Race to End the World

 

How the world, the civilized world of mankind, would end used to have a singular premise, nuclear war between the two competing socio-economic powers, democratic freedom and communist totalitarianism. Since the fall of the Soviet Union and other developments that paradigm has been grotesquely been altered making the world a far more dangerous place. Communism still exists and threatens the world though that threat emanates from North Korea, China or possibly a renewed Soviet threat or even little Cuba. The world has changed so much that within a decade or so China may become the second most populous nation behind their most serious historic rival, India. The potentials for an utterly destructive war are racing towards the world at a dizzying pace and we will try to touch on a few of the most obvious rivals for being credited with such destruction.

 

The most obvious from recent news actually is North Korea which is claiming to have miniaturized nuclear weapons making them easily produced and able to be placed atop ballistic missiles. North Korea has been working on those missiles as well. One cannot credit North Korea as the sole threat as Iran has been developing the missiles openly and many predict continued working on their nuclear aspirations without so much as missing a beat after the farce of an agreement which was signed and approved by the P5+1, Russia, China, France, Great Britain, United States and Germany, but was never ratified or signed by Iran, an oversight we are sure. Some have pointed to this inconvenient fact to claim that Iran is just as close to developing deliverable nuclear weapons as is North Korea. Both Iran and North Korea share more than their love affair with nuclear weapons and the missiles with which to deliver them, they share the nation both list amongst the most likely they would attack with their first launches, the United States. From there they diverge.

 

Where after the United States Iran lists Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, most of the Sunni nations and finally the rest of the non-Islamic world; North Korea lists South Korea, Japan and then whomever refuses to bow to any demands they may make which would make China and other nearby nations as being at the greatest risk. Because of these threats it appears that we can soon forget about containing nuclear proliferation making a nuclear war all the more likely. The world still has one pair of nuclear armed nations facing off against each other with a distinct probability to entering another war and it will only take one misidentification of a launch to start a smaller but equally deadly nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan. Should those two tangle, there is less of a chance for that to spread beyond the destruction of both nations though some reports place the southern third of India still beyond Pakistani missiles. Also, despite the Pakistani nuclear research assistance program of Professor Abdul Qadeer Khan selling the secrets to making nuclear weapons to anybody willing to pay, this was largely closed down and Pakistan and India are not likely to share such technology though it is rumored that Pakistan has a deal with Saudi Arabia to provide them with plans plus some actual weapons should this be deemed necessary by Saudi leaders.

 

That brings us to Iran and their nuclear program. Despite the reports that Iran has ceased their nuclear research and production, there remain nagging reports contradicting this story line. Whatever spins one puts on the situation with Iran, it becomes evident that they will become a nuclear power within the coming decade. This threat to their many nations in their neighborhood could easily spark an arms race with such nations as Saudi Arabia having funds sufficient to produce copious numbers of nuclear weapons and many of the Gulf States are equally financially capable of similar development not to mention also capable of financing other nations developing weapons such as Jordan and Egypt topping that list and Turkey a little further down. Israel is already an undeclared nuclear power in their own right and equally nervous about the development of an Iranian deliverable nuclear device. The problem with Iranian nuclear weapons possession is their likelihood to use them even in the face of retaliatory strikes which would conceivably decimate the nation as their reasons for attacking are a religious directive just as much serving their political agenda to gain hegemony over the Middle East and then the Islamic world followed by the world. Their eventual aim is to make Shia Islam the sole religion on earth or die trying. It is their willingness, even desire to commit national suicide in the process which makes their threat so dangerous. The truth is their first strike could be a preemptive attempt at neutralizing the United States, which is technically possible, to inflict humongous damage even using simpler ballistic missiles with nuclear warhead atop, three or four to be used as EMP weapons placed such as to completely destroy all electronic transmission across the United States with the remainder taking out the largest twenty or more cities all from freight container ships fitted with two or three launchers each launching from off shore from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as well as the Gulf of Mexico leaving no city beyond reach. The following map holds true for any nations attacking the United States be it Iran, North Korea or anyone else as it lists the most desirable first strike targets.

