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English 1010

Gray Haynes                                                                                                                       Northwestern State University

Email: gray.haynes@websterpsb.org                                                                                             Fall Semester 2019

English 1010

 

Freshman Composition I

 

Course Description and Objectives: This class fulfills the first quarter requirement for Freshman English.  When you complete it, you will proceed to English 1020.  This class intends to develop writing skills that you can and will use in the University and in whatever profession you may enter.  Every assignment in the class is, in some way, directed at improving these skills.  Grammar, sentence structure, reading, and vocabulary will all be components of this class, but only as they help you to write clearly and logically.  The writing in this class is expository writing: writing that explains, clarifies, or argues.  Not only will you become a better writer this quarter, you will gain knowledge about the act of writing itself.  By the end of the class, you should be able to effectively analyze and critique your own writing and to offer advice and support to other writers.

Students successfully completing and receiving credit for English 1010 should be able to do the following by the end of the course:

1. Recognize faulty arguments or “non-argumentative persuasion” and be able to distinguish between logos, pathos, and ethos in argumentation; use logic to evaluate and communicate in class discussion and in writing the effectiveness of various arguments.

2. Write reflectively and analytically about topics, published articles, and related issues using standard, academic English grammar

3. Write a logically sequenced argumentative essay of around 1200 words that is audience-appropriate, developed with clear rhetorical strategies, and supported with convincing evidence or support

4. Recognize the difference between paraphrase, summary, cut and paste plagiarism, and mosaic plagiarism

5. Describe the difference between revision and editing and be able to provide specific, substantive feedback on an unfinished essay

6. Demonstrate in at least two essays familiarity with and the ability to apply source-based documentation, current MLA internal/parenthetical and Works Cited format for quotations, paraphrases, and summary source information; demonstrate the ability to make attribution or explanation from secondary sources in the grammatical structure of the sentence

Required Textbooks and Materials:

Literature: an Introduction to Reading and Writing 7th ed.

A folder with a pocket for holding essays and journal entries as they are returned is required.  An email address and internet access will also be mandatory.  a portable storage drive and/or cloud storage space will also be required.

Evaluation:

                                Essay #1 (Narrative from personal experience-diagnostic)                         50 pts

                                Essay #2 (Textual Analysis Essay)                                                                  100 pts

                                Essay #3 (Argumentative Essay to be completed in class)                         100 pts

                                Essay #4 (Rhetorical Analysis Essay)                                                             200 pts

                                Essay #5 (Argumentative essay with secondary sources)                           200 pts

                                Final Exam                                                                                                           100 pts

                                Journals (3 at 50 pts. each)                                                                                                150 pts

                                Tutorials, quizzes, class assignments, homework                                          100 pts

                                                                                                                                                                1000 possible points

Keep track of your grades, so that you will be aware of your progress and approximate course average.  Your final score converts to a grade by this formula: 900-1000=A; 800-899=B; 700-799=C; 600-699=D; 0-599=F.

PLAGIARISM

Like you, I regard cheating and plagiarism as dishonorable acts. Remember that cutting and pasting, modifying, or copying text from Internet sources (signed or unsigned) is plagiarism too. Most plagiarism is half- accidental; it is using sources sloppily and not giving credit where credit is due. However, even accidental plagiarism comes with unpleasant consequences. At minimum plagiarized work on any assignment will receive a ZERO, and the student’s overall class grade may be lowered by to failing. Be advised that lifting or cutting and pasting work from the Internet (including unsigned web sources), “patchwork” or “mosaic” plagiarism, or simply forgetting to document sources constitutes plagiarism as much as does copying pages from a printed book.

 

I fully support the Northwestern State University Academic Honor Code. I would advise you to obtain a copy of the student handbook and familiarize yourself with the code, but above all, know that cheating in this class will be dealt with severely. This means that transgressions will be reported to the university, which could result in severe penalties, including expulsion from school.

Attendance and class participation are both mandatory if you want to pass this course.  The attendance policy is prescribed by the English Department of Northwestern State University.  Missed in-class work cannot be made up in most cases; essays will lose 25 percent for each day they are late.  If you miss class or miss turning in work at an assigned time, you will not be allowed to make up this part of your grade except with my prior permission which is rarely given.  Doctor’s appointments, court appointments, meetings with other faculty members should be made for times that do not conflict with our class.  It is your responsibility to keep track of your schedule.

