Category Archives: Foreign Policy

‘Oh What A Tangled Web We Weave When First We Practice To Deceive’

The dilemmas faced by “a mulish military power which doesn’t know Shiite from Shinola” are enormous.

The Yemeni president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, resigned on Jan. 22, “after Houthi rebels seeking greater political power effectively seized control of the capital, Sanaa.” (Foreign Policy)

For years, Yemenis had felt the brunt of “U.S.-trained units of elite Yemeni special forces” combined with CIA drone strikes from above. Now the superpower must decide “whether, and how, to cooperate with the Houthis — who are widely seen as an Iranian proxy force — in the fight against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the Yemeni-based group that claimed to have orchestrated this month’s attack on the office of Charlie Hebdo.”

The Houthis hate al Qaeda, which is “a Sunni militant group that sees the Houthis and the Iranian as apostates.” So do we, the Americans, hate al Qaeda. But we also hate the Iranians (principally because Israel is threatened by Iran, which is no threat to the US).

Another dynamic is at play besides the Sunni-Shia dynamic. It is that between the forces of centralization, with which the US generally sides (witness Iraq), and the forces of decentralization, with which the Arab people with whom we meddle generally side, given the tribal, familial focus of their societies.

The Houthis are demanding greater regional autonomy (like the Kurds of Iraq); the US is inevitably looking to empower another puppet central power like Hadi’s so as to lord it over its Yemeni client state.

In the words of Sir Walter Scott, “Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.”

Republicans, As Always, Reject George Washington’s Vision For A Foreign Policy

Foreign Policy, Free Markets, libertarianism, Republicans

Conservatives are huffing and puffing because the US has inched slightly closer in its official relationship with Cuba to George Washington’s vision of a foreign policy for the future—one which Ron Paul has always articulated. In his Farewell Address, George Washington counseled that “amicable feelings toward all should be cultivated” through trade and without special favor.

… The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. … Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand, neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences;

Guess Who Warned Against Invading Iraq?

Bush, Foreign Policy, Iraq

Who offered the following astute, if utilitarian, analysis, in mitigation of an invasion of Iraq, in 1994?

… if we had gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn’t have been anybody else with us. It would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq. Once you got to Iraq and took it over and took down Saddam Hussein’s government, then what are you going to put in its place? That’s a very volatile part of the world. And if you take down the central government in Iraq, you could easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off. Part of it the Syrians would like to have, the west. Part of eastern Iraq the Iranians would like to claim. Fought over for eight years. In the north, you’ve got the Kurds. And if the Kurds spin loose and join with Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey. It’s a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.

Bush’s Vice president Dick Cheney, one of the architects of the invasion of Iraq in 2002, had advised against it in 1994. His predictions as to the destabilization of Iraq—he doesn’t mention the bloodshed, because Cheney was never one to count bodies—have come to pass.

No Regrets For Playing With Lives

Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Intelligence, Military, Terrorism

You can play with lives when you are the POTUS. You give life; you take it. President Barack Obama, like his predecessor, likes to use the levers of powers to score political points. Hoping to score, he launched a failed operation to rescue two hostages from al Qaeda in Yemen: American Luke Somers and South African Pierre Korkie. As a consequence, both hostages were killed mid-raid.

Here’s the rub, via The Hill:

… “A second hostage, South African Pierre Korkie, was also killed by his captors during the raid, to the dismay of his family, who believed they had brokered a ransom payment for his release.
Earnest said the U.S. had no knowledge of the negotiations being taken for Korkie’s release. South Africa’s government, like the U.S., does not negotiate for the release of hostages, but the Korkie family had pursued such a deal privately — although some reports indicated U.S. officials might have been aware of the proceedings.”

Eminently quotable is one of the bimbos on MSNBC’s “The Cycle,” who, when reporting on the dismal failure of Rome’s army to liberate these men, went on to scoff at the “amateur hostage negotiators” who, but for Obama, had in fact accomplished their their mission to ransom their loved one.