Just what the hell, specifically, are you talking about? If you can't tell us, I'm forced to conclude that this just some new sort of bedwetter phobia about the "treacherous sands of the Middle East".

You say "turmoil across Asia". Thinks I, something about China, Malaysia, Vietnam, stretching all the way to the Arabian peninsula. Naw, it's just the usual Clash of Civilizations crap - and concern about the usual subset of Asia that the neocons are always getting on about.

You cite no evidence as to what specific pieces of instablity you are referring to, nor offer any substantive recommendations of what we can do about any of it, other than keeping our military there to somehow "keep a lid on it."

Do you really think, Mr. Hundt, after all we've seen over the past six years, that the United States can control this region? What have you been smoking? This is the most lamebrained analysis I've seen on TPMCafe in a good long while.

Leave Mr. Hundt alone, sTiVo. When he says things like that, everyone in the room is supposed to (and usually does) nod, appreciatively. They used to suck purposefully on their meerschaums, too, but I hear he's banned smoking in his presence.  A pity; so velly, velly New Frontier, you know.

Ellen, that was so funny.  Yeah, I don't think he's using innuendo to push for a conclusion that, not unreasonably, would get us angry even he'd tried to justify it.  The point is to avoid saying anything at all, so that it's ever so wise. I myself think that the candidates absolutely must have a position on something or other, and I'll be sure to let you know when I think of it.

John 

http://www.haberarts.com/

As the future is unpredictable in all respects, we'd better be prepared for the unpredictable, even though we don't know what that is, because it is unpredictable, therefore can't be prepared for it.

One could say the same without putting one's mind to writing a bunch of paragraphs:

The only certainty is constant change.

But I guess to be a legitimate furrowed-brow pundit one must be able to stretch nothing into sufficent length without making it so thin it becomes transparently invisible.

Well, this thread is insightful both for the precision of its premise and for the witty and informed response it has drawn.

Heartiest congratulations to all for enlightening and entertaining so thoroughly.

so, what to do if Pakistan does break down into Civil War?

I know, we'll deputize the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers to go into civil war ravaged Pakistan and steal all those nuclear weapons!

Or maybe we'll send John McLane to stand over them with a shotgun until the civil war comes to an end. In which case, we'll hand them back to the victor, if we approve.

Perhaps we could nuke Karachi? Get them first, just in case the wrong guys end up winning.

How about we seal off Pakistan's borders. Easy as pie. All we need to do is invade India, Afghanistan and Iran. One down, one's already on the list, and India should be a pushover.

Or perhaps, more conventionally we can just become a participant in the Pakistani civil war. You know, worked out so well in Somalia, blackhawk down, etc. etc.

Or maybe we'll just stand back and give lots of guns and money to our favourite to terrorize the citizens. Worked well with the Shah of Iran.

Unfortunately, it seems that in the event of a full blown Pakistani civil war, or in the event of a fundamentalist extremist Islamic Pakistani coup, America will have no realistic military options.

Sorry about that.

I'm sure it breaks Reed's hearts.

So what are the realistic options in the event of a Pakistani civil war?

Diplomacy mostly - attempting to help negotiate ceasefires, peace treaties, compromises, etc.

Diplomacy will require a multilateral approach. The U.S. can't do it alone, but will have to work within the UN, and in partnership with the other great powers, Russia, China, Europe, India, in partnership with regional powers Iran, Saudi Arabia.

It will require international support, international law, economic and political cooperation.

In the end, it may require the United States to find a way to live with a government it really doesn't like. Talking up regime change with a nuclear armed Pakistan is not a good idea.

Playing Brinksmanship in a region full of third world nuclear states at each other's throats (Pakistan, India, China) is not a good idea.

The problem is that Bush's foreign policy has created problems which we may not be able to solve.

Oops, sorry, I violated Reed's rule about not assigning blame.

But the one guarantee is that Bush's foreign policy, having created problems it cannot solve, is obviously disqualified from posing solutions or participating in these problems.

The result, I think is not a 'more muscular' foreign policy based on throwing nonexistent troops into hypothetical meat grinders on the premise that 'hey, it failed the last half dozen times, but this time it might work.'

The result is that we are going to have to use a lot of tools, and that even the best efforts may not to produce a result we'll like, but that we'll have to learn to live with.

The post-Bush era foreign policy may well be one of hapless damage control, of continually attempting to make a bad situation liveable, keeping it from getting worse.

So the outcome may well be that the U.S. is relatively helpless through the Civil War, that its adversaries come to power, and that we will have to find a way to live with that Adversary, because the traditional approach will simply drive it into a nuclear crisis with India, alliance with China, and potential end of the world.

In short, we'll have to show the compromise and moderation that Kruschev showed during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Comes from having a bad hand. And Bush's incompetence has drawn us all a very bad hand of cards.

It's a sign of unconscious self absorption that Reed's trouble spots are all areas of dysfunctional American meddling.

Someone looking for trouble spots of flash points in Asia might point to North Korea, Taiwan, recent coups in Thailand, uprisings in Myanmar, ethnic and religious tensions in Indonesia, strife in Uzbekistan and other former soviet Republics.

I guess Reed's entirely unconscious message is that if the United States isn't engaged in breaking it... then its not broken, lol.

Of course, the truth is much simpler. Our hero's article sees no deeper than front page headlines.

Are you proposing to give him a budget? Or do you just want to drop him off in a clearing somewhere with an honour guard of Bush Pioneers for protection?

Well, apparently he does because he relield to something on this thread.

But I doubt that he makes any kind of habit of it. Too many big words. Too many complicated thoughts. Too much nuance.

