What If…

‘Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.’

George Santayana

History is full of “what ifs”.

What if a different decision had been taken, could the course of history have been better?

Many decisions leaders take resemble mistakes made in the past, and those mistakes continue to plague us today. Not standing up to Putin’s Russia forcefully in Ukraine from the beginning of the invasion is reminiscent of the West’s capitulation to Hitler at Munich in 1938.

Many leaders lead from behind and, rather than provide vision and take the charge, they follow the herd in its opinions to curry support. Short term gain oftentimes resulting in long term pain.

The study of history is full of “what ifs”. It is up to each of us to ask the question and follow the response the next time a similar situation arises. To avoid doing so is to repeat the mistake once again.

For example, what if President Jimmy Carter had supported the Shah of Iran to subdue the revolt by Islamists under the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1978-79.

What of the Iranian left had not gotten into bed with the Khomeini Islamists and thus prevented these fanatics from taking power?

There would undoubtedly been some bloodshed but imagine the consequences of having a secular Iran today that didn’t murder tens of thousands of Iranians during the past 43 years rather than the current virulent theocracy that has murdered hundreds of thousands? An Iran that would have been a member of the global anti-terrorist community rather than a major sponsor of global terrorism?

Hezbollah and Hamas would likely not exist. The Middle East would have likely had a better chance of stability.

Without the terrorism caried out by Hezbollah and Hamas, a Middle East peace deal would have been possible. Israel would be free from terrorist threats and less paranoid about having a Palestinian state on its border. The extreme right in Israel would likely not be close to power, and a more moderate government could be a viable partner for peace.

Without Hezbollah and its Iranian backers, Lebanon would be much more stable and a partner for peace in the region. The destructive Lebanese civil war of the 1980’s would likely have been avoided and tens of thousands of lives saved.

What if Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had not unilaterally withdrawn Israel from Gaza, leaving Hamas to take over and create a terrorist state?

Could Gaza have developed economically and politically in peace and, with international financing and good governance, created prosperity for its population and made Gaza a viable partner for peace? 

Could Gaza have developed into another Singapore or Hong Kong, given its strategic position in the Mediterranean and its massive potential as a tourism destination and transportation hub?

What if the Palestinians had accepted the Clinton peace plan that offered the Palestinians 97% of the territory they sought but was rejected by Yasser Arafat? Would a Palestinian state living peacefully side by side with Israel be a reality, or even a possibility?

What if Western countries had adopted rational immigration policies, carefully vetting and refusing those who would destroy their systems and refuse to adapt to their culture? Would the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Germany, and others continue to have “no go” areas where their citizens could only enter with dangerous consequences to their safety and their very lives, and where security forces were in mortal danger of showing their faces?

Are Western countries today not about to make the same historical mistake in taking in tens of thousands of Gazans (the majority of whom support Hamas and Islamist objectives) who, if history is any indicator, will likely never assimilate?

What if Western countries demanded that neighboring Arab states take in Palestinian refugees and let them assimilate to societies with the same religion and values rather than abandon them to continuing refugee status or to migration to the West with all the resentment that this has engendered?

What if successive U.N. Secretaries-General had listened to critics of UNRWA who had proof of the organisation’s close ties to Hamas and taken their reports seriously?

Would generations of Palestinian children have avoided being indoctrinated with hatred for Jews and Israel and adopted radical Islam as their political creed? Would billions of dollars in Western contributions have been saved and better applied towards improving the lot of Palestinians and engendering a more peaceful environment in the Middle East?

What if universities in the West had refused to hire professors who prefer to indoctrinate their students with false narratives rather than teach them critical thinking and encourage them to study facts rather than adopt ideologies that are destructive and lead to nowhere?.

Would we have tens of thousands of university students today occupying universities, blocking access to major roadways, airports, and government buildings, attacking Jews and Jewish institutions, and calling for intifada and jihad? Would they be waving Iranian, Hamas, and ISIS flags and burning their own national symbols? Would they be supporting terrorism directly as they appear to be doing today rather than constructively influencing events?

What if today’s leftist students and political parties protested real gender apartheid in Muslim countries and territories like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Gaza itself, and real anti-LGBTQ oppression rather than aligning themselves with expansionist Islamism?

What if President George W. Bush had not invaded Iraq in 2003 in a pointless war and for no substantive reason. What of Iraq had not been weakened — a factor that led directly to the birth of ISIS that today causes senseless violence and hundreds of thousands of deaths across a wide swathe of the Middle East and large parts of Africa? Would a strong Iraq have served as a bulwark against an expansionist Iran rather than as its lackey? 

Would keeping U.S. forces in Afghanistan rather than sending them to Iraq in 2003 have enabled the West to destroy the Taliban once and for all and not provided them with the time and space to survive and regroup?

And if ex-President Trump had not negotiated the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan and President Biden had not followed through in 2021, would the Taliban have been able to reconquer the country so quickly and relegate women and girls to being little more than chattel rather than free citizens with equal human rights?

And, what if the West had given Ukraine carte blanche and the resources to defend itself from Russian aggression from the very start of the invasion and stop Putin in his tracks? Could more Ukrainian lives and infrastructure have been saved and the war ended by now?

There is no doubt that many more “what ifs” exist around the world.

It is too late to answer them now.

But is is not too late to learn these lessons and apply them to new evolving situations and undertake better courses of action.

If leaders could provide true leadership and people accept difficult choices and courses of action in order to achieve better results in the long term, would we all not be better off?

Sometimes taking politically expedient decisions rather than effective tough ones leads to the appearance of short term gain when in reality what is achieved is long term pain.

What if leaders and societies learned from history rather than ignored it?

What if…