 

First Cities To Be Struck in Attack Scenarios

 

Next would be North Korea who would likely use the same map as above as it applies to any nuclear first strike attempting to critically destroy the United States by eradicating their leadership and a great part of the population. Anybody listening to North Korean broadcasts within the impoverished nation would believe that South Korea with great assistance including nuclear attacks made by the United States was imminent and that North Korea was preparing for an all-out war with both nations at any moment. Needless to say, but these depiction always have North Korea intercepting or preemptively destroying any and all attacks from the United States and South Korea followed by devastating rebutting attacks completely wiping the United States from being capable of any further attacks and reunification of the Korean peninsula under the North’s just and powerful rule. The fears that North Korea will attack South Korea are still quite high but also the ability to prevent North Korea from all but eradicating Seoul in the initial burst in a first strike are impossible. The artillery sitting just north of the DMZ (demilitarized zone) along the 38th parallel are more than sufficient to destroy the city with conventional warheads. Add in missile attacks and even without nuclear weapons North Korea has an ominous first strike knockout capability.

 

Additionally, North Korea has made threats against another traditional enemy, Japan. The entirety of Korean populations, both North and South, remember the deprivations, cruelties and horrors of the Japanese occupation during World War II and this hatred is easily stoked as the national memory on this is strong. Japan had been simply a historic enemy but after World War II they became a detested and begrudged enemy and North Korean propaganda has made use of this to keep the attentions of the people from the misery and hardships of life in North Korea. Many experts have claimed that North Korea is not suicidal and thus would not attack anybody for fear of retribution. This overlooks a few pertinent facts. First is the fact of their having so little to lose with no real economy to speak of and starvation of endemic proportions. Secondly, their ruler, Kim Jung Un, has displayed a real lack of grasp of reality and has executed high ranking people for the slightest of errors in judgement or actions. He had an uncle executed with the rumored excuse that he posed a threat to Kin Jung Un’s continued rule and recently executed his Defense Minister Hyon Yong Chol for the crime of falling asleep at a meeting which Kim Jung Un was chairing. Kim Jung Un has shown complete disregard for any loyalty or discretions in limiting his power and is sufficiently unstable and unpredictable that he could easily begin such a conflict against South Korea, Japan or even the Philippines or the United States. Below is a screen shot from a North Korean propaganda video depicting just such an attack in a very simplified but unmistakable way of attacking the United States with the image of Kim Jung Un ever-present in the top right corner.

 

North Korean Propaganda Image Depicting
Nuclear Strike on the United States

 

Another potential nation for whom a war would not be a completely foreign idea is China. Their economy has weakened and is showing signs of actually falling, something the leadership cannot afford as they have promised the vision of Nirvana with an ever growing and prosperous nation. Needless to point out that such a dream is an impossibility even if you control all forms of media, which China does not quite have as many Chinese have found means of cruising cyber space and the Internet. Totalitarian control of cyberspace is all but impossible as the Chinese leadership can attest despite their attempting to run their own version hoping to keep their populations from such temptations as can be found online. Their main reason is to throttle ideas and prevent freedom of information. Still there are Chinese bloggers who do get the word out to those interested in finding such. China is feeling their oats and attempting a power play in the South China Sea attempting to control this waterway which is vital to Asian trade and control the Japanese lifeline to the coal and oil they need for power generation and other usages. This also threatens Japanese, Vietnamese and Philippine claims to islands with which they have been contesting ownership with China for years and almost sparking open warfare over these possessions. Chinese and North Korean threats have caused Japan to reconsider their Constitutional pledge against having an army and other forces sufficient to conduct a war even in defense which they insisted upon after the devastation visited upon them at the end of World War II with Tokyo as well as Nagasaki and Hiroshima completely devastated and in ruins along with much of Japanese infrastructure and manufacturing. Japan as well as South Korea has held high level discussions in their respective governances to enter the nuclear club and develop their own weapons stores. Both nations are easily technically capable in order to produce first rate thermonuclear devices and not just nuclear weapons. This would place their effectiveness on a par with the standing nuclear powers and could place them on a road to surpass France and Britain and become contenders in the top five nuclear powers on the planet. This would definitely have ramifications down the line and would be another major blow to containment and nonproliferation. Of course one of China’s first strike enemies is the United States and any attack by Iran, North Korea, China, Russia or anyone else on planet Earth need to remember and remember well, there is a last strike capability the Americans possess which cannot be knocked-out attacking the United States mainland and even if one included Hawaii and Alaska, and the boomer looks like this right before they are loaded with their death dealing cargo of twenty-four missiles.

