Q: WHAT DO "BREXIT" AND THE "ABRAHAM ACCORDS" HAVE IN COMMON?

A:  BORDER ISSUES, SOVEREIGNTY ISSUES, TRADE ISSUES, CULTURAL ISSUES,  EXISTENTIAL ISSUES... ALL OF THESE ISSUES IN THE CONTEXT OF AN AMERICAN POLITICAL TRANSITION TO A BIDEN/HARRIS ADMINISTRATION AND THEREFORE TO ALL THAT SUCH A TRANSITION MAY MEAN IN TERMS OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE, ALIGNMENTS OF SOVEREIGNTY, CULTURE, POWER, AND EXISTENCE.

 

  

 

Modern American History (that is, the history of the North American and South American Continents commencing with the European Invasions of the Americas) is perhaps defined by the recent period of seven-centuries since the "discovery" of the New World by Non-Native Americans. 

This reality stands in marked contrast to the familiarity of the European, African, Indian, and Asian Continents with each other, having engaged each other for thousands of years in every kind of human relationship possible (e.g. culture, politics, trade, war, etc.).

While Israel (in and out of power and sovereignty) has been at the center of the Middle East for greater than three-thousand years, the North Atlantic Island Nations of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland (most recently by those names, and with significant variations of culture and nations) have been central to the North Atlantic and therefore to Europe and Scandinavia, also for thousands of years. 

The North Atlantic Island Nations and Israel have in common their central roles in culture and trade as well as war and politics.  The historic Silk Road connecting China and Southeast Asia to Central Asia, India, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe consisted of many river, land, and sea routes; the New Silk Road seeks to modernize the historic Silk Road, representing a return of power from Europe to China.

It should surprise no one that the North Atlantic Island Nations and Israel are both at the stress centers of shifting power alliances.  Peoples with far more in common than naught are caught up in webs of power politics extending far into the past, and those webs of power politics are being fought in the New World today, even as those battles rage in the Old World.

At risk in the present are two distinct possibilities: that the peace existing between Ireland and England may be undone, and that the budding peace between Israel and multiple Arab nations may be undone.

Far more than the COVID-19 Pandemic, it is economic inequality, food inequality, healthcare inequality, racial inequity, and environmental disasters and destruction that will define the Biden/Harris Administration, such that the reputation of the New Administration may depend as precursor upon the foundations and consequences of foreign policy (which is not to say that the domestic issues are trivial; but, that the New Administration's focus, attention, and budgetary concerns dare not be so radicalized or reversed as to rip focus, attention, and budgetary concerns away from the present historical foreign policy achievements and advances of the Trump Administration.

When Joe Biden says, "America's back," chills should race up and down our spines, much like the chills that once again run up and down the spines of the two Irelands and Israel.  The imminent "hard and soft borders" (or, 'spine') dividing Ireland from Northern Ireland and therefore Britain is analogous to the 1967 "hard and soft borders" ('spine') dividing the various Arabias from Israel. 

Perhaps the Abraham Accords have something to teach Britain and Europe about a way forward beyond the stuck politics that the present EU-England negotiations suffer; perhaps Israel can assist the two Irelands and England to create a solution that will work for Ireland, Scotland, England and the EU; and perhaps in doing so, then the Abraham Accords may additionally be strengthened by lessons learned from the two Irelands and Britain.

Given that Joe Biden is himself Irish, there is an opportunity for Israel and the two Irelands to work together through Joe Biden, perhaps according to the working model of the Abraham Accords, to encourage the further growth of peace simultaneously in the North Atlantic and in the Middle East.  Success at these two central geopolitical faults may do much to ripple outwardly and generate equilibrium internationally all the way to the South China Sea.

PRESIDENT-ELECT BIDEN SHOULD SEEK TO SERVE THE U.S.A. IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF GEORGE WASHINGTON.

 

It is urgent and necessary that President-elect Biden speak clearly and forcefully that he will neither weaken, nor roll back, and will in fact strengthen and advance the Middle East peace initiatives set in motion by the Trump Administration. 

 

 

 

Given present equivocations by Sudan, Bahrain, Jordan, and given instability in hardline Iran, the momentum to Middle East peace initiated by the Trump Administration is under threat to collapse, for Arabia may anticipate that a President Biden may intend to kow-tow to the European Union, Iran, and China.

 

A transfer of power is already reality in Iran from father Mullah Khameini to son. Transition politics in Iran may or may not destabilize Iran, for better or for worse.  Meanwhile, Bahrain is feeling pressure from the world of fundamentalist Islamism, as indeed are any and all Muslim and EU nations on the verge of peaceful relations with the USA and Israel, due to the new potential US weakness regarding Iran that may unravel the growing tapestry of peace being woven across the world of Sunni Islam (and even Alawi Islam) with a thread binding the US and Israel (and inevitably the EU).  Shall President Biden be like a cat granted privilege to play with a ball of yarn?  Or, shall President Biden follow the model leadership of a George Washington?

 

There are only four reasons for a Biden Administration to deliberately fail to uphold and to strengthen the Middle East foreign policy initiatives of the Trump Administration: 

 

(a) if Biden's Administration is deliberately incompetent; 

 

(b) if Biden's foreign policy approach proves to be based on appeasement and conciliation; 

 

(c) if Biden's foreign policy approach proves to be based on financial dealings and obligations to his supporters and donors; or, 

 

(d) any and all of the above.  

 

In less kind words: it may well be that President-elect Biden is in bed with the enemy and is perhaps also in the pocket of the enemy.

 

There are two very good reasons for a Biden Administration to speak out now to reassure the world that he will neither unravel nor fail to continue to weave the Middle East peace tapestry sewn by the Trump Administration: 

 

(1) it is necessary for the stability and progress of the Middle East and therefore of the entire World, as the Middle East is the fulcrum of four major continents (Europe, Africa, India, and Asia); and, 

 

(b) it is necessary for the stability and progress of the USA, as the USA is the fulcrum of the North and South American continents.  

 

Just as the USA faces the domestic crises of pandemic, economic inequality, racial hatred, and climate change, so, too, does the entire World.  

 

Knowing what we now know of history prior to World War Two, could we and would we in the US try Woodrow Wilson for treason, based on the destructive and portentious reality of the Versailles Treaty? And could and would Britain try Lord Chamberlain for treason, due to his appeasement of the Nazis?

 

What will future history say of the yet tentative Biden Administration?  Will President Biden prove to be a Woodrow Wilson/Lord Chamberlain?  Or, will President Biden prove to be a George Washington?