Spengler, at the Asia Times, tries to trace the outlines of Barack Obama’s elusive Grand Bargain and doesn’t think it will work. “In Obama’s imagination, a Sunni Arab coalition – empowered by Washington’s turn against Israel – would encircle Iran and dissuade it from acquiring nuclear weapons, while an entirely separate Shi’ite coalition with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would suppress the radical Sunni Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This was the worst-designed scheme concocted by a Western strategist since Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery attacked the bridges at Arnhem in 1944, and it has blown up in Obama’s face.” Put that way, it does seem unlikely.
But it raises the question of why, without assuming that the President is a fool, that Barack Obama should think it would work. The apparent answer from the Asia Times article, is that Obama calculated from static assumptions; he did not allow for the dynamics of the situation; didn’t work out what the Sunnis and Shi’ites — and Israel — would be doing while he was setting up his Grand Bargain. Spengler writes:
Offering Iran a seat at the table in exchange for setting a limit to its foreign ambitions – in Lebanon and Gaza as well as Iraq – seemed to make sense on paper. But the entity that calls itself revolutionary Islam is not made of paper, but of flesh and blood. It is in danger of internal collapse and can only assert its authority by expanding its influence as aggressively as it can.
After the election disaster, Iran’s revolutionary leadership urgently needs to demonstrate its credibility. Israel now can say, “A country that murders its own citizens will have no compunction about massacring its enemies,” and attack Iran’s nuclear capacity with fewer consequences than would have been imaginable in May. And if an Israeli strike were to succeed, or appear successful to the world, the resulting humiliation might be fatal to the regime.
Israel may not be Tehran’s worst nightmare. Iraq’s Sunnis are testing the resolve of the weakened mullahs. The suicide bombing that killed 73 people at a Shi’ite mosque in Kirkuk on June 20 and a second bombing that killed another 72 Shi’ites in Baghdad’s Sadr City slum most likely reflect Sunni perceptions that a weakened Tehran will provide less support for Iraqi Shi’ites. Although Shi’ites comprise more than three-fifths of Iraq’s population, Sunnis provided the entire military leadership and are better organized on the ground. America’s hopes of enlisting Iran to provide cover for its withdrawal from the cities of Iraq seem delusional.
In other words, even if Barack Obama believes that nothing in Iran has changed, everyone else seems have to have assumed the contrary. Everyone is recalibrating their actions in response to recent events in Iran. Israel is digging in its heels; the Sunnis are probing for Persian weakness and Teheran, weakened by internal dissension, may not be in a position to “provide cover for [American] withdrawal from the cities of Iraq”. This spells disaster for Obama’s calculations, which may have misfired even if events in Iran had not supervened. Spengler continues:
The prospect of civil wars raging simultaneously in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq is no longer improbable. The Israel-Palestine issue is linked to all of these through Iran, whose credibility depends on its ability to sustain such puppies of war as Hezbollah and Hamas. Whether or not the Israelis take the opportunity to strike Iran, the prospect of an Israeli strike will weigh on Iran’s proxies in the region, and keep Israel’s borders in condition of potential violence for the interim.
America’s great good fortune is that no hostile superpower stands ready to benefit from its paralysis and confusion.
But given time and the “strategic void” which Spengler accuses Obama of creating, events may draw Regional Power adventurers into opportunity as a moth to a flame. If things start to cascade then there will be trouble. As an airplane relies on corrections from its control surfaces to stay within its safe envelope, so has the global system long relied on measured, but timely and forceful interventions and signals from Washington. With the control cables disconnected or disdainfully unused, Spengler has set up a scenario where things spin out of control. That’s worrisome, especially if, as he says, there is no Plan B. Like all predictions, no one can say if his warnings will come true, though it might be useful to throw out little markers to see if things are headed that way or not. On reflection, Obama should have done the same thing too. No plan, it is said, ever survives contact with reality. There is no reason to believe a plan will unfold as designed, even if it is the President’s. The future is vouchsafed to no one. Nelson, sailing to an uncertain fate off Trafalgar wrote “something must be left to chance; nothing is sure in a sea fight above all. … But in case signals can neither be seen or perfectly understood, no captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy.” Nothing in history is written or foreordained; the trick of leadership is to know what to write on the occasion.
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71 Comments
1. blogstrop:Who is left to place their ships alongside those of this enemy in the sense that Nelson intended?
Jun 30, 2009 - 4:28 am 2. wretchard:What Nelson, Napoleon and Alexander had in common was their ability to live in the moment. Plans were one thing, but they were alive to the possibilities of the present. The only way Nelson’s captains could get the information necessary to capitalize on opportunity was to “place his ship alongside that of the enemy”. Nelson’s units were individually superior, but they could only bring that individual superiority to bear if they could be used granularly, with the information tailored to their situations. The Nelson’s payoff was dependent on acquiring information, sitting close enough to see through the fog of war.
One way to criticize the President’s actions of late is that he is throwing away information. Nowhere is this more apparent than when his spokesmen say “we don’t believe the Iranians don’t want to bargain with us because they are only saying that for domestic consumption” or ‘we will talk to you about nuclear weapons even though there are battles in the streets of Teheran’. The Presidents acts as if he as information no one else has. He may have. But if he did, then why didn’t he foresee the current upheaval there? The inability to predict recent events bound what he can realistically claim as superior knowledge. So the likelihood is that the President is also operating under uncertainty. I think Spengler is right to argue that a plan like the Grand Bargain, which relies on a keystone holding all manner of things together is less robust than one with more flexibility built in.
Jun 30, 2009 - 4:39 am 3. ADE:The prospect of civil wars raging simultaneously in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq is no longer improbable.
Brilliant. Let them waste each other. The tragedy are the innocents, who would be Western were it not for Islam. They will be Nedas eventually. Why so much death in between?
But even better, Nobama will be discredited, why insulted, even! Outstretched hand rejected! Shits! And we loved those brown people; did they not appreciate our condescension to them? We even elected a brown islamic president!
Now the Left can withstand anything except derision – sort of like the Arabs, funnily.
Hell hath no fury like a Messiah exposed as a fraud to the believers.
This is all going to work out very well, as long as you are not one of the innocents.
Where was the bleeding obvious when you needed it?
ADE
Jun 30, 2009 - 5:04 am 4. Robert Speirs:The only more dangerous situation than not knowing what’s going on is thinking that you do know what’s going on when you really don’t. The liberal fantasy world is so divorced from reality that very soon it’s going to come crashing down. And Urkel doesn’t do well in bad situations.
Jun 30, 2009 - 5:13 am 5. Thrasymachus:I think Spengler gives Obama way to much credit for having come up with careful plan.
Jun 30, 2009 - 5:14 am 6. ADE:Incidentally, re Spengler’s opening joke, I am reminded of something similar from M.A.S.H.
Major Burns – complainingly to Hawkeye: “I don’t know why everybody takes such an instant dislike to me.”
Hawkeye: “Saves time, Frank”.
