QS, you were trying to kill me. Hasta la vista, baby ...

It wasn't personal, he just wanted some of us, any of us over there in Iraq, to expire. Any dead american would have been a good american to him. He made sure the bombers had very potent IEDs. Well, I'm still here you son of an asshat, and you are fucking pieces and embers.

For all the current furor over the death of Qasem Soleimani, it is Iran, not the U.S. and the Trump administration, that is in a dilemma. Given the death and destruction wrought by Soleimani, and his agendas to come, he will not be missed.

Tehran has misjudged the U.S. administration’s doctrine of strategic realism rather than vice versa. The theocracy apparently calculated that prior U.S. patience and restraint in the face of its aggression was proof of an unwillingness or inability to respond. More likely, the administration was earlier prepping for a possible more dramatic, deadly, and politically justifiable response when and if Iran soon overreached.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/iranian-analytics/

Tigers by the Tail for Two

Between the proverbial rock and hard place.
https://geopoliticalfutures.com/the-geopolitical-logic-of-the-us-china-trade-war/?fbclid=IwAR2gOt_kC04aqizmk2iBIoWHbUnrDQOiAKsqqSRBWvJeg2L6ZIf_2aPACiA

Wonderful Wacky World of Foreign Affairs

https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2019/08/14/venezuela_china_russia__oh_my_110466.html

Meddling? Or saving the Venezuelans from the oppressive Russians/Chinese?

Do What I Say, Not What I Do

"Zarif’s comments prefigured the strategy that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is following today in his brinksmanship with President Trump. Playing on the fear, especially prevalent among European elites and American Democrats, that Trump is, precisely, an agent of chaos, Khamenei has taken a leaf from the book of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who in 2017 appeared at the World Economic Forum as the representative of enlightened globalism. “We should adhere to multilateralism to uphold the authority and efficacy of multilateral institutions,” Xi declared. “We should honor promises and abide by rules.”"
https://mosaicmagazine.com/observation/politics-current-affairs/2019/06/what-iran-is-really-up-to/

I agree with Xi. He and the Chinese should honor promises and abide by rules. Perhaps one day they will.

Fine Mess Yes, Other Options ... Which?

The author rightfully bashes FDR for, like TR, making treaties with a foreign nation without the legislative branch's endorsement. However, the problem it addressed was not one so simple that I feel any need to judge FDR. As for the oil and Saudi Arabia leading the US by the nose - nope. I don't see it.

Mark this down under a general category which is "no government is smart enough to run its own  business, much less the business of others". The less influence the US Govt provides, the less the US Govt will goon it up.

https://www.realclearhistory.com/articles/2019/04/11/another_fine_mess_in_the_middle_east_431.html

What Planet is this Person From?

"It's kind of shocking that foreign policy, which used to be nonpartisan, now becomes partisan so quickly."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/opinion/sunday/dowd-little-r-s-p-e-c-t.html?ref=opinion&_r=1

It's hard to take such a comment seriously.

Iran nukes: This is exactly the deal that Obama hoped to achieve in Geneva.

I hope Kaplan is right.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2013/11/_iran_nukes_this_is_exactly_the_deal_that_obama_hoped_to_achieve_in_geneva.html

Sweden's Perils

There are no easy solutions to assimilating refugees into a solid culture. When I did a year-long study in 2005 of European countries integrating Muslims into their cultures, France came the lowest of the rank. Sweden was not far behind, though, which is worrying as racism in France is much closer to the bone. One would expect the country of Olaf Palme, or Alice Lind, or Raoul Wallenberg, to somehow do better.
Stockholm is surely an urban planner's dream. Everything works. Everything looks good. But we live in times where revolutions and uprisings are rising from the disenchanted and the dispossessed. The riots here earlier in the summer were a warning call—that even the most seemingly perfect of cultures can get it wrong.
https://socialreader.com/?chid=68497&_p=trending&utm_source=wp&utm_medium=Widgets&utm_campaign=wpsrTrendingExternal-1-opt#me/content/TLfyO

Lesser of the Two Evils

"Liberalism, the Carter administration's animating impulse, adhered to a "modernization paradigm" which taught that the U.S. interest was always in modernization. This meant, liberals thought, that popular movements espousing revolutionary aspirations were inherently preferable to traditional autocracies. This, said Kirkpatrick, "encourages support for all change that takes place in the name of 'the people.' " However, the liberalization of an autocracy is, Kirkpatrick believed, although neither certain nor easy, still more likely than the reform of an ideologically revolutionary regime. This is because of "systemic differences between traditional and revolutionary autocracies that have a predictable effect on their degree of repressiveness. Generally speaking, traditional autocrats tolerate social inequities, brutality and poverty while revolutionary autocracies create them."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-egypts-preferable-tyranny/2013/07/10/84b049a8-e8c0-11e2-a301-ea5a8116d211_story.html

The lesser of two evils has still had a cost; can we stay out of it this time and just let the dust fly?

