Periodic World Craziness Update # 5

The last month’s wackiness in the world of international relations and brinkmanship.

Israel becomes a target in Egypt’s presidential vote:  Stories such as this highlight two things.  1. The true nature of the supposed Arab Spring of 2011 and the way Islamists are subverting an infant democratic process if one ever existed and… 2. Why Israel should be worried.  Even supposed moderate candidates gain political traction from demonizing Israel thus illustrating the level of mainstream support for what the west like to call extremists but who are actually not within an Arab context.

Can Obama Safely Embrace Islamists?:  I don’t quite know what to think about this quote from the state department informant.

“The war on terror is over,” one senior State Department official who works on Mideast issues told me. “Now that we have killed most of al Qaida, now that people have come to see legitimate means of expression, people who once might have gone into al Qaida see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism.”

Do they really think that the Arab Spring means democracy is going to come to the Middle East? And do they really believe that the Muslim brotherhood are moderates? This kind of wishful thinking actually leaves me speechless.

The most powerful weapon Obama can deploy against Iran: This piece suggests that the US should be actively seeking regime change in Iran and advocates supporting the exiled Iranian opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) as the vehicle for achieving that.  It also cites the success of the Arab Spring as a reason for following this oath.  Tom Ridge, Patrick Kennedy, and Hugh Shelton, the authors of this piece, conveniently ignore that the so-called success of the Arab Spring is dubious at best and the jury is till out on what the end state will be in the Middle East.  As of now, there is every sign that Islamist regimes are going to take power in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia.  I would suggest that backing yet another group as a proxy for doing things the US and/or its Allies should be doing is not a particularly smart idea right now.

American Professors Gather in Tehran for Occupy Wall Street Conference: Now try to convince me that the left is not Anti-American. At a minimum, the fact that these professors are in Iran should make this question their judgement.Luckily, we are not a war so these idiots cannot be charged with consorting with the enemy.

KUHNER: Obama’s disastrous war:  I don’t necessarily agree with the complete tone of this piece. However, I do agree that American strategy in Afghanistan is so far a failure. Mr. Kuhner does does pinpoint one of the reasons why we are failing. That reason is the the restrictive American rules of engagement. As he says in this piece, “Had we applied today’s rules of engagement to World War II, Hitler and Tojo would never have been defeated.”This is very true our troops spend more time worrying about collateral damage than they do about killing the enemy. It is almost as though our political leaders do not realize that we are fighting a war.

The Devil We Don’t Know:  This piece contains a pretty cogent analysis of current world events and how they can affect the election in America. Well worth reading.

A Desperate ‘Longshot’: This piece talks about the progress of the administration’s talks with the Taliban. What I find stunning beyond the fact that we are in negotiations terrorist is that apparently it’s a realistic possibility that we might release one of the terrorist in our custody. It is a telling indictment of the bankruptcy of administration policy in Afghanistan that we are negotiating with the Taliban in the first place. I also wonder if there are not political calculations involved in these negotiations. I don’t suppose we’ll find out about that until we are to the election though.

Here are some links to other relevant stories that have cropped up over the past month: Experts Believe Iran Conflict Is Less Likely, Pentagon is planning ‘contingency’ for Iran and North Korea, Six army battalions called up under emergency orders to meet growing threat on Egypt, Syria borders