ACCOMMODATIONS:

Any student who needs classroom accommodations based on ADA guidelines should register with the Office of Disability Services as soon as possible and bring the appropriate papers to me by the second class meeting. I am happy to assist every student who schedules an appointment with me, but students are responsible for seeking help if assistance is needed.

Policies and Procedures for Journals, Essay Writing, and Other Assignments:

Response Journals: The purpose of journals is to encourage you to read carefully, to write more, and to give you credit for doing so.  Your journal grade will be based on the ratio of journal entries you complete to the total number assigned.  Journals are not graded for grammar or correctness, but on whether or not they are 1) handed in on time-which means at the beginning of class on the day they are due 2) written on the assigned topic, and 3) of sufficient length (at least two typed or handwritten pages with 1 inch margins on all sides and without excessive spacing.  Include your name, date, journal number, and topic title as a heading.  If journals meet all of the above criteria, they will receive full credit.  If any journal does not meet the above criteria, it will receive no credit.  Journals that are handed in the next class day after they are due may receive half credit, but not more than that.  Expect me to be a stickler for these standards.  I will read your journals, mark them as credit/no credit, and return them to you.  Expect 3-4 journal assignments per semester.  These entries are for your own benefit to help you gather ideas and practice things we go over in class.  They will not be graded for grammar or spelling; however, the more you practice editing your writing, the better your writing will be.  Remember-it’s great to write more than is required on a journal, but if you write less, you will not receive credit.

Response Journal Topics: If a journal assignment is to “write about the readings,” you may wish to begin with a brief summary of the essays; then in complete sentences and paragraphs, answer some or all of the following questions: 1)Why do you think this writer wrote this essay?  What point do you think he or she was trying to make?  2) Was the essay vivid and “true,” according to your experience?  Why or why not?  3) Does the essay remind you of any people you have known or experiences you have had?  4) What did you like about the essay, and what didn’t you like?  5) In your opinion, what are some other points, examples, or issues the writer might have included in the essay?  6) Would you recommend the essay to a friend?  Why or why not?

All essays will be started in class.  Some of these in-class essays will be graded, some will have their revisions graded, and some will have both preliminary and revised versions graded.  Essay topics are assigned; any essay not on an assigned topic will receive no credit.  All essays that are written outside of class must be turned in to me in a clean, typed, correctly formatted, packet.

Essay Format: Follow these guidelines whenever you turn in a paper to me; not following them will reduce your essay grade.  *All essays will be typed, double-spaced, and printed in black, readable ink.  Times New Roman or Palatino fonts are preferable.  *Essays should have a 1 inch margin on all sides, be printed in a 12-point font size, and have the following heading in the top left-hand corner or the first page:

 

 

Student’s Name

Instructor’s Name

English 1010

Date

Essay Number/word count

Original Title

*Essays must be stapled already when they are turned in.  Please number and place your last name on pages using the header page number function.  *Please do not include a cover page*I will accept essays containing a few minor hand-written corrections.

Common Sense Computing Advice:

Technical difficulties are no excuse for not having your work.  Label and keep track of your storage drives.  When composing and editing on the computer, save frequently.  Save before you send your document to the printer.  Always print a hard copy of your work before you shut down a work session.  If you happen to have computer trouble that results in a damaged or lost composition, I will expect to see a recent hard copy of the previous draft with your revision marks included.  This draft will be due at the assigned date and time and will include a note explaining your difficulty.  Computer trouble is not an excuse to hand in a less-than-final draft, and a final draft will always be required.  Working ahead and saving frequently will save you unnecessary stress and anguish.

PRINT OFTEN AND SAVE YOUR DRAFT HARD COPIES!!

Please Note:

*If you have a question, do not hesitate to ask.  I cannot help if I don’t know that there is a problem.  This should be a great semester for you, and I am glad to be a part of it.

*In the event of a question regarding a final grade, it will be the responsibility of the student to retain and present graded materials that have been returned for student possession during the quarter.

*This syllabus is a contract between you (as the student) and me (as the instructor).  By taking this class, you are agreeing to follow all of the guidelines given above and to be responsible for your actions.

The following is the General Schedule for class.  Note that you are responsible for any changes to the schedule made by the instructor in class. 

