U.S.-Israeli Relations and the Problem with Domino Theories and Utopias

"If there were dreams to sell, what would you buy?"

Like bloodthirsty vultures circling overhead above the regional and global Israeli-Syrian Crisis, domino theories and utopian ideologies are again ready to pounce on and gorge themselves with their next victims. Whereas the United States has always internalized a particular domino theory, the utopian visions of Americanization and Zionism are being violently sanctioned and divinely ordained through naked acts of aggression. But as domino theories and utopian states end in ruin, eventually, so too may Israel.

Israel's illegitimate air strikes targeting missiles in Syria has once more declared to the world it will use violent means to attain and maintain an ideal Jewish State, one situated in the midst of numerous Arab and Islamic nations. Just like previous military interventions that targeted weapons and nuclear facilities in both Iraq and Syria, or attacking Palestinian civilian populations in order to demoralize them, the Jewish State's recent acts of aggression is another ritual, another divine ceremonial performance.

Ritualistic utopian leaders, that try and maintain an appearance of a pure and perfect ideal society, must always hide and mask the grim realities of killing and dying. By evoking followers to die for an illusion, even a higher power, human reality is discounted. When utopian visions and states are internalized, there can no longer exist differing opinions nor alternate realities. People can only believe what they already know. Israel's more dire economic and political needs are again frustrated through a constant state of war.

For the U.S., one domino theory has replaced another one. King George III, during the American Revolution, warned that if the Anglo-Saxon colonists won their independence, then, "the West Indies must follow them...Ireland would soon follow the same plan...and this island would be reduced to itself and would soon be a poor island indeed." This same epigenetic concept was used as genocidal justification in eliminating Native Americans. It was an excuse to expand and build spacious defensive buffer states and overseas colonies.

The domino theory was also used against Communist Russia and the Soviet Union, including dozens of popular and sovereign movements around the world. General Douglas MacArthur claimed that if South Korea fell to communism, so too would all of Europe. The same pretext was used to defend a colony in Indochina: South Vietnam. America's utopian vision and domino theory assassinated Ngo Dihn Diem, South Vietnam's president. It rid Cambodia of Prince Norodom Sihanouk and then Lon Nol.

The blood bath never occurred in Saigon, as predicted by U.S. experts. Neither did the U.S. fall to communism. Instead, and with U.S. arms, a covert war, and a military coup, mass genocide occurred in Cambodia. Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge, just like the U.S., found meaning and security in a utopian vision, in an ideal society. They too attempted to purify their world, Cambodia, of impediments to their ultimate aims and goals. All obstacles, including two million people, were eventually tortured and exterminated.

President Barack Obama recently announced that he was very concerned about Syria becoming an enclave for extremism, "because extremists thrives in chaos." He insists, as does U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, that Bashar Al Assad must be disposed of, recognizing that when that happens Syria would not be "put back together perfectly." Half-hazard and experimental utopians, which impose their illiberal policies and risk security for irresponsible wars, are dangerous. They are the real "enclaves of terrorism."

For decades, Americanization and Zionism have destabilized Islamic nations, pitting Arab states against each other. But since the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution, Islamism, along with Islamic-oriented political parties and economies, have spread to neighboring countries and throughout Africa and the Middle East. America's utopian vision and neo-domino theory, policies that tried to aggressively contain Islamic republics, have failed miserably. Anti-Americanist and anti-Zionist states and political parties have spread.

Unrealistic policies and violent-based utopians always results in irrational histories and unreasonable hatreds. It prevents states from recognizing their own inadequacies and shortcomings, their own ethnocentric and selfish impediments. Utopian ideologues and domino theories eventually produce a kind of superiority mindset. Perpetrators conjure up violent and self-justifying acts while producing self-contempt towards victims, or those who believe differently or express themselves in various ways.

Utopian illiberal states and dreamers are just as violent and war-like as any other system and ideologue. Both are "messy," as a former U.S. defense minister claimed. And domino theories backfire, as happened in Cambodia and Pol Pot's killing fields. As the U.S. arms and trains ($510 million) Syrian rebels in Jordan-even allying with al-Qaeda, as it sends more weaponry to Israel, and as it tries to counter Islamism by destabilizing governments, the Jewish state may someday regret being caught up in neo-dominoisms and utopians.

Dallas Darling (darling@wn.com)

(Dallas Darling is the author of Politics 501: An A-Z Reading on Conscientious Political Thought and Action, Some Nations Above God: 52 Weekly Reflections On Modern-Day Imperialism, Militarism, And Consumerism in the Context of John's Apocalyptic Vision, and The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace. He is a correspondent for www.worldnews.com. You can read more of Dallas' writings at www.beverlydarling.com and wn.com//dallasdarling.)

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