I owe Hilary Clinton an apology.
For some time, I had agreed with those who blamed the
consequences of the so-called Arab Spring on her policies and support of the
revolutions in various nations of the Middle East, such as Libya, Egypt, Syria
and so forth. And certainly she did make statements about the promise of the
Arab Spring, and advocate engaging, encouraging, and standing with those who
were rejecting the existing governments and demanding reforms.
Current events would suggest strongly that this movement has
failed. Syria and Libya, at the very least, could be described as failed states
or ungovernable anarchies. Iraq is headed that direction. Egypt seems stable
largely because the Egyptian military ousted the democratically elected
president, Mohamed Morsi. The rise of ISIS, and the international spread of its
ideology and terrorist practices are the latest chapter in the spread of
fundamentally uncivilized (or perhaps anti-civilization) ethos.
To trace cause and effect, one might go back to John F.
Kennedy’s speech to the United Nations on September 25, 1961 in which, in the
context of terrorism, he said,
And it is in the light of that history
that every nation today should know, be he friend or foe, that the United
States has both the will and the weapons to join free men in standing up to
their responsibilities.
Hilary Clinton may well have had that in mind when she spoke
to the Center for Strategic and International Studies on October 12, 2012, when
she said (as one example).
We stand with the Egyptian people in
their quest for universal freedoms and protections, Egypt's international
standing does depend both on peaceful relations with its neighbors and also on
the choices it makes at home and whether or not it fulfills its own promises to
its own people.
Wonderful aspirations. What went wrong?
I believe the reason this all came crumbling down, and the
reason I owe Mrs. Clinton an apology, is that the cause of the failure of these
policies is not ignorance or misinterpretation of events on the world scene.
The problem is the general failure to recognize the fundamental driving forces
behind the unrest in the Middle East: the spiritual forces of darkness that
seek to destroy all that is good and right and just, who are stirring up
worldwide rebellion under false pretenses. Mrs. Clinton could not possibly have
understood that, and even if she had, it is not in the power of the U.S.
Government, or any other government, to respond effectively to it.
We often romanticize that the U.S. revolution is a prototype
for throwing off the chains of tyranny and establishing a democratic government
in a nation of free people. But in fact, this is a rare, almost unique outcome
of revolutions. It certainly didn’t happen in the French Revolution a few years
later – they got the Reign of Terror, and eventually Napoleon. Clarence Crane
Brinton offered one perspective on this, (Anatomy of a Revolution), but
the most straightforward explanation can be found in Peter Marshall’s The
Light and the Glory.
Few are willing to accept this, but the words of our
founding fathers very strongly suggests that it was the widespread
evangelization and conversion to Christianity from the time of the First Great
Awakening until the American Revolution that gave the people residing the these
United States the moral and philosophical basis for the U.S. Constitution and
the various state governments. Imperfect though they were, the unique linking
of rights and responsibilities to the average citizen, a shared consensus on
how political decisions could be made peacefully, and how people could live
together with disagreements, only arose out of the values of the Christian
gospel, accepted and practiced.
There is no real possibility that nations lacking this
heritage can establish such a government. If we are looking for a way to bring
political reform to those nations of the world still under tyranny, our first
priority must be to bring them the gospel. The entire teaching of Christianity begins
with the saving of souls as a necessary first step. But it must be followed by
the building of the Kingdom of God within communities of people that does not
depend on governments for its existence, nor pretend to be a government.
I can’t blame Hilary Clinton for not recognizing this. I
have heard no other politician make any references to the root cause of our
present worldwide turmoil. And I couldn't expect her to. I am sorry.