 

 

Weekly Schedule

Week 1       (Sept. 16)

Introduction to dual enrollment; discussion of syllabus and schedule; plagiarism statement; students to read first 2 sections of Freshman Composition Course Packet; individual conference with each student over the sample essays to discuss questions and comments

Due: (essay 1-diagnostic) Narrative of a personal experience-Each student will chronicle a personal experience in a short narrative of at least 500 words.  This essay will be due on Friday of week 1.

Week 2 (Sept. 23)

Read: Writing-chapter 1 (p. 1-21; discuss effective writing; discuss effective reading; discuss textual analysis, Essay 2 (due week 4) Read “How to Mark a Book”

Week 3 (Sept. 30)

Read: Revising and Proofreading (p. 21-36), “Mother Tongue” (p. 141-144), “Freewriting” (p. 101-102)

Week 4 (Oct. 7)

Read: Argumentative writing (p. 68-97), Social media articles in the text  (4 articles)

DUE: (essay 2) Textual Analysis-turn in 1st draft of textual analysis essay on Monday for peer review; final draft of essay is due on Friday of this week.  The paper will be a minimum of 750 words.  You will analyze and evaluate the content of the communication in “Mother Tongue” rather than the structure of the story.  You will use no outside sources for this paper.  Your task is to examine what Tan says in the short story rather than how she says it. 

WEEK 5 (Oct. 14)

Complete reading from last week.  We will discuss the following aspects of argument: reasoning from evidence; purpose of argument; finding an issue; taking a stand; appealing to reason, emotion, ethics.

DUE- Journal prompt 1: Have social networking sites become too large a part of our lives?  Journals are minimum of 2 pages either hand-written or typed in standard format.

Week 6       (Oct. 28)

Read: Information on research at the end of this syllabus .  We will discuss the following in class: objective of a research paper, sources, gathering and organizing data, parenthetical documentation, works cited, revision.

DUE-essay 3 (Argumentative Essay) is due on Friday of week 6.  In his address at Ghettysburg, Lincoln stated, “that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. . .”  Many at the time thought that he was explaining why the war had to continue.  We find ourselves in much the same situation now with the Middle East.  Many believe that we should remove all troops from the region while many believe that we must finish what we started.  I will provide two articles that you may use as secondary sources with Lincoln’s address as your primary source.  You will argue whether or not the United States should or should not keep troops in the Middle East.  You should follow all of the conventions of MLA citations for all sources used and complete a works cited page at the end of the essay.  This essay should be a minimum of 900 words.

Week 7 (Nov. 4)

Read: What is the value of education? Articles  (one, two) Class discussion on the value of education.

Due: Journal prompt 2: What is the value of education

Week 8 (Nov. 11)

Read: An American Childhood, (156-159),  Once Upon a Quinceanera, p. 160-163

DUE- Essay 4(Rhetorical Analysis Essay): How has the role of family changed in the last 50 years? Find two primary sources evaluating how the role of family has changed.  Respond to these essays using secondary sources.  Make sure that all sources (primary and secondary) are appropriate for this class.  You should find and use no fewer than two and no more than four secondary sources.  These sources should be integrated seamlessly into your paper being careful to avoid drop-in quotes and, of course, plagiarism.  This paper will be due on Friday of this week.  Notice that it is worth 200 points because of the time that you will spend in both research and writing.  This paper should be a minimum of 1200 words.

Week 9 (Nov. 18)

Read: The Declaration of Independence p. 133, I Have a Dream p. 163-167, Stranger in the Village p. 167-176

Week 10 (Dec. 2)

Read: Does Equal Opportunity Exist? p. 176-177, Tales of Manhattan p. 137-139, A Modest Proposal p. 178-184

Quiz over the readings from this week will be on Friday

Week 11 (Dec. 9)

Read: Saving the Life That is Your Own: The Importance of Models in the Artist’s Life p. 189-Am I Blue p. 185-188,

Discuss in class the readings of the week and what make them good essays.

Quiz over readings from this week on Friday

Due: Argumentative Essay.  (Essay 5)  This is an argumentative essay with secondary sources.  You will examine the argument that the American Dream no longer exists.  You should take a firm stand on one side of this argument and use 3-5 sources to support your argument.  Your sources should be appropriate for this class, and they should be properly documented using MLA format.  This paper should be a minimum of 1000 words with sources incorporated seamlessly with correct citations.

