Frank's Musings

All recorded history has chronicled contrasting systems of belief adopted by human groups—religious, ideological, political.  When they are used to justify the personal ambitions of a compelling individual or interest group, they usually become uncompromising Manichean (dualist) philosophies.

It is tempting to think that in the absence of that compelling individual or interest group different belief systems could coexist peacefully.  Removal of a manipulator of collective will is never easy.  Both Israelis and Iranians are paralyzed by their faiths from resisting the ultimately self-destructive policies of their leaders.  Hamas and Hezbollah both can only be defanged by empowering Iranians to moderate the mullahs.  Likewise, external pressure must be applied to the Israeli government to redirect the IDF to defending Israel’s UN borders with a Palestinian state instead of staking a claim from the river to the sea.    

A joint U.S., European, and Arab intervention under UN auspices will be necessary to accomplish these goals.  Interrupting the course of history in this way will be costly and hard to sell to the powers behind all these jurisdictions.  Not doing so, however, only prolongs the cycle of “war, timeout” that Friedman outlined in the 6/18/2024 NYT.