From the President's speech in London the other day:
Perhaps the most helpful change we can make is to change our own thinking. In the West, there's been a certain skepticism about the capacity or even the desire of Middle Eastern peoples for self-government. We're told that Islam is somehow inconsistent with a democratic culture. Yet more than half of the world's Muslims are today contributing citizens in democratic societies. It is suggested that the poor, in their daily struggles, care little for self-government. Yet the poor, especially, need the power of democracy to defend themselves against corrupt elites.Peoples of the Middle East share a high civilization, a religion of personal responsibility, and a need for freedom as deep as our own. It is not realism to suppose that one-fifth of humanity is unsuited to liberty; it is pessimism and condescension, and we should have none of it.
We must shake off decades of failed policy in the Middle East.
Yes. Then there's this:
There were good-faith disagreements in your country and mine over the course and timing of military action in Iraq. Whatever has come before, we now have only two options: to keep our word, or to break our word. The failure of democracy in Iraq would throw its people back into misery and turn that country over to terrorists who wish to destroy us. Yet democracy will succeed in Iraq, because our will is firm, our word is good, and the Iraqi people will not surrender their freedom.Since the liberation of Iraq, we have seen changes that could hardly have been imagined a year ago. A new Iraqi police force protects the people, instead of bullying them. More than 150 Iraqi newspapers are now in circulation, printing what they choose, not what they're ordered. Schools are open with textbooks free of propaganda. Hospitals are functioning and are well-supplied. Iraq has a new currency, the first battalion of a new army, representative local governments, and a Governing Council with an aggressive timetable for national sovereignty. This is substantial progress. And much of it has proceeded faster than similar efforts in Germany and Japan after World War II.
Yet the violence we are seeing in Iraq today is serious. And it comes from Baathist holdouts and Jihadists from other countries, and terrorists drawn to the prospect of innocent bloodshed. It is the nature of terrorism and the cruelty of a few to try to bring grief in the loss to many. The armed forces of both our countries have taken losses, felt deeply by our citizens. Some families now live with a burden of great sorrow. We cannot take the pain away. But these families can know they are not alone. We pray for their strength; we pray for their comfort; and we will never forget the courage of the ones they loved.
The terrorists have a purpose, a strategy to their cruelty. They view the rise of democracy in Iraq as a powerful threat to their ambitions. In this, they are correct. They believe their acts of terror against our coalition, against international aid workers and against innocent Iraqis, will make us recoil and retreat. In this, they are mistaken.
That speech gets better every time I read it. It was the most consequential foreign policy speech of any President in 20 years.
It looks like a wholesale repudiation of our past policy of cozying up to tyrants- a change long overdue.
Yep.
But bush LIED! Where are the WMD? Bush is just looking for cover to pull out! He declared the war over on the USS lincoln! Bush Lied! You can dance around that fact all that you want, but he's now changing his policy to high tail out of Iraq because the $87 billion is destroying our economy and he wants to get relected which he can't do if he resinstitutes the draft and everyone dies in the new vietnam of Iraq. Where are the WMD? Bush lied! Let's get the UN in and get ourselves out of Iraq, because any UN force put together would NOT be primarily composed of US soldiers anyway. The UN is the only source of legitimacy, except when it passes resolutions approving of this illegal war, in which case it was the dictator Bush hijacking the democratic process.
I figured that we might as well just get that out of the way.
Did I leave anything out?
Dude. How could you forget the oil?
The speech is excellent, yet the media passed on it because a pop-star in handcuffs always gets better ratings and sells more copy.
The paragraph that grabbed my attention most was,
"We must shake off decades of failed policy in the Middle East. Your nation and mine, in the past, have been willing to make a bargain, to tolerate oppression for the sake of stability. Longstanding ties often led us to overlook the faults of local elites. Yet this bargain did not bring stability or make us safe. It merely bought time, while problems festered and ideologies of violence took hold."
Message to Saudis: you have another year or two to shape up and decide you really don't want the Big Green One shoved up your windward passages. Now get busy.
Then there's this:
Now we're pursuing a different course, a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East. We will consistently challenge the enemies of reform and confront the allies of terror. We will expect a higher standard from our friends in the region, and we will meet our responsibilities in Afghanistan and in Iraq by finishing the work of democracy we have begun.
Guess who's on notice? Riyadh, Damascus, and Tehran.
"Talk softly and carry a big stick," baby.
I have a hunch that once election season is past, the talk is going to get a lot less soft.
You may be right, I don't know. Do you think that will be necessary?
I strongly suspect that we're channeling quite a lot of money and other aide to Iranian democracy activists, and we probably won't hear about most of it for a few years since we're probably trying to do it on the sly.
We have been getting pretty rude to the Syrians lately. I'd like to see us get ruder, honestly.
Saudi Arabia, as always, is the toughest to know what to do about. Economic sanctions would likely just result in the toppling the Saudi royal family and would likely only bring about an even more radical islamic regime. Invading would be a huge gamble, because while on the one hand it might break the spirit of the lunatic terrorists, it might inflame the entire Muslim world against us for conquering Mecca and Medina.
Man, I never know what the right approach to the Saudis is, other than leaning on them.
I prefer "Talk LOUDLY while carrying a GUN".
Lesson I've learned during parenthood: Subtlety is often ineffective.
Plus, "talk softly/big stick" seems rather underhanded to me (if the point is to sneak up on them softly and thunk them with the big stick). I've never been the sort of person to stab someone in the back. I want to stab them in the front so that I can see the look in their eyes as they realize who destroyed them.
I LOVE GWB! A president with a spine! A president who knows what to do with the military! A president who is annoyed by the same people I am!
Interesting side note, I took that quiz about "which member of the administration are you" and I'm Dick Cheney. My husband is GWB. I thought that was a riot!
