"I prefer to think of what I do as 'play a one-string banjo'."
Posted on 11/17/2010 2:40:07 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Lately in the news:
Beijing provokes clashes with the navies of both Indonesia and Japan as part of a bid to claim the South China Sea. Tokyo is in a serious diplomatic row with Russia over the South Kuril islands, a leftover dispute from 1945. There are credible fears that Tehran and Damascus will use the anticipated indictment of Hezbollah figures by a United Nations tribunal to overthrow the elected Lebanese government. Managua is attempting to annex a sliver of Costa Rica, a nation much too virtuous to have an army of its own. And speaking of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega is setting himself up as another Hugo Chávez by running, unconstitutionally, for another term. Both men are friends and allies of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
About all of this, the Obama administration has basically done nothing. As Sarah Palin might say: How’s that multi-poley stuff workin’ out for ya?
Throughout the Bush years, “multipolarity” was held up as the intelligent and necessary alternative to the supposedly go-it-alone approach to the world of the incumbent administration. French President Jacques Chirac was for it: “I have no doubt,” he said in 2003, “that the multipolar vision of the world that I have defended for some time is certainly supported by a large majority of countries throughout the world.” So were such doyens of the US foreign policy establishment as Fareed Zakaria and Francis Fukuyama.
In this view, multipolarity wasn’t merely a description of the world as it is, or of the world soon to come. It was also a prescription, a belief that a globe containing multiple centres of influence and power was preferable to one in which American dominance led, inevitably, to American excess. The war in Iraq was supposed to be Exhibit A.
(Excerpt) Read more at livemint.com ...
That's a great narrative put out. But it's completely false.
We depended on coalitions[Afghanistan, Iraq, UN mandates] to fix things.
It didn't work. Depending on other Nations and being a hand maiden of the UN is the actual problem.
Perhaps, America should start looking out for America.
Air Guitar- describes him to a “T”. He moves around alot, some think it looks neat. But, in the end, nothing is accomplished. How fitting!
He probably does those cool fingery-pointy things in the bathroom mirror every day.
One of the underlying principles of Foreign Policy Realism or Pragmatism is that all nations, including the US, should or do act in their own self interest.
The author of this article, Bret Stephens, is a NeoCon and subscribes to NeoCon foreign policy principles, which rely on idealism. The US's foreign policy should include promoting Democratic ideals thru-out the world in general and specifically in the mid-east.
The second component of NeoCon Foreign Policy Doctrine, which began as the Wolfowitz Doctrine, is that the the US won the Cold War, is/was the last remaining superpower, so, the US should utilize US military power and might to promote foreign policy ideals.
These conflicts between the Republican Realists and Republican NeoCons have been going on since the NeoCons left the democratic party and came into the GOP in the 70s.
The conflict escalated in the post cold war period and became a blood feud in the post 9-11 period. It got even worse with Obama's election as the Republican Realists came to control Obama's foreign policies.
Beijing provokes clashes with the navies of both Indonesia and Japan as part of a bid to claim the South China Sea. Tokyo is in a serious diplomatic row with Russia over the South Kuril islands, a leftover dispute from 1945. There are credible fears that Tehran and Damascus will use the anticipated indictment of Hezbollah figures by a United Nations tribunal to overthrow the elected Lebanese government. Managua is attempting to annex a sliver of Costa Rica, a nation much too virtuous to have an army of its own. And speaking of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega is setting himself up as another Hugo Chávez by running, unconstitutionally, for another term. Both men are friends and allies of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.Thanks 2ndDivisionVet. Zero is dangerously incompetent; in addition, he's not a US citizen and/or is our enemy.
"I prefer to think of what I do as 'play a one-string banjo'."
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