorists and not because of Israel, then, according to the consensus of the left, you are an Israel Firster.

American Tyrants

When Elizabeth Warren went on MSNBC to deny that she was a member of the 1 percent despite her nearly 15 million dollar net worth, the denial had a cultural element to it. Despite being a millionaire, Warren did not see herself as "wealthy".

Weaponizing the Passenger Plane

On September 11 the passenger jet as a weapon came crashing into the consciousness of the citizens of the country which had made international air travel viable. Muslim terrorists had viewed planes in terms of the passengers and hijacked planes to take people hostage. But at the beginning of the millennium it was no longer the people that mattered, only the use of the plane as a makeshift missile aimed at the institutions and infrastructure of the free world. This change of tactics was a game changer because it meant the potential casualties of airplane hijackings were no longer limited to the passengers in the air who were now flying around in ICBM's with much less explosive payload, but enough to take down skyscrapers and kill thousands of people. Every passenger was no longer just a risk to other passengers, but a risk to everyone in the Empire State Building, the Sears Tower or any other clumping of people in target areas that could be hit.

Dredging the Bottom

Republican primaries are like visiting embarrassing relatives, no matter how bad you think it's going to be, it always turns out to be even worse. After months of this we're going to have a convention where we will be asked to believe in one of these men.

State of Disunion

We know that the state of the union is good no matter how many Americans are out of work, how many families are counting every penny, how many industries are falling off a cliff and how high the national debt gets. We know it's good so long as another politician takes a victory lap up to the podium and tells us that it's all good because he's here.

Food Fights and Class Warfare

There was a time when full tables signified prosperity, and thick waistlines were considered attractive. The ability to eat one's fill was what separated the gentry from the peasant making do with a few crusts and salted leftovers. Fat was in because it represented leisure and wealth. Thin meant you were on the road to the poorhouse or to consumption, which meant your body was being consumed, not that you were the one doing the consuming.

There’s Something About Mitt

So far Mitt Romney has lost two out of three primaries, twice to candidates that the establishment didn't even feel were worthy of their attention. In his biggest victory in New Hampshire he barely managed to take 40 percent of the vote. Like it or not, Republicans voters are not particularly thrilled about Romney. But how ecstatic can anyone be about a candidate whose main draw is electability. Electability is an excellent strategic calculation, but it garners about as much enthusiasm as any other form of expediency. Most people who vote the big 'R' recognize the importance of getting Obama out at any cost, but they are not going to get very fired up about a man whose only credential is that of being able to win.

The Great Internet Blackout

"This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud." For people who grew up at a certain time with a thick glowing monitor casting light on their faces these were the closing words of their own Declaration of Independence. For those people the internet was not a layout of graphics and flash videos blaring from every website, but amalgams of text. The internet before the internet was an elitist place, like Linux, it was part puzzle and part love of taking intangible things apart and putting them back together again. Like most revolutionaries they were doomed to be made irrelevant by the consequences of the forces that they had set in motion. The curiosity that was their code of honor has been overtaken by the world that they helped open up. And that world is an amazing place.