American fighters becoming a Eurasian spectator sport

Submitted by Rick Collins (United States), Oct 15, 2019 at 19:50

It's worth considering that the two continents which rely most on oil, Europe and Asia, are now mum when it comes to saying or doing anything in the Middle East. Since some of Europe's major arms and tech exporters, and China's goals of establishing strong ties in the M.E., are being undermined by the civil wars there, the countries in Eurasia feel a bit grumpy as they quietly sit in the coliseum's grandstands, unwilling and unable to do much.

The U.K. and Germany have had to cut back on trade with Iran due to sanctions - our sanctions, not theirs. They'd be more than happy to trade anywhere. Same with China. Germany, the strongest country in NATO, had no problem allowing Russian gas pipelines into their soil. An no complaints from the other NATO members. Trump actually boosted America's reputation abroad when he called them on it, along with exposing their underpaying for Europe's defense.

But what could be making Europe unhappy the most is that the U.S. is not being undermined and weakened at home from being sucked into more M.E. war zones. As America becomes divided internally, Europe and China become stronger without lifting a finger. They can just watch. And unlike Desert Storm, when our European allies at least stood up and applauded when we made the Persian gulf safe for their oil imports, now they say and do nothing. Nor can they complain about Israel these days, since Trump has also exposed the UN's chronic attacks against the ME's only democracy, in fact the only democracy the Arab countries have ever witnessed in that entire region.

So no more cheer-leading from Europe. They simply shift to climate change as their key focus. And if there's any hint of bad news about our president, whether true, speculative, or simply innuendos, they turn it into headline stories. Just like they do for allegations, true or false, about sexual "misconduct," despite that prostitution and the sex trade of minors is mostly legal or ignored in most of Europe's red-light districts, where hookers stand around like mannequins. The basic philosophy these days, is that whatever makes America less great, makes Europe stronger. It's all relative.

The only really bad news is that regardless of how right or wrong Trump may be on foreign policies, he seems to be the only one who cares, since none of our Democrats running for office seems to know much what happens outside of our borders.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".