ADE
Jun 30, 2009 - 5:27 am 7. Xixi:I read Spengler and I wish he had remained anonymous. More mystique or whatever. I agree with Thrasymachus. I think Obama’s handlers are quick to give the One new words to speak, but are not particularly interested in actually making plans or thinking things through. It’s the community organizer scam done over and over.
Jun 30, 2009 - 5:29 am 8. Dave the Kapampangan:Nanny Obananarama says:
“Damn the torpedo-ing facts and full speed ahead to the appeasement bargain! We’ll have peace in our time (my four-year administration).”
Jun 30, 2009 - 5:31 am 9. Lifeofthemind:America’s great good fortune is that no hostile superpower stands ready to benefit from its paralysis and confusion.
China?
Russia?
OK, maybe they only count as Powers now and not Super Powers but that is semantics.
Obama is like wee Jimmy Carter, head down in the weeds while the adults move pieces on the board above him. (Apologies for the metaphor mangling)
Also Spengler is unfair to Bernard Law Montgomery. He was a difficult personality and in the end the plan failed but by every criterion his intentions were more honorable and his procedures were more professional then are those of the posturing academics and corruptocrats of this administration.
Spengler is spot on about the dynamic instability of Islam. They must conquer or die.
Jun 30, 2009 - 5:35 am 10. gokart-mozart:Obama is underestimated by those who use the template of US Presidents acting in the national interest.
He HAS placed his ship alongside the enemy, and is firing broadside after broadside, dismasting the ship, holing the hull. His boarders are making ready the cutlasses and the handspikes.
Except his enemy is the United States of America, and her people. His only interest in foreign affairs is when a foreign enemy of the constitution gets in trouble, as with recent events in Honduras. Otherwise, he’s too busy with his fellow domestic enemies of the constitution, working on the plan to bring us down, so that white folks’ greed will no longer be able to run a world in need.
That’s the one true thing in his autobiography. The very day he heard Jeremiah Wright pronounce those words was the day his life path was decided. It’s just like the passage in Mein Kampf where another politician describes sitting in the cafe in defeated Vienna, seeing the oriental Jews in their caftans and robes in the streets. He said, “at that moment, I decided to become a politician”.
Obama IS alive in the moment.
Are we?
Jun 30, 2009 - 5:38 am 11. qrstuv:I am struck by how often lefties calculate that they can place the chess pieces just so and reach their goals, forgetting all the while that the chess pieces are at least as smart and motivated as they are themselves.
And the lefties act surprised that their plans don’t work.
Jun 30, 2009 - 5:40 am 12. michael hoskins:Nelson’s orders to his captains is even more profound. It highlights the micro over the macro. It has long been an axiom of American forces that we allow our “sargents” a great deal of latitude to adapt to the the (micro) instant, in real time, than any other nation. This shortens the OODA loop. It also reduces the time allowed for opposition response.
His Oness wants to manipulate all the strings from a central location. aka a Statists position. (re: Mark Levin).
When one trusts the people on the ground, the effect of rapid action is a huge multiplier.
His Grand Bargain suffers from the hubris attendant to a Grand anything. The better plan was, and is, a localized variation of the old containment policy, with a poke and a prode here and there as opportunity permits, by people on the ground, attuned to the overall goal but free to react real time.
ta
Jun 30, 2009 - 5:47 am 13. dan:the most bizarre thing, i think, is the inability to make general inferences from general and obvious tendencies – tendencies which have the inertial force of nation-states with obnoxiously obvious ideological characters behind them.
everyone knows iran funds, arms, trains, runs political interference for hezbollah, that hezbollah is an iranian army; everyone knows iran supports hamas and funds, arms and trains terrorist operations and political subversion in iraq. everyone knows iran arms, launders money for and provides transit to the taliban and al qaeda. everyone knows there would be no iranian nuclear or ballistic missile programs without russia, nor a revolutionary guard without russian and chinese arms. and the long-term economic prospects of iran would be very much more in doubt without long-term energy contracts with China amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars.
so why does he expect that they will act any less aggressively if the USA reduces counterforce in the area? why does anyone? does he really believe in his absurd i’m-a-15-yr-old-trustfund-hippie leninist fairy tale about international relations? one doesn’t want to jump to the Manchurian Candidate conclusion, but it is hard to imagine how someone with his political skills could fail to make the inexorable inferences from these data.
Jun 30, 2009 - 6:07 am 14. java_thread:Russia is no longer a superpower, but it’s acting like it’s about to re-take Georgia…
Jun 30, 2009 - 6:33 am 15. dan:One thing I’d like to know is, is China’s economic performance measured by statistics produced by the Chinese government? Is there any reliable way to measure Chinese economic performance generally? I ask in light of the American Economic Meltdown, by the way, in which our own performance was grossly overvalued. And if we are, in fact, being manipulated, as I think likely at least in part, how can be so sure about the following propositions Spengler announces in his article:
“The last thing China wants at the moment is to undercut the US dollar, for three reasons. First, as America’s largest creditor, China has the most to lose from a dollar collapse. Second, Americans would buy fewer Chinese imports. And third, the collapse of the dollar would further erode America’s will to fulfill its superpower function, and that is what China wants least of all.”
(1) on the other hand, a dollar collapse might make the yuan exceedingly more valuable considering the transfer of hard assets to China
(2) and yet china has also recently adopted a program to increase domestic consumption of chinese-manufactured goods and to reduce reliance on exports
(3) why is this true? china has no enemies that it does not provoke; if usa fell, the biggest loser would probably be Japan. china has also co-opted or is in alliance with every military power in the region aside from south korea.
so.
Jun 30, 2009 - 6:41 am 16. RWE:At Trafalgar Nelson said what he did about placing your ship next to that of the enemy because that is not what he planned to do. At Trafalgar he did something almost unheard of. He pointed his ships AT the enemy, broke through their line of ships, and presented them with the unheard of situation of being shot at from at least 3 directions at once. The shock effect of the enemy captains screaming “Blue Lead from Blue Four! I got one of the bastards on my tail and I can’t shake him! Help!” was probably worth a dozen ships right there.
“A captain could do no wrong if…” statement was for the dummies who might not be able to handle the complicated maneuver, so he said if you could not go with the advanced attack approach everyone else was following then do Plan B – which was the old, simple way that simply relied on the ability of British gun crews to load and shoot faster than anyone else.
Obama is trying a Systems Approach, or at least thinks he is. Cap and Trade will stop our dependence on foreign oil. Solar and wind and bicycles and growing your own food in the backyard will replace the energy we don’t have. Then we can cozy up to the bad guys in the Middle East, throw everyone else under the bus, and fergitaboutit even as he claims victory and the place goes to Hell.
But the Systems Approach is doomed to fail if the System is not designed right. And even designed right then it will fail if a piece does not work right. And Obama has not designed a System but instead has a basket of wishes and delusions he thinks is a System.
And when his Systems Approach fails, he will have all but done away with the ability to “Forget Plan A and just do it the old way.” He doesn’t even know what the old way is.
Jun 30, 2009 - 6:42 am 17. Harry MacD:I agree with gokart-mozart’s point.
Obama is so far inside the conservative’s OODA loop we don’t know whether to poop or go blind, and he is kicking our tails anywhere and everywhere he chooses.
