| Submit your comments on this article | |
| International-UN-NGOs | |
| America's Global Retreat | |
| 2014-02-23 | |
| Mr. Obama's supporters like nothing better than to portray him as the peacemaker to George W. Bush's warmonger. But it is now almost certain that more people have died violent deaths in the Greater Middle East during this presidency than during the last one. In a January interview with the New Yorker magazine, the president said something truly stunning. "I don't really even need George Kennan right now," he asserted, referring to the late American diplomat and historian whose insights informed the foreign policy of presidents from Franklin Roosevelt on. Yet what Mr. Obama went on to say about his self-assembled strategy for the Middle East makes it clear that a George Kennan is exactly what he needs: someone with the regional expertise and experience to craft a credible strategy for the U.S., as Kennan did when he proposed the "containment" of the Soviet Union in the late 1940s. So what exactly is the president's strategy? "It would be profoundly in the interest of citizens throughout the region if Sunnis and Shiites weren't intent on killing each other," the president explained in the New Yorker. "And although it would not solve the entire problem, if we were able to get Iran to operate in a responsible fashion . . . you could see an equilibrium developing between Sunni, or predominantly Sunni, Gulf states and Iran." Moreover, he continued, if only "the Palestinian issue" could be "unwound," then another "new equilibrium" could be created, allowing Israel to "enter into even an informal alliance with at least normalized diplomatic relations" with the Sunni states. The president has evidently been reading up about international relations and has reached the chapter on the "balance of power." The trouble with his analysis is that it does not explain why any of the interested parties should sign up for his balancing act.
Maybe, on reflection, it is not a Kennan that Mr. Obama needs, but a Kissinger. "The attainment of peace is not as easy as the desire for it," Dr. Kissinger once observed. "Those ages which in retrospect seem most peaceful were least in search of peace. Those whose quest for it seems unending appear least able to achieve tranquillity. Whenever peace--conceived as the avoidance of war--has been the primary objective . . . the international system has been at the mercy of [its] most ruthless member." Those are words this president, at a time when there is much ruthlessness abroad in the world, would do well to ponder. | |
| Posted by:Pappy |
| #8 Sorry, but US-specific global - startegic = geopolitical retreat or pullback from East Asia + Pacific means my NOT-MADONNA-RELATED childhood dreams or visions from childhood, where the US may decide to sink or destroy Guam + other key Pacific isles wid "Earthguake/Tectonic Bombs", is that much closer to being prophetic. To be forewarned is to be forewarned so that the above can be righteously avoided. [HUGO CHAVEZ = RED BERET + PARROT, ARMY BOOTS WALKING DOWN WISCONSIN AVENUE = MICHELLE'S BRIGADE here]. As a courtesy reminder, its now 2014 - the US-World + our mighty future OWG-NWO that no Amerian = Amerikan has yet voted for, nor been asked to, nor will be iff certain Politicos have their choice, has over 1-1/2 Decades to build an effective SPACE DEFENSE + ASTEROID MANAGEMENT SYS, ETC. in order to prevent the good citizens of Guam + USA + Earth from watching massive explosions of the Moon vee COMET APOPHIS 2029 + 2036. WHAT - 15 YEARS-PLUS ISN'T LONG ENOUGH??? BIBLICAL WHINING ISRAELIS IN THE DESERT = WHINING POST-MODERN, POST-INFORMATION, POST-MILLENIAL ISRAELIS/GLOBICANS [Globalist-Earthicans] IN SPACE = WELL YEAH, GOD WON OUR BATTLES + SAVED OUR LIVES A ZILYUHN TIMES, BUT WHAT HAS HE DONE FOR US LATELY!? The "Govts-Perts OWG-NWO Consensus is there is no such Consensus". GIVE ME "SAFE" POLITICS, OR GIVE ME ASTEROID??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2014-02-23 19:49 |
| #7 False-consensus effect. Dunning-Kruger effect. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2014-02-23 19:20 |
| #6 To be a global leader you have to work. Obama claims no one has to work anymore. He will pay all of your bills. He plays golf everyday and still gets 54 Christmas trees every Christmas. This is paid for by taxes on the rich like the tanning bed tax (well, only paid by white people, not black people) and tax from IRS audits of people who disagree (complain too much), etc.. |
| Posted by: Omavising Ebbemp9815 2014-02-23 18:19 |
| #5 What strategy? The same strategy that made him POTUS. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2014-02-23 14:30 |
| #4 What strategy? (Other than the destruction of America for his commie masters.) |
| Posted by: Barbara 2014-02-23 14:00 |
| #3 So what exactly is the president's strategy? After a lifetime of socialist indoctrination which distorts his perception of the real world - "I see five lights" |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2014-02-23 13:42 |
| #2 So what exactly is the president's strategy? To tell the truth at all times. (Yes it's sarc) |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2014-02-23 11:01 |
| #1 So what exactly is the president's strategy? False-consensus effect. |
| Posted by: DepotGuy 2014-02-23 10:38 |