Seriously, who wants to embrace a crushing existential experience.

whew! what a thread. turn on Bravo; you'll enjoy it more folks.

let me summarize: I don't think Democrats are going to get all the way to November 08 by focussing exclusively on how wrong-headed American actions in the Middle East have been in the past, given what the present will then look like. So then what? Would Democrats be prepared to project force into Pakistan? Anywhere? Rant if you like; it's going to be, I predict, a critical question.

Meanwhile, I will be posting on the NBA, Redskins and my own company in the future. Topics about which I know a great deal!

What's needed here is an invasion of a key country in that region, slap 'em around a little bit, give 'em a taste of good old American Shock and Awe. That'll settle them jabbering, brown skinned people right down.

Crooked cops, crooked lawyers, crooked judges, crooked politicians, crooked doctors, crooked scientists, crooked clergymen -- but no crooked journalists. An amazing record for an amazing class of people.

Let's see. Of your list, Gaza and the West Bank aren't our problem. Israel created the problem by their failure to work with the government of Fatah once Arafat was gone. They created Hamas as an effective opposition. They can live (or die) with the problems they created. A Clinton-type effort might help them, but the Israeli right-wing and the American right-wing will do their best to sabotage any such effort. Beyond our minimal guarantee that Israel will not be destroyed, any solution there belongs to the Israelis. Any effort beyond that minimal guarantee on our part enables the right-wing in Israel to continue to refuse to do anything except kill and imprison Palestinians, which they should have realized by now is unworkable. Enabling the Israeli right-wing to continue their nasty idiocy is like enabling a drunk to continue drinking. It's time we quit enabling them.

Iraq and Iran are International-level problems we created. Iran will not be solved - or even stabilized - using U.S. military forces. Our exit from Iraq is going to be necessary to even begin anything positive there, and it will be messy even then. Beyond diplomacy there isn't much we can do in either location. We need to set a date to get out of Iraq and call together an international conference under UN auspices and then get out and let them handle it. We ARE the problem, at least the largest part of it, not the solution in Iraq. We are also enabling the Iranian right-wing to remain in power in Iran, while even the appearance of our support of any democracy-prone elements there is the kiss of death to them. Again, diplomacy while not threatening military action is going to be the solution most likely to succeed. Non-proliferation efforts should go through the UN, and we should push them there, in the UN. On the ground we are the problem, not the solution.

We share the blame for Afghanistan with the USSR, though the USSR probably more so than us. Supporting the Mujahideen was probably not a bad idea, but leaving the failed state of Afghanistan behind really was our fault. The UN needed to step in, and would not do so without our leadership. The current set of problems there will only be resolved with greater international effort. Our exit from Iraq will probably help Afghanistan. The drug problem there is really bad, but it is more of a problem for Europe than for us. Let them resolve it.

And Pakistan? They are close to being a failed state and are a military problem to the local area, mainly India (but also Afghanistan.) Pakistan may be a nuclear power, but so are Russia and India. There is nothing we can do militarily in Pakistan, beyond the overflow from Afghanistan, and that is more likely to cause greater problems that it resolves. Non-proliferation efforts will have to involve India and Iran, but military operations are unlikely to be of any use at all.

While I see little value in military operations anywhere, the anti-terrorism efforts need to be ramped up. Indonesia and the Philippines have to be included. Thailand and Myanmar are also problem areas for terrorism, though Thailand seems to be doing a pretty good job. Such problem are, however, diplomatic and police problems for the most part. If the local governments need special operations expertise, let them hire Blackwater from Blackwater's Caribbean-based operation.

American military operations will continue to lead to greater problems rather than solving them. The two carrier groups that Cheney has sitting in the Persian Gulf (an area much too small for reasonable operation of even one carrier group) in hopes that the Iranians will attack one of them and justify the new war Cheney wants is a source of problems, not solutions. Get them out of there. Oh, and impeach Cheney immediately.

Overall our best foreign policy options almost all involve reducing use or prospective use of U.S. military force, while handing off responsibility for military solutions for the various problems to those who are directly suffering them. Our participation should involve sharply increasing our use of diplomacy and international coordination. Which, of course, also will require replacing Condi Rice with someone competent. Did I suggest impeaching Bush immediately? The U.S. and the world sure would be better off.

Think it won't work? Cheney was planning on war with China even before Bush took office. Remember the bellicose Bush reaction to the accident that brought down the U.S. naval aircraft in 2001? The war was completely side-tracked by 9/11 and does not currently seem at all likely. We dodged a bullet. Why? Because the U.S. did not have the resources to threaten China militarily! Cheney had more than he could handle with North Korea and the unnecessary invasion of Iraq. Cheney had to deal with China reasonably because he had no choice and it has been just about the only semi-successful area of foreign policy for the Bush administration. Of course, Powell was SecState, not the incompetent Rice. That helped too.

Why don't we look at the relative success with China and expand what worked there to the rest of the world?

And how and in what way could the United States project force into Pakistan successfully?

Keep in mind that Pakistan's nuclear weapons will probably at all material times be under maximum security, their specific locations will be both secret and tightly guarded, and they're not nearly as portable or as easily filched as say, the Hope Diamond.

Put it another way: Pakistan's nuclear facilities will be staffed, guarded and maintained by the most highly trained, highly motivated, most disciplined and well equipped Pakistani's.

They will probably be located in hardened complexes, in buried and concrete reinforced silos and bunkers, and defended by a variety of missile batteries, artillery, machine guns, small arms, and weapon placements, together with such things as barbed wire and traffic barricades.

Are we getting the picture.

The odds of a successful assault aimed at capturing or neutralizing Pakistan's nuclear weapons is less than nil. Only a shivering moron would think its feasible.

The Raid at Entebbe makes it into the history books because it and actions like it are historical flukes. Their success comes from luck at so many levels its not even funny.

The odds of a successful assault, via missiles or air strikes aimed at neutralizing or destroying Pakistan's nuclear weapons is somewhat better.

