Strategist Warns of Nationalistic Arab Rage Turning Against Israel

One strategist argued in a FoxNews piece, Wednesday, that in the wake of “eMageddon” uprisings threatening to engulf the Arab world, desperate rulers may seek their own survival by refocusing the rage of their citizenry against a common, much hated enemy: Israel. This does seem likely. After all, as the old adage goes, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

Moreover, the economic uncertainty in the US and rest of the western world makes it unlikely America or her allies will be able to offer much of a deterrence to an all-out Arab “Holy War” against Israel. Therefore, emboldened by their fear of popular uprisings within their own borders and undaunted by fear of Western retaliation, Middle Eastern leaders are more likely than ever to attempt the unthinkable: the annihilation of the Jewish state.

One thing seems certain: the past is a poor indicator of the future. Last year’s accepted diplomatic and political doctrines will be useless in the new political realities of 2011… much less 2012. Not only does the writer of the FoxNews article call for a shift in US Middle Eastern policy, he proposes the deployment of a “significant multinational presence”, i.e., an invasion force to keep a lid on chaos and protect the flow of cheap oil for Western markets (anything under $200 per barrel may sometime soon seem like the “good ol’ days”).

In May 2009 I blogged about a shift in Russian foreign policy with potential implications for a military grab at Middle Eastern oil reserves. Earlier that same year, I wrote about the possibility for new economic realities to render the US impotent as a deterrent to future Russian empire-building in the Middle East. No one can predict what will come of all this. No one could have predicted even 6 months ago what the world has witnessed in the past 8 weeks.  The past is a poor indicator of the future, except in this sense: the future is likely to be at least as unpredictable and chaotic as the recent past.

" "Thus says the Lord GOD: On that day, thoughts will come into your mind, and you will devise an evil scheme  11 and say, ‘I will go up against the land of unwalled villages. I will fall upon the quiet people who dwell securely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having no bars or gates,’  12 to seize spoil and carry off plunder, to turn your hand against the waste places that are now inhabited, and the people who were gathered from the nations, who have acquired livestock and goods, who dwell at the center of the earth.  13 Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish and all its leaders will say to you, ‘Have you come to seize spoil? Have you assembled your hosts to carry off plunder, to carry away silver and gold, to take away livestock and goods, to seize great spoil?’  14 "Therefore, son of man, prophesy, and say to Gog, Thus says the Lord GOD: On that day when my people Israel are dwelling securely, will you not know it?  15 You will come from your place out of the uttermost parts of the north, you and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great host, a mighty army.  16 You will come up against my people Israel, like a cloud covering the land. In the latter days I will bring you against my land, that the nations may know me, when through you, O Gog, I vindicate my holiness before their eyes."  (Eze 38:10-16 ESV)