18 Comments

1. David Thomson:

I must also eat my share of crow regarding Condi Rice. She has turned out to be just another pseudoeducated elitist. I am also now far more critical of George W. Bush than in the recent past. He was merely the lesser of evils compared to the Democratic Party alternatives.

This is also what one cynically needs to remember: Condi Rice is a Republican. She is something of a naive whack job. Still, the Democrats are far worse! Isn’t that a bit disquieting?

Jul 29, 2007 - 8:21 am 2. Roger:

Very disquieting.

But I wouldn’t call Condi Rice a whack job, however. She is more of a coward, someone caught in a situation who didn’t have the guts to carry it through, so went with the line of least resistance - the traditional State Department method.

No one in the Bush Administration seems to have understood the key role of public relations in what they have been doing or, if they have, to have any idea how to execute. And of course public relations are the key to asymmetrical war. Condi was as dreadful as the rest of them. Now she’s on the other side.

Jul 29, 2007 - 8:41 am 3. David Thomson:

Condi Rice is something of a James Baker country club Republican. These people are just as dangerous as the typical Democrat. Alas, a significant number of voters feel uncomfortable with the conservative wing of the GOP. This is why I support Rudy Giuliani. I also hope that Joe Lieberman soon switches to the Republican Partyn and becomes his running mate.

There is no hope for the Democratic Party because so many of its adherents are self hating Americans. They consider, in their heart of hearts, our country to be the true threat to world peace. Osamsa Bin Ladin is supposedly a victim justified in his anger towards our allegedly imperialist foreign policies.

Jul 29, 2007 - 9:40 am 4. Mike K:

I have to agree about Condi Rice. I’ve been bitterly disappointed. I thought she had the ability to get control of a rebellious State Department, which is determined to thwart any Bush attempt to deal with the Islamist threat. They are not about to risk their Saudi funded retirement programs. Their China funded retirement plans are not at issue now but might be some day. They have never seen a conflict between their own self interest and national interest but national interest has been coming in second for some time now. She can go back to academia after the 2008 election and resume her academic career. She has avoided taking a firm stance, perhaps worried about her future prospects, as well. I wonder if the Saudis will fund her future, too.

Jul 29, 2007 - 10:02 am 5. Terrye:

Yeah, let’s blame Condi.After all I am sure the decision was hers and hers alone. And besides that it would be better to stick it to the Saudis, after all who needs stability in the Middle East? In fact maybe we should follow Tancredo’s advice and bomb Mecca.

I am a woman and for years men have had no problem at all dealing with all manner of people in this world, but when a woman comes along, well she is supposed to be a one woman feminist movement. She is supposed to stick it to de man and tell all those turban wearing woman haters that a new girl is in town and she does not intend to take their crap. You betcha. After all, if she had real principles she would tell them to kiss her behind before she gave the time of day, much less airplanes.

Meanwhile we will go on dealing with the Iraqis, who also have problems with women’s rights as does Afghanistan. But that is different.

This is not just about realpolitick as if that were some awful thing, it is about stability in an unstable region which is strategic to the world economy and the future of governments such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

I would prefer that the Saudis were Methodists, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

This has nothing to do with Saudis funding anyone’s retirement. That is just silly.

And if people think it is all that simple imagine the Saudis collapsing and the price of oil hitting $200 a barrel. What effect would that have on the region and our ability to have any influence there? What would that do the economy and what would the Democrats {who would like nothing better than to completely withdraw from any confrontation anywhere anytime} do with a situation like that? Who would they blame? The Arabs or the people who refused to deal with them?

I think some folks need to get off their high horses myself.

Jul 29, 2007 - 1:46 pm 6. Terrye:

In fact it all kind of reminds me of the Dubai Port Deal when Bush wanted to sell the ports to terrorists so that they could kill us all. At least that is what Malkin was saying. Of course she said before she could possibly have known the details of such a deal, or before she bothered to find out anything whatsoever about the business of leasing port terminals, etc. The important thing was that Bush was selling us out to the bad guys.

