Well, to paraphrase D.H.

Elusive Trope — Fri, 20 Jun 2014 15:22:26 +0000

In reply to At this point I am leaning in

Well, to paraphrase D.H. Rumsfeld: "You don't go into a conflict with the forces on the ground you want, you go into the conflict with the forces on the ground that are there." Now if he had only listened to his own words of wisdom.

At this point I am leaning in

EmmaZahn — Fri, 20 Jun 2014 14:53:00 +0000

In reply to How Foreign Policy People Think, Part III

At this point I am leaning in favor of what M.S. at The Economist's Democracy in America blog proposes:

I don't think there is anything wrong with the Obama administration's strategy of demanding an inclusive government in exchange for American military intervention. If Iraq does not form a non-sectarian, inclusive government, there is no particular reason why America should aid it. There is no reason for America to deploy deadly force to defend an ethnically repressive Iranian ally from security threats it has itself created. Either Iraqi Shiites will try to reconcile with the Sunni minority, in which case it may make sense to offer them help against ISIS's fanatics, or they won't, in which case America can stay out of a mess it helped create but has little hope of influencing for the better.

Meanwhile, it's time for us to lie on the couch and think about this pattern we keep getting ourselves into. Over and over in the wars America conducts we attempt to create political entities that meet our ideological criteria, but have no natural constituency in the countries themselves. Maliki, Karzai, Diem: we become infuriated at the leaders we install when they fail to carry out our vision of progress. We are the world's biggest Hegelians, analysing every conflict as a clash between two opposing principles that need to be resolved, and then trying to create that synthesis. We have the same longing in domestic politics, for that matter. If only some great moderate could bridge the gap between the two parties, and bring us all together towards the reasonable consensus! We cannot seem to understand that if there were a constituency for that middle position, someone would be occupying that space; if there is no one in that space, it is because the middle position has no constituency. We keep trying to create a third force that does not exist. We need to stop it. The forces on the ground are the forces on the ground. If we support one side, we should back that side, and if not, not. If the two sides want peace, we can help them reach peace. If they want to fight, they will.

Before that he had an interesting recap of how we got involved in Vietnam.

There are not enough US

Anonymous — Fri, 20 Jun 2014 07:09:17 +0000

In reply to How Foreign Policy People Think, Part III

There are not enough US flags, coffins or bodies to fill them to bring peace to the Middle East.

dagblog - Comments for "How Foreign Policy People Think, Part III"

Well, to paraphrase D.H.

At this point I am leaning in

There are not enough US