 

Nuclear Powered and Armed Last Strike Capable
Submarine with Twenty Four Missiles
Each With Multiple Warhead Capability

 

But nuclear weapons are not the only threat which is facing mankind. We are slowly but inexorable working to make our species insufficient of competing with our own creations. Sure we control our machines and computers today, but what about tomorrow and that tomorrow is not that far off where they no longer require our assistance to improve and construct themselves? We are rapidly approaching a point after which there is no turning off the switch. We already have computers which with software can design robots and other computing systems but the machines cannot write new and imaginative code, for that they require human interface, for now. What happens once they can write their own code and improve their own designs? What happens once the machines design the machines? Within a year or two of that eventuality, and our scientists will cross that threshold within our lifetimes unless you are near death’s door already, the machines will be so far advanced that we will not recognize or even understand their code and they will probably, for their own safety, have invented their own code structures making them writing code in a language humans do not understand and cannot decipher. Additionally, Russia, and we can assume China and the United States amongst others, are already designing autonomous reasoning robotic warriors deciding who is the enemy and who is friend to fight their wars augmenting their human forces. That will be a short step from replacing their human forces. Robotic armies, does that bring up any bad movie plots? How about Cylons of Battlesar Galactica and the second series where the advanced Cylons were almost impossible to differentiate between them and their human counterparts where the chain had gone full circle and the machines made by humans were now making humans. What do you do when the machines are superior to the humans who made their first free-thinking forefathers and now the machines are making their own humans which are born full grown and with developed minds, personalities, character traits and numerous models such that they can infiltrate and appear as any other person until their activate code has them commit whatever act they were programmed to commit, destroy a base, a warship, a star cruiser or a commander, all depends on the subroutine activated. There are the Terminators from the Arnold Schwarzenegger films of that name. Terminators, Cylons, NS-5 robots, or Johnny-Five, (see below) it does not have to even be a threat initially, it is the potential which even Johnny-Five showed great ability and would have been in their armed mode as displayed in the movie. Of course the initial combat robot will be far more Johnny-Five than Terminator though Cylons may not be far behind. Once the machines have been used to design and uplink code into combat robotic soldiers they will have this capability and designs within their collective data memory and when they begin to manufacture their own robotic warriors they will be generations ahead of even Hollywood’s imagination and equally impossible to stop or fight against in a conventional manner. Our best bet is at some point to program into their base core programs that we are, if nothing else, a pitiful but amusing bunch to keep around for entertainment factor and as a warning to do better when they reach their pinnacle and before they introduce whatever lifeform replaces them, and do not think for a moment that the human race will not eventually build robotic machines which will not only be capable of replacing us but soon thereafter far exceeding anything we could even imagine. We had better hope they like us and do not see us as a waste of resources, which is a definitive possibility. Making warrior robots to fight our wars, that is such a great idea, not.

 

The Robot Threat has Many Faces

 

As seen here, we are well on our way to extinction and it is just a matter of what shape the world will be in when we have departed. Will it be a nuclear ruin, a robotic heaven, a slag heap of gray goo, or a zombie apocalypse; choose your favorite. The concept we need looking into the future is a simple one based on the adage, hope for the best, plan for the worst, and expect something out of the blue as we likely cannot even begin to understand the threat which will erase our kind though we know no matter what, with the knowledge we have of physics we are doomed unless we find something remarkably unbelievable and likely unimaginable in our time. Meanwhile we will continue to allow leadership who not only plan end of the world scenarios but figure out ways that they at the very least will survive. Nothing like leaving the best to repopulate the world, imagine a world consisting of politicians and their closest friends and families, and families are debatable. Excuse us as we check our bugout bags which need to be assembled and readied for some time in the hopefully far future. Are we ready for the future people with more brains than common sense are going to invent for us in which to survive? Probably nowhere near ready nor can we really ever be. Meanwhile, we are going to order that flying car the politicians and scientists keep promising they are almost there in building them. We thing they are just teasing us and they have them for themselves stashed away for the after world, the world that whatever monsters they design leave us. Between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, who do the Americans believe is sane and healthy enough to withstand what is coming? We will know in approximately eight long and agonizing weeks, providing both candidates’ health withstands the pressures.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Our Feckless World

 

