Enough of this pessimism. Let’s focus on Greenland, or Disneyland

Al-Qaeda is dead and buried. ISIS is soundly defeated. Iran is on the run, under intense pressure. Or maybe not.

In what Charles Lister, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, calls a “deeply negative” quarterly strategic assessment by the US Department of Defense (DOD), it reported that

ISIS continued its transition from a territory-holding force to an insurgency in Syria and solidified insurgent capabilities in Iraq… ISIS carried out assassinations, suicide attacks, abductions, and arson of crops in both Iraq and Syria. In addition, ISIS established “resurgent cells” in Syria and sought to expand its command and control nodes in Iraq.

Lister says “the DOD was also clear in diagnosing why the ISIS threat remains and why the future prognosis is so concerning: The US has halved its troop numbers in 2019, in line with a presidential directive ordering a partial withdrawal from Syria. At the most pivotal moment in the counter-ISIS campaign, when ISIS had its nose pressed to the wall, the US gave it breathing room.”

But surely we won’t repeat the mistake we made in Syria of pulling out prematurely and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, in, for example, Afghanistan. Will we?

Andrew McCarthy writes in National Review that

the United States of America, the world’s lone superpower, is about to lose a war to the Taliban…. the same ragtag gang of sharia-supremacists that harbored al-Qaeda — its enduring ally — while the terror network slaughtered nearly 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001, the bloodiest attack by a foreign power on our homeland in American history….

The Taliban will soon be ruling Afghanistan again… In recent years, while we were fixated on ISIS, al-Qaeda became stronger, more resilient, and more battle-hardened. When the Taliban retakes control, al-Qaeda will be right back in business… Bluntly, by pulling out of Afghanistan at this moment, we are enabling recreation of the conditions that obtained circa 1998 through 2001. That is when al-Qaeda repeatedly mass-murdered Americans….

President Trump appears stubbornly determined to galvanize his political base for the 2020 campaign by showing that he, unlike Presidents Obama and Bush, knows how to end “endless wars.” To the contrary, it is easy to end an endless war — even more “easy” than winning a trade war. All you have to do is surrender.

Bret Stephens cites one powerful American official who understands the grave risk:

“As a former Army officer, it is gravely concerning to see any president of the United States play politics with critical national security issues,” one conservative lawmaker said in 2011 of Obama’s initial decision to begin a drawdown of US forces. “This decision puts both the lives of American troops and the gains made on the ground in Afghanistan at risk.”

That lawmaker was — who else? — Mike Pompeo. If the secretary has a sense of shame, he might consider apologizing to Obama for adopting the same policy he once so loudly denounced. If he has a sense of honor, he might consider resigning rather than fathering the catastrophe that may soon befall Afghanistan. I’m confident he’ll do neither.

Okay, ISIS, al-Qaeda… bad news, not good at all. But at least Iran is on the way down, right? Well, in Foreign Policy, Steven A. Cook writes how “Iran Owns the Persian Gulf Now:”

The United States has invested great sums in the Middle East over many decades to undertake a few important tasks — notably protecting the sea lines — but this task does not seem to be something the current president believes to be a core American interest. After all, on June 24, President Donald Trump tweeted: “China gets 91% of its Oil from the Straight, Japan 62%, & many other countries likewise. So why are we protecting the shipping lanes for other countries (many years) for zero compensation. All of these countries should be protecting their own ships on what has always been a dangerous journey.”

Anyone who still believes that the United States is going to challenge Iran directly should reread Trump’s tweet. It is more than that, however. It is a harbinger of what is to come in US foreign policy.

The United States is leaving the Persian Gulf. Not this year or next, but there is no doubt that the United States is on its way out… The best evidence of the coming American departure from the region is Washington’s inaction in the face of Iran’s provocations… Leaders in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Manama, and Muscat…. have been worrying about the US commitment to their security for some time and have been hedging against an American departure… by making overtures to China, Russia, Iran, and Turkey.

But enough of this pessimism. Let’s focus on Greenland, or Disneyland.

WISDOM TO LIVE BY A different kind of “parshah sheet” showed up on my table at shul two weeks ago.*

I’m not a great enthusiast of the ubiquitous parshah handouts, but this one does a great service in opening up the thought-world of Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch’s commentary to the Torah in clear and contemporary language. In my mind’s eye, I still see my mother a”h, faithful to her German-Jewish heritage, taking some time on Shabbos afternoon to study Rav Hirsch’s commentary on the parshah.

After learning certain pieces by Rav Hirsch, your heart will simply burst with pride at being a Jew. You will begin to see Klal Yisrael as a nation, one embarked on a great and holy mission in this world, and yourself as an indispensable member of that nation. It’s no wonder he cultivated a flourishing kehillah of Jews who were ethically ramrod straight and imbued with deep yiras Shamayim.

His works set forth a cohesive, compelling case for the veracity and utter uniqueness of Torah and the system of mitzvos, of the Jewish People and its history. It all emerges, fully formed, from a deeply incisive reading of the words of Tanach, as filtered through the lens of the baalei hamesorah.

I’ve long felt that nowadays we truly need what Rav Hirsch offers, making it unfortunate his writings aren’t more widely studied (including by me). Here’s an example of why: In Devarim (4:6), Moshe says, “So guard and fulfill [the mitzvos] for that is your wisdom and insight in the eyes of the nations, who will hear these chukim and say, ‘It is after all a wise and understanding people….’ ”

This raises two questions: Why are all the mitzvos called chukim, the term for laws without revealed reasons? And aren’t chukim the kind of mitzvos that are least likely to make non-Jews admire us for our wisdom?

In briefest summary, Rav Hirsch explains that all the mitzvos are called chukim here because they are immutable, unlike man-made laws that change with society’s whims. Human societies form and only then make laws to suit them, whereas Am Yisrael first became a nation by submitting to a preexisting Divine Torah.

And so, even in advanced Western societies, a procedure that society once regarded as akin to murder can become, 30 years later, a sacred right. Can its members ever pass laws — ones its citizens can be asked to defend with their lives — confident they won’t one day be looked upon as despicably immoral?

No, and they know it. And they know the Jews are different — a uniquely “wise and understanding people” — because our mitzvos are different. They’re chukim, unchanging, given by G-d. Instead of retrofitting our morals to suit our desires, we stretch high to try to attain G-d’s Divinely ordained ones.

Nowadays, the phrase “mi k’amcha Yisrael” is much bandied about, and perhaps overused for every instance when a good deed is done (even when, honestly speaking, non-Jews would do the same). But as rendered by Rav Hirsch, the Torah conveys a different version of “mi k’amcha Yisrael” — one even non-Jews will proclaim — that measures our greatness by the fact that we have a Torah with such high, fixed standards.

Perhaps that message is out of step with the kind of therapeutic culture we live in these days, one we might call “all chizuk, all the time.” In truth, Rav Hirsch, too, provides boundless chizuk, but it’s based on expectations rather than validation. Rather than patting us on the back for what we already are, it hoists us up to reach for what Hashem wants us to become.

* Full disclosure: Although anonymous (a “sheet lo noda l’mi”), it was the work of a son-in-law.

Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 775. Eytan Kobre may be contacted directly at kobre@mishpacha.com