In fact I was reading the other day that the Dubai people had agreed to let the US plant CIA agents in certain places to gather intelligence information. Oh well, we can’t let a little thing like not having all the facts get in the way of accusing someone else of doing a bad bad thing can we?

And here we go again.

Jul 29, 2007 - 1:55 pm 7. Terrye:

What about Pakistan? Should we turn on them too? Tell Mushareff to go to hell and refuse any military aid or assistance of any kind since his country harbors terrorists and some of the most backward extremists on the planet?

Jul 29, 2007 - 2:02 pm 8. ligneus:

If only……….Bush had appointed Mad John Bolton to be Sec. of State.

Jul 29, 2007 - 2:11 pm 9. Terrye:

ligneus:

If Bush had appointed Bolton it would have been the same sort of thing sooner or later.

I remember when Bolton was still at the UN and he worked on the cease fire via Israel and Lebanon and how pissed people were as soon as they found out the French had been involved or something. In fact the same people were critical of Condi Rice for that as well because she was part of the negotiations. The only thing that spared either of them was that the pundits were so busy demanding Olmert be thrown out of office that they had limited time and energy to expend on Condi and Bolton.

It took them no time to turn on Bolton as soon as he did not live up to the preconceived notions of people who themselves never have and never will have to actually work out a cease fire or anything else like that. It is easy to be outraged when your outrage costs you nothing.

Jul 29, 2007 - 4:03 pm 10. Coisty:

I remember when living in the UK I saw an interview with her on the Beeb long before her benefactor Jorge Arbusto became president. She babbled on about universal values and similar idiocies and I immediately concluded that the woman was an airhead. I was right. She’s just another in a long line of inadequate Bush cronies. Remember Harriet Miers? How’s Karen Hughes doing in that portfolio she was given? Something to do with making Muslims love America from what I recall. Another Bush failure.

Jul 29, 2007 - 6:00 pm 11. Buddy Larsen:

Another Bush failure…compared to what?

Compared to having this li’l old world situation all zipped and put to bed by now?

I’m all for complaining, but, you know, it’s tough out there, the enemy is tough and the American oppo is tougher still for the proximity, but no one can dispute that Condi Rice is neither Madeline Albright nor Colin Powell, and that’s the obvious comparison, the immediate predecessors.

Maybe we can coherently use the word “failure” if we compare her to the next Secretary of State (that next one is always better).

Jul 29, 2007 - 8:32 pm 12. Buddy Larsen:

I might add, that if Madame Secretary is responsible for the behavior of the world’s nations, then doeasn’t she get a rather enormous credit for the pro-American gov’ts recently elected in the cockpit of the world, Europe, not to mention Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, other major latam states, Canada, Japan, Australia, and the other large SE Asian/Pacific states?

Jul 29, 2007 - 8:41 pm 13. Wellspring:

I’m no fan of the saudis, but I’m not terribly worried about this.

First, this is an Administration move, not a Condi Rice decision. Frothing at the mouth at her over an arms deal isn’t really appropriate. Frankly I’m as impressed with her now as ever.

Ok so look at the arms deal itself. Patriot missiles, ships, and air to air missiles. The Israelis already have the best air force in the middle east, despite the Saudis having F-15’s and other american weapons. Their principle targets when they do fight will be the syrians. The ships are a clear counter to Iranian attempts to close off the persian gulf. The patriot missiles are a counter the missile capability that Iran is buying from North Korea.

The JDAMs do bother me– they give the Saudis attack capability and I can’t see the Saudis using them against anyone but Israel. Show me other parts of this package that are objectionable and I’ll object to those too.

Keeping the saudis buying from us and not Russia is another point in favor of the deal. Russian weapons are terrible, but they’re better than nothing and Putin is dying to get hard currency while getting a foothold back in the middle east.

The main threats to Israel are NOT direct military attack. They are: nuclear weapons, another intifada, and diplomatic isolation. Bolstering the saudis doesn’t change the strategic equation much at all vs Israel. Again, I’m open to analysis here– I’m just going off the article you’re linking to.

