Roland Responds

Roland disagrees with my skepticism of Obama's hawkishness, and he could be right. I am not so sure, but we shall see:

I do think that his commitment to not only continue our mission in Afghanistan, but deepen and broaden it, is a hawkish position...

Obama initially positioned himself on the left of his party on this issue, but I would have a hard time believing anyone deduces that he continues to hold those foolish positions after looking at his appointments.

Indeed, expanding efforts in Afghanistan is certainly not dovish, though perhaps owl is a better term than hawk when it comes to Afghanistan. After all, Afghanistan has long been the "good war" while Iraq has been its more sinister twin. Certainly walking away from either would be disastrous, as Roland points out, but being smart and practical about these things is not the same as being a hawk.

Now if Obama decides to either A) invade Pakistan, or B) take a hard line with Iran or C) flex our military muscle with some other future threat, I may be willing to concede. But as it stands, I see Obama more as the practical politician (thank God!) who knows when quitting is simply the wrong, and inhumane action.

War, What is it Good For?

Writes John Schwenkler:

The reasons to disown the Iraq war and the kind of foreign policy thinking that got us into it go far beyond a desire to restore the Republican Party’s electoral hopes, however. For this war was also a profoundly unconservative war — a tremendously costly attempt at “democracy promotion” that was enabled by a “Trust us, we’re the executive branch” approach to decision-making that probably had the Founders rolling over in their graves. There’s a reason, too, why it was so widely opposed by Christian leaders: for war is indeed, as Pope John Paul II argued in 2003, a defeat for humanity, and the willingness of so many professed Christians to acquiesce in the unnecessary invasion of a foreign country and the consequent deaths of soldiers and civilians alike marked a profound moral failing. Is the prospect of admitting a mistake so horrifying that basic moral principles count for nothing?

As exciting as I would find a broader rethinking of American foreign policy, perhaps along the lines proposed by Andrew Bacevich, the proposal on offer here is nowhere near as radical as that. Copping to failure in Iraq does not mean repudiating the Cold War legacy of Reagan, nor does it mean abandoning the fight against terrorism or even the push to spread democracy. All that it is, to borrow a much-abused turn of phrase, is a matter of sensitivity to conditions on the ground. The sooner conservatives admit to their mistakes, the better their chances of being heard from again.

Short of such an admission, it’s hard to see why they’d deserve the hearing.

I agree. If we hope to maintain a robust armed forces capable of humanitarian intervention, and capable of applying pressure to dictatorial regimes we need to stop invading countries like Iraq when the situation doesn't merit it. If it is not a clear and present danger or genocide that we can prevent, or the an escalation that needs to be stopped, we should not engage. Iran could become a clear and present danger. Darfur is a genocide we should prevent. Kosovo was an escalation of events that we were able to stop. Iraq? Iraq was stable enough. We could have used other means.

Three Well-Placed Bullets...

...would still leave a whole lot of asshole anti-Semitic terror-spreading Islamist shitheads out there, sadly...

Stop Iran Now!

The Iran Question

Andrew Sullivan writes:

I'm increasingly of the view that the United States should think twice before giving Israel a green light to destroy Iran's nascent nuclear capacity.

Such an act in today's context would immediately pour gasoline on the Islamist fire, uniting Shia and Sunni in anti-Israel and anti-Semitic and anti-Western fervor. It would recruit a generation of Islamist terrorists. It would risk a new and empowered alliance between Iran and Russia which has the nuclear know-how to give to Iran if it wants to. It might precipitate an Islamist take-over in Pakistan, which would give us an Islamist nuclear state overnight.

This is not to say that a nuclear Iran is not a horrifying prospect. But I don't believe that Iran's leadership truly wants to annihilate its entire population in a stand-off with the Zionists. Nuking Jerusalem is not something devout Islamists would easily countenance. But using the nuclear leverage to empower Hezbollah and Hamas is certainly a likely gambit.

Naturally, Sullivan thinks Obama is the right person to handle this tide of conflict that awaits the next President. McCain's "unsteadiness" disqualifies him, as does his abysmal choice of Sarah Palin.'

Lately I find myself agreeing more and more with this assessment. McCain's judgment call in picking Palin was so bad, I've begun seriously questioning his ability to lead.

I don't think it will be easy for either man to do the job. Each faces a plethora of security issues and evolving international relationships that seem to all be moving in the wrong direction for the U.S.

Good luck, whoever gets the job. It's not a position I envy in the least.

I doubt we'll hear anything truly substantive about the Iran question in the coming weeks unless Israel does indeed move against Tehran's nuclear program. The scale of this assault would largely be the determining factor in the ensuing Islamist reaction Sullivan notes above. A small scale attack a la the Syrian reactor would generate no noise at all; a full-fledged war a la Lebanon would probably result in global chaos.

~cross-posted at NeoConstant