Imagine

Imagine the world community. Today. The Middle East is shredding apart – Libya, Syria, Gaza/Palestine, parts of Egypt and of course Iraq. Look north to Pakistan, Afghanistan and several of the other ‘stans’. Include Turkey in the mix of hot spots due to their Kurdish issues and border skirmishes with Syria and now Russia on Syria’s stead. Imagine, too, the Koreas, proximity to China, China’s restricted sea lanes due to building new islands and militarizing them. Russia, of course, is rattling its sabers, tanks and missiles, and especially its war planes flying low all over Europe.

In short, imagine a world desperately unstable. Like it actually is!

Now overlay this situation with the following personalities were they to win the Presidency:

            Donald Trump

            Ted Cruz

            Marco Rubio

            Bernie Sanders

How would each of them react to the world community and its insistence for attention? What message would you – and we – like the world to receive from America? Peace maker? Soother of troubled waters? Builder of collaborations to calm jittery nerves?

Do you imagine any of the four assumed presidents capable of doing any of those things?

Keep your eye focused on international issues, please. Do not dally into domestic affairs just yet. Let’s just aim our attention on international problems and how we hope to manage the numerous crises. Who among the four is most capable of understanding the complexities and delicacy of the issues and interrelationships of those very same issues?

Not one of them is prepared to deal with these matters. I know this in my gut. So do you.

We need cool heads in place to deal with hot issues outside our borders. The world community is a much larger community than it once was. And we know that today. We rely on them for raw materials, talent pools of scientists and engineers and low cost labor. We rely on them for fresh ideas and cultural enrichment. Most of the nations are our friends; some are not. And we can no longer expect anyone to do our bidding. We must play a role like everyone else and be a responsible world citizen.

No longer can America singlehandedly solve the world’s problems. We didn’t in the past either. Anything we accomplished we did so with the cooperation and active participation of friendly nations who agreed with the objectives then. World War I was a world war, not America’s alone. So too World War II. We didn’t win the war. The world community won the war by working together for a future free to be.

Today we face the same upset world with problems and hostilities with roots thousands of years old and roots that have had nothing whatever to do with America. Yet we are thinking we are the peacemakers. I think we are, but just not alone. The world does not see us as The Peacemaker, but now just a cooperative partner in such a journey toward the future.

It is America’s role to understand itself. It is not the world’s role to understand us. We must get along with others, and play nice. If not, we become the bully and the bad guy, not a role many of us are good at.

I doubt Trump can manage such matters. A bully amidst bullies only begets playground fights that can turn tragic at any moment.

Cruz is a hands off guy, focused on domestic issues and ideologically absorbed with conservative ideals. These are not attributes that fit well with international disputes.

Rubio? Now there is a puzzle. He wants to think himself a leader but I don’t get the feeling that he is that yet. I do sense his willingness to follow the lead of others in the republican party hierarchy. Does that make him his own person or someone who belongs to someone else? I don’t want to risk that sort of thing in a delicate condition the world faces today.

And Bernie Sanders, good soul that he is, simply doesn’t have the background or experience to handle such matters. He would not be able to hit the ground running.

Now, Hillary can and would. She’s a pro in the international field. You know that instinctively and factually.

There is far too much at stake today with regard to international affairs. How we get through it all is tricky. But we can do so with the right person in place and with the team ready to go.

Domestically? I’m not so worried. After all, congress seems to have everything under control – doing nothing and not making larger errors. Until a new leader comes along to set that mess aright, I’d sooner keep my eyes aimed on the hot spots that can do us more damage. And that’s beyond our borders, folks. Well beyond our borders.

Let’s get our priorities straight and focus on that for the time being.

March 7, 2016