However, there are certain problems with this scenario. One is massive issues of contamination of the environment, particularly if one of those nukes blows.

The real risks are that if Pakistan or its remaining command structure interprets an attack on nuclear facilities as an Indian first strike... in which case, they'll loose whatever remaining first, and possibly second strike capacity at India.

Or they'll interpret it as an American attack, in which case... Well, we'll find out how good the Pakistani targeting systems are against the American navy or American cities.

But assuming that dealing with Pakistan's nukes is not the objective of an American military action. What is?

An occupation/peacekeeping force in Pakistan?

Don't make me laugh. First, the United States military has repeatedly demonstrated its not particularly good at peacekeeping missions. Consider Somalia and Lebanon.

Second, there's about 150 million Pakistani's. The United States isn't able to hold 24 million Iraqi's. How are they going to do it in a country 6 times as populous and three times as big, with much tougher, rougher countryside?

Is there any credible scope for a unilateral US military intervention in Pakistan? Not in a dog's ass.

And let's think about what a unilateral action into Pakistan might provoke from India, China, Russia. What would be the reaction from the Muslim world.

Even a multilateral action would be difficult to organize (and none of this bullshit 'Coalition of the Willing'). A true multilateral response would be difficult and the United States would be a partner, perhaps a minor partner, not a leader.

Of course, in Reed's fantasy world, there's a 'Seal Force 10' which can sweep in and solve America's problems, if only a sufficiently courageous President would let them loose to do their job. Because they don't play by the rules dammit, they're edgy, they're unconventional, but they get the job done.

You see, Reed's understanding of complex geopolitical issues seems to be formed by exposure to 1980's Shwarzennegger movies, with perhaps a bit of Danny Glover and Mel Gibson thrown in.

Meanwhile, I will be posting on the NBA, Redskins and my own company in the future. Topics about which I know a great deal!

Well, I certainly hope that doesn't stop Reed from posting on topics which he apparently knows nothing about, like foreign policy, military policy or Pakistan.

I need the entertainment.

Too perfect. But will the real Rick Blaine stand up?

That's a reasonable program alternative you propose in answer to the all-too synoptic query posed by Reed.

I, for one try to suppress my glee at seeing the PNAC project crumble before our eyes, and try to see what can be salvaged from this mess.

It would be interesting to know what it was about Reed's post which caused many (all?) of us to respond so negatively.

For me, his assertion that the Democrats' election prospects depend upon candidates expressing an interest in foreign affairs in the East was "too funny." When it comes to thoughts of safety, Americans never look beyond the water's edge. We vote character, not policy. And I trust politicians to know that fact:

I'm one tough sum'bitch and when it comes to defending America, nothin's off the table!

Nuff said!

But it isn't "nuff said" for many of us.

I want to disengage; close most of our overseas military bases leaving listening posts, primarily; let peoples work out their own futures.

Calling me an America Firster is not a good faith argument.

What a great story. It's like "My dinner with Sauron."

I'll especially agree that the ham-handed way the U.S. has dealt with the third world is a significant source of the problems governments in the rest of the world have had and are having.

Our handling of Cuba has greatly increased the problems of our relationship with that country. Our national refusal to make efforts to reduce the demand for drugs and primarily focus on drug interdiction has caused real problems for Colombia and lesser but still severe problems with Peru, Bolivia and other Latin American countries. Our relationship with Mexico is too complicated to describe quickly, but since the U.S. stole the northern one-third of Mexico in the Mexican War, and the very negative reaction with which the U.S. greeted Mexico's nationalization of its' own oil resources in 1938 there has been very little the U.S. has done in a positive manner with that nation. Mexico's biggest protection from the U.S. has been the several hundred miles of mostly waterless desert that constitutes its Northern border with the U.S. If they had had anything much more that we wanted, our government would have tried to steal that, too.

The covert action by which the U.S. stole the Isthmus of Panama from Colombia before building the canal there has not been forgotten in Latin America. [It is interesting to me that the Republicans have a candidate for the Presidential nomination in 2008 who was born there in the Canal Zone. I feel reasonably certain most of the Republicans are unaware of that. That will no doubt get the same cover-up treatment that Thompson's lobbyist efforts for the Pro-Choice Movement has been getting.]

Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is primarily a creation of the extreme distinctions between the very wealthy and the very poor in that country, which is a normal and very destructive pattern in every country which depends primarily on oil (or as in Chile, Copper) for foreign exchange. The U.S. support of the oil companies to the detriment of people of Venezuela has made the U.S. a natural boogy-man for Chavez to use as a political foil. The American right-wing reaction, best stated by Pat Robertson, and the Bush administration's clear attempt to support the coup plotters has had a poor reaction back against America. And the threat of covert action to overthrow Chavez has been as successful as most right-wing militaristic initiatives have been.

These are just examples. Too frequently American foreign policy, usually as demonstrated by our Intelligence Community more than the severely underfunded State Department, has caused us to become the great foil that our worst enemies need to gain power in their own countries. The Bush administration's efforts to handle Iran through threats and covert actions has been a prime example. We became (or perhaps simply remained, after our unquestioning support for the Shah we placed on the Peacock Throne) a major political asset for Ahmadinejad as he took and has held the Iranian Presidency over more sensible people. Ahmadinejad is just one of a long series of Persian enemies we have enabled with our ham-handed handling of that nation. And again, it was because of demand for control of their oil and the perceived threat of Communism.

I agree that it has been a pleasure to see every effort recommended by the PNAC crash and burn. But it's a mixed pleasure - I hate seeing the U.S. act so stupid and self-destructive.

Ellen,

My major reaction against Reed was his attempt to increase our military footprint around the world. I am retired military, and from what I can see the problems around the world are mostly local, and where they are not local and threaten to drag us in, we contributed to the problem by our ham-handed military actions to try to force people to do things our way. Even our use of the World Back has been ham-handed and counter-productive, because we don't know how to develop nations. Our own development has been a case of mostly really good luck, so we act like a guy who won the lottery and now we go around the world telling people to do things our way to get rich.