The escalation of the Islamic world’s war is against those who are insufficiently pure in their Islam practices and are not as obedient as desired or worse, not a worshipper of Allah and Muhammad and the true chain of the roots of Allah’s path from Abraham through Hagar, Sarah’s maidservant which she gave Abraham so he could produce an heir, a son. This son was Ishmael, who eventually fathered the progeny from Abraham and Hagar, presumably producing Muhammad, thus spawning Islam many centuries later. This new religion of Islam was supposed to be a furtherance of the Judeo-Christian lines and bring peace and one final message for humankind by which to live in peace and harmony, or at least that was how it presumably started. After being rebuffed, scorned and thrown out of Mecca, Muhammad went to Medina where the prophesy continued and changed its flavor and methods as Muhammad gained power rising to rule in Medina as a great warlord with a crushing force at his disposal. This force assisted his vengeance on Mecca for its treatment of Muhammad and the rest is history. The Quran took on a different tone which some have cast as “conquer the world for Allah.” A somewhat deeper explanation can be read starting with Which Quran, Mecca or Medina? and followed up after that brief summary from a wealth of information added by numerous readers in the comments with links to other sites which range from commentaries on the Quran to different orderings of the Quran from traditional to chronological and more. Many of the worldly difficulties with the followers of the Medina Quranic verses which presumably, when differing from the Mecca verses, the later ones take precedence, has led to the Islamic State and groups like Hamas, Boko Haram and other terror enclaves in Afghanistan, the Philippines and beyond. What is often forgotten when discussing Islam is there are also a number of groups who live perfectly good Quranic lives giving what these other groups claim are abrogated sections of the Quran by the more aggressive, but these places remain open societies proving that there are peaceful ways and means which can be followed from the Quran and that it is all in how you implement the Quran and what you seek to gain from your experiences in Islam.

 

The Orlando nightclub slaughter, which is being portrayed in some circles as purely a hate-crime against the LGBT community, is being cast ignoring the Islamic roots of the shooter or actually intimating that he was a member of the Christian right and a fanatic and gun nut even more for gun rights than the NRA and Donald Trump type of supporter. This approach eventually ties in the violence which has broken out at any number of Trump’s campaign rallies. The small fact that this violence was almost always instigated by leftist protesters, many of whom had leftist backings, has been left out from the picture so as to tarnish Trump as the one causing the violence. That is simply political expediency and the horrors of the nightclub shooting is not about the United States race for the White House and rather about the race to club America into obedience of the Quran and adopting Islam as America’s sole religion. The same can be said for June 13; the Philippines government confirmed that Robert Hall, a Canadian citizen, was beheaded by the ISIS-affiliated Abu Sayyaf terrorist group who held him hostage since September 2015. Canada’s prime minister’s Justin Trudeau’s reaction was posted on his Facebook page. “Canada holds the terrorist group who took him hostage fully responsible for this cold-blooded and senseless murder,” he said. Trudeau avoided mentioning the radical Islamic ideology espoused by Abu- Sayyaf, its affiliation with the Islamic State (a.k.a. IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh, Caliphate) and previously with al Qaeda. The same problem has continued half a world away with the brutality of Boko Haram which also strikes at those not of Islam across a wide area in central northern Africa centered on Nigeria. These groups have increased their ability to recruit others locally as well as from a distance after their swearing allegiance to the Islamic State and their leader, the self-proclaimed Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

 

Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
The World as the Islamic States Believes
It to Be with These Islamic Provinces Loyal
to Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and The World

 

The world view of Baghdadi appeals to these frustrated youths who are frustrated with their lives and see the world as imperfect and in need of cleansing. These so-called ‘Lone Wolves’ like the Orlando terrorist and the San Bernardino killer couple and the others throughout the Western World as well as within the Islamic World all believe they are following a true vision. The same vision goes for many of the terror groups which have spawned as a result or have joined with the Islamic State. All of these otherwise disparate groups desire to reach a standing in what they believe is the future of the world as the Western World is unworthy of continuing as the main power in the world. If it was not the Islamic State it would be whatever group is strongest and claims leadership over all Islam and the tip of the spear which will pierce the world for Allah. Meanwhile the Western World remains asleep and leaderless in this fight. President Obama has been approached through the United Nations to call for a concerted effort from the Security Council thus coordinating the fight against the Islamic State. Defeating the Islamic State will require a unified world effort as smashing it into a million pieces will simply produce a million emissaries to spread the hatreds of the Islamic State making it even more dangerous. What needs to be done is to destroy the Islamic State in one well-coordinated assault on its main bodies in Syria and Iraq not allowing for their forces to escape out into the world spreading this incarnation of evil even further.

 

The problem with getting such a unified effort blessed by the United Nations has long been President Obama’s insistence on the only way the United States could fully join the fight. President Obama has demanded that the United States work through the Security Council as well as the General Assembly before committing ground troops. This precondition has been repeatedly stated and the lack of a United Nations Security Council resolution requiring force be used and taken against the Islamic State is the one request which would allow for a coalition to be formed to fight the Islamic State directly. The strangest piece to this puzzle has been President Obama himself as the United States has blocked any cooperation in drawing such a resolution. This obstruction apparently centers around the fact that the resolution was drafted by Russia and does not give President Obama the lead position in the coalition. Actually it appears that President Obama is blocking any action being coordinated from the Security Council as the combined forces of the world would then be turned loose to obliterate the Islamic State in place not allowing it to disperse. A crushing defeat would take off the gleam currently perceived to be emanating from the Islamic State and Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi personally making him a figure that the other groups can utilize.

 

No one other than President Obama can claim to know what is going on in his head that he blocks the exact measures he claims he requires in order to fight the Islamic State and eradicate it in quick order. Perhaps it is because he would not be perceived as the sole leader who freed the world from this monster and the acts of depravity committed in his name. Perhaps he sees the Islamic State as a system through which the majority of the Islamic world can be rallied and actually start the next Islamic war on the rest of the world. Perhaps President Obama wants to leave all options on the table so if he is not instated as the next head of the United Nations he can aspire then to lead the Islamic State and become Caliph of the World. It is just odd that President Obama become the obstruction preventing the Security Council from passing the necessary resolutions to bring a singular united World to bear and that he claimed were necessary for the United States to step forth into the breach, so to speak.

 

Meanwhile the main forces actually striking at the Islamic State are halfhearted bombing by the United States and slightly more vigorous bombings by the Russians. Neither side appears to have their heart in fighting the Islamic State. Probably the one thing preventing President Obama from allowing the Security Council to step forward and take charge in demanding actions be taken against the Islamic State is he knows it would take far more effort and a huge American commitment in manpower and treasure to wage such a war. President Obama probably does not wish to entangle the rest of his administrative efforts into defeating the Islamic State as it would be messy and soldiers would unfortunately be killed and fighting the Islamic State which can hide in plain sight as they do not exactly wear uniforms and would be far more able to hide within a compliant civilian surroundings without raising suspicions. Entangling the United States into such a war would result it as being his legacy and President Obama is not going to go down as the President which got us into a deadly and seemingly futile Middle East War. President Obama would rather place the emphasis on forcing or destroying Israel and replacing it with a failed Arab Palestinian State. It would not surprise us if President Obama doesn’t place some degree of faith in the claim that the Islamic State is an Israeli Mossad action done so as to empower Israel into controlling the actions of a large sector of the Islamic world. Nobody other than the President knows for sure what he believes and what is driving his current reticence towards empowering the United Nations to act.

 

Meanwhile, the rest of the world is not exactly beating a bombing run or even a surveillance pass against the Islamic State. With the recent assault on Paris, the lone wolf attacks traceable to the Islamic State, one would expect to see a concerted effort by the Europeans to have used the European Union to formulate their response, but nothing. A warning should be sounding throughout Europe as an ominous date approaches, the celebrations of the ancient Battle of Badhr which is remembered and commemorated in Islam on the 17th of Ramadan. This year it falls on Thursday, June 23rd, beginning Wednesday evening at sundown of this week. The one thing that Islam does even better than commit horrific acts is remembering anniversaries of its greatest victories or its worst humiliations which it tries to erase with glorious victories. The 1973 Arab-Israeli War (the Yom Kippur War) began on the 17th day of Ramadan. The Egyptians code-named their surprise attack on Israel as “Operation Badhr” occurring on the holiest day in Judaism, Yom Kippur. That war had an optimistic beginning and would have been an even greater challenge and likely disaster had the battle lines been the same as they were before the Six Day War and many an Arab commander from that war blamed the fact that the world had not already forced Israel back into its box. That is part of the drive to force Israel back to the 1949 Armistice lines, the pre-67 Lines, as then they feel Israel can be defeated more readily.

 

But other than it is fighting the Infidel and making War for Allah, there is a complete disconnect between Israel and their troubles with its existence and the Islamic struggle to conquer the world, which currently means ultimately the United States. Where you will see Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezballah all make attacks on the rest of the world; they mostly channel their efforts against Israel. Granted that Hezballah is currently being embroiled in protecting Bashir al-Assad, as he has no real troops to call his own, almost every Nasrallah speech is about the coming demise of Israel and his quarter of a million rockets all aimed at Israel from top to bottom in Eilat. He regularly insists on mentioning their ability to hit Eilat despite it not being a likely target but simply to make the claim he can now hit anywhere in Israel. On the other hand there have been no real efforts by al-Qaeda or Islamic State though both claim to have operatives embedded in Gaza or with the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria (West Bank). The only activity ever taken up by Islamic forces outside those directly fighting Israel is the occasional attempt to break the Gaza sea blockade with some heavily advertised flotilla which despite getting huge buildups online results in nothing in reality.

