Time for an “Agonizing Reappraisal”-Across the arc of crisis, US foreign policy is in disarray

American Conservative ^ | 7-7-06 | Patrick J. Buchanan

[SJackson]

Gazing across what Zbigniew Brzezinski once called the “arc of crisis,” U.S. foreign policy appears to be disintegrating.

On the Horn of Africa, Islamic warriors have seized Mogadishu. The warlords, our allies, are on the run. In Islamist Sudan, the Darfur horror rages on. In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, whom our secretary of state was only recently snubbing for undemocratic behavior, now appears again to be persona grata as our only alternative to the Muslim Brotherhood. Yet the Egyptian president scarcely seems chastened. His judges just confirmed a five-year jail sentence for his democratic opponent Ayman Nur, and his regime just ordered the International Republican Institute of John McCain to cease operations in Egypt.

While Ehud Olmert promises to work with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Israel moves inexorably to wall off the desired slices of the West Bank, annex Jerusalem and its suburbs, retain military control of the Jordan Valley, and get an America awash in debt to pick up the tab for a reported $10 billion.

Further east, the U.S. position appears to be crumbling. Despite installation of a new government, the Iraqi insurgency shows no signs of abating, and a religious civil war has begun. From January through May, 6,000 corpses, most showing gunshot wounds and others signs of torture, turned up in Baghdad’s morgue. May was the worst month, with 35-50 bodies coming in every day.

In Basra, once considered pacified, murderous violence among Shi’ite militias has forced Baghdad to declare a state of siege.

Whatever happened at Haditha, Baghdad is demanding apologies for U.S. atrocities and charging that American troops are callously cold to the collateral killing of Iraqi civilians.

We are building Crusader castles inside the country, but we seem to be losing support among both Americans and Iraqis. Democrats like John Edwards and John Kerry have moved into the antiwar base of their party where Russ Feingold and Al Gore already reside. Can Hillary be far behind?

In Afghanistan, the resurgent Taliban roam half a dozen of the southeast provinces. A traffic accident in which a U.S. military vehicle injured several Afghans and killed one resulted in a shoot-out, anti-American riots, and a Karzai condemnation of U.S. brutality. NATO is moving troops into the Taliban-infested region, but the insurgency is stronger than it has been since Americans arrived, and the opium trade the Taliban once virtually abolished is flourishing.

Under pressure from the EU-3 and Republican Party wise men, Bush has begun to engage Iran. And as Iran and we have common vital interests—both would suffer from all-out war, neither wants to see a breakup of Iraq or return of the Taliban—the makings of a deal are present.

But U.S. intervention in elections in Ukraine, Georgia, and Belarus and our in-your-face bellicosity toward Putin’s Russia are producing the predicted blowback. The decade-old Shanghai Cooperation Organization, consisting of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan, is evolving into an alliance to expel the United States from Central Asia. The SCO appears about to offer membership to India, Pakistan, Mongolia, and Iran.

Iran’s Ahmadinejad is to attend the June 15 meeting in Shanghai. Already, the SCO has effected the expulsion of the U.S. military from Uzbekistan; and Kyrgyzstan has demanded, as the price for retention of U.S. bases, a 10,000 percent increase in rental fees.

In Afghanistan and Iraq, it is impossible today to see a day when America and her allies can eradicate the insurgency or effect a U.S. withdrawal without inviting strategic collapse. We seem to be on a treadmill. And Americans—concerned over the immigrant invasion from Mexico, soaring gas prices, falling stock prices, and deficits ad infinitum—are demanding a timetable to get us off.

Today, the Bush doctrine—the world’s worst regimes will not be allowed to acquire the world’s worst weapons—has been defied by North Korea. U.S. military interventions to create democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan are draining us of blood and treasure. Both, as of now, appear open-ended with no assurance of ultimate victory.

Bush’s democracy crusade has been exploited by Islamists in Egypt, Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran. The National Endowment for Democracy may claim victories in Georgia and Ukraine, but the cost of its meddling appears to be the loss of Russia and creation of an anti-American bloc from the Baltic Sea to the Taiwan Strait.

But while the Bush foreign policy appears to be failing at every turn, in neither party can one see another vision. Emerson’s words come to mind: “Things are in the saddle and ride mankind.”

In Dulles’s phrase, it’s time for an “agonizing reappraisal.”

[SJackson]

From this weeks issue.

Nation Breaking-soldier finds training the Iraqi army is an unwinnable battle [for strong stomachs]

Divided & Conquered--visit to Syria, Israel, Palestine reveals the barriers to Mideast peace

Rebuttal--The final solution to the Jewish state

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel.

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[roses of sharon]

Is this a new column? I swear I've read this 879,936,521,230,497 times!

[edcoil]

There was a book out this year by a black author I heard interviewed that basically says our foreign policy does not work due to white racism.

We cannot do what we know is right becuase we will be accused of being white racists and not allowing other peoples views and position take control.

I'll look for the interview I believe it was on Hugh Hewett's show.

[Jack Black]

Lets see, according to Pat: our foreign policy is an abject failure BUT we are a Republic not an Empire so we should basically become isolationists. We are doomed anyway thought because we are part of the West, and have chosen to not reproduce enough kids to offset all the masses of unwashed illiterates the non-West is producing. Thus, the so-called Death of the West. But this was somewhat inevitable, after all, because we are victims of The Great Betrayal, in which our elites exported jobs and didn't keep New England shoe factories subsidized, and failed to educate us about these harsh realities.

Ah, Pat!

[Migraine]

We are building Crusader castles inside the country, but we seem to be losing support among both Americans and Iraqis. Democrats like John Edwards and John Kerry have moved into the antiwar base of their party where Russ Feingold and Al Gore already reside. Can Hillary be far behind?

