Lacking US leadership, the world is devolving into turmoil. The is an old saying that I'll butcher but goes something like: "When a butterfly flaps its wings in asia, Florida feels a hurricane." It is designed to demonstrate figuratively that small events around the world have seemingly unconnected but serious effects globally.
When the US economy took a downturn, it wasn't an isolated event, but the impact of a global economic downturn. Political slogans blamed the President, but the reality is the recession had been staved off for years, despite international unemployment rates in 2004 that were higher than the US has seen in years.
The Democracy Tide peaked in 2009 when hundreds of thousands of Persians peacefully risked death to protest the tyranny of Iranian Islamism, in the wake of a patently fraudulent election there. Iran had to recall its Hamas thugs in order to put it down, violently, protests that even the Iranian Revolutionary Guard would not stop. Democracy had seen 8 years of American leadership willing to protect the will of the people and to stand up against tyranny. In 2009, there was not even a weak condemnation of the brutal tyrannical violence against peaceful protesters.
The tide has turned against democracy and for communists and islamists, for tyranny.
What is fueling this wave of violent protests? Is there an international conspiracy to undermine democracy? The one thing all of these nations have in common is that they are not particularly friendly to Iran, but that does not mean the protesters are Islamists. For that matter, the Iranian protesters of 1978 were not Islamists either. They were pro-democracy protesters, whose efforts were usurped by an Islamist.
The mobs of Tunisia, of Egypt, of Thailand are not likely protesting for a government more tyrannical than their current. Unfortunately, that could very well be what they get. The people of Cuba did not lobby for a communist tyranny. It's simply what they got when they pushed for a replacement to the least corrupt, but morally bankrupt leader they had ever had in 1958. The people of Venezuela were not voting for an end to democracy when they put Chavez in power, but it is what they got.
No, the people do not riot for tyranny. They generally have valid complaints of some type and economics have a tendency to afford greater numbers to protests. Unfortunately, tyrants will capitalize on that valid discontent in order to establish their power.
In 2003, tyrants were doing everything in their power to stay off the radar of the United States. As they watched their heroes fall, they feared they'd be next. Libya voluntarily gave up their WMD program. Liberia's Charles Taylor needed only the threat of 2 ships worth of Marines off his coast to know W meant what he said: "Charles Taylor must go." And go he did. Diplomatic solutions have rarely been so effective, as in those days that the paper tiger had come to life.
Even Iran was quiet, very quiet in those days. We heard hardly a peep out of Hamas or Hezbollah, no doubt on the orders of Tehran. When they errantly killed an American, they couldn't apologize fast enough.
Since 2009, our "leadership" has gone on a worldwide apology tour. The POTUS has attacked the leaders of Our Allies: Egypt, Israel, Afghanistan, even Pakistan, while coddling our enemies: Iran, North Korea, China, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria.
What could have been his Berlin Wall moment turned into his Sputnik moment. Iran has always been the center of gravity of terrorism, since 1979. It would have taken barely a strong whisper to push the Iranian Tyranny off the wall, not with military force, but under the weight of the Persian People who were looking for just a hint that the world was behind them.
His Cairo speech was above all a green light to Islamists, that he would no longer oppose them. It was a gauntlet thrown down to Karzai, and to Israel, that he would not fight for them.
Not since Mubarrak became convinced that Clinton himself had approved the Iranian/Al-Qaeda backed assassination attempt on him in Ethiopia, had our allies been so sure that America had no intent to protect democracies against tyrannical Islamists.
Meanwhile, the enemy is as strong in Pakistan as it ever has been. It's rebuilding in Iraq and spreading in Yemen, North Africa, East Africa, and spring up in West Africa. London is a hotbed for it and France and Spain have seen its nastiness. The War On Terrorism is far from lost, but the tide is not rising on the side of democracy. The momentum has turned against us, solely because our leadership has given up the initiative.