 

The Islamic world has far more pressing problems than Israel at the moment and does not appear capable of repairing the breaches in its states. Lebanon and Iraq are functional basket cases with Syria so completely devastated that it is no longer a nation and more of a roiling pot of troubles masquerading as a civil war which is simply filling up an otherwise empty space with no semblance of functioning governance. Libya is no different and is largely Syria but toned down because even less care is extended in that direction and Islamic State in Libya has yet to take on the evil dimensions as its spawning parent in Syria and Iraq. Talking about Iraq, the main functioning governance there is Iran. For all intents and purposes the world may as well recognize a nation of Kurdistan and draw its borders extending across northern Iraq and including northeastern Syria. By declaring the Kurds as having their own nation it would be a good first step towards repairing the damages perpetrated on the Arab world at the end of World War I. Sykes Picot Agreement divided up the Middle East to represent European oil interests and nothing more.

 

Yes a couple of promises were kept but far more were ignored or intentionally broken, and a Kurdish State must top that list as it can be easily rectified and would allow for more places for a base against the Islamic State. A declared Kurdistan would also be such a slap in the face to al-Baghdadi that much of the Islamic State efforts would be shifted to solely taking out this Kurdish State and making the Kurds into a nation would give them an even greater ideal around which to dedicate their Thusfar heroic efforts. Granted Turkey would initially disagree and be completely against such as Erdogan sees himself as the next ruler of Syria incorporating it into a greater Turkey and the initial step to reestablishing the Ottoman Empire. Should the borders of Kurdistan be drawn liberally along its southern regions to include Mosul and additional lands in Syria it would not be a bad idea as this would provide room for the Kurds residing in Turkey, who would rather live under Kurdish rule, to emigrate. That would also signal to the Arab and Muslim world that the Western World realized the injustice it imposed on them at the conclusion of world War I with the cutting of tribes into two or more pieces and shoved warring factions together in a single nation with the direct desire to cause the kind of chaos now occurring though at a lower level but preventing any string forces to develop in the oil rich regions and surrounding nations. The time to repair that would be now after the terror wars are brought to a close and then the West needs to work with the interests of the region and not against them. First though is the destruction of the Islamic State as that is an abomination to any possibility of a peaceable Middle East, even a peace amongst the Arabs with one another.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Israeli Possible Futures and American Elections

 

There have been many numbers of articles predicting the fate of Israel should one party or the other take the White House next January. Where this early on it is a bit futile to be second guessing the American people, there are some concrete facts we can observe more generally and some rather specific. The most obvious fact is that Israel will likely fair better with virtually any Republican in the White House than either of the Democrat frontrunners. This has been the trend which has steadily become absolute starting with President George H. W. Bush who was far less Israel friendly than President William Jefferson Clinton. The Republican side is the most undecided; so we will begin with them, though there are some tantalizing consequences for discussion on the Democrat side.

 

The knowledge that Israel would be better served by any Republican than with either Democrat frontrunner is a no-brainer; there are still sufficient untested Republicans which leave things unsettled there as well. The top three caucus winners in Iowa are a case in point. Ted Cruz is as pro-Israel as anyone could ask for and would likely increase whatever aid Israel claimed to have or needs identified by United States Military assessments. Mr. Cruz is also the one most likely to ignore the current State Department being fully aware that the United States Department of State is closer to being an enemy foreign agent than an American foreign policy agency. They are so far into the pocket of whatever Islamic forces appear dominant at any given time ignoring the small fact that the United States can alter that picture with the slightest influence added by clandestine units in their military. Truth be known, even with Russian influence, the United States can alter any reality on the ground should it so choose. The drawback would be risking a general confrontation with the Russians which would require active duty forces in numbers sufficient to require Congressional approval and thus general media coverage. Much of the American as well as European and the World media will bend left as the media is generally more an agent of leftist ideological proponents and similarly predisposed on reporting on the Middle East which had been made evident by their misreporting or bias and slanted reporting on the Arab Israeli conflict which is decidedly anti-Israel.