Very nice: Pat and John and John and Russ and Al and Hillary, all in the same breath, sniping at the war effort. I would not enjoy that association; but apparently, Pat doesn't mind at all.

Israel moves inexorably to wall off the desired slices of the West Bank, annex Jerusalem and its suburbs, retain military control of the Jordan Valley, and get an America awash in debt to pick up the tab for a reported $10 billion.

...and, what would a hit-piece by Pat be without a swipe at Israel? Ho-freakin'-hum.

[karnage]

Pat can kiss my rump.
The ravings of the irrelevant.

[pissant]

Oh boy Pat, if only we had elected you president, terrorists the world over would have been appeased.

We would have stopped funding Israel, ignored the Taliban, left Iraq for Uday and Qusay, not bothered to put a halt to nuclear materials being shipped to Libya, and sat down for face to face meetings with Iran.

The world would be so much safer.

[pgkdan]

...and, what would a hit-piece by Pat be without a swipe at Israel? Ho-freakin'-hum.

I almost read this article before seeing it was by Pat. Since I've already got a splitting headache this morning I just decided to pass.

[Bob J]

I know Pat is an isolationist but his rantings the last few years confound me. He's not running for anything, why does he have to be such contrarian?

He sounds like a democrat.

[Jack Black]

Over here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1661822/posts

someone has taken the time to deconstruct Pat's anti-Israeli rantings nicely.

[dead]

Oh, him again.

[Common Tator]

Patrick Buchanan lost me when he suggested that we could have used containment to control Hitler instead of fighting WWII. He said the fact containment worked with the Soviet Union, proved it would have worked with Hitler.

That told me that Pat Buchanan is not very bright. The difference between Hitlers Germany and the Soviet Union was Hitlers goal of world domination had to be acccomplished during Hitlers life time. It was Hitler's Germany not Germany's Hitler. On the other hand it was the Soviet Union's Stalin not Stalin's Soviet Union. Hitler was a true dictator. On the other hand, the Soviet Union was a nation build on ideology.. just as the USA is nation built on ideology. Neither the USA Or the Soviet Union needed to win their conflict in one man's life time. Hitler did.

Thus Stalin's death did not end the cold war. The Soviet Union under a long list of Stalins successors continued to persue the goal of world domination.

The Soviet Union believed that communism would bury caplitalism. It would not take a world war.. It would just take time for their ideology to prevail. Since we knew capitalism would defeat Communism mutual containment was adopted by both sides... and Capitalism won.

Hitler needed to accomplish world domination in his own life time. That meant war was Hitler's only option with any chance of success.

If we had followed the stupid advice of a very dumb Buchanan, Hitler would have waited to attack us until he was assured he had the force to win. We would have tried to contain Hitler as Hitler prepared for war. Once prepared Hitler would have attacked us. It would have been WW II on Hitlers time table not ours. We would have lost. On our time table we barely won.

What defeated Hitler was Churchill's realization that the longer we tried to negotiate and contain Hitler the better chance Hitler had of winning a war started when Hitler wanted to start it. If England had waited until HItler attacked England.. England would have been lost.

After the appeasers.. (another way of saying containment advocates) were removed from power Churchill confronted Hitler on the battle field. As history proved there was not a second to spare.

Buchanan only knows which strategies have worked in the past. He has no clue of why different strategies are required in different situations. He is and was unable to discern the difference.

Someone once said..

Pat Buchcanan is a great speech writer as long as someone else supplies him with the words to type.

[R.W.Ratikal]

U. S. foreign policy is not in disarray. It is going exactly as the insiders and wire-pullers behind the scenes want it to go. We are headed toward world government. The idea that we are in disarray helps to promote the argument that only one-world government can keep the diverse motives of different nations in line.

BS

[mjp]

In Dulles’s phrase, it’s time for an “agonizing reappraisal.”

Well I guess, since obvious to Buchanan that it is hopeless, the answer is what would France do?

[Phsstpok]

Buchannan is a moron

[SJackson]

We would have stopped funding Israel, ignored the Taliban, left Iraq for Uday and Qusay, not bothered to put a halt to nuclear materials being shipped to Libya, and sat down for face to face meetings with Iran.

You left out our intrusion into Eastern Europe, Comrade Wolf in Putin/Buchanan speak, as well as our cut in aid to >Hamas

The world would be safer if the US weren't such an aggressive, expansionist, colonizing nation.

As to the poor put upon Iranians, consider the record.

In the last 27 years the United States

-- launched air strikes on Libya

-- invaded Grenada

--put Marines in Lebanon

--run air strikes in the Bekaa Valley and Chouf Mountains

--invaded Panama

-- launched Desert Storm

--put troops into Somalia

--occupied Haiti

-- fired cruise missiles into Sudan

--intervened in Bosnia

--conducted bombing strikes on Iraq

--launched a 78-day bombing campaign against Serbia

--put troops into Kosovo

--moved NATO into Poland

--established U.S. bases in former provinces of Russia's

--invaded Afghanistan and Iraq

And in this same quarter century Iran has invaded not one neighbor and fought but one war: an 8-year war with Iraq where she was the victim of aggression.

[SJackson]

I know Pat is an isolationist but his rantings the last few years confound me. He's not running for anything, why does he have to be such contrarian?...He sounds like a democrat.

There's an audience out there. Particularly one issue at a time.

[verbal voter]

Pat writes well and some of what he says is true or likely to happen.

We however are not headed toward one world government as you suggest. Soon the US will throw the UN out of America and then QUIT the UN. We will not submit to their view of the world.

[Edgerunner]

Where's the "jeeeeez not again!" picture?