Tuesday, October 16, 2007
If this were the private sector...
Would the Secretary of State or President be out of a job? You be the judge...
Headlines from Drudge today:
PUTIN VISITS IRAN, SENDS WARNINGS TO USA
As American prerogatives continue to lose the weight of force around the world, what with the strain of the Iraqi operation showing for all to see, a counterbalance to American interventionism begins to take shape. Other nations seem unwilling to sit in blissful isolation and await America's determination of regime change. Instead, those nations who know they're on W's "to do" list seem intent on banding together to make the job more uncomfortable, if not impossible, for us.
I can't figure out why the leader of a borderline 1st world nation (Putin) would prefer to throw his lot and his nation's future in with 3rd world countries (like Iran) rather than grow closer to Europe and the U.S. It's not rational. Unless we went out of our way to isolate Putin. Like by pursuing policies such as NATO expansion right to Russia's doorstep, continued meddling in Russian governance in the name of America's role as the defender of universal human rights, building an Eastern European missile shield in territories that they've long considered their sphere of influence, and dropping an army of a quarter million Americans (when contractors and civilian support are factored in) on their Southern flank. So now our most ruthless enemies (Iran) have an ally with thousands of nukes. Nice work.
Turkey takes step towards Iraq operation
See above, "US Military to the breaking point". We can't create a DMZ on the Turkish/Iraqi border. We can't expect the Kurdish tribal leaders to have the military/police strength to control their most militant countrymen. We can't expect Turkey to do nothing when they have no border integrity. So now they're going to invade, and we can do....absolutely nothing. Our diplomatic leverage is diminished, our military strength is clearly maxed out in dealing with Iraqi insurgents, and all of our coalition allies are on the way out, not ready to deploy tens of thousands of new troops to help with the Kurdish situation. What will happen when a Turkish force on par in size to the American contingent in Iraq makes contact with US forces? They're not looking to fight with us, but then again, they're not cooperating with us either. A highly unstable situation. One would imagine that this would have repercussions in the financial markets as well...
OIL NEARS $88...
Gold price hits highest level since '80...
'Nuff said.
Well, at least we've probably learned our lesson. That we can't go around willy nilly disrespecting the governments of foreign powers and demanding they apply the US Bill of Rights to their domestic politics. Because if we do, and we no longer have the stick of military dominance to waive before them, we are simply growing a coalition of enemies. At least that lesson seems to have been learned...
Bush to Meet With Dalai Lama Today...
...China 'furious'
Or perhaps not.
Headlines from Drudge today:
PUTIN VISITS IRAN, SENDS WARNINGS TO USA
As American prerogatives continue to lose the weight of force around the world, what with the strain of the Iraqi operation showing for all to see, a counterbalance to American interventionism begins to take shape. Other nations seem unwilling to sit in blissful isolation and await America's determination of regime change. Instead, those nations who know they're on W's "to do" list seem intent on banding together to make the job more uncomfortable, if not impossible, for us.
I can't figure out why the leader of a borderline 1st world nation (Putin) would prefer to throw his lot and his nation's future in with 3rd world countries (like Iran) rather than grow closer to Europe and the U.S. It's not rational. Unless we went out of our way to isolate Putin. Like by pursuing policies such as NATO expansion right to Russia's doorstep, continued meddling in Russian governance in the name of America's role as the defender of universal human rights, building an Eastern European missile shield in territories that they've long considered their sphere of influence, and dropping an army of a quarter million Americans (when contractors and civilian support are factored in) on their Southern flank. So now our most ruthless enemies (Iran) have an ally with thousands of nukes. Nice work.
Turkey takes step towards Iraq operation
See above, "US Military to the breaking point". We can't create a DMZ on the Turkish/Iraqi border. We can't expect the Kurdish tribal leaders to have the military/police strength to control their most militant countrymen. We can't expect Turkey to do nothing when they have no border integrity. So now they're going to invade, and we can do....absolutely nothing. Our diplomatic leverage is diminished, our military strength is clearly maxed out in dealing with Iraqi insurgents, and all of our coalition allies are on the way out, not ready to deploy tens of thousands of new troops to help with the Kurdish situation. What will happen when a Turkish force on par in size to the American contingent in Iraq makes contact with US forces? They're not looking to fight with us, but then again, they're not cooperating with us either. A highly unstable situation. One would imagine that this would have repercussions in the financial markets as well...
OIL NEARS $88...
Gold price hits highest level since '80...
'Nuff said.
Well, at least we've probably learned our lesson. That we can't go around willy nilly disrespecting the governments of foreign powers and demanding they apply the US Bill of Rights to their domestic politics. Because if we do, and we no longer have the stick of military dominance to waive before them, we are simply growing a coalition of enemies. At least that lesson seems to have been learned...
Bush to Meet With Dalai Lama Today...
...China 'furious'
Or perhaps not.
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Always sniffing for the truth
4 comments:
A snarky post like this one is not hard to do, and one could comb the internet to come up with fodder for a hit piece on virtually any politican or leader at any time.
But the fact that I could pull all these headlines, and all these stories, from Drudge's front page on one given day is, frankly, alarming and indicative of where we're headed.
Perhaps more than at anytime in my lifetime, we need a statesman to take the reigns in January '09. One who can rebuild American military strength, while projecting a humble image and rebuilding international ties. Whack jobs like Ahmadinejad should not have foreign leaders flockiing to do photo ops with him. In a world where sanity prevailed, they would be avoiding him like the plague.
Remember when a "humble foreign policy" was one of the main plank's in W's 2000 platform? Wow, that's a long time ago.
A few thoughts:
1. No question W has done a poor job managing international affairs; I was hoping Condi would help improve this situation but whether it's b/c she's being overruled or she is the one who has been formulating these policies all along, it doesn't seem to be changing.
2. Turkey gets even worse since House just voted to declare Armenian deaths a genocide in WWI.
3. I think Putin's actions are more a result of Putin than W. I believe Putin, who is ex-KGB, still has a yearning for "mother russia" to rise up again as USSR and be at least an equal to US. I think he purposely avoids befriending US b/c this would not allow him to try to restore Russia's dominance. He is clearly still living in the days of the cold war and is very power hungry. There were predictions he would find a way to stay in gov't after his term was over, and indeed that appears to be the case with his push for running as PM. If not, he has been quietly building the strength of Lukoil over the past several years and it was rumored he might possibly run that company as a private citizen, giving him enormous power. His own arrogance and quest for power and Russian glory prevent him from simply being a lackey of the US. I would guess he sees a real, continuing role for a collection of other countries (even if 3rd world) that stand opposed to US. Bottom line is, he's not the one living in 3rd world conditions, he'll simply make money off their backs (sell them Russian arms, oil, etc.) and live the good life.
w/r/t point 3, I agree with you that Putin seeks a return to USSR glory for Russia. That's not surprising. What is surprising is how overt he has been able to act because we've squandered the ability to rein him in (having pushed our allies to the breaking point with all the arm-twisting leading up to the Iraq-UN vote, we don't have the political chips; having exposed our military, we don't have the force chips)