Five Vital Lessons From Iraq (Paul Johnson)

• Lesson II. Germany is a different case. [...] Germany is a brand to be snatched from the burning; we must make a positive and urgent effort to win it back to the fold.

Very perceptive, and I largely agree. However, this begs the question, How exactly to "win back Germany to the fold". Moreover, what is "the fold"? If it is the Anglosphere, then Germany will understandably feel like a fifth wheel, a tolerated junior partner at best, a linguistic and cultural outsider at worst.

Also, while the next German government will certainly correct the horrible Francophile tendency of the Schroeder administration (Berlin has all but signed over its foreign policy to Paris), you cannot expect that the Germans will ever go along with isolating France as "the enemy".

Complicating this is the difficulty Germany has in coming to grips with the diminished importance of the country in international politics.

It will all sort itself out, eventually. The US administration is much like a pater familias keeping a worried eye on a close relative sliding into drink and shabbiness. Interfere too much, and you run the risk of making things worse, in addition to being resented for your meddling. Turn your back on the guy, and he may embark on a life of crime, and make far bigger trouble for you down the road.

Thanks for the post. Johnson's comments are refreshing. They shine the spotlight on the lie of the old world order versus new world realities epitomized by the UN and the Cold War strategy of balancing one tyrant against another as a means of checking Soviet communist expansion. The world is radically different than it was 15 years ago. In the new world, not only is the paradymn of the UN, and the machinations of a country like France outmoded, they are dangerous.

The assumption, in many minds, seems to be that whereas individual powers act on the world stage according to the brutal rules of realpolitik, the U.N. represents legitimacy and projects an aura of idealism. In fact, more than half a century of experience shows that the U.N. is a theater of hypocrisy, a sink of corruption, a street market of sordid bargains and a seminary of cynicism. It is a place where mass-murdering heads of state can stand tall and sell their votes to the highest bidder and where crimes against humanity are rewarded. For many people the true nature of the U.N. was epitomized by the news that Libya, a blood-soaked military dictatorship of the crudest kind, is to chair the U.N. Commissionon Human Rights.

Agreed!

RE the UN: "It is a place where mass-murdering heads of state can stand tall and sell their votes to the highest bidder and where crimes against humanity are rewarded. "

Sadly, without a moral compass the UN is now pointed south and impossible to reform. Even sadder is the average American high schooler is still being taught that the UN is the true leader of the world and Annan is the voice of reason and justice.

We have to get this message out and be anti UN activists!!

Ping

Other than that, the U.S. should put its trust in the seas and oceans, ...................... America should always have the means to act alone, in any area of the globe where danger threatens and with whatever force is necessary.

A simple and profound case for seapower, and lots of it.

there is no longer a reason for the U.S. to keep large forces in fixed bases on the European continent--at great cost to the U.S.' balance of payments. These forces should be repatriated with all deliberate speed.

The moment Euro-whinnies realise that US is really preparing to withdraw its forces from Western Europe, they'll stop to pretend that Russia is an equal partner and a trusted party to the European process.

Because it isn't.

They know that without the deterrent of the American presence, Russia immediately would resume its aspirations for continental dominance.

Then, all the politically correct bullshit talk will cease, and for the first time Europe will be trully united in a horrified cry: PLEASE DON'T GO AWAY!

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