While many pundits lament the fact that the Obama/Kerry foreign policy is timid, confused, and easily intimidated by strongmen like Vladimir Putin, I submit that it is best compared to a mediocre schoolyard bully.
A mediocre bully is the weak kid who attempts to project strength by picking on those weaker than him. He spews all sorts of threats (i.e., sets “red lines”), but he immediately backs down when a bigger bully shows up.
Why? The mediocre bully knows he’s no match for the stronger one, so he avoids going “mano a mano” with him.
A perfect example of that is when the U.S. State Department’s Marie Harf recently reacted to the decision by an independent Egyptian court to sentence 529 criminals and terrorists to death. Ms. Harf described the decision as “unconscionable” and threatened that the sentence would impact future American aid.
Unfortunately, it’s all too easy for the State Department to forget what those terrorists did:
And as the Muslim Brotherhood rained down its persecution on Christians, all that one heard from the White House and the State Department was a deafening silence.
Those criminals got their day in court—a privilege the victims never enjoyed. Then, when the case appeared to be open-and-shut, the defendants’ lawyers decided to boycott the proceedings—a move designed to solicit protests from the U.S. government once the sentence was handed down.
With such strong Islamist-friendly elements within the Obama Administration, it was hardly surprising when the schoolyard bully in the form of the State Department announced that the verdict and sentence “represents a flagrant disregard for basic standards of justice.”
Really? What did we do when Zacarias Moussaoui was indicted as a co-conspirator in the September 11th attack and then refused the aid of a lawyer? The trial went on. No one questioned the court’s verdict and sentence.
To be sure, no country offers the leniency and patience of the American justice system. But our system would not waver in the slightest if lawyers boycotted its proceedings. It is deaf to such ingenuous protests, and we should be equally deaf to the berating comments of a mediocre bully that has been hoodwinked by the trickery of the guilty.
As a lover of the real America, the Obama/Kerry foreign policy breaks my heart. It is unrepresentative of the American heartland. But ultimately God’s judgment will fall on all bullies—the strong and the mediocre—and maybe sooner than we think. Being mediocre at mistreatment hardly makes one innocent.
Until then, however, we must pray for the persecuted innocents who suffered under the Muslim Brotherhood, and those who continue to suffer throughout the Middle East today.