There’s another element to this, which is that we don’t want to be confronting Iran all by ourselves. It is very useful for us to have countries bolstered to the point where they can’t get away with quietly cheering us on while condemning us on TV and in the UN.

Finally, consider this: America in a year or two might not be in a position to be confronting Iran directly in any case. What is to say that President Clinton or Obama or Kucinich or whomever will want to take Iran on? More likely, a democrat in office, which is the way to bet right now, will want to leave Iran be while they finish up their weapons program, as Clinton did in the 90’s. How such a president would handle Iran closing the straits of hormuz is beyond me– but if the saudis can make a contest of it even without us then Iran might be deterred. They’re trying to pick a fight with us, not Saudi Arabia.

If Iran gets the bomb, a direct attack is off the menu no matter who is president– at that point it’s unclear how we can handle them without proxies.

You may not like the saudis buying weapons from us, but the decision seems quite defensible. Human rights is an important consideration, but it isn’t the only consideration.

Jul 29, 2007 - 11:08 pm 14. Section9:

This just shows me that Rice is an adult. Instead of condemning Rice for this, quite unlike Roger, this shows me that Rice is once more capable of being President. She is ruthless enough to recommend a policy that acts in the American national interest, and ONLY in the American national interest.

We are building a containment field around the Iranians in advance of Iran’s purchase of the Sukhoi’s. The fact that Saudi Arabia is a medievalist theocracy should be of no importance to the United States. What matters is that Saudi Arabia understands that it will not fall under a Persian Condominium, and it will form part of an unofficial alliance of Israel, Turkey, the KSA, and Egypt, to contain the Iranians.

Covert means will be used to frustrate the Persian’s bomb program. The less said about that, the better.

Palmerston famously remarked that Britain had neither permanent friends nor foes, but she did have permanent interests. The same applies for America. We can be a democratic beacon unto the nations, but we must tend to our interests first.

That’s what Condi has learned, and is applying quite well.

Jul 30, 2007 - 12:16 am 15. Lem:

Preventing Iran from acquiring nukes should be our top priority.

But Condi should use the opportunity of the sale to compel some human rights concessions as wells as asking them to do something about Saudis going into Iraq to foment chaos.

Saudi human rights can evolve. Nukes in the hands of Iran will devolve us all.

Jul 30, 2007 - 6:59 am 16. Soldier's Dad:

Roger,

The late 70’s and early 80’s big weapons sales to Saudi were accompanied by universal education of girls. Significant social change will occur when the sons and daughters of those girls come of age.

That is why the Taliban and AlQueda go after girls education, illiterate mothers are a requirement for maintaining the strict Wahhabi lifestyle.

Jul 30, 2007 - 10:15 am 17. Buddy Larsen:

Allies may not pass the smell test on some issues, but allies is allies. It always comes back to the question of whether we’re in a major fight or not. If not, then a case can be made against arming allies whose social policies are not to our liking. If this is a serious fight, then we’d be crazy not to back our allies. That’s called “surrender”. I mean, Israel is on the hot seat, and Israel likes the deal. That’s all I need to know, as Israel will know where the worst threat is.

Jul 30, 2007 - 10:51 am 18. Sam_S:

I have to give some respect to Terrye’s view, and the others following. I didn’t expect Rice to be Bolton, did you? And calling her an airhead is just pretentious foolery. She’s obviously not. SA has the money to buy from Russia or China, which is not in our best interests, either.

Who knows what was dealt in the backroom along with the arms sales? I mean, the madrassa-funding is no secret anymore. The point is, I think, we don’t get to have PERFECT allies “over there”, we just get to turn things a few degrees at a time. Iraq without a total strategy and universal support was probably an overreach–though it may end up working, inshalla.

But no, I’m not happy with Bush’s dithering either, nor the spineless state department, and I’m wary of the fact that some of those arms may come back to haunt us later.

Aug 1, 2007 - 1:05 am

Write a Comment

Name:	(required, displayed)
Email:	(required, not publicized)
URL:	(optional, displayed) remember personal info?
Comments: