Will Americans Learn What Israelis Already Know?

To the Editor:

Walter Russell Mead’s scathing op-ed “Can Biden Correct Obama’s Mideast Errors?” (July 16) makes an oft-neglected point that U.S. politicians and advisers must absorb: Their liberal bromides, brewed up by human-rights and anti-Israel activists, are increasingly despised in the region itself.

Instead of lecturing Israelis, Saudis and others, know-it-all U.S. policy makers should start learning from them.

“Arabs and Israelis alike remember the serial failures of the Obama administration,” writes Mr. Mead. They wondered, as the Biden administration dug in, “if the days of condescension and arrogance had returned.”

Mr. Mead is right. It is time for know-it-all U.S. policy makers to recognize the Democrats’ terrible record from Libya and Egypt to Syria and Iran and culminating in Afghanistan. Instead of lecturing Israelis, Saudis and others, they should start learning from them and their bitter experiences. Maybe then the U.S. can again develop worthy policies.

Daniel Pipes (DanielPipes.org, @DanielPipes) is president of the Middle East Forum.

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Israel & Zionism US policy

Daniel Pipes

Daniel Pipes, a historian, has led the Middle East Forum since its founding in 1994. He taught at Chicago, Harvard, Pepperdine, and the U.S. Naval War College. He served in five U.S. administrations, received two presidential appointments, and testified before many congressional committees. The author of 16 books on the Middle East, Islam, and other topics, Mr. Pipes writes a column for the Washington Times and the Spectator; his work has been translated into 39 languages. DanielPipes.org contains an archive of his writings and media appearances; he tweets at @DanielPipes. He received both his A.B. and Ph.D. from Harvard. The Washington Post deems him “perhaps the most prominent U.S. scholar on radical Islam.” Al-Qaeda invited Mr. Pipes to convert and Edward Said called him an “Orientalist.”