I'm convinced the Saudis have been Target #1(a) since the moment we figured out that that's where 15 of the 19 hijackers came from there, and Iran is Target #1(b).
What do you need to take down both?
a) A secure, abundant supply of oil that isn't dependent on the whims of potentates; and
b) A very, VERY large and secure land base for American forces.
Gee, that sure sounds like Iraq to me. And in return for those favors, the Iraqis get liberated from a quarter-century murder/torture nightmare, and escorted on the Mother Of All Fast-Tracks toward a functioning, prosperous, peaceful, democratic society where people can raise their kids in safety and optimism.
But we get basing rights. And we get guarantees that the oil will always be available to us at the going market price, no matter what.
My best guess (and it's a wild-assed, amateur guess) is that Syria will be dealt with in the coming year, possibly before the election. We've just augmented our forces along the Syrian border to 20,000 (golly, I hope that isn't where my son is going...) and I doubt that's just for border security.
Once that's through, and once Iraq has been put into some semblance of shipshapeness, I suspect we'll see things start to heat up with the Saudis and/or Iran.
But then again, we may not have to: they'll be given plenty more warning and not-so-subtle hints between now and then, and who knows what they may decide to do voluntarily on their own, know what I mean?
There was a report on Fox last night that Al Queda biggies including the top 2 are in Iran. It goes further to say that they are planning a winter offensive in Afganistan using republican guards. If any of this is true I wouldn't be surprised to see Iran toast before to long.
I saw that too; and I noticed that Mansoor Ijaz seemed AWFULLY sure of his information about that. I don't recall ever seeing him that emphatic about anything before.
I think the soft talk/big stick theory was made in the context of dealing with intelligent, at least semi-rational enemies. I don't think it applies to the more radical elements of Islam: The Peaceful Religion™. They just don't understand it. I don't think anything but swift, loud, overwhelming force gets through to them, and even then I'm not really sure they get it.
Allison,
The point is not to sneak up on people. The notion of speak softly and carry a big stick is to be gentle when possible, but to be able to be brutal when necessary. Consider another saying of Theodore Roosevelt:
It's not a question of how to beat an opponent, but how to treat people. If you talk, always do it softly because that is nice. If you hit, always do it hard, because that will win. It's the extremes of kindness and brutality welded together, the one used when possible the other when necessary.
"I don't think anything but swift, loud, overwhelming force gets through to them, and even then I'm not really sure they get it."
Yeah. And that's probably the biggest qualm I have about the way Bush is treating the countries of the Middle East: they don't understand subtlety; they don't take hints; and they don't look for nuances in policy speeches. And I'm seriously worried that we're making a big mistake by treating them as if they were Europeans, or Russians, or Chinese. Maybe the Saudis will "get it" if we keep jawboning them; but I have little hope the rest will.
Gotta hand it to Dubya. It was a great speech. He reads really well. His puppet master was working overtime to get this thing right. It impressed even liberal-tree-huggin-granola-munchin-birkenstock-wearing timmy. Next stop, Damascas. Everyone with a big stick please depart to the right and commence kicking ass!
Chris,
Your reponse was well-written, and gently clever. But, I find little or no kindness in speaking softly in cases where speaking softly misleads the listener into underestimating of the consequences.
For example, police do not sweetly suggest "please put down that weapon". They bark out the order and it is obeyed or else. I think that where your thinking strays is that you (as a intelligent human) expect all others to behave in rational ways (such as listening to intelligent humans :) However, I am the mother of toddlers. I no longer assume humans will act rationally in their own best interest when asked nicely.
"I strongly suspect that we're channeling quite a lot of money and other aide to Iranian democracy activists, and we probably won't hear about most of it for a few years since we're probably trying to do it on the sly. "
I recall reading in Telegraph in the months leading to the Iraqi Offensive that were willing to give Blair quite a lot of leeway with his domestic handling of the war to ensure that he and not Gordon Brown is a PM. Reason? Brits have an intelligence network in Iran - we don't. We will need Brits to work with us to topple the Mullahs, but I have a feeling that it may happen by means of another Iranian Revolution.
Dave D,
I'm not so sure about that - we really can't wait for votes to be counted next November if the Iranians are close to a nuke. That, I think, will be the deciding factor - if Iran gets within months of a nuke, we'll strike - because we have to. Estimates I've read are that its months to years before the Iranians are nuclear-capable.
Of course, "nuclear capable" can mean a lot of things - for our purposes of war, it would be anything remotely justifying intervention - for real purposes, it means built, tested and at least a dozen deployed on theater range ballistic missiles. I don't think the mullah's are foolhardy enough to test a nuke and then build the stockpile - they'll get their materials together, polish up their design, build, deploy and then test. They'd want to confront us with a sure thing - nukes which can hit Israel and elsewhere. This is the point we can't allow them to get to - so, as soon as this looks to be within months of becoming a reality, we strike.
Meanwhile, we work for and hope for domestic revolution to solve our problem for us.
Mark-
Agreed, Iran's nuclear status will be a major determinant of what course we take. It could move them right to the top of the list, or leave them farther down along with Saudi Arabia.
Allison,
I would say that is exactly what the big stick is for. The idea is that the are 2 major ways of dealing with people who oppose you: cohersion and force. Speaking softly and carrying a big stick, to me at least, implys both. Cohersion is the less costly and more gererally acceptable way to win people over, especially because it can result in a win-win situation(you give me this that I want, and I will give you this that you want). The idea is to "speak softly", show we can be friends and work something out to perhaps mutual benefit. Sometimes that is not possible, so we use a "big stick" to show that if we need to be enemies, then we are going to be an enemy that you don't want to have. Some people respond to soft speaking, some people need a big stick used on them, and some will see the big stick and choose to go back to soft speaking. :)