Posted on 04/19/2015 1:24:10 AM PDT by elhombrelibre
On a number of occasions during the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, the Israeli government has appealed to the United States and its allies to demand a change in Tehran’s aggressive behavior. If Iran wishes to be treated as a normal state, Israel has said, then it should start acting like one. Unfortunately, these appeals have been summarily dismissed. The Obama administration apparently believes that only after a nuclear agreement is signed can the free world expect Iran to stop its attempts at regional domination, improve its human rights record and, in general, behave like the civilized state it hopes the world will recognize it to be.
As a former Soviet dissident, I cannot help but compare this approach to that of the United States during its decades-long negotiations with the Soviet Union, which at the time was a global superpower and a existential threat to the free world. The differences are striking and revealing.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
1913-The 16th and 17th amendments
Americans have not forgotten that they are Americans but a huge majority voted for a man and administration that does not share the same dream. The “Great Unifier” has turned out to be the “Great Divider” and “Great Destroyer” of the country he supposedly represents...of course those of us who voted against the man-child tried to warn the nation.
But in today’s postmodern world, when asserting the superiority of liberal democracy over other regimes seems like the quaint relic of a colonialist past, even the United States appears to have lost the courage of its convictions.
It's true, when we dealt with Russia, it was always intense, deep, substantive, and the media treated it as so, and that includes the varying levels and successes of various presidents, the constant was that our efforts to deal with Russia were always treated as important and top news.
But now.....
I don't have TV so I'm not confident in my observations about what people are learning about Iran and current threats, including Russia, but I get the impression that they are barely covered as strategic threats.
How can the voters know who to vote against, and who to vote for? We don't even know that we have enemies, and much less, that they have names and a location on maps, and are countries.
It went domino... Mandella, Mugabe, Obama etc... All traitor puppets enslaving blacks while talking about past white plantations and crusades.
All smokes and mirrors, dog and pony show.
funny question coming from the washington compost
When did America forget that it’s America?
When a supposed majority of Americans were stupid enough
to elect a guy named Barack Hussein Obama . Twice !
And when others were stupid enough to not vote for anyone opposing him because the alternative candidate did not fully suit their rigid ideological requirements , ensuring another Obama victory , leading to the present liberal leftist cesspit conditions
Iran? Who cares. Look! There’s the Scooby Doo van!!!
When it voted for a draft dodging rapist who got blow jobs in the middle of his work day in the oval office,then elected a black Marxist and is about to elect a REPROBATE because she is a woman,America has become a liberal paradise
tp://legalinsurrection.com/2015/04/sharansky-the-u-s-has-lost-the-courage-of-its-convictions/
Combined, they overturned central maxims of our framing era. They corrupted the liberty preserving vertical division of power and blew the door off protection of property.
We can vote conservative from here to eternity; we can enact a balanced budget amendment; we can enact term limits, and they will not reverse our slide into tyranny.
If we are to reclaim liberty, we must re-federalize the government. There is no alternative.
An Article V convention is our only hope.
Published by WaPo but written by Natan Sharansky, a human rights activist and former political prisoner in the Soviet Union, and chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel.
It is a rare bit of dabbling on the other side of politics for WaPo in my opinion. Clearly, the political officer on the boat was asleep when this leaked out.
In America forgetting America, he concludes it is a loss of moral-confidence. To me that confidence was supplanted by a never-ending and relentless assault by the left on virtually every traditional moral value this country has kept since its inception.
Little by little, these values have been assaulted and diminished to the point we are constantly left with fending off reprisals from all manner of “victims” in our own country. We are reduced to trying to forestall the evil aims of even our own President.
How can this not spill over into a national and diplomatic will when it comes to dealing with real evil in this world.
When the media the educators and the rats bombarded the simpletons and idiots with lies
When it became flooded with non Americans thanks to the quest for diversity.
One can only hope that the leftist punks in Obamatown have to listen to this voice of coherent logic.
It started in the schools and colleges in the 1950s when the liberal elites in the educational establishment and courts started attacking morning prayers and the pledge of allegience, then it vomited itself all over society via political correctness.
As for "dabbling on the other side of the politics", NeoCon hawks are very influential at WaPo and NYT. Plus, Fred Hiatt, who heads the WaPo editorial board is very hawkish on foreign policy(but liberal on domestic issues), so the WaPo editorial board is always critical of Obama's foreign policy.
Sharansky's attempt to compare Iran today with the Soviets way back when is not a very good analogy. It would be better to compare Iran today to Iran way back when.
Back then, the US sent the CIA into Iran to put the Shah Pahlavi onto the throne. The takeover of the US embassy was a pre-emptive move to shut down any attempt by the US/CIA to influence Khomeni's ascendancy.
Today, the world economy is very prevalent, so economic interdependence of the nations makes sanctions a more useful tool in foreign policy than it was way back when.
We use this term "Soft Power" in foreign policy, which is a persuasive approach using economic and cultural influence, to implement policy, which is a lot cheaper than military intervention, which is important when the national debt is high, and we haven't paid off the still ongoing wars.
Oh yes. It is such an effective means of achieving aims (dubious as Obama's are). It is of some note that the ones on the other side seem to devote so much of their soft economic power on achieving their aims, instead opting to sponsor terrorism, foster state-backed religious zealotry and using outright violence to achieve their "soft" aims. I'm not buying it.
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