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 ...
I think most people are aware of the CIA's role in Iran in 1953. During his rein, Iran was a emerging secular country. It was a de facto ally of the USA. Bringing up the nefarious activities while discussing Iran is similar to Obama bringing up the Crusades. Both measures were defenses of the West. It's clear that the anti-American themes oppose defending the West, yet there will always be those who point out that those who chant Death to America or G-damn America or not really our friends.
I understand soft power very well. Presumably, in the case of Iran, you think it's a magic wand that can be used by the likes of Obama instead of real power.
Yes you are, Mr. Taxpayer. Both Obama's budget request and the numbers that the GOP congress is throwing around are using the Overseas Contingency Operations money as a way to get around the sequester on defense spending in the FY 2016 budget.
Give it up. Make a mountain out of DoD expenditures while completely neglecting the unceasing and escalating costs of retirements, entitlements, and social programs why don’t you?
Further, to infuse the argument of the author with some perceived acceptance by those big three with NeoConservatism is ludicrous in my opinion.
The author isn’t a liberal who has been mugged by reality (my definition of a NeoCon). The use of the term falsely equates that movement with conservatism. To further delve back into reinterpreted history (arguments commonly used by liberals) about Iran of yesterday, the CIA et al and associate it with nearly every Mideast problem today is obfuscation, frankly. These peoples’ own bibles written centuries before the OSS and CIA’s inception tell the real influences.
He pondered how America forgot that it is ‘America’. Not how Necon influence is such a big thing at the “papers of note.”
Hopefully you or someone else will set the national priorities on "real power".
You've got Iran, Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Afghanistan, and now Yemen. Plus puppy dogs like the Somalia and the Philippines.
What are the priorities in the list?
The solution for America is the same as the solution for Chile when the Marxist Allende was overthrown and Augusto Pinochet became head of Chile.
America didn't forget. America changed and the world changed. And we can define those changes.
The world shifted from the Cold War Period to the Post Cold War Period. Foreign policy is framed by the foreign policy period. Foreign Policy is organized around external threats.
The cusp of the change was under GHW Bush and there emerged two competing ideas: the Powell Doctrine and the Wolfowitz Doctrine which would also be called first the NeoCon Doctrine and then the Bush Doctrine.
The Hart-Rudman Commission and the Gilmore Commission were convened to determine how the US would shift to the Post Cold War Period, which led to a major re-organization of the govt and creating DHS. The external threat shifted from the Soviets to the terrorists, which resulted in the "War on Terror". And we would win the war on terror the same way we won the cold war, demographically, or outlasting them.
The Cold War created a bi-polar world: Soviets Vs America. So in the post cold war period are we in a uni-polar world where the US is last remaining superpower and world hegemon, or is it now a multi-polar world. So the question becomes Unilateralism vs Multilateralism?
America changed in the sense that Foreign Policy Doctrines shifted. Under Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and GHW Bush, the Realists were most influential but the Liberal Interventionists rose to power under Clinton and the NeoCons rose to power under GW Bush. Under Obama the Realists have had the most influence. But Obama has framed everything as multilateral. And if you had to use one word to describe Obama's foreign policy, it would be multilateralism.
I get the same arguments from Friedman’s Flat Earth proponents. I read the book and finally realized it was largely based on interviews and works of NYT and similar journalists who want to blame everything on conservatives.
You can just bark that stuff up another tree or teach it to your junior college mush minds. I don’t really care.
Syria is too big of a mess now for any direct US involvement. We should continue to weaken ISIS with airpower to assure they cannot win. If they want to fight Assad for 20 years, then it's better that all the Islamist fight him than anyone else. Yemen is a lesser threat than even Syria to the US and should largely be handled by Saudi and its allies. A loss there by the Iraninan backed Houthis would be a loss too to Iranian ambitions, and that would be salubrious.
Somalia remains a failed state and a threat to its neighbors and somewhat to the US due to terrorism. As such, using the FBI (to locate the domestic threats within the US), the CIA (to gather intelligence and to arm Western type forces to counter Somali terrorists, if available), closer MIL-to-MIL ties with Ethiopia, and Special Operations (to eliminate threats from Somali terrorist with direct action) would be my choice.
The Philippines, unless I'm missing something, is being well handled now through cooperation between the Government of the Philippines and its forces and the US Army Special Forces.
Unfortunately, none of this is cheap. We tried to save on our defense budget after WWI and were bombed into WWII. We tried for a peace dividend after the Cold War, and we were bombed in New York City at the World Trade Center twice. Wanting to have peace, and wanting to not waste money on defense, are noble aspirations. Unfortunately, the enemy must have the same desire to leave us alone.
I know you want it to be about liberals vs conservatives, but the conflict breaks out along doctrinal lines.
So what you see on Iran in the senate coalition is liberal interventionists such as Shumer, Menendez, Booker, Gillibrand, and others in lockstep with the NeoCon republicans.
On the other side are the Realists composed of dems and republicans resisting and the Realist Bob Corker was in the key position(Committee Chairman) to pull back from the brink at the last minute.
It doesn't mean that it is over, only that there will be no deal killing amendments or pre-emptive sanctions added, and that the senate decision will not be made until the negotiations are completely finished. This has been the conflict since Dec 2013 when Kirk(R) and Menendez(D) composed Kirk- Menendez.
Back then, Menendez(interventionist) controlled the committee but the realists, thru Harry Reid, controlled the senate floor. When the GOP won the senate, McConnell(neocon) controlled the senate floor, but Corker took over the committee from Menendez and pushed his legislation and ultimately got to negotiate with Cardin rather than Menendez.
For discussion purposes, lets say the Iran negotiations fall thru. If so, the Realists will join the NeoCons and Interventionists and the senate will have enough votes(67) to legislatively determine the path taken with Iran.
Do they choose to go back to sanctions and can they get P5 plus one to go back to multilateral sanctions. Or do they go to a unilateral military intervention of mowing the grass on certain intervals?
In which case, as you said, the journalists will then be in a position to blame it all on the GOP, if fit hits the shan.
That’s a great point too. Until very recently, this type of openly anti-God expression would have shocked and troubled so many that the Democrats would have prevented it.
During the Cold War we never had a President whose chief advisor (and boss) was born in the USSR. Even Jimmy Carter had a national security advisor who was Polish and therefore inclined to be wary of the Soviets, even if Jimmy’s instincts were to appease the Soviets, at least until they invaded Afghanistan.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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Easy question...When people started to think they were either above everyone else and became self-centered and greedy like actors and politicians and corny corporations or that people would be thinking they could rely on others instead of being self reliant and began complaining about everything like kids. So we have a nation of people who are lazy or greedy.
Two main reasons IMO.
God is keeping his promises to those who curse Israel.
This nation has in large way turned from God.
Well said indeed!
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