Look at how the Filipinos treated the U.S, military. Filipinos generally actually LIKE America, so when the volcano shut down Clark AFB and the lease on Subic Bay came up for renewal, why did they kick us out? The Philippine Senate refused to confirm the new lease. Why?

Because we don't give a rat's ass about the Philippines. Most Americans can't find it on a map. (Hell. Most Americans can't READ a map, assuming they could find the right one. See education, below.) We saw that nation as a firmly anchored airbase and shore leave location in the Pacific and little else. It's a good think they didn't have oil. They'd have never gotten rid of us. (Great line from "blood Diamond." For all the fighting that went on in Sierra Leone over diamonds, the actor grinned and said something to the effect that as bad as it was, it was really a good thing they didn't have oil too. Then things would get REALLY bad.)

Right-winger's operate from an emotional basis of fear. They want absolute control of things and people. But from a basis of fear, it is impossible to develop enough trust, knowledge and empathy for others to work towards a win-win set of solutions. Besides, oil companies aren't in a business that pays top dollar to win-win. They either win big or lose big, and have little faith in something in the middle. Especially if it means they have to pay a living wage to peons.

Those days are rapidly disappearing. It is mostly the U.S. now which, as a nation, doesn't want to give up the right to use military power to dominate a scary situation. That is understandable, because everything since WW II and certainly since 1960 has been downhill for the U.S. economically. It is only in our military that our world power has not been eroding in relation to the large nations of the rest of the world. We maintain that power b y spending ridiculous amounts of money on the military, and one of the costs of that has been the refusal to implement national health care and cheap education. Oddly enough, the economic power that is growing rapidly in a lot of the rest of the world is based on investing in people instead of spending money on economically sterile military force.

We need to learn that military power is sooo twentieth century. Soft power is the future, and China is certainly showing the way.

It would be interesting to know what it was about Reed's post which caused many (all?) of us to respond so negatively.

When a corporate executive, board member and ultra high-level management and investment consultant, an enthusiast for creative destruction whose main foreign policy preoccupation appears to be US economic competition with China, comes to tell us that we have to keep our military power projection options open in Asia, I guess I have to wonder what interests he's serving.

I don't see how that scenario could be in either the USA interest or the neocon's interest (assuming they are not congruent).
It is not that these regions are "destabilizing"---whatever that means--it is that they are radicalizing against us.
I don't see our traditional allies signing up for any 30 year war with this "arc of instability" and without allies, how on earth are we going to prevail in the end.

I've heard this version of PNAC but I have not read it in the text that they put out on the net.
In my opinion this "rumored" wish to see the region radicalized with some off-chance that this will work towards our strategic interests in the long-run might have been floated as a sort of check just in case their colonial plan did not go smoothly (which it hasn't). I'm just guessing.

Would be curious to know how radicalizing the region could possibly be in our interest given that an essential part of the radicalization is anti-western.

For the record, it's not that I actually know anything but Reed except his writing here at TPMCafe. So none of these comments should be taken as a personal judgement of the guy. His writing reeks of bovine insouciance, but that's not necessarily a reflection of the person.

Don't worry. Once the Redskins start camp he'll be busy worrying about that. It'll keep him from wasting space here.

Tom

Silent,

By claiming that those who criticize Reed's column are acting like Coulter or Fox, I think you're attacking these people "with a level of distortion and vitriol worthy of Ann Coulter or Fox News."

We constantly hear politicians in Washington babble about "spending" and how we must get it under control. "BALANCE THE BUDGET" snort, snort!!. "PORK BARREL, PORK BARREL" bleat, bleat!!. But have you ever heard any of these cretins talk about cutting Defense spending? Isn't it approaching $600 billion a year now?

My point is this; if you give some people $600 billion worth of toys they're going to want to use them and that's how we get our asses in the sling.

Would we be in Iraq if we didn't spend as much as we do on our military?

Did our bloated military budget and those carrier battle groups, etc., keep us from being attacked on 9/11.

WWII is over, so is the island hopping of the Pacific, and we'll never see another
D Day, yet this seems to be what we arm for.
Maybe the worst message coming from Iraq is that the war there hasn't shown how strong we are, but how weak we are.

If we didn't spend the money we spend on the military, would we have people like Reed Hundt writing opinions on 'turmoil in Asia' that state ; ...
"the United States will have to increase its military engagement somewhere for some short time"? "some short time"? heh, heh.

Reed, we already did what you seem to be suggesting in Asia, remember Korea and Vietnam? "some short time", heh, heh, heh.

Perhaps these Democrat candidates you mention should discuss the creation of a "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere."

We vote character, not policy.

Thank you. I was searching for something to explain the election of the Bush/Cheney ticket in 2004. Now I understand. The American people zeroed in, laser-like, on these paragons of ultimate virtue, sensible domestic and foreign policy, and supreme competence.

"Democrat favoring permanent occupation of any part of the region, it's perfectly possible, even if hugely unfortunate and risky as well, that the United States will have to increase its military engagement somewhere for some short time."

The US has its military in too many places. We are perceived as imperialists by much of the world. That's why there are all these Blowback events targeting US and Britain. The main issue to plan for is how to disengage our military from places we don't need to be in - not to write posts about some imagined conflict that might require our military intervention. Lord knows we've overdone that approach.

Tom

Valdron, HARUMPH! there ya go again with the intellectual analysis!

Reading Valdron's critique' reminded me of a passage in Eliot's Prufrock;

".....And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall...."

Would be curious to know how radicalizing the region could possibly be in our interest given that an essential part of the radicalization is anti-western.

