Posted on November 28th, 2008 by Daniel Larison
Ross:
But the conservative coalition ought to naturally produce realists from its ranks, for their sake and its own, because realism’s cold-eyed pursuit of the national interest is the most logical and productive elite-level expression of the Jacksonian, don’t-tread-on-me nationalism that holds sway among a large swathe of the conservative base. Neoconservatism can and should speak [...]
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Filed under: foreign policy, politics
Posted on November 28th, 2008 by Daniel Larison
Ross:
Nor do I think that a Jeffersonian-Jacksonian “coalition of the introverts” could govern the nation responsibly unless the United States actually withdrew from its current quasi-imperial role, which almost certainly isn’t going to happen.
Following up on my earlier remarks, I should make another point here. There may be some political and even psychological reasons [...]
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Filed under: foreign policy, politics
Posted on November 28th, 2008 by Daniel Larison
Mead’s divisions of American foreign policy thinking into the odd quartet of Wilsonian, Jeffersonian, Hamiltonian and Jacksonian, and Noah Millman’s smart plotting of the four on his chart, have never been very satisfying. Years ago, I outlined my problems with the use of the term Jacksonian to talk about foreign policy, because there is [...]
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Filed under: foreign policy, politics
Posted on November 28th, 2008 by Daniel Larison
The terrorist attacks in Mumbai have justifiably attracted global attention. As Ross rightly observes, these attacks represent an escalation of ongoing terrorist campaigns throughout India, some of which are indigenous while a great many others are sponsored from outside the country. Just the major attacks this year that have made international headlines–Ahmedabad, Delhi, [...]
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Filed under: India, foreign policy, politics
Posted on November 26th, 2008 by Daniel Larison
A parliamentary hearing on the origins of the war between Georgia and Russia in August ended in a furor on Tuesday after a former Georgian diplomat testified that Georgian authorities were responsible for starting the conflict.
Erosi Kitsmarishvili, Tbilisi’s former ambassador to Moscow, testified for three hours before he was shouted down by members of [...]
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Filed under: foreign policy, politics
Posted on November 26th, 2008 by Daniel Larison
Ilan Goldenberg writes:
What is interesting in my view is that what you now see forming is a broad consensus among liberals, liberal hawks and realists. There is relatively universal agreement among these groups that we need to begin withdrawing from Iraq, focus more on Afghanistan, opt for direct diplomacy with Iran, reengage with the [...]
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Filed under: foreign policy, politics
Posted on November 26th, 2008 by Daniel Larison
John Cole urges me to say something about Max Boot’s latest display of cluelessness, so how can I refuse? Boot is evidently stunned and “gobsmacked” by Obama’s national security and economic policy appointments, and their “moderation” overwhelms him. His administration already “exceeds expectations”! Well, I suppose if you were a fool who [...]
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Filed under: foreign policy, politics
Posted on November 25th, 2008 by Daniel Larison
By supporting and signing the current version of FOCA, Obama would reignite the culture war he so deftly sidestepped throughout this campaign. ~Melinda Henneberger
More to the point, he would reignite it in a way that would not be to his or the Democratic Party’s advantage, and that is particularly the case if the legislation would [...]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on November 24th, 2008 by Daniel Larison
McKiernan faces obstacles in making his plan work. A Washington Post article of November 19 detailed these obstacles, focusing on Taliban attacks on the supply route into Afghanistan from Pakistan. But that’s only a part of the problem. The other was caused by the Bush administration. “We should have alternative supply routes through the north [...]
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Filed under: foreign policy, politics
Posted on November 24th, 2008 by Daniel Larison
At TPMCafe, I am participating in a discussion of Charles Homans’ new Washington Monthly article on an investigative commission concerned with, among other things, administration policies of interrogation, detention and surveillance.
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Filed under: politics
Posted on November 24th, 2008 by Daniel Larison
Illustrating the absurdity of conventional (or at least conventionally sloppy and pejorative) left-right descriptions in foreign policy discussions is Ed Morrissey’s labeling of Susan Rice, Samantha Power and Robert Malley as “radical leftists.” Robert Malley is maybe a couple of microns outside the establishment consensus on Israel and Palestine, and is therefore deemed here [...]
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Filed under: foreign policy, politics
Posted on November 24th, 2008 by Daniel Larison
Andrew comments on Shadi Hamid’s remarks:
One the worst legacies of the Vietnam boomer syndrome has been turning complex foreign policy decisions - which should ultimately be pragmatic actions in defense of national self-interest - into idiotic left-right, patriot-traitor, soldier-hippie dichotomies.
It is understandable to associate this with Vietnam, but it is a habit of mind [...]
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Filed under: foreign policy, politics
Posted on November 24th, 2008 by Daniel Larison
Glenn Greenwald is correct that it is a bit mystifying that there have been as many complaints from the left about Obama’s appointments as there have been. Surely they understood, as I have come to understand, that he is an establishment-accommodating, consensus-oriented politician, so how can anyone be all that surprised or upset? [...]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on November 23rd, 2008 by Daniel Larison
Cathy Young replies today:
First of all, I have never claimed that all anti-Americanism is “an expression of envy and dissatisfaction in the failures of one’s own society.”
Cathy Young wrote last week:
Russia’s post-cold war humiliation is real. But as the human rights activist Elena Bonner, widow of the great scientist and dissident Andrei Sakharov, told [...]
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Filed under: Russia, foreign policy, politics
Posted on November 22nd, 2008 by Daniel Larison
It was discouraging, Mr. Khan said, that the United States ignored the importance of the huge nonviolent protests by Muslims in Kashmir against Indian rule this summer. “Anywhere else [bold mine-DL], and they would have been hailed as an Orange Revolution,” he said, referring to the wave of protests that led to a change in [...]
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Filed under: foreign policy, politics