Porkulus, nationalization of Chrysler and GM, TARP as an instrument to control executive compensation, cap and trade, and nationalization of health care – all of this and more besides. These are all monumental, epochal changes in the American political and economic order, the objects of radical leftist lust for many, many years. He took office less than six months ago. Conservatives are in total disarray.
On foreign policy, he has inverted previous understandings of US national interests, and his foreign policy is clearly animated by the radical leftist critique of the US role in the world. His appointments are radical leftists. He joins Castro, Chavez and other Marxists in demanding the reinstatement and empowerment of a Chavez mini-me in Honduras. Does this make sense if he is not a neo-Marxist of some sort, the comrade of Chavez, as their famous handshake suggests? His voting record in the Senate was *to the left* of the avowed Socialist, Bernie Sanders.
He is carrying out the radical project anywhere and everywhere he can, as fast as he can. How many times does he have to kick our tails before we stop underestimating him?
Jun 30, 2009 - 6:42 am 18. ADE:Obama’s continuing obsession with America’s supposed misdeeds – deplorable but necessary actions in time of war – is consistent with his determination to erode America’s influence in the most troubled parts of the world. By removing America as a referee, he will provoke more violence than the United States ever did. We are entering a very, very dangerous period as a result.
This is my position – Obama is doing precisely that, but the upside is that, unknowingly to the community organiser, it is precisely what is needed to bring the West to its senses. We will benefit – some things may need to get worse before they get better.
Just as Europe is drifting Right because of the betrayal by its governing classes, the betrayal of America by its leader will eventually provoke even the most ardent Liberal into rejection. Abasement has a bottom, afterall.
I am convinced that, on the global scale, Obama is the end of the Left’s adventure as he discloses the reality of what the Left wants us to do.
It will indeed get very ugly, not only because of the removal of America as referee, but because America will turn on its internal enemies due to the Left’s disillusion with its experiment – an experiment thzt will require a scapegoat.
Obama is highlighting the internal fissures in America in proportion to his bowing to Saudi ‘Royalty’.
Obama – the most dangerous man on the planet, but also the most immediate in asking us to choose.
ADE
Jun 30, 2009 - 6:50 am 19. M. Simon:One of my teachers had a theory of shock points. That is – you get maximum results from minimum effort when the universe is no longer solid.
Or think ships where the small surface of the rudder controls the direction of the large surface of the ship. And even more so the trim tabs on the rudder which make the control almost effortless.
War is coming. A big one. Because the universe is no longer as solid as it once was. We have a bad intentioned idiot for president.
Simon’s Law:
Jun 30, 2009 - 7:04 am 20. AWH:It is unwise to attribute to malice alone that which can be attributed to malice and stupidity.
“But it raises the question of why, without assuming that the President is a fool, that Barack Obama should think it would work.”
you just had to make Occam’s razor off limits, didn’t you
Jun 30, 2009 - 7:14 am 21. M. Simon:Also Spengler is unfair to Bernard Law Montgomery.
I’m not so sure. B. H. L. Hart’s “Strategy” was widely read in British military circles and Market Garden violated most of those principles. But I will grant that at least Monty was on the allied side.
Jun 30, 2009 - 7:22 am 22. AWH:“I agree with gokart-mozart’s point.
Obama is so far inside the conservative’s OODA loop we don’t know whether to poop or go blind, and he is kicking our tails anywhere and everywhere he chooses.”
Harry,
I agree somewhat, but don’t think he is inside the conservative’s OODA so much as he realizes that this is his ONE chance for those things. We already see the polls showing the separation in opinions about his policies and him personally – a direct result of his ambigious, “moderate seeming” campaign designed to be everything to everyone. Well, it worked for an election and it may give him a pliable congress for 2 years, but even with those things he needs to act fast before a large segment of the population realizes that those unpopular policies are HIS policies and were his policies all along.
So to clarify a bit, Conservatives have had his number from day 1, they just weren’t able to stop him, nor were they aware of the scope and extent of his threat (leading many to not vote). The people whose OODA loop he’s within are the squishy types like Frum, Brooks (of the NYTimes, etc.). Hell, as far as we know, they are on his side anyway.
Jun 30, 2009 - 7:22 am 23. Ashen:#10
Jun 30, 2009 - 7:24 am 24. Stones Cry Out - If they keep silent… » Things Heard: e74v2:I agree. I am alive in the moments and believe this current admin’s plans are to try and “equalize” the standard of living for those of us “down here”. This admin foments class warfare. Hopefully most people will see this. We have all run into this type of thinking probably. My best friend of 30 years used to be liberal in his thinking. He used to believe that it was ok to soak the rich until I started questioning him about how fair that really is. Equality is achieved by removing man-made road blocks like Jim Crow laws or affirmative action.
[...] Can’t admit them as being evil if you want to negotiate … history repeats? Likewise. [...]
Jun 30, 2009 - 7:25 am 25. Lifeofthemind:M. Simon,
B. H. Liddell Hart was both manipulative and wrong.
See John Mearsheimer (yes him), Liddell Hart and the Weight of History
ISBN: 978-0801420894
I have a personal interest in this.
Jun 30, 2009 - 7:34 am 26. exhelodrvr:AWH,
“nor were they aware of the scope and extent of his threat (leading many to not vote”
If they weren’t aware of that, they are too stupid to be voting anyway.
Jun 30, 2009 - 7:36 am 27. LarryD:13. Why does Obama act like he does?
From Lee Harris Al Qaeda’s Fantasy Ideology
I submit that Obama, like many Leftists, is deep in a narcissistic fantasy.
Jun 30, 2009 - 7:56 am 28. Jamie Irons:ADE (#18) wrote:
Just as Europe is drifting Right because of the betrayal by its governing classes, the betrayal of America by its leader will eventually provoke even the most ardent Liberal into rejection. Abasement has a bottom, after all.
I agree. Last night I told my wife that I believed that within six to twelve months Obama would be the most reviled president in our history, way ahead of Carter and GWB. The outright arrogance and “audacity” of his actions (said “audacity” only held in check when it comes to confronting mullahs and Castro-lites), is so stunning that people are not at first registering it, or reacting to the flagrant stupidity that underlies it.
But they will.
Jamie Irons
Jun 30, 2009 - 7:57 am 29. Tony:I don’t understand why anyone imagined that President Obama and his staff of fanatical partisans had any plan at all.
Foreign affairs is a bothersome distraction to these guys, at least it seems so from their behavior and declarations. Listening to that speech in Cairo, just full of historical howlers that any self-respecting grade school kid would know were false, tells us a lot about how this Administration views the world.
Hell, they are still pushing this Global Warming farce. They come out and say they are going to save money on healthcare with a plan that spend $1.6 trillion more than we are spending now.
This Administration is fundamentally unserious, dependent upon a cult of Eloi-like followers who embrace ignorance. Our enemies in the world do not step into the role of the Eloi as easily as all of President Obama’s fanciers have throughout his short, thin career.
The only good news is the last time this happened, aka Jimmah Time, we got Reagan as the cure. That’s my Hope and Change.