Week 12 (Dec. 16)

Final Exam

 

 

Research Papers

Introduction

This overview of research paper strategies will focus on the type of research paper that uses library resources.

The research paper is a popular academic assignment. Forms of it are also used in various professional fields. The research paper gives you the opportunity to think seriously about some issue. Building on the research of others, you have the opportunity to contribute your own research and insights to a particular question of interest to you. It also gives you practice in important academic skills such as:

  • formulating research questions
  • conducting research
  • managing time
  • organizing information into coherent ideas
  • substantiating arguments with research in the field
  • and presenting insights about the research

Disciplines vary in their ways of conducting research, in writing research papers, and in the form of the final copy. Individual instructors may also vary in their expectations of a research paper. It is important that you read the assignment carefully. Writing a research paper can be a very messy and fluid process, and the following is only a representation of commonly used steps.

  1. Start by choosing a topic.
  2. Then narrow your topic2.
  3. Draft a main claim or thesis statement3 (which may easily change as you do the research).
  4. Do the research4. For more information, see guides on how to evaluate websites5 and other sources; understanding primary vs. secondary sources6; and paraphrasing, summarizing, and quoting sources7.
  5. Organize the research. (Outlining8 can really help at this point.)
  6. Draft. See The Writing Process9 for drafting ideas, tips, and suggestions.
  7. Create your bibliography or works cited10 page.
  8. Revise your draft. Revise for content 11and for organization12.
  9. Edit and proofread13 your final draft.

Two major types of research papers

Argumentative research paper:

The argumentative research paper consists of an introduction in which the writer clearly introduces the topic and informs his audience exactly which stance he intends to take; this stance is often identified as the thesis statement3. An important goal of the argumentative research paper is persuasion, which means the topic chosen should be debatable or controversial.

The student would support the thesis throughout the paper by means of both primary and secondary sources, with the intent to persuade the audience that the interpretation of the situation is viable.

Analytical research paper:

The analytical research paper often begins with the student asking a question (a.k.a. a research question) on which he has taken no stance. Such a paper is often an exercise in exploration and evaluation.

It is not the student's intent to persuade the audience that his ideas are right while those of others are wrong. Instead, his goal is to offer a critical interpretation of primary and secondary sources throughout the paper--sources that should, ultimately, buttress his particular analysis of the topic.

It is typically not until the student has begun the writing process that his thesis statement begins to take solid form. In fact, the thesis statement in an analytical paper is often more fluid than the thesis in an argumentative paper. Such is one of the benefits of approaching the topic without a predetermined stance.

Revising Content

Once you have your first draft, it will require revision. To determine what needs reworking, read the entire paper. What works? What doesn't? Now, get more specific. Working through paragraph by paragraph, ask yourself the purpose of each in terms of the thesis.

During the revising part of the writing process, you have the opportunity to step back from your text and make changes so readers can more clearly understand. When you are revising you are making sure your information is well organized, appropriate and complete. This is your opportunity to remove unnecessary text, rearrange paragraphs, or add sections or paragraphs. You may even find it necessary to do more research for a particular part of your paper. That is all part of the process.

Revise for content first. If you have received a rubric for the assignment, take some time to look it over next to your paper to make sure you have fulfilled all the requirements. Do not do any other revisions until the content revision is complete. Ask yourself the following questions. If your answer to any of these questions is no (or even maybe), focus on developing or revising your content before moving on.

Have I:

  1. Explained why I conducted this research?
  2. Clarified how this research fits into other research?
  3. Given all necessary details?
  4. Reported results?
  5. Confirmed the logic of my reasoning and inference?

Next, revise for organization. After you feel comfortable with your content, consider the organization of your draft. See Revising for Organization 1to learn strategies for improving the structure of your paper and the logical presentation of your ideas.

Finally, focus on the surface level. After you've revised for content and organization, turn your attention to the surface level of your paper. In this final stage of revision, you should look for ways to improve the clarity, consistency, and correctness of your writing on the level of the sentence and word. Edit for grammar, word choice, correct citations, and similar errors in this stage. Use the following list to fine-tune your language.

