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Last month, I mentioned that I was now reading The Caucasus by Thomas de Waal, and I promised addtional posts in the future. I probably won’t be blogging on every part of the book, but I wanted to make some general comments about it before I write posts on more specific topics. Given the complex [...]
Filed under: foreign policy, history, politics
While March 8 parties are openly supportive of ongoing Egyptian protests seeking the ouster of Egypt’s president Hosni Mubarak, many rival March 14 factions said they believe it’s best to stay out of an internal Egyptian issue. ~The Daily Star As I have just said below, I don’t think it is all that wise to [...]
Filed under: foreign policy, politics
Reading Nick Kristof’s claim that “Today, we are all Egyptians,” I thought back to an old column I had written in 2006 that addressed this sort of misguided expression of solidarity with another nation in crisis: It is ludicrous because, no matter the feelings of goodwill and solidarity, we cannot seriously identify ourselves with another [...]
Filed under: foreign policy, politics
To his critics, especially on the right, Bush’s cardinal sin was timidity. He was the quintessential anti-Reagan. Where Reagan stood before the Berlin Wall and boldly chastised the Soviet Union, Bush stood before Ukrainians eager for independence and told them to calm down .(That speech earned the nick-name “Chicken Kiev” by New York Times columnist [...]
Filed under: foreign policy, politics
Larison has once again let his hyper-realism get the best of him, in arguing that the military has just been playing a clever game and will get behind the exceedingly craven to America and Israel Omar Suleiman as Mubarak’s successor. ~Jack Ross I take the charge of “hyper-realism” as a compliment, since I take it [...]
Filed under: foreign policy, politics
Like the protesters who have flooded the streets of Egypt in the past week, the country’s large minority of Coptic Christians worry about joblessness and lack of freedoms. But most want President Hosni Mubarak to stay in power. Fear of what may follow the removal of Mr. Mubarak, a secular strongman who has ruled the [...]
Filed under: foreign policy, politics
The clashes, which broke out barely an hour after the government allowed Internet connections to resume, have added a new twist to the drama that has gripped the Arab world’s largest country: Has the army been on the side of the government after all? ~Time Yes, of course it has. It remained “neutral” because that [...]
Filed under: foreign policy, politics
If Huntsman won the GOP nomination, he would be challenging the reelection of his former boss. White House officials are furious at what they consider an audacious betrayal, but know that any public criticism would be likely to benefit Huntsman if he enters the primaries. ~Mike Allen Why are they furious? The administration already knew [...]
Filed under: politics
Of course, Southern evangelicals may not be looking for a candidate with Hindu credentials, I told Huntsman. But he insisted that issues like religion are ultimately “just campaign sideshows.” ~McKay Coppins He does understand that he is going to be running in the Republican presidential primaries, right? I will be the first to argue that [...]
Wilsonians and necononservatives alike have fetishized “democracy promotion” as a key goal of American foreign policy under the impression that it would lead to all those other good things, when in fact we probably had the cart before the horse. So I’m not nearly as optimistic as some others are about the fate of a [...]
Filed under: foreign policy, politics