Happy Holidays: America's Enemies Are Imploding
What an incredible gift!
When I was a kid, I would ask my dad what he wanted for Christmas, and he always said: “An hour of goddamned silence.” I never got him that; I always figured that what he really wanted was a plastic candy cane full of M&Ms. But now I’m a dad, and I get it. So, though my dad is no longer with us, this year, I’m getting him the gift of understanding why he was like that.
If I had one wish this holiday season, it would be for an hour of goddamned silence. But if I had two wishes, it might be for America’s enemies to implode in an apparent round of karmic punishment for their resounding awfulness. And though I won’t get the first thing, to my great surprise, it’s starting to look like I might get the second. Let’s take a moment to reflect on the Washington Generals-esque losing streak that our enemies are currently on.
Syria has been taken over by a group of shockingly moderate extremists who seem a million times better than anything that decent people could have hoped for. I assumed that whoever replaced Bashar al-Assad probably wouldn’t clear the unbelievably low bar of “better than Bashar al-Assad” — I figured it might be a swarm of anti semitic bees, or a werewolf with Hitler’s brain surgically implanted. The Arab Spring taught me to prepare for the worst and hope for also the worst, because “the worst” is all you ever get in the Middle East. Or so I thought — I’m thrilled to learn that I might be wrong (TM).
Assad’s downfall is directly related to the destruction of Hezbollah and Hamas. We could debate the wisdom and ethics of how Israel brought those groups to the brink of annihilation — at least, we could if we were capable of having rational debates about Israel, which we are not — but it’s certainly good that they’re crippled. Hamas has literally gone underground, and the pager attack has left Hezbollah afraid to so much as use the microwave or make toast. The most “successful” Iranian proxy is surely the Houthis, who launched a missile at Israel this weekend, which at this point feels like poking a bear, stealing its cub, filling your pockets with meat, and then trying to fuck the bear’s wife.