Improve clarity and consistency by:

  1. incorporating strong, active verbs
  2. replacing nominalizations (nouns made from verbs) with strong verbs
  3. reducing "there are" and "it is" constructions
  4. deleting excessive and unnecessary phrases (I believe, in other words, etc.)
  5. replacing vague words with precise words or phrases
  6. reducing wordiness
  7. maintaining appropriate tense
  8. using parallel structure

Revising for Organization and Coherence

After you have revised for content1, your next step is to revise for organization. In this step, you will examine your paper to see if the organization is logical. First, re-read the paper. As you read, ask yourself these questions.

 

Do you need to:

  1. Reorganize sections of the paper?
  2. Revise main points for clarity?
  3. Use headings and sub-headings for clarification?
  4. Delete material?
  5. Add material?
  6. Insert transitions to connect sections of the paper to the thesis?

Reverse Outline: If you are unsure of your paper's organization, it can be useful to create a reverse outline. Do this by writing one - two word descriptors in the margin next to each paragraph. Then you can step back and decide if the paragraphs move in a logical order, or rearrange them until you are satisfied.

Re-arrange: You can also take a print-out of your paper and cut apart all of the paragraphs and mix them up. Next put them in the right order. If you are not sure where a paragraph goes, consider revising or removing it. At this point you have the option of moving, deleting, or adding sentences in order to ensure you have strong paragraphs.

Revise for coherence. Here you are looking to see that all the parts fit together logically in a sensible and pleasing way. Improve coherence by reading only the first and last sentences of each paragraph. Do they move smoothly from one to the next? If not, revise them or add sentences to accomplish that goal.

Look to make sure that everything in each paragraph directly relates to the topic sentence. Ask yourself if there is anything you might say to make your point stronger. Improve your organization by inserting transitional phrases or paragraphs, or by adding clarifying and elaborating information.

  1. Do you offer a road map of your paper in your thesis statement and through your headings (if you use them)?
  2. Do you use smooth transitional sentences that lead from one topic to the next?
  3. Does the paper stay consistent within the various topics?
  4. Have you used pronouns and repetitions within paragraphs to indicate continuation of the topic?
  5. Do you comment in the document about the significance of the information you have introduced to your argument (especially direct quotations)?

 

To Reduce ISIS Threat, U.S. Should Pull Out of the Middle East

A. Trevor Thrall
On 3/26/16 at 11:52 AM

his article first appeared on the Cato Institute site.

Just four days after Salah Abdeslam, the mastermind of last fall’s Paris attacks, was finally captured, the Islamic State group (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attacks in Brussels. The attacks, which have killed more than 30 and wounded almost 200, provide another chilling reminder of how dangerous the world can be.

As Brussels tends its wounds, the simple question looms: How should Europe and the United States respond?

In and around official Washington, the script is becoming sadly predictable. Immediately following the news, administration officials assert their resolve and commitment to combatting terrorism: “Attacks like these only deepen shared resolve to defeat terrorism around the world.”

Close on their heels, administration critics line up to fearmonger, launch cheap insults at President Barack Obama for not paying enough attention to the extremism and to talk tough about striking back at ISIS.

All the Republican candidates criticized Obama for staying in Cuba. Donald Trump took the opportunity to point out that he has long been in favor of closing up the border, while Ted Cruz called on the president to recognize that “radical Islam is at war with us” and for “empowering law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized.”

Finally, both Europe and the United States are likely to ratchet up the war on the ground against ISIS. To date, this approach has borne decidedly mixed fruit. On the one hand, ISIS has certainly lost significant ground over the past year. On the other hand, very little of that success can be traced directly to U.S. or French military efforts.

Rather than go through the motions focused on short-term political gains, both Europe and the United States should pursue a long-term strategy. That strategy might take many forms but at heart a sound long-term approach needs three fundamental components.

First, a long-term strategy requires an enduring commitment to openness and tolerance. Both Europe and the United States benefit tremendously from immigration, both economically and socially, and from a vigorous marketplace of ideas sustained by diverse religious, racial and ethnic populations.

The costs of closing borders, polarizing society along ethnic and religious lines, and limiting civil liberties will far outweigh whatever benefits they might bring in the short run.

Second, a long-term strategy must emphasize a law enforcement approach to combatting terrorism rather than a military one. The notion that Europe and the United States can fight a “war” against terrorism is ridiculous. Terrorism is a tactic, not a disease or an organization. No amount of military adventurism will eliminate the ability of violent individuals to cause pain. Nor will destroying ISIS be enough to ensure some kind of victory.