Why Did No One Help?

Powerful, beautiful writing.

"At 17, I was just a child. Life rewarded me richly for surviving. I stumbled home, wounded and traumatized, to a fabulous family. With them on my side, so much came my way. I found true love. I wrote books. I saw a kangaroo in the wild. I caught buses and missed trains. I had a shining child. The century changed. My first gray hair appeared."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/08/opinion/after-being-raped-i-was-wounde
d-my-honor-wasnt.html?src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB

Sobering analysis of the price we pay for an overbearing state, which we don't trust and which, at the same time, makes "protecting victims" a job of the police; "not what I'm supposed to do."

" The crux is here that the "cost" is often not a strictly economic or financial cost. Rather it represents in part the opportunity cost of time and the more direct costs that would be incurred for someone who did get involved and then would need to spend hours, days, perhaps even weeks entangled with the authorities. We document in the book cases in India and China where would-be Good Samaritans have ended up being harassed by the police, wrongly accused themselves of being the perpetrators, and, in some cases even being accused by the victims whom they're trying to help. To put it bluntly, most people just don't trust the authorities and aren't willing to take the risk of getting mixed up with them for fear of any or all of these things happening. It's not necessarily that they don't want to help, or somehow apathy is hardwired into Indian culture, but people's desire to help is overwhelmed understandably by their reluctance to suffer unnecessarily as a result of helping."

http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2013/01/05/delhi-rape-why-did-no-one-
help/?mod=e2tw

Apparently, The Buck Stops Somewhere Else

"It's not the first time that the intelligence community has been thrown under the bus by an administration trying to paper over a foreign-policy failure, but Biden's move was breathtaking in its brazenness. In front of tens of millions, he squarely blamed the intelligence officials for the administration's pathetic, erroneous claim that an anti-Islam video had sparked spontaneous protests that later turned violent at the Libyan consulate.

"The intelligence community told us that," Biden said during the debate. "As they learned more facts about exactly what happened, they changed their assessment.""

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/330397/october-surprise-may-be-libya-john-fund

Moderator or Ryan: "Well, then, who have you fired? Who should have told you?"

Pathetic excuse for a top executive.

"But a former senior intelligence official scoffed at that assertion. "The administration designated Benghazi as a terrorist attack within 24 hours while at the same time declaring the attack was a 'spontaneous protest' that 'spun out of control,'" he told me. "They can't get their story straight, so the cover-up is deepening.""

The Dog Ate My Homework

"It’s not the first time that the intelligence community has been thrown under the bus by an administration trying to paper over a foreign-policy failure, but Biden’s move was breathtaking in its brazenness. In front of tens of millions, he squarely blamed the intelligence officials for the administration’s pathetic, erroneous claim that an anti-Islam video had sparked spontaneous protests that later turned violent at the Libyan consulate.

“The intelligence community told us that,” Biden said during the debate. “As they learned more facts about exactly what happened, they changed their assessment.”
But a former senior intelligence official scoffed at that assertion. “The administration designated Benghazi as a terrorist attack within 24 hours while at the same time declaring the attack was a ‘spontaneous protest’ that ‘spun out of control,’” he told me. “They can’t get their story straight, so the cover-up is deepening.” "
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/330397/october-surprise-may-be-libya-john-fund

The question isn't whether or not a video could have caused it - the question is, like the homework eaten by the dog, is why they bought that line, and then tried to sell it. 

Any school teacher, or foreign policy analyst, should have rolled their eyes at that whopper.

Troubling, To Say The Least

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/331125/first-aid-living-bing-west

Bing West writes about the lack of any military response after the Benghazi attack - where was the contingency planning?  

Equal To The Task?

Europe has a Plan A, whereby each country would reform its economy, recapitalize its banks, and balance its budget. But Plan A is not working: its intended participants, most notably France, are rejecting it, and there is an emerging southern European consensus that austerity is not the solution.
Greece’s recent election has put it in the anti-austerity vanguard. Italy and Spain (which does not have enough money to bail out its banking system), have similarly called for an end to austerity. All have lost access to the bond market, and Portugal is so far beyond hope that its sovereign debt is trading for cents on the euro.
There is no well-thought-out plan for the orderly exit of the eurozone’s insolvent countries. There are no safeguards, no plans, no road map — nothing. The Maastricht Treaty, like the United States Constitution, did not provide for an exit mechanism. So, instead of realism and emergency planning, we get denial and more happy talk. But, just because something is “unthinkable” doesn’t mean that it can’t happen.
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1208703--europe-s-economic-crisis-is-going-global

Do you think the politicians are equal to the task?  Me neither.