Jun 30, 2009 - 7:59 am 30. exhelodrvr:28)”I told my wife that I believed that within six to twelve months Obama would be the most reviled president in our history”
That will require people to acknowledge that they were duped. That doesn’t happen very often.
Jun 30, 2009 - 8:05 am 31. trangbang68:Tony,
Jun 30, 2009 - 8:55 am 32. trangbang68:Your Carter/Reagan analogy is weakened by the times. When Carter was bringing us low, we were, despite post Viet Nam self flagellation much more resilient.
Now with the Soros market manipulations, the mega debt, the exhausted and overstretched military, the administration ,through stupidity, naivety or evil design can cause serious damage to our national prospects. These are the times that try mens souls.
Doug, thanks for the links. These young warriors are our greatest national treasure. When the slackers and boomers are cast aside as the self indulgent fools and Quislings they are; these young soldiers will have the character and strength to help lift the darkness.
Jun 30, 2009 - 8:58 am 33. Mark:Lee Harris writes, via Larry D: “Instead, he took his part in order to confirm his ideological fantasy of marching on the right side of history, of feeling himself among the elect few who stood with the angels of historical inevitability.”
I appreciate the many observations above that help to piece together the puzzle that is Obama.
Those who note that Obama learned something from Rev. Wright mine a deep vein. Rev. Wright, and liberal/radical Christianity, tap into the Christian concern for victims and endorsement of fairness/distribution of resources (e.g., see last Sunday’s reading from Paul). The politically radical Christian emphasis on fairness becomes a commitment to redistribution of wealth, conveniently bracketed off from all of the other teachings (moral, religious, etc.) that provide nuance regarding the law of charity. Radical Christianity, one could say, is “Christianity in a hurry,” as leftists used to say that “Marxism is socialism in a hurry.” For the left it’s all about power, of course, and the left has found clever ways to enlist Christians in its no-cross crusade. (I don’t deny that conservative authoritarian regimes enlist Christianity for their own ends, but that’s not the current trend.)
For years the educational system has taught the theory of ‘white privilege.’ Anything that ‘whites’ own was acquired by violence, against other people and against the Earth. Reparation is necessary. Pay up. You owe. Howard Zinn tells this version of American history.
Obama is the agent who will help to balance the scales. Support for the oppressed people, now represented by ‘leaders’ (i.e., dictators), will counterbalance the unfair advantages of the democratic (and therefore by definition predatory) nations.
Obama is like someone who is pulling the plug from the nation’s policital, economic, and spiritual resevoir, which is now in the process of emptying, not noticeably at first, but surely. The sucking sound is getting louder. But it’s all in the name of fairness. The followers of Obama do indeed seem like the young man Harris describes, “marching on the right side of history, of feeling himself among the elect few who stood with the angels of historical inevitability.”
But I also agree with those, above, who think the One’s popularity bubble will burst eventually.
Jun 30, 2009 - 8:58 am 34. Jay:Obama is an enemy of the US. Several of my colleagues at the lab where I work partime believe this. He is not only a leftist. He is a non American enemy.
Jun 30, 2009 - 9:16 am 35. RWE:Axelrod and Rahm are not leftists and anti-America. They are power hungry and corrupt Chicago pols. Pelosi is not a leftists. she is a corrupt San Fran loon.
Obama is also crazy. Look at the pictures of him on Drudge today.
#28 and #30:
I agree with both Exhelo and Jamie. He will be reviled, but not by the people who can’t admit they screwed up big time by voting for him. What the ones will think who thought that their vote would free them from ever paying for a house, a car, gasoline, and medical care we have no way of knowing, if for no other reason that they don’t seem to think at all.
A surprising thing happened the other day. I have a Bush/Cheney 2004 bumper sticker still on my car. I have not tried to remove it and it does not seem to be wearing out. Sitting at a stop light the other day a man in the car next to me yelled over “I like your bumper sticker!”
How many Obama bumper stickers will we see 6 months from now? You still see some but there sure seem to be fewer. Is it the bumper stickers that are wearing out or is it his welcome?
Jun 30, 2009 - 9:27 am 36. Subotai Bahadur:I am not sure that I see evidence of any real intent to “encircle and dissuade” Iran or “suppress” the Taliban with any sort of coalition. We are being set up for a repeat of the Brit Afghan wars in South West Asia, and wrt Iran we seem consistent in only two things; hostility to Israel and in laying on our back and exposing our belly in submission regardless of what Iran says and does.
I agree with the projections of civil disorder in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and possibly Iraq. They will not be without immediate effect on us, however. A Taliban/Al Quada controlled Afghanistan once again becomes the safe haven for our enemies. In a Pakistani civil war, control of the country will give the Taliban/Al Quada control of their nukes; which they have recently stated WILL be used against us at the first opportunity.
Yes, it will get unbelievably worse before it gets better. However, there is no indication that it will ever get better.
As far as comparing Buraq Hussein Obama with Bernard Law Montgomery; there may be a real point there, as I see it. Of course YMMV.
Despite a comparatively dismal performance [caused in large part by obsolete equipment and tactics, not the fault of the individual Brit soldier] in the battle for France in 1944, he insisted on taking the bulk of the limited supplies of the Allied forces for his “masterstroke” to get into the North German plain via the Netherlands.
The plan relied on the basic assumptions that there were not significant combat capable German forces in the area, and that the British armor would be able to make the kind of rapid thrust to Eindhoven, Nijmegan, and Arnhem that they never had done before in Europe. The Brits knew ahead of time that there was only one road for the Guards Armored division to follow, with terrain unsuitable for supporting tanks on both sides of the road. That channeled the attack on one narrow access and hitting the lead vehicles repeatedly brought the whole column to a stop until the way was cleared. Finally, in time for the operation to be cancelled, Brit intelligence discovered the presence of an SS Panzer division where none had been expected to be. The Intel officer who tried to convince Montgomery’s HQ that dropping 6 Para on top of a Panzer division was not a good idea was deemed to be “overworked” and sent on involuntary leave. The aerial photos of the Panzers were ignored.
Reality was not allowed to intrude on the Great Man’s plans. It was better that Col. Frost’s Paras die waiting for a relief that never came, than the soldier who considered himself the greatest modern British general be discommoded by facts.
Sound like a modern
Americanpolitician that we know and detest?This time the penalty will be paid, not only by the best and brightest in the military, but by us all at home.
Kyrie Eleison
Subotai Bahadur
Jun 30, 2009 - 9:28 am 37. Promethea:So far, none of my liberal friends and family see anything wrong with Obama. I think they are typical liberals–people who mean well and who don’t bother to get into the nitty-gritty details because it doesn’t interest them.
I don’t think Obama is going to lose his luster until we all are facing a serious economic crisis or a brutal war that affects us personally (not like Iraq, which was pretty small, as U.S. wars go).
Jun 30, 2009 - 9:37 am 38. Unsk:Buraq is only interested in the public relations “peace plan” adulation resulting from an Iran deal. The actual details of the plan do not matter so much to him. If it hurts America’s long term interests, all to the better in his view.
