> > http://www.slate.com/id/2224026/ > > - - - > You can see a similar pendulum effect in foreign policy, where the > object > lesson is not Bill Clinton but George W. Bush. Obama, who did not have > much > global expertise before coming to office, molded his approach around > his > predecessor's errors. Bush's naive idealism and unilateralism > encouraged > Obama's realism and multilateralism. Bush's boycott of North Korea, > Cuba, > and Iran fed Obama's eagerness to engage pragmatically with those > tyrannies. > Bush's neglect of the Mideast peace process fed Obama's urge to plunge > into > it. The new president has reversed the old one's prioritization of Iraq > over > Afghanistan and, in what has become the political cliché of 2009, tried > "hitting the reset button" on relations with Russia. > > In so doing, Obama now faces an inverted set of hazards: getting > overcommitted in Afghanistan, putting too much faith in the United > Nations, > accommodating dictators instead of standing up to them. Most > alarmingly, > given all that his predecessor did to discredit them, Obama has failed > to > stand up for the broader ideas of democracy promotion and humanitarian > intervention. Surely if not for Bush, Obama's instinct after the > Iranian > election would have been to identify with those risking their lives to > free > their country, not to get back to his attempt at dialogue with > Ahmadinejad. > - - - > > Translation: > > "Obama gently kisses tryants' asses because George Bush rudely kicked > them. > Somehow, Obama is cosmically forced to do the extreme opposite of > George > Bush, so now everything that goes wrong is... still Bush's fault." > > Change you can believe in! > > Enjoy it!
Incidentally I take issue with the author's argument that Bush somehow discredited democracy. 50 million people in two nations were liberated to vote in free elections because of George Bush's foreign policy, whatever other harm it did. Women and minorities in Afghanistan and Iraq enjoy, for a season at least, unprecedented freedom, and have been enjoying a right to vote they never experienced under the Taliban or Saddam Hussein. FWIW. - Bob > > - Bob > > > [excessive quoting removed by server] _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[email protected] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