Another take:

The problems of Greece, Ireland and Portugal have spread to Spain, the fourth-largest economy in the euro area. Italy is probably next. The other members of the currency union can’t afford to bail them all out. Further loans will serve only to exacerbate the fundamental problem of too much debt and add to the growing enmity between the strong northern tier and its wards to the south. Without healthy economic growth -- and Europe is now back in a recession -- multiple countries will have to restructure their sovereign debts. Greece’s agonizing two-year restructuring experience suggests that doing several more would be extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-10/forget-greece-a-german-euro-exit-might-be-better.html

Brace yourself folks.

Seeing the Obvious

What you most likely haven’t heard is that across a wide range of economic, technological, and military indicators, the United States is actually, in the words of political scientist Michael Beckley, “wealthier, more innovative, and more militarily powerful compared to China than it was in 1991.” As Beckley explains in a recent article in International Security, China’s growth in per capita income, value added in high technology, and military spending is impressive primarily because China is starting from such a low base. That the United States has continued to grow across all of these dimensions is making it exceedingly difficult for China to catch up. Beckley thus concludes that China is “rising in place.” That is, while China is improving its economic and military position in absolute terms, it is stagnating relative to America, even in an era of sluggish U.S. growth.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/299334/lethargic-dragon-reihan-salam#

All of the fuss about China - is it deliberately done to confuse and frighten?  To justify the US's defense of Taiwan?  Or are so many folks really that confused?  It's never been a concern to me, because we know centralized control isn't effective in the long term.  Their highly vaunted 100 year plan?  It was a complete waste of time, there's no plan of any significance that can anticipate that amount of change.  The point of our Republic is that it shouldn't have to rely upon the wisdom of politicians in order to succeed.  There's does, which is why they are no threat.

Further, this section highlights our economic schizophrenia:
This doesn’t change the fact that China’s economic rise since the late 1970s has been impressive. Hundreds of millions of Chinese have been lifted from poverty over the last three decades, and the country’s teeming coastal cities have emerged as the workshop of the world.

Right, so we want folks to have liberty, more liberty, so they can be productive and raise themselves out of poverty.  But we don't want folks to have liberty and be more productive because in so doing they increase their "carbon footprint."  So we take money at gunpoint from our citizenry and give it to foreign government as aid.  It does little good, perhaps harms the populace, but we get to call it aid so we can feel good.  Because we are good people and don't want all those poor starving Chinese and Indians to have it so bad.  Well, kind of we do. 

WTF.  Let them have all the liberty they can get and be done with it.

Paper Tigers R Us

Because fewer children are being born as larger generations of adults are getting older, its median age will rise to 49 by 2050, nearly nine years more than America at that point. Some cities will be older still. The Shanghai Population and Family Planning Committee says that more than a third of the city’s population will be over 60 by 2020.

This trend will have profound financial and social consequences. Most obviously, it means China will have a bulge of pensioners before it has developed the means of looking after them. Unlike the rest of the developed world, China will grow old before it gets rich. Currently, 8.2% of China’s total population is over 65. The equivalent figure in America is 13%. By 2050, China’s share will be 26%, higher than in America.

http://www.economist.com/node/21553056

China - the original paper tiger.

President Wilson's Wars

http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0601g.pdf

We like to romanticize Presidents, but this article provides just one more clear example of why we probably should not do so.

The more you learn, the less there is to like about executive power.

How?

At the White House on Monday, President Obama will seek to persuade the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to postpone whatever plans he may have to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities in the coming months. Obama will argue that under his leadership, the United States "has Israel's back," and that he will order the U.S. military to destroy Iran's nuclear program if economic sanctions fail to compel Tehran to shelve its nuclear ambitions.http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/obama-to-iran-and-israel-as-president-of-the-united-states-i-dont-bluff/253875/

It's an interesting thing for a President to say.  It will be interesting - in an analytical, pretend not to think about the immense human tragedy that would result, kind of way - to see if it can be done and how.  There are some who speculate that one could destroy Iran, and it's nuclear aspirations, just by dropping a few bombs on Irans few gasoline production facilities.  Their economy hangs on a thread of oil exportation, and their oil infrastructure is reported to be in a wretched state - no surprise in a state run enterprise (in fact, it would be a monster of a surprise if that were not the case).  The Iranian water infrastructure is as bad or worse and is thought to not be capable of suporting current population levels for long (5 years?  10?). 
.
How well can the Iranians run the expensive Russian surface to air missle systems they bought?  How deep have they buried their critical nuclear infrastructure, and who really knows where it is located?  Would the US actually try to attack those locations, or just wreck Iran generally by shutting down their oil exportation, gas importation, and domestic gas production? 

