Lucille
12-12-2011, 10:21 PM
Ironic, no? I've been trying to tell the "conservative" Wilsonian nation-builders this for years, like when they say this would be the result of RP's foreign policy, but they don't want to hear it. Just like when I tell them Bushbama's glorious wars are "building" Islamic theocracies.
Wars without victory equal an America without influence (http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/patrick-cockburn-wars-without-victory-equal-an-america-without-influence-6275461.html)
World View: For all its military might, the US has failed to get its way in Afghanistan and Iraq, severely denting the prestige of the world's only superpower
In reality, America's failure to get its way in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade, despite deploying large armies and spending trillions of dollars, has been extraordinarily damaging to its status as sole superpower. Whatever Washington thought it wanted when it invaded Iraq in 2003, it was not the establishment of Shia religious parties with links to Iran in power in Baghdad. Similarly, in Afghanistan, a surge in US troop numbers and the expenditure of $100bn a year has not led to the defeat of 25,000 mostly untrained Taliban fighters.
Great powers depend on a reputation for invincibility and are wise not to put this too often to the test. [...]
What makes the US inability to win in Iraq and Afghanistan so damaging is that US policy-making has been progressively militarised. Congress will vote the Pentagon vast sums, while it stints the State Department a few billion dollars. "The Department of Defense is the behemoth among federal agencies," noted the 9/11 Commission Report. "With an annual budget larger than the gross domestic product of Russia, it is an empire."
But it is an empire that has failed to deliver in recent years, though without paying a political price. A senior US diplomat asked me plaintively several years ago: "Whatever happened to popular scepticism about what generals say that we had after Vietnam? People seem to assume they are telling the truth ... they are usually not."
[...]
It does not look likely that in a presidential election year, after getting out of Iraq and hoping to do the same in Afghanistan, the US will launch a war against Iran. In the US and Israel there are few votes to be lost in talking tough about Iran, but voters are much less enthusiastic about actually going to war with a stronger opponent than the US ever faced in Iraq or Afghanistan, or Israel in Lebanon.
In the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, the rest of the world is not going to thank the US or Israel for starting a conflict that would close the Strait of Hormuz and send up the price of oil. It would also be difficult to de-escalate such a confrontation because it serves domestic electoral purposes in Washington, Tel Aviv and Tehran alike. Americans, Israelis and Iranians all define their self-image in terms of opposition to demonic enemies. Any compromise is vulnerable to being sabotaged by domestic political rivals as a deal with the devil.
I hope that last part is true, but knowing Mordor on the Potomac, I doubt it.
h/t http://www.antiwar.com/
Related: Mailvox: A new GOP foreign policy (http://voxday.blogspot.com/2011/12/mailvox-new-gop-foreign-policy.html)
The problem, however, is that Republicans don't endorse their own back to basics argument when it comes to foreign policy. Conservatives, historically speaking, don't a endorse the idea that America is the world's police force, and for the sake of consistency and the good of the country, today's Republicans need to abandoned this interventionist mindset.
This may sound like a strange argument if you don't know your history, so let's briefly put it context. The idea that America should cross the globe solving every nation's problems is a progressive one. And it makes sense when you think about it. The left generally accepts that the government ought to have a very active role in society, alleviating poverty, ensuring a level playing field or the little guy, and so on. So why wouldn't the same be true of foreign policy as well?
It's all quite true. Unfortunately, it's all quite irrelevant. The observable fact of the matter is that most Republicans, including many who call themselves conservatives, are now progressives on the foreign policy front. There is literally nothing conservative about the Republican Party's mainstream anymore, and they are at their most left-wing and pro-government intervention with regards to foreign policy.
What wouldn't weaken our military, our economy and our influence in the world is Ron Paul's conservative (http://www.theamericanconservative.com/article/2010/mar/01/00040/) foreign policy. Progs left and right (http://the-classic-liberal.com/conservatives-hate-russell-kirk/) have been an unmitigated disaster! A catastrophe of the highest order! And they must be stopped.
Wars without victory equal an America without influence (http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/patrick-cockburn-wars-without-victory-equal-an-america-without-influence-6275461.html)
World View: For all its military might, the US has failed to get its way in Afghanistan and Iraq, severely denting the prestige of the world's only superpower
In reality, America's failure to get its way in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade, despite deploying large armies and spending trillions of dollars, has been extraordinarily damaging to its status as sole superpower. Whatever Washington thought it wanted when it invaded Iraq in 2003, it was not the establishment of Shia religious parties with links to Iran in power in Baghdad. Similarly, in Afghanistan, a surge in US troop numbers and the expenditure of $100bn a year has not led to the defeat of 25,000 mostly untrained Taliban fighters.
Great powers depend on a reputation for invincibility and are wise not to put this too often to the test. [...]
What makes the US inability to win in Iraq and Afghanistan so damaging is that US policy-making has been progressively militarised. Congress will vote the Pentagon vast sums, while it stints the State Department a few billion dollars. "The Department of Defense is the behemoth among federal agencies," noted the 9/11 Commission Report. "With an annual budget larger than the gross domestic product of Russia, it is an empire."
But it is an empire that has failed to deliver in recent years, though without paying a political price. A senior US diplomat asked me plaintively several years ago: "Whatever happened to popular scepticism about what generals say that we had after Vietnam? People seem to assume they are telling the truth ... they are usually not."
[...]
It does not look likely that in a presidential election year, after getting out of Iraq and hoping to do the same in Afghanistan, the US will launch a war against Iran. In the US and Israel there are few votes to be lost in talking tough about Iran, but voters are much less enthusiastic about actually going to war with a stronger opponent than the US ever faced in Iraq or Afghanistan, or Israel in Lebanon.
In the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, the rest of the world is not going to thank the US or Israel for starting a conflict that would close the Strait of Hormuz and send up the price of oil. It would also be difficult to de-escalate such a confrontation because it serves domestic electoral purposes in Washington, Tel Aviv and Tehran alike. Americans, Israelis and Iranians all define their self-image in terms of opposition to demonic enemies. Any compromise is vulnerable to being sabotaged by domestic political rivals as a deal with the devil.
I hope that last part is true, but knowing Mordor on the Potomac, I doubt it.
h/t http://www.antiwar.com/
Related: Mailvox: A new GOP foreign policy (http://voxday.blogspot.com/2011/12/mailvox-new-gop-foreign-policy.html)
The problem, however, is that Republicans don't endorse their own back to basics argument when it comes to foreign policy. Conservatives, historically speaking, don't a endorse the idea that America is the world's police force, and for the sake of consistency and the good of the country, today's Republicans need to abandoned this interventionist mindset.
This may sound like a strange argument if you don't know your history, so let's briefly put it context. The idea that America should cross the globe solving every nation's problems is a progressive one. And it makes sense when you think about it. The left generally accepts that the government ought to have a very active role in society, alleviating poverty, ensuring a level playing field or the little guy, and so on. So why wouldn't the same be true of foreign policy as well?
It's all quite true. Unfortunately, it's all quite irrelevant. The observable fact of the matter is that most Republicans, including many who call themselves conservatives, are now progressives on the foreign policy front. There is literally nothing conservative about the Republican Party's mainstream anymore, and they are at their most left-wing and pro-government intervention with regards to foreign policy.
What wouldn't weaken our military, our economy and our influence in the world is Ron Paul's conservative (http://www.theamericanconservative.com/article/2010/mar/01/00040/) foreign policy. Progs left and right (http://the-classic-liberal.com/conservatives-hate-russell-kirk/) have been an unmitigated disaster! A catastrophe of the highest order! And they must be stopped.