The root causes of violence in France, Belgium and San Bernardino, California, stem from the sweeping unhappiness and anger within the Arab and Muslim worlds. Until those issues are settled, Europe’s and America’s entanglement in Middle East affairs will continue to spawn attacks in the West.

This is why destroying Al-Qaeda didn’t solve the problem but instead just produced the next incarnation of the threat. Simply put, killing more militants will not produce long-term security in Europe and the United States.

The third component is to pull back from the region. Our over-involvement in the Middle East has not only engendered anger among many Muslims in the region; it has also worked directly against our own security in other ways. ISIS, let us not forget, is an outgrowth of the Sunni insurgency that rose up to fight U.S. forces in our war of choice in Iraq (2003-2011). They are an unintended, albeit not unforeseeable, consequence of that wrong-headed war.

More bombs and boots now may have similarly counterproductive results down the line. In addition, our deep engagement in the region has resulted in a pernicious, long-standing relationship with Saudi Arabia, which is the foremost exporter of the radical Wahhabist ideology that drives Al-Qaeda, ISIS and other anti-American militant groups.

The strategic importance of the Middle East has been greatly exaggerated. And pulling back from the region, although it would not necessarily yield positive results in the immediate term, is likely to have hugely beneficial long-term effects as far as securing us from the minor but real threat of terrorism.

 

November/December 2013

No Exit: Why the US Can’t Leave the Middle East

Michael J. Totten

America is in a bad mood.

In the midst of the worst economy since the 1970s, we’re on the verge of losing the war in Afghanistan, the longest we’ve ever fought, against stupefyingly primitive foes.

We sort of won the war in Iraq, but it cost billions of dollars, thousands of lives, and Baghdad is still a violent, dysfunctional mess.

The overhyped Arab Spring has been cancelled in Egypt. Liberating Libya led to the assassination of our ambassador. Syria is disintegrating into total war with bad guys on both sides and the US dithering on the sidelines, worried more about saving face at this point than having any significant effect on the facts on the ground.

A majority of American voters in both parties have had it. They’re just flat-out not interested in spending any more money or lives to help out. Even many foreign policy professionals are fed up. We get blamed for every one of the Middle East’s problems, including those it inflicts on itself. How gratifying it would be just to walk away, dust off our hands, and say you’re on your own.

But we can’t.

 

Actually, in Egypt maybe we can. And maybe we should.

Hosni Mubarak was a terrible leader and a lukewarm ally at best, but until the Egyptian army arrested him in 2011, Cairo had been part of the American-backed security architecture in North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean ever since his predecessor, Anwar Sadat, junked Egypt’s alliance with the Soviet Union.

The election of the Muslim Brotherhood regime in the wake of the Arab Spring, though, moved Egypt into the “frenemy” column. It’s still there under the military rule of General Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, the new head of state in all but name since the army removed Mohamed Morsi.

Sisi is no less hostile to Washington than Morsi was. As Lee Smith put it shortly after the second coup in three years, Egypt’s new jefe “sees the United States as little more than a prop, a rag with which he burnishes his reputation as a strongman, a village mayor puffing his chest and boasting that he is unafraid to stand up to the Americans.” 

Sisi knows his country and what it takes to appeal to the masses. The whole population—left, right, and center—is as hostile toward the United States as it ever was. Never mind that Americans backed the anti-Mubarak uprising. Never mind that Washington sought good relations with Egypt’s first freely elected government in thousands of years. Never mind that the Obama administration refuses to call the army’s coup what it plainly was in order to keep Egypt’s aid money flowing. None of that matters. The United States and its Zionist sidekick remain at the molten center of Egypt’s phantasmagorical demonology.

Bribing Egypt with billions of annual aid dollars to maintain its peace treaty with Israel and to keep a lid on radical Islam makes even less sense today than it did when Morsi and the Brotherhood were in charge. Morsi needed that money to prevent Egyptians from starving to death. He had a major incentive to cooperate—or else.

But now that the Brothers are out of the picture, partly at the behest of the Saudis, Riyadh says it will happily make up the difference if Washington turns off the aid spigot.

Turn it off then, already. Our money buys nothing from Sisi if he can replace it that easily. If he gets the same cash infusion whether or not he listens to the White House, why should he listen to the White House? He isn’t our friend. He’s only one step away from burning an American flag at a rally. He’s plenty motivated for his own reasons to keep radical Islamists in check since they’re out to destroy him. And his army is the one Egyptian institution that’s not at all interested in armed conflict with Israel because it would suffer more egregiously than anything or anyone else.

We’re either paying him out of sheer habit or because Washington thinks it might still get something back from its investment. Maybe it will, but it probably won’t.

Either way, Sisi instantly proved himself more violent and ruthless than Mubarak when he gave the order to gun down hundreds of unarmed civilians. The fact that the Muslim Brotherhood “retaliated” by burning dozens of churches, murdering Christians at random, and shooting policemen does not make what he did okay. He was, for a few days at least, no better than Bashar al-Assad. Giving him money and guns will make us no friends but plenty of enemies, especially when his regime proves itself no more capable of halting Egypt’s freefall than the last one.

Max Boot at the Council on Foreign Relations put it this way in the Los Angeles Times: “It is no coincidence that both Osama bin Laden and [al-Qaeda deputy Ayman al-] Zawahiri hailed from US-allied nations that repressed their own citizens. Both men were drawn to the conclusion that the way to free their homelands was to attack their rulers’ patron. It is reasonable to expect that a new generation of Islamists in Egypt, now being taught that the peaceful path to power is no longer open, will turn to violence and that, as long as Washington is seen on the side of the generals, some of their violence will be directed our way.”

Even if the Egyptian army faces the kind of full-blown Islamist insurgency that ripped through Algeria in the 1990s—which is unlikely, but possible—Cairo will still get all the help it needs from the Gulf, not because the Saudis oppose radical Islam, but because they view the Muslim Brotherhood as the biggest long-term threat to their rule.

The case for walking away from Egypt and dusting our hands off is sound.

 

Libya, however, is another matter entirely.

Having learned in Iraq that occupying Arab lands is bad for everyone’s health, the US helped free Libya of Muammar el-Qaddafi without suffering even one single casualty. We did it all from the skies. The ground was thick with indigenous rebels, so no American ground troops were required. Qaddafi had no friends to come to his rescue and he stood no chance with his feeble and outdated hardware.

But then we lost Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others during the long Libyan aftermath, when a terrorist group tied to al-Qaeda attacked the US consulate in Benghazi. It happened on the same day—not coincidentally, on September 11th—that mobs of fanatical Salafists waving al-Qaeda flags rioted and set fires all over the region, using a ludicrous anti-Muhammad video uploaded to YouTube by a crackpot Egyptian “filmmaker” no one had ever heard of before as a pretext.

For reasons that still don’t make any sense, American officials falsely claimed the Benghazi incident was the result of yet another protest riot gone out of control. But there was no protest or riot in Benghazi related to that video, contrary to Washington’s initial clumsy and mendacious public statements.

Unlike in Egypt and even Tunisia, nobody in Libya protested against the United States for “allowing” a so-called blasphemous video to be uploaded to YouTube. The only demonstrations in Libya that week were against radical Islamists, against the terrorists that murdered Ambassador Stevens. The citizen groundswell against Benghazi’s Islamist militia was so intense that its members had to flee into the desert.

Libya is a traditional and conservative place, but that does not mean it’s Islamist. Two out of three Egyptians voted for Islamist parties in the post-Mubarak parliamentary elections, but in Libya, the National Forces Alliance, a moderate centrist party, won the most seats in 2012. The Justice and Construction Party—the political vehicle for Libya’s Muslim Brotherhood—only won ten percent of the vote. The Brotherhood isn’t quite as irrelevant in Libya as, say, the Green Party is in the United States, but it’s close.

Libya’s people are not just by and large against the Islamists. They are perhaps friendlier to the West in general and the United States in particular than anyone else in the Arab world.

It makes sense if you think about it. Under no theory can the United States be held responsible for Qaddafi’s crimes and repression. He was a self-declared enemy of America on the day he took power, and he’d still be tormenting his hapless citizens like a sadistic mad scientist if Americans hadn’t provided air support for the rebels. He received no money, no weapons, no training, no diplomatic cover—nothing—from the United States.