Let me see if I can summon up the appropriate nightmare images of high neoconservative hysteria, which explain why some neocons would welcome further instances of destabilization and radicalization in the Middle East:

These are people who believe that both the US and the entire West face a global civilizational threat of Hitlerian proportions called "Islamofascism." They believe that the goal of this global Islamofascist movement is to set up a new caliphate, spanning all of the traditionally Muslim lands, and to make of this caliphate a powerful new Islamic military empire, fueled and funded by the repatriated oil wealth of those lands. They believe that the holy warriors of this movement are not a scattered band of only sporadically successful militants, but a powerful army that is actually winning.

They believe European civilization is in an advanced state of decadence and degeneration, fallen into a decrepit pacifism and socialist lassitude, with its faithless, demoralized populations barely able to muster the energy and optimism needed even to reproduce themselves biologically, while a fifth column of rapidly reproducing Muslim immigrants further destroy and colonize European culture from within, and sap its will to resist.

But they believe all is not lost. They believe Europe has been sleeping but is beginning to wake up, and that once this new Muslim caliphte/empire begins to take shape and presses threateningly on Europe's southeastern flank, possibly with "Islamic bombs" in Pakistan and Iran, once the vital petroleum wealth of the Middle East is in clear danger of falling permanently into the hands of the new armies of Saladin, and once the evil Islamofascist insurgents in Europe are attacking European targets on a daily basis, rather than just sporadically, the Europeans will finally get it, and will rise up, tap into their latent, ancient warlike power, and join the new crusade against the wicked Mohammedans.

They believe those of us who don't see the world this way are conflict-phobic cowards with our heads deeply up our asses, blind the true nature and scope of the threat, and that the only way to get us to fight is for the threat to progress to such obvious and threatening dimensions that it can no longer be doubted and ignored. So they see radicalizing events in the Middle East as like the fascist takeover of Spain, the invasion of Poland and finally the attack on Pearl Harbor - all deeply worrisome and regrettable in themselves, but also historically necessary as the wake-up calls that will ultimately call the full force of Western will and military power into action.

Well, let's be fair here, Daniel. Bush did invade Iraq. That's kind of a big part of the problem, and it's Bush and Bush alone.

Bush did make the decision to ignore Al Quaeda, which bought us 9/11. That's Bush, Bush and nothing but Bush.

Bush then committed to an occupation of Afghanistan. Also Bush.

To be fair, the Clinton and Bush I administrations dropped the ball in Afghanistan by ignoring it after the cold war.

But Bush's policy has taken mistakes and made them into catastrophes. His blunders eclipse his predecessors. He's made things worse.

American policy towards Pakistan over the years has been erratic. The United States has only occasionally been close to Pakistan.

For long periods the American policy on Pakistan has included diplomatic and economic sanctions given the support of terrorism, track record on democracy, execution of political leaders, and nuclear proliferation.

During the cold war, however, Pakistan was an essential part of CENTO and SEATO the encircling ring of alliances intended to cage the United States.

However, Pakistan and the US had a falling out over its wars with India, the non-aligned movement and its own internal politics.

During the Russian invasion of Pakistan the United States funneled billions of dollars into Pakistan for Afghanistan, while in other respects maintaining a hands off policy. The results: The strengthening of the Army, Intelligence and religious fundamentalism while every other segment of Pakistani society grew weaker.

The disengagement which followed the end of the Afghanistan occupation was no less pronounced in Pakistan. But where Afghanistan dissolved into chaos, the strengthened elements of Pakistan society simply continued in their own directions, unguided and unallied, uninfluenced by the United States. Pakistan intelligence allied with fundamentalists and created the Taliban.

The United States has now embraced Pakistan wholeheartedly, in the process once again strengthening the most toxic elements of society, toxic elements which are now unpredictable and dangerous, and is busily fomenting an arms race and possible confrontation between Pakistan and India, while overlooking Pakistan's nuclear proliferation.

In short, George W. Bush has come along and replaced difficult and inconsistent policy with spectacularly bad policy. He has come along to a simmering grass fire and is busily splashing gasoline on it.

As for Lebanon, well, Bush's contribution to that mess is on high display. He aided and abetted a brutal war.

And in the Palestine issue, unlike every President for the past generation, he simply walked away and gave a murderous scumbag like Ariel Sharon a free hand. The results speak for themselves.

Osama Bin Laden's complaint against America on September 10, 2001, was that America had occupation troops in a half dozen Muslim countries, had sanctions against a half dozen more, and had employed force against another half dozen. He was correct in his basic details.

Every American president and congress has defined the middle east as a critical strategic area for the United States and has meddled freely in the region.

It's not really fair to simply blame the people of the region for their problems, as if the United States, and particularly the Bush administration has been responsible in whole or in part for those problems.

You refer to refugees and the problems they create for neighboring nations. The United States in Iraq has created four or five million refugees. You can't ignore that.

As for the United States not being affected by oil reductions from the region, again, you're completely wrong. The middle east determines the world price of oil. Even if you've got secure supplies from Canada, Mexico and Venezuala, the price of oil will go up.

The sanguine nature of many of the posts, the fun in attacking Reed, misses the possibility of a regime very hostile to India, another nuclear power and to China, having nuclear weapons is a very dangerous possibility.

I don't feel sanguine at all. Anyone who looks at the situation should feel shit scared.

India and Pakistan exist in a state of cold war that could turn hot in a moment's notice. American actions are turning up the head. That's not good.

Reed's correct in identifying the problem area. But when he speaks of military intervention, well, that's just idiotic.

This is his job.

Wait... you DO know that Josh pays us to post here, don't you? Oh... maybe I spoke out of turn. Uh, never mind, Reece.