Civil Wars in Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan again don’t worry the One. Such things can be spun as GWB’s fault, and Buraq can probably blame for the military for the fiasco. A neat two-fer. An opportunity to cut the military down to size.
What matters is gaining and keeping Power for himself and the Democrats. Taking down America a few notches is just the icing on the cake.
Jun 30, 2009 - 9:45 am 39. Insufficiently Sensitive:I don’t understand why anyone imagined that President Obama and his staff of fanatical partisans had any plan at all.
It wasn’t one of broad horizons, but it seems to be working. Take control, loot the till and set up your side to win the next election by any means necessary.
Jun 30, 2009 - 9:54 am 40. RCM:16. RWE:
“And when his Systems Approach fails, he will have all but done away with the ability to “Forget Plan A and just do it the old way.” He doesn’t even know what the old way is.”
Perfect.
C. S. Lewis:
“First, as to putting the clock back. Would you think I was joking if I said that you can put a clock back, and that if the clock is wrong it is often a very sensible thing to do? But I would rather get away from that whole idea of clocks. We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man. We have all seen this when doing arithmetic. When I have started a sum the wrong way, the sooner I admit this and go back and start over again, the faster I shall get on. There is nothing progressive about being pigheaded and refusing to admit a mistake. And I think if you look at the present state of the world, it is pretty plain that humanity has been making some big mistake. We are on the wrong road. And if that is so, we must go back. Going back is the quickest way on.”
The worst situation, however, is like the one GW faced: the follow-on plan to the invasion of Iraq never seemed to occur to anyone. At least the necessity for an about face was finally realized. Better (they initially thought) to rely on wishful thinking and Pollyanna concepts of “freedom” without factoring in the unpredictability caused by the evil, edacity, and the ego of Men.
If Obama cannot conceive of a “follow-on plan” that is not held hostage to his ideology, his failure to pivot may spell death and destruction for many innocents – or worse.
Along those lines and a bit OT, with respect to the difficulty in Honduras…how soon can we expect to see a multi-national force there comprised of US, Cuban, Venezuelan and Nicaraguan “peace keeping” forces?
Jun 30, 2009 - 11:20 am 41. exhelodrvr:RCM,
“the follow-on plan to the invasion of Iraq never seemed to occur to anyone”
There WAS a follow-on plan to the invasion in Iraq. Don’t know why people keep acting like no thought went into planning for the post-war period. The problem was not a lack of planning, the problem was that events did not go as anticipated (do they ever?) and it took awhile to figure out the best approach. Huge difference between that and not having a follow-on plan.
Jun 30, 2009 - 11:32 am 42. Mongoose:Obama and the current Democrat leaders are hucksters, beserkers and destroyers.
This is where they thrive: In lies, chaos and betrayal. It is what they crave.
They have never done one successfully productive thing in their lives. Most of them have never had real adult jobs of any sort whatsoever. In some case, like the Gore family, this obtains across generations.
They can cause nothing but ruin and desolation. I hope we can survive them, but America on the other side of them may never be the same. I hope I am wrong, but this seems to be to be the beginning of America’s decline into the third rate nation. I doubt that we are superpower 7 years form now.
If we are to avoid this fate, the electorate will have to chuck them and soon, and have the will to undo what they have done.
It is a tall order.
Jun 30, 2009 - 11:34 am 43. sirius_sir:I told my wife that I believed that within six to twelve months Obama would be the most reviled president in our history.
It may take longer for him to reach “most reviled” status, but I’ve been thinking (and occasionally saying) essentially the same thing for some time now.
And speaking of bumper stickers, how about this one?: HOPING FOR CHANGE IN 2012
Jun 30, 2009 - 11:43 am 44. peterike:So far, none of my liberal friends and family see anything wrong with Obama. I think they are typical liberals–people who mean well and who don’t bother to get into the nitty-gritty details because it doesn’t interest them.
Agreed. There is little buyer’s remorse yet. They have no idea what is going on because the ramifications of it all have not yet unfolded. I’m not sure they will entirely before 2010 either, ensuring continued Democratic control of everything. People are still big into the romantic phase — he’s such a handsome and charming black man, after all. And he takes his wife on date nights!!
Liberals are such children.
As for the specifics, good luck explaining cap-and-trade to people. Or that “free and equal health care” for everyone is a bad thing. I just heard that the other day from a big Obama fan. “Won’t it work well here like it works in other countries?”
** sigh **
Jun 30, 2009 - 11:53 am 45. Mongoose:Promethea: I bet they never will. It seems impossible to get through to these people.
I am not really sure how “well meaning’ they really are, BTW. There are varying degrees of pathological narcissism in all of this. To get their head on straight, they would have to admit that much of what they hold to be true is in fact not true, and that much of their belief system services their capacity for vanity and self importance (and not a little larceny), and not a search for truth or morality. Is this really a case of being “well meaning” or having “good intentions”? Socialism is after all theft and tyranny no matter how it is sugar-coated.
Of course, I cannot speak of the particular people that you know, and do not mean to do so, but i certainly, in the end, cannot say that the liberals I know actually “mean well” in an conscious, affirmative moral sense of the phrase. At best they are unaware and lazy. It is not clear to me that should they understand what is going on, they would behave much differently. At some point one has to ask just what this business of “meaning well” means in terms of actual morality–we all well know what the road to hell is paved with. I am not optimistic that a epiphany is down the road for this bunch.
Certainly OBAMA is an extreme articulation of the Left and the conceits of what we now call “Liberalism”, but we should not imagine that our problems would go away should he just pack up his bags and head back to Kenya tomorrow morning. It could well work out that these “well meaning” liberals would just look for the next savior, that the fault would be Obama’s and not their fault or the fault of their “ideas”. This political culture of the left is a deeply rooted matter–and there is more to it than who is currently sitting in the WH. Goodness, even the GOP cannot get free of this cancer.
For example, this thread is about a so called “Grand Bargain”, but is not “Obama’s plan” just a rehashing of the various dodges of Brzezinski wing of the Democrat Party’s foreign policy mandarins? Obama is just a front for these “experts” in this area–it is they that are supplying the “strategy” (and, no doubt, the tactics too). That they still cling to all this wheezing, self-important rubbish after all these years and after all that has transpired, especially considering how much mischief they got rolling in the ME during Cater and Clinton years, should show us just how deep is the rot on the left. Were these “experts” in fact right about a single thing throughout the last 40 years? It is glaringly obvious, yet they nor their rank and file cannot come close to even the slightest acknowledgment of what is so clearly true. Getting rid of Obama will not fix this matter in the slightest way.
We have to face the fact that a broad swathe of our society really holds to some rather perverted values and are of perverse minds. They really have bought into statism in profound way, and many directly or indirectly depend on the government for some or all of their livelihood, sense of security and worth.
Oh, and Jay, no they are all leftist, they may also be power hunger pols, but they are leftists of various stripes. That some of them may just use the left for cynical ends does not make them any less Leftists–in fact it just makes them more Leftist.
In particular, Pelosi is a thoroughgoing Socialist. You can take that to the bank.
