we see this sort of civil unrest in Yemen as well....
THese are a US ally in the region, and in this country in particular, Al-Qaida is resurging....another nation with an uncertain future unless 'the regime' uses whatever means possible to maintain power.....
Yep, it's just and right that repressive regimes should be kept in power; but only if they are somewhat friendly to the US. Strange that no one here ever mentions the medieval theocracy that supported and nurtured radical Islamic terrorists and brought you 911, al Queda and the Taliban. That country is Saudi Arabia and they are still supporting Islamic terror, albeit the Wahabbi version.
I don't want to get too sucked into this thread. It seems that you can look at some of what is going on as people seeking democracy. At least in Iran, I thought we said it was a good thing for people to want Democracy? We make alliances with repressive autocrats at our own peril. I really would rather not be placing my bets on the sides of the autocrats versus the spontaneous impetus of peoples towards freedom. I could speak of values -- freedom is important -- but instead I will restrain myself to speaking of pragmatics. As I said, I wouldn't want to bet on autocrats versus spontaneous movements of people towards freedom. The autocrats have been very consistently on the losing side of this struggle -- Vietnam (I'm looking back to the French even before the US, though the experience of both the US and French was the same), Algeria, Iran, Afghanistan (I'm thinking of the Russians . . . but the relationship to the current US role there is DEFINITELY in the same vein and hence subject to the same losing tendency). Choose whatever abstractions you want to apply to these circumstances, the experiences in the specific nations I identified are germane to what we are seeing now in the Middle East, but we don't seem to see the parallel or to have learned the lessons of these histories.
Choose whatever abstractions you want to apply to these circumstances, the experiences in the specific nations I identified are germane to what we are seeing now in the Middle East, but we don't seem to see the parallel or to have learned the lessons of these histories.
I respect your observations....but while these people seek that which we espouse as our own 'native values', they will not get what they're seeking. Depending on the resolve of these despots and how much of the military they carry...we will see these things put down ruthlessly, or we will see despots overturned. There will be no democracy in either case as the troglodytes inhabiting said kingdoms will turn power to the mullahs and end up being antagonistic to US interests. Best to support the ones with the most bullets.....
Since we are averse to using the force necessary to win a war, I would prefer we distance ourselves from the middle east as much as possible.
I would say if we did not need the oil, that would be a sound policy.
Unfortunately we DO need the oil and it behooves us to support whomever will represent our interests. We do not need to fight a war...as long as the governments we support can remain viable and repel/defeat efforts to overthrow them...and for good or bad, these are our allies and we should suppport them.
I would say if we did not need the oil, that would be a sound policy.
Unfortunately we DO need the oil and it behooves us to support whomever will represent our interests. We do not need to fight a war...as long as the governments we support can remain viable and repel/defeat efforts to overthrow them...and for good or bad, these are our allies and we should suppport them.
If we were just purchasing oil from middle eastern countries, then we likely wouldn't have the issues there we have now. They aren't resenting us for minding our own business, they hate us for what they interpret as us minding theirs.
As for supporting the governments that represent our interests, our foreign policy in that regard has been as weak as our military policy. We want them to repel and defeat efforts to overthrow them, yet we continually condemn them for those same efforts. All that doubletalk gets us nowhere but into yet another quagmire.
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You may beat the rap, but you won't beat the ride!
If we were just purchasing oil from middle eastern countries, then we likely wouldn't have the issues there we have now. They aren't resenting us for minding our own business, they hate us for what they interpret as us minding theirs.
As for supporting the governments that represent our interests, our foreign policy in that regard has been as weak as our military policy. We want them to repel and defeat efforts to overthrow them, yet we continually condemn them for those same efforts. All that doubletalk gets us nowhere but into yet another quagmire.
Yes...they resent us for whatever reason...BUT THEY STILL SELL US THE OIL. They can resent us all they want...as long as the oil flows west, I'm fine with it.
Our foreign policy is admittedly pretty lousy. It's part of dealing with a country that can have a Ronald Reagan one day, and a Jimmy Carter the next....a George HW one day, and a BIll Clinton another.
Foreign policy is subject to political vagaries. The fact that President Baboon can't do his job just makes the practice of US foreign policy that much more difficult but one constant is that 'MONEY TALKS'...if we want send troops, money helps. Look what's happening in Bahrain...no surprise there....watch for more of that...
The cancer spreads....