*Posted from a hot tub filled with Crystal champagne, paid for by JMM*

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

Reed,

You make a fair point here, but there are a lot of contingencies involved. As far as we can tell, Bush is intransigent on Iraq. However, that might change under two conditions. First, if the majority of his party abandons him in Congress. Second, if the surge completely fails. Fortunately, we are seeing signs of both, but we still do not know how Bush will react.

So, it is possible that by 2008 the Iraq issue will be resolved and the Democratic message will not be as strong. But we do not know that yet. If that does become the case, however, Democrats will need something to say about our role in the world and especially in the Middle East. Thus far in the campaign we have not seen anything of that sort precisely because Iraq has dominated the foreign policy debate.

Here is a little bit of support.  In that post, Etzioni argues that Obama really doesn't have a foreign policy.  He has to-do list, but the list itself is not informed by a consistent world view about how the US should act at this point in history. 

I am waiting for our candidates to actually tell us a little about what they think we should be doing after Iraq.  Iraq is a problem of limited duration.  It will either end in the next two years, or it will end in 2009.  The question really is, "what next?"

Personally, I won't be voting for candidates who are willing to invade Iran or Pakistan or where ever.  In my view, we ought to get out of Iraq, refocus on Afghanistan with the intent to stabilize the central government there, then we need to relax a little bit.  We should not be getting ourselves into "preemptive wars," and we should not be invading without just cause.  That is the message I would like to hear from our candidates.

Who'se kidding whom? The Dems are just as much beholden to Israeli lobbyists as the Repugs.

Valdron,

You wrote a few things that need to be emblazoned across the sky and memorized by U.S. officials:

...it may require the United States to find a way to live with a government it really doesn't like. Talking up regime change with a nuclear armed Pakistan is not a good idea. Playing Brinksmanship in a region full of third world nuclear states at each other's throats (Pakistan, India, China) is not a good idea.

it seems that in the event of a full blown Pakistani civil war, or in the event of a fundamentalist extremist Islamic Pakistani coup, America will have no realistic military options.

The problem is that Bush's foreign policy has created problems which we may not be able to solve.

The post-Bush era foreign policy may well be one of hapless damage control, of continually attempting to make a bad situation liveable, keeping it from getting worse.

WW II is over, and so is the time when military force based on an industrial economy would allow us to save the world. Effective Assymetric Warfare shows that the rest of the world has learned how to neutralize our ability to force them to do things our way. Then we will have to accept that all we have demonstrated is the ability to force other nations to do our bidding by use or threat of the use of military power or by buying what we want done (like the "Coalition of the Willing" - really a coalition of the bought.)

But Cheney/Bush have effective destroyed the useful ground forces for a minimum of a decade or more, leaving us with naval and air forces which have little utility in modern conflicts. (Which goat was it that you want to bomb?)

Our economic power has been based on being the only industrial nation to have come out of WW II without being our industrial infrastructure having been destroyed by the war. The expenses of the Cold War, Vietnam, and Iraq have come very close to destroying the international value of the dollar while the misdirection of resources towards economically sterile military expenditures has been a large factor in the American failed economic competitiveness.

And Reed wants us to plan to use more military force in places we don't even speak the language, like the melange of tribes that was named for the "Stans" of Punstans, Afghanii, Kashmir, Iran, Sind, TTurkistan, Afghanistan, and Balochistan? Gee, what computer war game has Reed been playing? We send in troops to shoot everyone they see, and they lose points if they kill the good guys?

We can no longer afford to train, pay and equip the forces we are placing in Iraq, let alone care for the wounded who are flowing back. Even if we could, there is nothing useful they could do in Pakistan. They don't have the language, social or political skills to do anything of value and shooting people is mostly creating more problems than it resolves (the word "solves" is carefully not being used here.)

You would think that anyone with the slightest bit of historical knowledge would have learned the great lesson from Vietnam. A western military force cannot win anything of value in a ground war in Asia. Our technology which allows us to kill rapidly and at great distances cannot make up for our lack of political sophistication.

The U.S. might have been the world leader and of some value when we had educated and good-hearted men and women who had significant experience outside the U.S. and had respect for those who lived there. They went out and talked and worked, based on a natural reputation as representatives of the oldest Republic with incomparable values (even if we didn't always live up to them) on Earth and backed up by well-trained and well-equipped military forces. The UN was a good idea, even if the Cold War made it a lot less effective than anyone had hoped.

I can't see a single part of those bases for world leadership that Cheney/Bush have not dismantled and thrown away. Reed's suggestion is another example of someone letting his mouth write checks our collective ass can't cash.

Only this isn't in a military bar somewhere. It's a lot worse. It's time to shut up and quit letting our mouth write checks and let others solve the problems. Occasionally we might even offer to help - if we are invited to do so. But after trashing the last party we were invited to, when do you think we'll get another invitation?

Valdron,

As usual you have written a good description of what has been happening (and so has Daniel Green.) One point you made perhaps needs some clarification.

To be fair, the Clinton and Bush I administrations dropped the ball in Afghanistan by ignoring it after the cold war.

What really happened was that right-wing small-government conservatives (both Republican and Democrat) would not let funding for rebuild of Afghanistan get into the budget. (These are the same scientifically illiterate idiots who killed the Super Conducting Super Collider when the five billion dollar budget was already half spent just so they could redirect pork out of Texas.) They treated the problems in Afghanistan after an immensely destructive war was fought by major powers over that sad country simply lie there, to be dealt with by the locals. It was the Herbert Hoover approach to solving the problems of the Depression, rather than the George Marshal - Harry Truman solution to the devastation that followed WW II.

Socially, economically and militarily the American conservatives have been a cancer on the American nation for its entire history, but especially during the twentieth century. They have fought the anti-slavery movement, the Civil Rights movement, against labor, against public education and public health (to name just a few of their failures) consistently. The conservative movement of which Rick Perlstein wrote so well in his book Before the Storm is just the latest incarnation of their failure.

