NOT A GOOD THING

12 June, 2017

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher,

101 Main Street #380

Huntington Beach, CA 92648

Dear Congressman,

Re: Not a “good thing”

Your words: “We have recently seen an attack on Iran, and the Iranian government, the mullahs, believe that Sunni forces have attacked them. This may signal a ratcheting up of certain commitments by the United States of America. As far as I’m concerned, I just want to make this point and see what you think, isn’t it a good thing for us to have the United States finally backing up Sunnis who will attack Hezbollah and the Shiite threat to us? Isn’t that a good thing? And if so, maybe this is a Trump — maybe it’s a Trump strategy of actually supporting one group against another, considering that you have two terrorist organizations.”

No. If you want to know what I think. This is not a “good thing.” It is not a good thing to approve terrorism, no matter from which side it comes. It is not a good thing to side with Sunnis against Shi’ites in the Middle East turmoil, as Trump has done, heedlessly pouring gasoline on a fire that is already out of control. Nor is it a good thing to kow-tow to those same Saudi potentates who protect and foster the very brand of Islamic extremism responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center—the attack that took the lives of nearly 3,000 mostly American civilians.

If this is a “Trump strategy,” it flies in the face of the kind of diplomacy that America has practiced in the attempt to maintain a fragile balance in a region of the world that badly needs it. It is no strategy at all. Trump’s obsequious embrace of Saudi Arabia is the result not of careful evaluation of historical facts and the current situation in the Middle East, but of the Saudi monarchy’s shameless flattery of his insatiable ego.

This constituent is appalled by your dangerous and ill-considered pronouncement.

(signed)

Peter Clothier, Ph.D.