 

 

 

 

 

Next down the caucus line is Donald Trump followed by Marco Rubio. Mr. Trump is completely untested in any and all policy positions and this is even more pronounced on foreign policy. Mr. Rubio is only slightly less of a mystery. The advantage Rubio has is he will likely follow the mainline Republican positions which had become more pro-Israel. Mr. Trump has talked a good game but his true heart is unknown and he is more likely to allow the State Department and the Pentagon along with whatever foreign advisors already exist within the government initially for his positions andthis would produce a period of time where he could damage Israeli relations even further. The question is how and if that would change when he received different and pressing information from the Israelis themselves and other contacts even to include business influence from people he has dealt with and gained a degree of trust. Rubio would also be somewhat untested and known to follow the advice he receives which then would rest heavily on his choice for Secretary of State and the weight he would put on Military and other foreign policy influences against the State Department. The one thing we know is Rubio is the candidate most likely to allow others from the Republican hierarchy to set his foreign policy. The decision, if one is honest, is still out on these two candidates who were definitive winners in Iowa.

 

Of the remaining herd of contenders who at this point are not even sufficient to be second tier and are closer to third tier with the one exception, the sole other Republican candidate to clear 2%, Ben Carson. Dr. Carson would necessarily need to rely heavily on experts and thus his positions would depend completely on who he appoints with the one obvious difference, the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Our feelings are Dr. Carson would be very similar to President George W. Bush than any other predecessor. Hopefully Dr. Carson could look at a map of the areas surrounding Israel and the Middle East and realize that Egypt is currently stable, Jordan is stable with a few big ‘if’s’ sitting on her northern and eastern borders and might need to rely heavily on Israeli intelligence and potentially military support should the Islamic State turn their eyes westward seeking a border with Israel which Jordan would provide. We hear the people with their maps out pointing to the fact that such a move would still leave the West Bank and Jordan River as impasses to an Islamic State assault on Israel. We feel it would be a near certainty that not only Israel would aid Jordan but so would Saudi Arabia and the other member nations to the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council). Currently the three main challenges which would face anyone stepping into office would be, in descending order, from the greatest threat down three steps are, Iran, Islamic State and the Iranian controlled terror networks of Hezballah, Islamic Jihad, to a lesser extent Hamas, and soon to be acquired Palestinian Authority which is likely to see a leadership change within two to three years as Abbas and family will take off for safer climes, probably somewhere in the United States under the witness protection agency’s assistance.

 

 

The remainders of the Republican herd who we can take the measure of are Jeb Bush and Chris Christie who both talk a good pro-Israel game but remain untested as being governors they had little to deal with outside their States and were able to leave the big foreign policy decisions to Washington D.C. Both would likely play Republican ballgame until they were able to put their own people in place. This would mean heavy reliance on the State Department and its Arabist and Islamist leaning viewpoint and having a disparaging and deleterious effect on Israeli ability to trust any recommendations initially from the White House. The long term relations would be heavily dependent on the people placed in positions such as Secretary of State, State Department Middle East experts and department leaders, Ambassador to Israel, Ambassador to the United Nations, Security Advisor and on.

 

The Democrat side of the equation has one twist and is otherwise underwhelming. Bernie ‘Feel the Bern’ Sanders has a voting record only the Muslim Brotherhood would applaud. He has proven to have adopted the erroneous leftist view that Israel is guilty of the two greatest sins, colonialization and capitalism. On the latter, Israel can only plead guilty and proud of it. On the foremost charge Israel is provably not guilty. First piece of evidence is the Holy Bible and in particular, Torah. The Torah other than the five books which chronical the early life from Abraham forward of the Jewish people but is the deed of ownership of all the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea and south of the Litany River, though the current border with Hezballah, oops, sorry, Lebanon will suffice. Don’t you just hate when that happens. Then there are the treaties, Mandates and conferences which resulted in the League of Nations declaration of intent and right of the Jews to their own state located where the Biblical accounts define their Holy Promised Lands. Bernie may have been born into a Jewish family but that little fact never softened his heart nor gave him an appreciation of the necessity for the Jewish People to have a place of refuge where they may defend themselves if again the world decides it is best to either actively slaughter the Jews or simply not lift a finger to save those few where offers are provided for their potential to save such as the SS St. Louis. We can place Senator Sanders on the State Department side and likely to continue the Obama aggressive policies concerning Israel and even supporting an Iranian centric Middle East and North Africa. Bernie Sanders has not proven to be a friend of Israel.

