I greatly enjoyed the movie “Crazy Rich Asians” because, beyond the many laugh lines, it reminded me of an important point: Rich Asia has gotten really rich – not because it doesn’t have political, tribal, ethnic and religious differences like other regions, but because in more places on more days it learned to set those differences aside and focus on building the real foundations of sustainable wealth: education, trade, infrastructure, human capital and, in the most successful places, the rule of law.
It got me thinking that if someone were to do a similar movie about the Middle East it could be called “Crazy Poor Middle Easterners.” Because, with a few exceptions, that region has never been a bigger mess.
Now President Donald Trump says he wants to get out of the Middle East. But America’s real choices there are not stay or go, but be smart or dumb. And Trump has been dumb. He’s subcontracted order-making there to our allies Israel and Saudi Arabia and his pal Vladimir Putin. So now Trump is getting a lesson in what happens when America writes blank checks to allies and pals – who share some of our interests but also have extreme impulses of their own – and abdicates real diplomatic leadership.
Let’s go to the videotape. Iran has far overstretched itself, extending its malign military and religious influence into Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, where it has reportedly partnered with the Alawite/Shiite regime of Bashar Assad.
Israel’s prime minister has smartly built a relationship with Putin over the last three years to ensure that Israel’s air force can operate against Iran in Syria and that Russia keeps the Iranians away from the Israeli border. But even with that, and even though the Israelis have so penetrated Iranian units that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards land supply planes full of missiles in Damascus at 6 p.m. and Israel blows them up by 8 p.m. – the Iranians keep trying to turn Syria into a forward missile base against Israel.