Jun 30, 2009 - 12:18 pm 46. joe buzz:I keep seeing these haunting bumper stickers on the dulles greenway; “Women for Obama” and it is as if I am living through our own whiskey inspired bad dream like episode of the twilight zone…or for you younger peeps x-files.
Jun 30, 2009 - 12:46 pm 47. Roderick Reilly:Help, as the only sailing command I can lately muster is “Splice the main brace”.
“”"”"”One thing I’d like to know is, is China’s economic performance measured by statistics produced by the Chinese government? Is there any reliable way to measure Chinese economic performance generally? I ask in light of the American Economic Meltdown, by the way, in which our own performance was grossly overvalued. “”"”"”
#15 Dan: I can only try to answer a fragment of your question regarding China’s economic and sociopolitical status: The IMF admitted/found out that it had overestimated China’s GDP (I think in 2007) as $9 trillion, when in fact it is $6 trillion — vs. the U.S.’s $14 trillion. Also China has more than 4 times the population of the U.S., and that population is still majority agrarian and poor.
Jun 30, 2009 - 12:56 pm 48. sirius_sir:Re: rehashing of the various dodges of Brzezinski wing of the Democrat Party’s foreign policy mandarins…
I watched a bit of Charlie Rose last night with Brzezinski discussing favorably Obama’s handling of the Iranian situation. He explained how comparisons between the democracy movement in Poland and the movement in Iran were inept and unsustainable, inasmuch as the Polish movement had the support of the religious leaders and the trade unions and was entirely nationalist in character, unlike in Iran where the religious element WAS the regime and enjoyed the national support of workers and armed forces. Charlie Rose, bless him, spoke up to ask if it wasn’t true that a split in the religious leadership seemed to be developing in Iran, which left Brzezinski momentarily tongue-tied.
He did not actually address the point, but did go on to opine as to how the Neo-cons and the Ayotollahs were alike, inasmuch as they both were convinced of their own infallability and goodness and would use force when and as necessary to further their goals.
I’m still shaking my head over that one.
Jun 30, 2009 - 1:24 pm 49. sirius_sir:“In Obama’s imagination, a Sunni Arab coalition – empowered by Washington’s turn against Israel – would encircle Iran and dissuade it from acquiring nuclear weapons…”
Unfortunately,Obama’s imagination makes no room for considering the effects of appearing fickle and feckless. Israel is not the only country which may well suffer the consequences, as pointed out in today’s Opinion Journal: “The surge was as much a psychological strategy as it was a military one. It proved our adversaries’ propaganda wrong. Violence dropped. Iraq received a new chance to emerge as a stable, secure democracy.
By telegraphing a desire to leave, Mr. Obama reverses the dynamic. In effect, his strategy is an anti-surge. Troop numbers are not the issue. It is the projection of weakness.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124631741892070801.html
Let’s hope the Iraqi government, its people, police, and armed forces are strong enough to counter.
Jun 30, 2009 - 1:52 pm 50. Mongoose:sirius: Just so. I did not see this, but i can believe it.
That this buffoon was raised from the crypt for Rose tells us all we need to know about Obama. We could not have a worse bunch running things. It is as if we have lost the cold war.
The last time around with these clowns we lost the Panama Canal. Last time they helped set in motion the entire Islamic/USA war, and told us we were not in a war.
I think it really comes down to who we are. Are there enough of us left to change this?
How can we be brought so low by such miserable excuses for human beings? Where is the point of no return.
It is amazing if you consider where the country was 3 or 4 years ago, years were we had a real crisis.
See about Franken? I imagine that we will have a hundred cases like this in 2010. They stole this election in the most brazen manner, right out on the light of day. And not a peep about it anywhere. The damage the Democrats will do to this country next fall and next year. I am doubtful that the GOP will get back even one chamber next year.
What is happening to this country is the saddest thing I have seen in my life. The USA is in big trouble. We can decry the media all we want, but we only have ourselves to blame.
Jun 30, 2009 - 2:22 pm 51. whiskey:Joe — Women ARE for Obama. It is they who form his core of support, outside the Black/Hispanic community and for the same reason: they also hate White Men (or most of them).
Women hate military action, patriotism, religion (restrictions on sexuality), traditional culture (ditto), defense (too much power to White men) and idealize and idolize non-White men as “superior” in moral and testosterone ability. They’d prefer all beta men gay, and dismantling of the nation-state. Women are hard-wired to be hard Left (really just a desire for a Kingship) whenever they get to be the equal of men in status, and so lose their desire for their male peers. Women are of course, hypergamous. This was the situation in late Rome, Sparta, Greece as a whole, much of the Hellenistic world, and the West today.
It’s why Women (and Gays) are in the forefront of criticisms of the movie Stoning of Soraya M. They wish for dominant, violent men, to rescue them from the boring sameness of ordinary Western Men. They are quite likely to get their wish (Women who actually have to live under that of course, loathe it). Grass, greener, etc.
Jun 30, 2009 - 4:22 pm 52. Jamie Irons:Mongoose,
Not meaning to criticize you, and having at times felt some of the despair which afflicts you, I think you’re being too pessimistic. My take (based on little more than intuition and a somewhat reliable sense of human nature) is that the clowns currently in charge are biting off way more than they can chew and, in a matter of months, they are going to be shown for the inept bunch that they are.
A very wise psychoanalyst at UCLA once told me “Reality sucks…but it’s the only game in town.”
And the Obama people have evaded just about as much reality as they are going to be able to manage. To paraphrase “Reverend” Wright, those chickens are coming home to roost.
Jamie Irons
Jun 30, 2009 - 4:32 pm 53. Bruce:#35 RWE
Jun 30, 2009 - 4:48 pm 54. Mongoose:I live in Silicon Valley. I wish I could say there was a decline in the number of Obama bumper stickers, but there doesn’t seem to be.
Jamie, I think you misjudge me, and misjudge as well this moment in our history.
I have lived in totalitarian, collectivists states (and some that were just purely totalitarian criminal regiemes) and I have been around for quite some time. I have been in nations during the period that they transitioned into collectivist totalitarianism. I have been, in my way, an active warrior for this nation and the West and have also traveled a great deal as a professional and business man. With all due respect–and I do enjoy your posts–I really think that you are being Pollyannish about this–I do not think you know what you are up against. I personally will survive just fine, but the noble Republic is up for grabs.
I am not in despair, i am being realistic. It is unmanly to put a glad face on conditions that do not merit it.
Frankly I find this sort of cheerleading to be a little foolish. Talk to me 6 years down the pike, or go talk to a Venezuelan expat right now. You may be kidding yourself about this.
Communism destroyed Russia, it is not coming back. Labour has almost destroyed the UK, it is not coming back, not without a civil war and radical change of heart. The UK is almost unrecognizable to me now. Vennezuela is most likely not going to ever be what is was. Brazil, well I do not care what the pundits say, it gets worse every year.
It is the conditions that allow the clowns to come into power-the conditions that allow frauds like GW to actually get through congress–that are the problem.
Strike down a Pelosi and a new one will spring up. We are in big trouble here.