America has frequently been paralyzed and even misdirected by the right-wingers. The fact that Bush I and Clinton gave their names to an era of failed Afghan policy does not place the blame entirely on those two Presidents.

Sadly, I cannot give Bush II any such dispensation. His failures have been uniquely his, as he tried to lead the nation towards every failed right-wing and libertarian project he could find to squander our resources on.

OK, if we must have a Democrat prepare us for war how about we say something like this:

As men do not live by bread alone, they do not fight by armaments alone. Those who man our defenses, and those behind them who build our defenses, must have the stamina and the courage which come from unshakable belief in the manner of life which they are defending. The mighty action that we are calling for cannot be based on a disregard of all things worth fighting for.

The Nation takes great satisfaction and much strength from the things which have been done to make its people conscious of their individual stake in the preservation of democratic life in America. Those things have toughened the fibre of our people, have renewed their faith and strengthened their devotion to the institutions we make ready to protect.

Certainly this is no time for any of us to stop thinking about the social and economic problems which are the root cause of the social revolution which is today a supreme factor in the world.

For there is nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy. The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple. They are:

Equality of opportunity for youth and for others.
Jobs for those who can work.
Security for those who need it.
The ending of special privilege for the few.
The preservation of civil liberties for all.

The enjoyment of thefruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living.

These are the simple, basic things that must never be lost sight of in the turmoil and unbelievable complexity of our modern world. The inner and abiding strength of our economic and political systems is dependent upon the degree to which they fulfill these expectations.

Many subjects connected with our social economy call for immediate improvement.
As examples:

We should bring more citizens under the coverage of old-age pensions and unemployment insurance.

We should widen the opportunities for adequate medical care.

We should plan a better system by which persons deserving or needing gainful employment may obtain it.

I have called for personal sacrifice. I am assured of the willingness of almost all Americans to respond to that call.

A part of the sacrifice means the payment of more money in taxes. In my Budget Message I shall recommend that a greater portion of this great defense program be paid for from taxation than we are paying today. No person should try, or be allowed, to get rich out of this program; and the principle of tax payments in accordance with ability to pay should be constantly before our eyes to guide our legislation.

If the Congress maintains these principles, the voters, putting patriotism ahead of pocketbooks, will give you their applause.

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression--everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way--everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want--which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants-everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear--which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor--anywhere in the world.

I'm well aware of that quote from Clausewitz Howard, and specifically had it in mind when I made my reference to war not being a continuation of politics, but a failure of politics.

I'd argue that Clausewitz' quote was for a different time and a different era.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Project a military force into Pakistan?

Apply the Powell doctrine.
(1)What is the clear mission,
(2)what is the method of achieving it,
(3)how do we know when it is achieved or has failed, and
(4)what is the exit plan?

Those are the critical questions.

I see no way of achieving either 1, or 2. Success or failure cannot be measured or determined without a clear mission and method of achieving it. Number 4 becomes the default, meaning without the first three items, we don't go.

Unless we are idiots. Or Republicans. Not sure I can tell the difference.

Not really Howard, and if I came across harsher than I intended, it's because all too often that 'continuation of politics by other means' meme is an oft repeated aphorism that has outlived its usefulness.

It was true once upon a time when you could have tidy little wars and make a profit. Those days are largely gone. All too often a war is more likely to be untidy and the result is a prophet.

A friend of John Galt's? (assuming Ayn Rand is one of the usual suspects)

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Excellent summary. One thing I would add, though.

The international conflict is required if the right-wing authoritarians are to grab domestic power. If there is no international threat, then there is no reason for the members of society to abandon their personal interests and liberties.

Overstating the capabilities of a USSR destroyed by WW II got Richard Nixon elected into Congress and people like Joe McCarthy into the Senate. Interestingly, it also got JFK elected when he went to the right of Nixon blaming Eisenhower for the then non-existent missile gap. The threats of a non-existent unified and effective world-wide communism fed the growth of the military-industrial complex that Ike warned of as he left office and kept us in South Vietnam after 1956, leading to the massive expansion of troops in Vietnam in 1965 when we should have followed the French out of that poor benighted country a decade earlier. (Of course, it also gave us the Moon Race, so it hasn't been entirely bad, I guess.)

It is a lot easier for a so-called entrepreneur to build a large, centralized profitable business when the only customer is the government and all that marketing BS can be replaced by easy-to-understand and relatively cheap lobbying.

There are a lot of other examples, but the threat of a mostly imaginary world-wide centralized Communist threat has treated the American reactionary right very well over much of the last century. Granted we have repressed the dangers of the nasty Communist Cuba threat only 90 miles off the shore of Florida, but really. Except for the Cuban exiles, half of whose families were dominated by the Mafia when Castro kicked Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky out of control of hotels and gambling in Havana, who really gives a shit? Castro has been kept in power by the U.S. to provide a further threat the right wing can use to scare American voters into voting for them. Without the U.S. policies of isolation, Castro would have collapsed decades ago and a lot of Florida Republicans and conservatives (sadly, not all Republicans) would have to look for honest work.

Republicans and conservatives have to have an external threat if their snake oil is to attract voters. Communism is dead. Long live Islamofascism! (Or some other unified global existential threat to be named later.)

It's all about domestic politics, just like the American war in Vietnam was, and as I suspect, the Korean War for the two years after the war restabilized back at the 38th parallel in the Spring on 1951. Why did it then take two more years to wait for a Republican President to walk in right after taking office and establish a cease fire? I suspect that the right wing Republicans needed the continued war in '51 and 52 to get a Republican President and Congress elected in 1952. So they sabotaged efforts to stop the war until after the election. It gave the Republicans a platform that they had lost after the Depression took hold and showed their incompetence. I can't prove this, but I'll bet a review of the history will show that the right-wingers were preventing effective government action exactly like they are today in Congress, and with the same purpose. Ike took office in March 1953 and negotiated a ceasefire sometime in April? What was his magic that he could do it and Truman couldn't? They want to blame the Democrats for the inaction they themselves are causing.

