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" American Presidential elections are fun partly because they&amp;#039;re a contest to see who gets to play the lead actor in the soap opera of America, but also because they&amp;#039;re extended games in which we get to see who says the stupidest thing over the course of eighteen months. Obviously, at the moment, Donald Trump is out in front, with a prohibitive lead, but Mike Huckabee is threatening to catch up. &amp;quot;This president&amp;#039;s foreign policy is the most feckless in American history,&amp;quot; Huckabee told the Breitbart News Saturday. &amp;quot;He&amp;#039;s so naive he would trust the Iranians and he would take the Israelis and basically march them to the door of the oven. This is the most idiot thing.&amp;quot; Actually the most idiot thing is Mike Huckabee&amp;#039;s remarks. There exists a rare confluence of stupidities in American public life right at the moment: A widespread discussion of the Middle East and an election campaign. That coincidence means we get to find out just how stupid Americans, and their politicians, can be when it comes to the Middle East.\u00A0 Huckabee&amp;#039;s remarks earned quick censure from both left and right. &amp;quot;The use of that kind of language is just wrong,&amp;quot; Jeb Bush said during a campaign stop in Orlando. &amp;quot;This is not the way we&amp;#039;re going to win elections and that&amp;#039;s not how we&amp;#039;re going to solve problems. So, unfortunate remark \u2014 not quite sure why he felt compelled to say it.&amp;quot; Obama, in Africa, let his outrage flow: &amp;quot;The particular comments of Mr. Huckabee are just part of a general pattern we&amp;#039;ve seen that would be considered ridiculous if it weren&amp;#039;t so sad.&amp;quot;\u00A0Notice how petty both of their criticisms are. They worry not so much about mass murder as about the tone of Republican politics.\u00A0 Neither Bush nor Obama pointed out the worst thing about Huckabee&amp;#039;s comment--his assumption that America could lead the Jews to the ovens. Republicans in particular seem to feel that the state of the world is mainly a reflection of domestic political decisions. But the whole point of Israel, its reason for existence, is its control over its own destiny. Nobody gets to decide if or when Jews goes to the ovens. America doesn&amp;#039;t lead them anywhere.\u00A0 Israel&amp;#039;s relationship to the United States, in general, has reached a maximum state of &amp;quot;with friends like these who need enemies.&amp;quot; Conservatives are often deeply ignorant of the basic facts of the region, as in the case of Ted Cruz who recently was booed at a meeting of Middle Eastern Christians when he urged them to support Israel, and in the case of Mike Huckabee who doesn&amp;#039;t seem to recognize that Israel has its own destiny.\u00A0 The United States, in the Iranian deal, is back in the fixing-the-Middle-East business, and this time promises to be every bit as helpful and positive as every other American involvement in the region. At least the Obama administration has kept expectations to a minimum. All they have promised is no nuclear weapons in the region for a decade, in exchange for allowing massive resources to flow into the coffers of an explicitly genocidal government.\u00A0 Huckabee&amp;#039;s highly questionable remarks happened to coincide with a brilliant article in the New York Review of Books, published by an anonymous author. The piece is about the rise of Isis but it captures the intense chaos of the region at our moment, and the folly of trying to solve it: &amp;quot;I have often been tempted to argue that we simply need more and better information. But that is to underestimate the alien and bewildering nature of this phenomenon. To take only one example, five years ago not even the most austere Salafi theorists advocated the reintroduction of slavery; but ISIS has in fact imposed it. Nothing since the triumph of the Vandals in Roman North Africa has seemed so sudden, incomprehensible, and difficult to reverse as the rise of ISIS. None of our analysts, soldiers, diplomats, intelligence officers, politicians, or journalists has yet produced an explanation rich enough\u2014even in hindsight\u2014to have predicted the movement&amp;#039;s rise. We hide this from ourselves with theories and concepts that do not bear deep examination. And we will not remedy this simply through the accumulation of more facts. It is not clear whether our culture can ever develop sufficient knowledge, rigor, imagination, and humility to grasp the phenomenon of ISIS. But for now, we should admit that we are not only horrified but baffled.&amp;quot; Bafflement, it should be clear by now, is the only intelligent response to the Middle East. The region itself its unfathomable and growing more unfathomable by the moment. Whoever acknowledges their ignorance is correct. Whoever opens their mouth first\u2014to claim that the Jews are being led to the gas chambers, say\u2014loses. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a36736/mike-huckabee-israel-iran-obama-holocaust-comment/>