The last time this happened the whole WASP ascendancy was destroyed.
This time they will destroy the whole white middle class. Then there will be nothing.
Our society, our industries, our culture and our ability to act on our traditions is not as robust and as strong as you think it is, if you ask me.
Jun 30, 2009 - 5:07 pm 55. Jamie Irons:What is happening is not a joke, and it is not momentary. One cannot raise the cane up when it is in the fields.
Mongoose,
Sounds like you have very good reasons, backed by much difficult real world experience, for your realism. I respect that, of course.
Time will tell.
Actually, I don’t intend at all to “put a happy face” on our situation; I take it very seriously. But I think these fools are going down; I just don’t think they can get around the obstacles that reality is putting in their way, and I hear already the faint stirrings of a media backlash against its own abject prostitution.
In fact, I will predict that shortly we are going to hear the opening notes of an overture, entitled: “How Did Barack Obama Let His Historic Opportunities Slip By?”
Jamie Irons
Jun 30, 2009 - 5:56 pm 56. sirius_sir:The so-called “Grand Bargain” that Obama is so hot to pursue will never come to fruition, mainly due to the contempt the Iranian President feels for our own. This Administration perhaps does not yet even suspect that “…the “bloviations” of Ahmadinejad are not just politically motivated, but are also expressions of contempt for Mr. Obama. That contempt springs from a keen nose for weakness, honed by the habits of dictatorship and based on an estimate — so far unrefuted — of Mr. Obama’s mettle.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124631691259270727.html
Obama’s supporters like to portray him as a quick study. It will be interesting to see just how long it takes for him to catch on.
Jun 30, 2009 - 6:02 pm 57. bogie wheel:28)”I told my wife that I believed that within six to twelve months Obama would be the most reviled president in our history”
That will require people to acknowledge that they were duped. That doesn’t happen very often.
Well, at least my friend has stopped calling him Barry … a ridiculous habit she adopted for several months before and after the election. I’ve known her for 20 years and not once in that time, before 2008, did she consitently (if ever), in a serious manner, refer to a presidential candidate or president by his first name. She actually liked (still likes) GWB quite a lot, voted for him in 2004, but would never have dreamed of calling him “George.”
The psychology of this habit was just plain weird and seemed to start around the time she read “Dreams from My Father.” I never called her on it since frontal assault on the weirdness didn’t seem to be the way to go. Fortunately it seems to have abated on its own, but if it ever starts up again, I might consider a little flanking movement and start calling every politician everywhere, USA and world, by his/her first name when I talk to my friend.
Jun 30, 2009 - 6:20 pm 58. bogie wheel:Women are hard-wired to be hard Left (really just a desire for a Kingship) whenever they get to be the equal of men in status, and so lose their desire for their male peers.
Mrs. Thatcher thanks you for your opinion. But is too much of a lady to tell you what she really thinks of such utterances.
Mrs. Palin will meet you in the duck blind for a shootout.
Jun 30, 2009 - 6:25 pm 59. Tony:Trangbang @ 31, lest we forget, how bad would President Obama have to act to match Jimmy.
And I disagree that we’re weaker now, because back at Jimmah time, our enemies had real armies to send against us. It was the Cold War, the USSR somehow could fight us globally.
Jimmah surrendered our South African allies interests against 50,000 Cuban troops in Angola.
The Soviets invaded Afghanistan, and Jimmah boycotted the Moscow Olympics.
Jimmah ushered the Shah out of Iran, and along with our beloved French brothers, ensconced the Ayatollah into the Iranian Republic. The Ayatollah’s boys thanked Jimmah by taking our embassy hostage, y’all may remember.
Oh, like then as now, like a sideshow, the dictators, Sandinistas, Cubans, etc. ran rampant in Central America, it went on and on.
This is how bad President Obama has to get before we approach Jimmah time.
Jun 30, 2009 - 6:30 pm 60. Leo Linbeck III:The President appears to think like a Frenchman, along the lines of Rousseau, who once said,
By applying his imagination – his intellect – to a problem, someone of this inclination will think they have solved a problem. But what is often ignored is that the problem is not a puzzle but a game, with multiple players with different strategies and capabilities. This means any “solution” must necessarily be dynamic, and subject to constant adjustment based upon the actions of the other players (short OODA loop). Grand Bargains must therefore always fail.
This sort of “top-down” approach is the preferred mode of governance in France. The government there is effectively controlled by graduates of École Nationale d’Administration, or ENA, the elite Grande ecole created after WWII by Charles de Gaulle. It has no undergraduates, and graduates only 90 students each year. These men and women go on to high government positions, as ENA alumni effectively control the top slots in the civil service.
Their alumni, known as énarques, are the modern aristocracy of the French neo-feudal order. Over time, they have led the centralization of government in Paris, and have essentially gutted the private sector by making it totally dependent upon State largess and protection.
The President appears to have a similar approach. He seems to fervently believe that a centralized government, run by a meritocracy of our intellectual superiors, is better than the messy, chaotic marketplace of ideas and actions that results from free citizens acting in their own self-interest. He believes in plans and Grand Bargains that can “solve” problems, both foreign and domestic. He has staffed his administration with legions of Ivy Leaguers, who (presumably) know better than the rest of us out here in flyover country.
But rule of the énarques has been a disaster for France, and every other country that has employed a similar system. My observation from years of teaching is that there is very little correlation between academic ability and wisdom; in fact, academic achievement can be a positive liability when it creates a false sense of “knowing that we know more than we know.” Humility is a universal requisite for wisdom (cf. Socrates).
So, we are approaching an inflection point in our national governance. We once were governed by practical men of strong character (Washington, Lincoln, Coolidge, Truman, Reagan, among others). We are now experimenting with a new model:
Rule of the Harvarques.
I remain hopeful that we will abandon this experiment at the next opportunity, and will avoid irreparable damage in the mean time.
November 2010 cannot come soon enough.
L3
Jun 30, 2009 - 6:53 pm 61. Mongoose:Tony: we had a robust and solid industrial base
we were decades ahead of leadership in technology.
We had a reasonable education system. We had the Reagan Democrats. We had a solid middle class.
We did not have open Marxists in power here and in the EU, and across Latin America.
My goodness, Japan is liable to leave our orbit in the next few years.
The situation is in some ways much worse.
Jun 30, 2009 - 6:53 pm 62. Mongoose:LL3, funny that you should mention that. Not only is he similar to the enarchs, he is collaborating (colluding?) with enarchs and their ilk world wide–a veritable army of them, in fact..
This is the core problem of out times: An arrogant and overreaching false aristocracy whose ascendancy was built upon circumstance, serendipitous affluence and the maturing collectivist state; their position was not earn by high, noble and exceptional character, aspects,capabilities or acts. They have not earned their position in any valid moral way. Yet they imagine that they have. Given the power of instruments of the modern world, these folks pose one of the greatest threats to civilization we have ever seen.
A thousand of these bozos at Davos, are more of a disaster than all the Golden Horde.
Jun 30, 2009 - 7:12 pm 63. bogie wheel:They can set back the project of civilization by centuries.