I also suspect that the substitute of the more moderate Eisenhower for the more radical Republicans who wanted the job really, really bugged the right-wingers who later gave us Joe McCarthy and the John Birch Society.

To believe this then one would have to believe that the Republican politicians in general don't care about America unless they are running it. Somehow, I don't find that a stretch at all. Except for occasional Republican politicians from moderate areas, I have yet to see much in the way of social conscience or public-spiritedness. Chaffee and Whitmire may have been exceptions and they still voted for rotten leaders and give them cover.

My point, however, is the the American right-wing has never hesitated to use war and the threat of war, even if imaginary or self-created, to gain political power in this country.

That's the only short thing I have posted here. It must not matter much.

Damn!

The really interesting thing is that you see that a lot.

For a long time, for example, the Mayan City State wars were largely bloodless and ceremonial.

Many of the feudal wars of the European middle ages were much like that. I remember in my university days reading of one feudal battle where a single knight had the bad luck to be killed.

At least some of the campaigns of the early greek city states were much like this. Phalanxes pushing each other back and forth with practically no casualties.

Even in WWI there were stories of informal truces and ceasefires. Like not bombing each other at respective lunchtime or tea times. On one occasion, a tea time artillary barrage took place and an angry british soldier shouted 'you f*cking bastards' at the top of his lungs on the other line, and received a shouted apology back explaining that a new officer had ordered it.

A visual example of your example comes in the movie Yojimbo, by Akira Kurosawa, where two small armies competing for control of a town shout and wave their swords at each other, but are careful not to get hurt.

But ah well, in life or in history, inevitably a Toshiro Mifune shows up.

And then its all fun and games when someone loses an eye.

Can I have a hot tub filled with Sophia Loren?

Apropos of Mfune, US Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki, the one who made public statements to Congress that the proposed occupation force for Iraq was far too small for security, was known for having a strange sense of humor. I don't know if he ever pulled it at a meeting with Rumsfeld, but he was known for impressions of Mfune doing impressions of overdone samurai. Supposedly, his glare and belly-language grunt could disrupt any meeting.

Again, the grand strategic view of national policy does not necessarily mean being oppressive or imperialistic. As one example, I've long suggested that a means of pressuring the Northern (Arab) Sudanese was not to impose no-fly zones, send in military forces, arm the Fur people, or embargo all investments in Sudan. Rather, I've suggested that one of the most threatening things to the supporters of the actions in Darfur would be to invest in South Sudan transportation infrastructure.

On one level, this would be economic warfare, because while the oil fields are in the South, the pipeline, refinery and export terminal are in the North. Building out rail or pipeline facilities to meet up with Kenyan oil export infrastructure (which does need improvement) suddenly takes the potential of oil revenue away from the North. Simultaneously, it improves the quality of living in the South, which is rather a friendly form of war.

Still, it would be interesting if competing governments instituted policies of potlatch.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

We have always been at war with Eastasia.

Isn't this Mifune guy the ex Congressman who now heads the NAACP?

The difference between ham handed and ham fisted is huge! I'm astonished that anyone would even consider admitting to not knowing the difference. as it is patently obvious to me. May I suggest that Reed make this a subject of a future post, when he next has a deadline and a shortage of good ideas to fill that deadline. I will gladly wait to reveal my knowledge of this so he can step in ahead of me.

Hoppy in Sacramento

Yep.

You can use the phrase, but it'll cost you a nickel every time.

;)

Damnedest thing. I must be tired. I read that as "Estrada"

The CHiPs guy? We've always been at war with Erik Estrada? What the hell has he ever done to anyone except maybe some bad acting?

It was a strange moment.

Dan K does a great parodistic riff off Bogie's "Here's looking at you kid" self-effacing, patriotic speech at the end of Casablanca, and the next commenter to appear is -- Rick B. Bogie played "Rick Blaine" in the film.

I couldn't help myself. It was -- "too perfect."

What the average American is led to believe and what the political leaders believe are two different things. I understand that part. But I was under the impression that Dan K was maintaining that neocons ARE true believers in the islamofacist theory. In any case, I'm not quite on board with the view that the right-wing elite is willing to cause chaos around the world MERELY for domestic political reasons.
Maybe I'm not as cynical as you.
Perhaps it is "the ways of empire" and all the benefits/risks that come with "the ways of empire" that inspires them on their present course. My basic point is: it can't be in their long-term interest to foment anti-Americanism throughout the world. How does the present course advance the cause of empire is what I don't get.

The only plausibel and natural answer that I can come up with is that they might have an end game in mind. Otherwise, it seems to be a case of massive miscalculation.

The Sudanese government would not sit by idly and allow this to happen. These kinds of infrastructure projects are enormously expensive and easy targets for sabatoge

I think it's all Russia's fault. Russian foreign policy has caused all this mess in the Middle East and Pakistan. The dysfunctional, radical Islamist driven, intolerant ideology that runs rampant through these regions has nothing to do with it.

Or it could be European foreign policy has created this problem. Or it could be President Musharaff, who is persecuting these poor innocents in Pakistan. I'm still trying to make up my mind. One thing's for sure, somebody's to blame for this mess, and it aint' the poor, suffering Muslims.

"I'm afraid Democratic candidates are going to need to take account of the increasing turmoil across Asia."

Why? Will it help one of them get elected if they 'take some account' of this turmoil? Maybe. But if not, they're wasting their time. Right now, the prospects for the White House changing parties in 2008 are somewhere between poor and poor+.
The Dem front runner is a near certain loser. And the man running just behind her would have to overcome the latent (and blatant) prejudice that courses through every capillary of our society.