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The Coming World Disorder

(Wall Street Journal) Charles Hill - The ideology of Islamism has been on the rise for generations and now aims to expropriate the Arab Spring. The ambitions of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and Sunni fanaticism are transmogrifying into a major religious war. Israel faces a threat from Iran, as today's international structures for the maintenance of international security have failed to halt Iran's drive, propelled by religious ideology, to possess nuclear weapons. Israel, bereft of its traditional sense of American support, is making ready to act against Iran's menace to its existence. President Obama's priority must [be to] repair relations with Israel by visiting the Jewish state and convincing its leaders that the U.S. understands Israel's uniquely dangerous position. America, perceived as eager to shed the burdens of world order in order to be "fundamentally transformed" through European-style social commitments, talks of engagement even when Iran's "diplomacy" is a form of protracted warfare. The enemies of world order translate the American election results into the lexicon of abdication, telling themselves that their time has come: there is a world to be gained. Only America's return to world leadership can halt this deterioration. "Sequestration" will relegate the U.S. to a second-rate power and must be reversed to enable American strength and diplomacy to be employed in tandem. Prof. Charles Hill, a career foreign service officer, is the Diplomat-in-Residence and a lecturer in International Studies at Yale University.
2012-12-07 00:00:00
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