L3:
Cartoonist Michael Ramirez is on the same frequency as you.
Speaking of wisdom, Bill Buckley’s comment about the Boston phone book is looking more and more appropriate by the day. Now that we ARE governed by the faculty of Harvard ….
Jun 30, 2009 - 7:14 pm 64. bogie wheel:their position was not earn by high, noble and exceptional character, aspects,capabilities or acts.
Unless you count as exceptional, their ability to loot public treasuries wherever they be found.
Would I call passing a $3.55 trillion budget, with a $1.85 trillion deficit hangover, an exceptional ability to loot? I guess I would. Especially when nobody but Bernie Madoff has, so far, gone to jail.
Jun 30, 2009 - 7:20 pm 65. Bob Smith:Obama’s error is much more basic than that. No matter their differences, Sunni and Shia are Muslim first and foremost. They are united in the goal of dominating and destroying the infidel, a goal they have pursued for nearly 1400 years. They will, of course, get on with the business of killing each other, but so long as a free unbeliever draws breath they will unite against him.
Spengler is dangerously delusional if he thinks “revolutionary Islam” (as if there’s any other kind) is in danger of collapse. What pray tell will cause that? How does he propose we deal with the perverse incentives of Islam itself, and the tendency of Muslims to deem collapse and failure as evidence of insufficient zeal and piety?
Jun 30, 2009 - 9:27 pm 66. Tamquam:“no plan survives contact with reality.” I believe the actual quote is “No plan survives contact with the enemy.” In Obama’s case I don’t think he believes he has enemies save the domestic enemies represented by any and all who oppose him. The only reason America had external enemies was because of the aggressive war mongering of the capitalist imperialists. Absent that there would be no cause for any outside power to oppose him. But all those alienated by Cowboy diplomacy have not come running into the fold. Perhaps they do not know that they are not the enemy. Or perhaps they know themselves to be America’s enemies regardless of the self proclaimed Comrade in Chief and his self abasing speeches.
Jun 30, 2009 - 11:26 pm 67. Mongoose:bogie: My operative adjectives where “high and noble”.
Jul 1, 2009 - 3:13 am 68. dtmack:From the Spengler article:
“By removing America as a referee, he will provoke more violence than the United States ever did. We are entering a very, very dangerous period as a result.”
Yep. As we move away from “Pax Americana”, or whatever you call it, the world is going to mourn the loss, although they may not say it. Our “oppressive” hand will seem amazingly light, compared to what will follow.
The ME is where all of the action is now, but I suspect Europe will see it’s share of troubles in the near future. The Balkans haven’t gone away, they’re only resting. Next time the Europeans won’t have the US to pull this out for them.
And one day soon the Chinese will awake to find that they are totally surrounded by Nuclear Powers, many of whom are unstable or potentially hostile to them.
Add in all of the potential internal instability in the world, and it certainly looks
like we’re in for a rough, and very unpredictable, time.
It’s looking more and more like a replay of the 1930’s, but worse.
Jul 1, 2009 - 4:56 am 69. peterike:The liberal, and the group, nation, or civilization infected by liberal doctrine and values, are morally disarmed before those whom the liberal regards as less well off than himself. – James Burnham
Jul 1, 2009 - 12:25 pm 70. Josh:Spenger is a brilliant loon, but just maybe he’s deduced the plans of that less brilliant loon, Our President.
It comes to a plan to sell out Israel first in the hope of later improbably results. Do the math on that.
Jul 1, 2009 - 8:11 pm 71. Mad Fiddler:The serving elected Republicans are collectively cowards, lacking the courage to actually do the things they were elected to. Also, lacking the guts to use their legitimate powers to oppose the current administration.
So, the reality is NOT that O is some stinking genius and the public all passive dimwits.
It is that the administration and its formal and informal support organizations and foreign contributors have followed a sustained multiphase strategy bending and breaking some laws, and gaming the system:
(1) Massive illegal campaign funding from undisclosed foreign sources. This was earlier done with great success (Remember John Wu?) by William Jefferson Clinton, and the gutless Republicans were too askeered to challenge the Chinese money flowing into the Clinton campaign treasuries.
(2) Massive Democratic voting in Republican presidential primary elections, openly when it was legal, surreptitiously when not. Again, the prevalence of Democrats in appointed regulatory positions effectively stifled any Republican challenge. This strategy had a lot to do with the ultimate elimination of several other more viable candidates, leaving John McCain as the default. Seeing the Democrats got away with this, Mr. Limbaugh was inspired to call for Republicans to do likewise to defeat the Dowager Empress H. Whooda thunk it would move the Marxist Hater of All Things American to the fore?
(3) ACORN activists in various close elections are increasingly shown to have perpetrated criminal fraud in registering unlawful voters and helping them cast illegal ballots. It is an inarguable item of faith for Democrats that the Republicans “STOLE” the 2000 presidential election, despite acknowledgment by the NYT that every single recount by Florida election officials even while daily changing the rules they had established to try to rig the election, still ended up showing that BUSH beat Mister Gore. So they think they have a moral obligation to cheat as much as they can get away with. Hence, the jobs-for-failed-comedians program recently instituted in Michigan.
What it boils down to is this: The Democrats think they own the place, and they are basically daring anyone to challenge them.
It is likely to get very ugly (”violent”), because they are pushing the situation to the limit, looking for a chance to use Executive Orders to force a showdown between of some sort among Military, Law Enforcement, Judicial, and mere citizens who see the laws being circumvented, stretched, bent, violated, broken, ignored, and spit upon. It is becoming increasingly flagrant and open.
Honduras is the model. Zelaya, allied personally to the Communist Dictator Chavez, tried to ignore the Honduran Constitution, had Chavez print illegal ballots. He ordered General Romeo Vazquez to conduct an illegal referendum ruled an illegal violation of the Honduran Constitution by the Supreme Court of Honduras. When General Vasquez refused this order, President Zelaya dismissed him, and attempted to use a street mob to proceed with the referendum using the ballots printed for him by Chavez.
The telepromptsident’s reflex was unusually… well… prompt – support the Leftist Zelaya in violating Honduran law, defying the Honduran Supreme Court, and using a mob of street thugs to try to install himself as “President for Life.”
What would happen if our elected leader were to order United States military forces to attack Honduran targets?
This is the Commander-in-Chief, remember, that waffled and hid under his desk for most of a week when faced by FOUR GODDAMN TEENAGE PIRATES IN A LIFEBOAT TIED TO A US DESTROYER.
Do you actually believe he gave a specific order to “engage” the pirates?
Our Chicago-trained Community-Organizer-In-Chief is looking for some sort of chance to show he can be a military commander, just like William Jefferson Clinton, who was not at all shy about sending U.S. military forces in to slaughter… somebody just so long as they can be somehow portrayed as a general enemy of humanity.
Watch how the White House is spinning the Honduran situation. It’s already being termed a “coup.” Yeah, the Military and the Supreme Court, and the legislature, and the the people, and… oh, yeah… The Honduran Constitution all conspired to take over the government from that sweet Uncle Zelaya.
We are so screwed.
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