It is easy to think of Iran and think of the Iranian government and its exportation of terrorism to other nations and its reputation for what seem like bizarre religious beliefs and its supposed irrationality and so forth.  Certainly, the rabble rousers make a lot of press by pointing to crazy Amadinejad, the so called President of Iran.  But the President of Iran is unlikely to be the one doing any of the heavy lifting as regards the actions of the Iranian government, he's a figurehead.  The religious leadership of the government is pulling the strings. 

It's easy to think of "Iran" and ignore the repulsive conditions those sorry millions have to live with, and how much worse things will get for them if the governments of other nations decide to create war with the Iranian government.

One could ask "what do the the leaders of the Iranian government want?"  There's only one reasonable assumption - they want to sustain their position of power and influence.  They want to be able to prevent outside interference, and increase internal control.  To do that they play the cards they have - a heavy handed state, exported terrorism to influence events, and possibly even a world wide network intended to allow them options even if they are faced with an opponent they cannot go toe to toe with - the US or Israel. 
Anything the government of Iran or its mouthpieces say should be considered as truth neutral - it may or may not be true, but it isn't of any consequence either way.  I wouldn't say this is much different for 90% of the things governments say around the world.  Governments and the folks running them say what they think is needed to create the results they desire - truth need not be a factor.  It is either total ignorance or a pretense for media figures and entertainment goofs to take seriously anything the Iranian government mouthpieces say.

I hope the US government can resist the various calls for action against the supposed nuclear threat of Iran.  I hope we can learn to ignore those who think the Iranians are some unified force of religion crazy ideologues who are our mortal enemies.  I hope the side show clown that is Ahmadinejad will not be used by the entertainers to whip the uninformed into a frenzy of fear and aggression.  I don't see the compelling threat to US interests posed by a crumbling, bumbling, hapless Iranian government.  If the Israelis want to do it, I say stand back and pray for those who will caught in the horror created by the governments that "serve" them. 

Luttwak

http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/76739/qa-edward-luttwak/?all=1
Incredible read. Always stimulating to read a non-conventional perspective of foreign affairs.

Glick: Isolationism Defined

Isolationism broadly speaking is the notion that the US is better off withdrawing to fortress America and leaving the rest of the world's nations to fight it out among themselves. The isolationist impulse in the US is what caused the US to enter both world wars years after they began. It is what has propelled much of the anti-war sentiment on the far Left and the far Right alike since Sept.11. The far Left argues the US should withdraw from world leadership because the US is evil. And the far Right argues that the US should withdraw from world leadership because the world is evil.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/08/18/the_jacksonian_foreign_policy_option_110948.html

Good or bad, these outcomes are not insignificant.  Do we really know enough to go muddling about in the affairs of others?

A dear friend of mine, very liberal, would always lament US foreign policy.  One got the feeling that he thought "if only people with my insight could do it, we could get foreign policy right."  Of course, every political candidate says the same thing, and certainly, The President thought his apology tour would have a positive influence.  My friend never made the connection - we screwed up foreign policy for the same reason we always will; we don't know enough, cannot know enough, to make the world dance to our tune.  It is hubristic to think we could.

... in practice the consequence of Bush's adoption of the neoconservative worldview was the empowerment of populist and popular jihadists and Iranian allies throughout the Middle East at the expense of US allies. Hamas won the Palestinian Authority elections in 2006. Its electoral victory paved the way for its military takeover of Gaza in 2007.

Hezbollah's participation in Lebanon's 2005 elections enabled the Iranian proxy army to hijack the Lebanese government in 2006, and violently takeover the Lebanese government in 2009.
The Muslim Brotherhood's successful parliamentary run in Egypt in 2005 strengthened the radical, anti-American, jihadist group and weakened Mubarak.
And the election of Iranian-influenced Iraqi political leaders in Iraq in 2005 exacerbated the trend of Iranian predominance in post-Saddam Iraq. It also served to instigate a gradual estrangement of Saudi Arabia from the US.