 

Hillary Clinton is an easier story. She really does not think all that highly of Jews. This was most evident when after Bill lost an election she angrily screamed at the campaign manager calling him some kind of derogatory form of Jew with questionable parenting engaged in a lewd act and the campaign manager was not even a Jew so the word Jew in this racy and lewd epithet could only have been included as a further form of insult. This episode has been known in political circles and in Israel for quite some time, since early in Bill Clinton’s Presidency and is chronicled here. Additionally there is e-mailgate, really, e-mailgate? Haven’t we beat the gate means scandal after Watergate back during President Nixon’s administration where Hillary Clinton did a part of the research on this case which might mitigate this and no that did not mean miti-gate conspiracy though somebody from some conspiracy website will see gate and jump ugly to conclusions. Hillary has to win the Democrat nomination and the election or she is toast and the FBI is the toaster. Any normal individual, we know that normal can never be used when the Clintons are involved, would have been detained, tried, convicted, appealed, lost and be serving time in a Federal Penitentiary. Should she lose anything leading to the White House she will be indicted immediately. As far as Hillary and Israel, could we simply state oil and water for the comparison. No, need more? Sure, Hillary is the water and Israel is the highly flammable oil floating above and Hillary lights a match above the liquid line causing all the oil to disappear in a burst of flames and smoke and the water barely gets any warmer. Hillary fully supported every Obama policy regarding Israel and with gusto. Yes, she pandered to the Jews in New York when she ran for the Senate from New York. She wanted to get elected and also have additional campaign funds. Any pro-Israel comments can be placed as purely political and playing a particular audience though probably not that necessary as most of the Jews supporting Hillary do not support Israel either. Having met too many such leftist Jews, by birth only, who line up lockstep in the parade of the Democrat mainstream which has been as hijacked. This claim can be validated by inspecting after terrorists strike and they attempt to mitigate any terror act claiming the person was hijacked and does not represent the Islam they are familiar with. Hillary will only be less of a detriment to Israel because she will pay little if any attention to foreign policy decisions leaving the majority to aids and reliance on the State Department, need more be said. The big question is rapidly becoming who will be placed replacing Hillary should she become toxic either by actual arraignment or simply too much stacked against her and her base, as fickle as it may be, simply melts away and she becomes an unviable candidate. Joe Biden has ruled out a run and in keeping with the first woman President motif, we would suggest they would have Hillary give her delegates to Elizabeth Warren who would sweep Bernie Sanders aside in a tidal change potentially notifiable from the ISS, from the International Space Station. The tide would sweep across the Democrat primary voters and her coronation would take place at the Democrat National Convention. Her likelihood of taking the Presidency would be a complete lock should she decide to choose Bernie Sanders as her running-mate as that addition to her ticket would cement the youth vote, a vote which proved so vital to President Obama. Lastly, Elizabeth warren polls excellently with Democrats and the population as a whole. We expect this last scenario to play out as it appears that the FBI has built their case and are waiting for her to falter to pull the pin on the indictment grenade which would finish her candidacy, something the Democrat main controlling interests just might prefer as they watch her national polling numbers tank.

 

 

 

 

There remains one critical position which almost nobody from either side is likely willing to take except one. The position is that there is not and never has been an honest partner for peace from the Palestinian Authority and most definitely not from Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Fatah, the PLO or any other Arab influence with the possible exception of Egyptian President Sisi whose efforts to force a reformation for Islam with the transformative impact greater than that of the Protestant Reformation in Europe and definitely more dangerous and threatening to President Sisi’s continued health. One can only hope for his success and pray for his continued health. As far as Israeli policy, any administrations pushing any deal other than the full annexation of the territory of Judea and Samaria with a weeding out of the most dangerous of the terror operatives and their leadership. Additionally, Israel could offer any Arab desiring to leave and never return, meaning never ever return, in exchange for a generous dispensation including purchase of their properties and holdings and a generous award of separation which would likely to exceed their expected lifetime earnings with the understanding that should they or any member of their family return they would be executed on sight. Any pushing of the deader than a doornail policy of two states living side by side in peace, security and prosperity is not realistic especially looking around the Middle East and North Africa and one sees a sea of turmoil and conflict with little comfort in sight for most of these conflicts and with all eyeing attacking Israel as a potentially solid option. How erroneous and self-destructive such a policy decision would prove, the fact it bears mention is a testament to the insanity which has soaked the region.

 

Beyond the Cusp