Every bad thing Libyans ever heard about Americans came from the internal propaganda organs of the man who kicked them in the face every day for forty-two years. At least some of their geopolitical views resemble those of Eastern Europeans under the communists—if the Americans are the enemies of our tyrannical government, how bad can they be? They are as pro-American as we could ever expect Arab Muslims to be.

Libya under Qaddafi had far too much government. Now it does not have enough. The previous regime was one of the most repressive on earth, and when it went down, most institutions—including the army—went with it. The state and its security forces are therefore too weak. They’re being rebuilt from scratch and won’t be finished for years.

There is no reason in the world for the US not to associate with or help Prime Minister Ali Zeidan and his colleagues. On the contrary, if the government can’t establish a monopoly on the use of force in the lawless parts of the country, Libya could end up an incubator of terrorism like Somalia, Yemen, or Mali, despite the fact that most of its people want nothing to do with it.

 

Syria is the last country we can afford to ignore right now, even though large numbers in both parties—for perfectly logical reasons—are averse to doing anything more than shuddering at a distance.

But what happens there is our business because it affects us. Syria isn’t Belize. It matters who runs that country, and it matters a lot.

Bashar al-Assad’s regime is the biggest state sponsor of international terrorism in the Arab world, and it’s aligned with the Islamic Republic regime in Iran, the biggest state sponsor of international terrorism in the entire world. Obviously, then, it’s in our interest to see him defeated.

One of his principal enemies on the home front, though, is the al-Qaeda–linked Nusra Front. Obviously it’s not in our interest to see these bin Ladenists replace Assad.

The Free Syrian Army is disgruntled at the lackluster assistance the United States has provided, but that’s partly because it has been fighting against Assad alongside the Nusra Front, and also because many of its own commanders are also Islamists, even if they’re moderate compared with al-Qaeda. The tactical alliance between the two groups is fracturing, and it won’t outlast Assad by even a week, but it’s enough to make Washington reluctant and skeptical.

Americans have always been willing to sacrifice money and lives for allies and friends, but allies and friends who are powerful enough inside Syria to affect outcomes are thin on the ground. Early in the game, the administration could have tried to arm, fund, and train a politically moderate fighting force inside Syria, but that will be a lot more difficult now that the Turks and the Gulf Arabs are backing their own proxies who don’t share our interests or values.

So there are those who say let them kill each other because, as Daniel Pipes argues, it “keeps them focused locally” and “prevents either one from emerging victorious.” It brings to mind Henry Kissinger’s famous quip about the Iran-Iraq war. “It’s too bad they can’t both lose.”

The operative word in Kissinger’s sentence is “can’t.” Opposing sides don’t zero each other out. That’s not how wars work, or end. Wars end when somebody wins. 

The worst-case scenario from an American point of view is that they both win. That’s an actual possibility. Syria could fracture into pieces. In a way, it already has. An Alawite rump state backed by Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia existing alongside a Sunnistan ruled by Islamists could very well emerge as a semi-permanent reality of Middle Eastern geography. At the very least, the United States needs a policy that reduces the likelihood of that most horrible outcome.

A few months ago, I asked the Lebanese MP Samy Gemayel what he thought about Washington’s confusion in Syria. “Before you can know what to do,” he said, “you have to know what you want.” One way or another, we should want both Assad and al-Qaeda to lose. But they aren’t going to lose simultaneously. They’ll need to lose consecutively. One of them first has to win.

So fight and defeat Bashar al-Assad, or support someone who will do it instead. Then fight and defeat the Nusra Front, or support someone who will do it instead.

Or face the fact that one or both are going to win. If the Nusra Front wins, we’ll have an Afghanistan on the Mediterranean. And if Assad wins, he could end up under an Iranian nuclear weapons umbrella.

 

Some parts of the world are like Las Vegas. What happens there, stays there. Sub-Saharan Africa is the primary example. Hardly anyone outside that region has even noticed that the various wars in Congo have killed millions of people since the late 1990s, and even fewer have cared.

The Middle East isn’t like that. Until cars and trucks can be powered by solar, wind, or nuclear energy, the entire world depends on the free flow of oil from the Persian Gulf region. That requires American security guarantees, which require our presence. And until radical Islamist organizations utterly lose their local appeal, we’ll have little choice but to intervene periodically for reasons that have nothing to do with economics or resources. For the time being, aggravating though it may be, Americans and Arabs are stuck with each other. We can take a bit of a breather, but retirement is decades away.