“if this endeavor or this activity is of human origin, it will destroy
itself. But if it comes from God, you will not
be able to destroy them.” (Acts 5 33-39)
In support of his case, he cited earlier popular
“messiahs” that had come and gone of their own accord.
Today, when the West is challenged by radical Islam,
Gamaliel’s sage advice rings true.
Leaving the Islamic Middle East alone to work out its issues may be the
most prudent and productive response.
A thumbnail portrait of Middle Eastern history and
quick peek into the probable future will provide useful perspective.
From ancient times up until the 16th
Century, the legendary Silk Road and associated spice trading routes were the commercial arteries through
which Europe obtained precious silks, spices and even opiates. These routes passed through
Persia and the Arabic lands. The Middle
East was prime real estate and its inhabitants prosperous traders.
Fortunes plummeted when Columbus returned from his voyage
to the New World. With the Age of
Discovery, oceanic shipping displaced land based commerce, Thus the Atlantic facing nations including
England, France, Spain and the Netherlands rose to world dominance while the
Middle East and Italy, then the commercial hub of Europe, withered into irrelevance.
However, the invention of the internal combustion
engine coupled with the discovery of Middle Eastern petroleum made the Islamic
desert wastelands a hot commodity again.
Following the First World War, the Western imperial powers assured
themselves of access to Mid-East oil by divvying up the region into client
states ruled by compliant war lords.
From that time onward, imperialist meddling in
Mid-East by Europeans and the U.S. has never ceased. A century of political,
economic and military intervention by Christian, Jewish and secular Westerners has
stoked nationalist and religious resentments alike. This is manifested in the violent “blowback” that Ron Paul and our own CIA has documented.
A look forward validates the Gamaliel strategy. The fracking boom combined with new energy efficient
technologies have broken the Mid-East stranglehold on energy. The world is awash in petroleum and prices
have tanked. Experts estimate that we
have a supply of over 200 years of crude in the ground. My guess is that way before the supply runs out,
the human race will have moved onto new energy technologies and Mid-East
oil will as relevant as Silk Road trade routes in a jet plane world.
As oil income wanes in importance, the region’s
people will seek other livelihoods. This
will require innovation and investment which demands economic and social liberalization. At that point you can kiss radical Islam goodbye unless, it is “from
God” as Gamaliel hedged 2,000 years back.
If it is from God, so be it. But I don’t think so. Meanwhile, Islamists use political, cultural
and emotional
A half century ago, The United States faced a far
more formidable threat from the Soviet Union, a true military super power. At that time Princeton scholar, George Kennan,
recommended a policy of “containment”, diplomatic and economic initiatives to
hem in Stalinist – Soviet expansionism. This
formed the basis of U.S. foreign policy for the next 40 years.
The Marshall plan to rebuild war torn Europe and
Asia was the type of program that he envisioned. This was s patient Gamaliel
approach. Unfortunately, America’s militarists misrepresented Kennan’s intent. They exploited it to justify a massive
military buildup, nuclear proliferation and unceasing armed intervention the
world over.
President Eisenhower, the diplomat/warrior hero of
World War II, perceived the folly of continual proxy wars and runaway military
expansion. He withdrew from the Korean
War and warned his countrymen of the
dangers of the “military industrial” complex in
his presidential farewell speech:
“In the councils of government, we must guard
against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought,
by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of
misplaced power exists and will persist.”
Ultimately, America prevailed in its showdown with
the Soviet Union, because of Gamaliel theory, not armed confrontation. Because Soviet Communism was oppositional to
human nature, it collapsed under its own weight. It was of man, not of God.
Thus the true danger from the Islamist movement
comes not from wild eyed terrorists.
The true danger is how it frightens Americans to surrender their essential
liberties to the military and surveillance state. Long before Ike, America’s
first warrior president foresaw danger of a militarized government:
“a large standing
Army in time of Peace hath ever been considered dangerous to the liberties of a
Country… it could not be done
without great oppression of the people.”
America’s enormous warfare establishment
makes us unsafe by intervening in intractable international conflicts that are
beyond our control and in which we have no moral standing or compelling
interest. Americans are best served by
the Gamaliel strategy of allowing the will of God or nature to take its course,
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