American Leadership
From the desk of William Holland on Tue, 2011-04-12 18:38
Ours is an age that would have sent Greeks to their Oracles!
Witness American waver in a land embraced by a leader whose very identity is nominally informed from Arabia. Given his place within the pantheon of American leadership after the scourging that became Iraq, he identified alone with the impatience and false rectitude that supplies contemporary liberalism its bile. He could not envision chance giving him a political dilemma whereby he would identity and vindicate the political winds that animated his predecessor.
The reversal and tutorial in foreign affairs that now encompasses the Obama Administration will not abate! Absent a distinct Doctrine informed from Truman or Bush, the Americans may get lucky and vanquish its Libyan foe absent the required political machinations that dominated the domestic political life of his predecessor.
His task is not enviable for we are grappling with an intractable foe whose very political aims are amiss from the passionate revolt that dominates the Arab Street. How else to put it: we simply cannot shape events on the ground without presence. We must safeguard our core interests in the Middle East without betraying either our prestige or core values. The danger is dealing with successive crises on an ad hoc basis. This clearly has been the functioning mandate since the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia. The first tutorial was in accepting difficult and unwanted crisis' that only an American President can thwart. Given the absolute failure of the entire human rights regime, one must ask, can the United Nations or any other libertarian regime maintain credible status absent American leadership?
The irony of reversal that unwittingly dominates Obama is the absolute need to seek regime change among our enemies while encouraging reform among friendly authoritarian regimes. The late great Dr. Jeane Kirkpatrick gave Reagan her tutorial on similar political ground that informed the Reagan Doctrine throughout Central America. The sad truth to behold is simple: Obama has no stomach to measure or shape the events now unfolding throughout North Africa or the greater Middle East.
Everyday that goes by we witness the vindication of a vilified former President. If team Obama cannot find its moral or political compass from which to discern a distinct policy our venture in Libya will fail.
Our ultra-libertarian President can regain the ground lost by seeking to affirm the political ground that dominated our Republic since its founding: our deep suspicion at the very concept of 'balance of power' politics.
Sometimes leadership isn't required
Submitted by Kapitein Andre on Fri, 2011-04-15 07:21.
William Holland seems to be very confused about both foreign policy and the ongoing protests in the Middle East and North Africa. I will try to bring some sense to this rant:
1. The White House’s response to the protests and civil strife that has erupted is neither a departure from the Bush Administration nor a reflection of crypto-Islamism on the part of Obama. The Bush Administration’s priorities were combating Islamic terrorism and preventing nuclear proliferation. The airstrikes in Libya was “humanitarian intervention” along the lines of Somalia, Kosovo, etc.
2. Libya is not vital to American interests. On the contrary, the UK, France and Italy have the most at stake in Libya, and it is no coincidence that David Cameron implied that the UNSC resolution allowed for deposing Ghaddafi or that French aircraft began attacking loyalist armor before the no-fly-zone was even in place
3. Egypt, Bahrain and Yemen are all vital to American interests. In Egypt the reliable military is in power, and the governments in Bahrain and Yemen have all deployed military forces (and in Bahrain’s case foreign mercenaries) against civilian protestors, without any criticism from Washington
4. William uses “liberalism” and “libertarian” incorrectly
5. The UN is not a suprantional government, and the United States pursues its own national interests in the Security Council as do the other permanent members
6. The United States has consistently betrayed its “prestige” and “core values” in order to “safeguard” its “core interests”. The United States followed the Great Powers before it and began empire-building. Americans convinced of their own “exceptionalism” believe that it is still possible for the United States to retain its “unipolar moment” and command the economic heights, and at the same time have no rivals or enemies; just friends
7. In the past, when Americans despised the Great Power struggles, and stayed out of international affairs and allowed their military to decline. Now Americans despise Great Power struggles because they despise rivals. I hardly call that moral foreign policy
A Badly Required Tutorial In Huristics
Submitted by wjholland on Fri, 2011-04-15 18:22.
Dear Andre: George Steiner was right after all! The 'critic looks back and sees a eunuch's shadow'.
The freshman advance in holding a rigid historicism embodies the folly & emptiness that grounds the last stand for those adhering to the political left.
It proves what has been acknowledged since Julien Benda: those that hold firmly to a pedantic glimpse have not the fortitude to govern.
Not the Alamo
Submitted by KO on Wed, 2011-04-13 21:24.
Friend Debendevan, the Alamo was the precursor to total success. The Battle of San Jacinto followed shortly thereafter, resulting in the independence of Texas from Mexico. It was not a last stand. Beyond that, I agree with your advice, though not the depressed wording. America has plenty of wealth and power and human capital to be a very successful nation if its conduct were simply confined to reasonable human ambitions. It is only megalomaniacal schemes for world domination by liberalism (left and right, hand in hand) that are destroying us, fostered by a delusional egalitarian (anti-Western, anti-white) anthropology.
One of the most pathetic displays of fading empire is Britain's and France's importation of mass numbers of Third Worlders from their former empires, suicidally keeping the dream of empire alive. A junkie's last hit. They should have started acting like small, ambitious unproven countries again instead of senile magnates.
Libertarian?
Submitted by debendevan on Tue, 2011-04-12 20:02.
William, sorry but I beg to differ on your definition of Barack Obama as libertarian. Did you mean to say liberal?
As far as U.S. policy goes, yes, I agree that it is in tatters. But I don't find it surprising given the lack of leadership from the White House. Our foreign policy has whipsawed over the past 10 years: it appears to drift and react instead of define.
That said, I myself have no further stomach for foreign adventures. It is hard for me to condone sending my two sons off to fight for purposes that are opaque, for people who views us with disdain, and under leadership which is either uninformed or uninspired. Further, I feel we are on the depressing downward slope of Empire. We are now as Spain was in the 1820s, as England and France were in 1960.
What do empires do in such a state? They struggle to conserve, protect resources, shorten lines of battle. We must withdraw the legions, pull back from aimless exercises in imperial folly. That is what we, the West, must do. Shorten the front lines, conserve our resources, and be prepared for an Alamo-like last stand.