But, of course, I began this conversation by speculating that there is no real popular support for the kind of US as world policeman role I, at least, think is vital–a policeman, moreover, who protects not just states from other states but individuals from states. And if that’s true, it’s very difficult to determine how to choose one strategy over another. In the end, maybe I would like to see us withdraw pretty much entirely, rather than assume commitments we clearly aren’t ready to stand behind, and establish credible deterrence with all of the bad actors individually, leaving our allies (or former allies) to make their own arrangements. But the Democrats are incapable of that also–it would interfere with their transnational progressive fantasies. So, I, at least, am left with little but analysis and prayer.

It seems to me that many conservatives – including many who supported all of the Bush doctrines and who believe that we had little choice but to confront Saddam (believing what we believed at the time and had no way to disprove) – are beginning to question policies, and the costs, risks, and trade-offs they entail, that under a different president and in a different economic conjuncture we’d be all for. For instance, I don’t know enough about Afghanistan and don’t yet consider it a big enough commitment to oppose the escalation simply out of skepticism, but I’m uneasy about it, as I’m uneasy about Obama’s real larger aims and just as much about how much trouble Obama & the Gang can get us in without even realizing what they’re doing.

It may take a wake-up call to wake us up, and it may be up to others to carry more of the security and democratization load in the meantime, or deal with the consequences if no one can step up. If no one gets too big for his britches, the neo-empire devolves more peacefully than other empires have, things don’t fall apart, and no call ever comes – well then there won’t be much to complain about except for a lack of interesting news stories. What’s your bet on that?

In the immediate wake of 9/11, if Bush had been who the loony left has said he was, he probably could have ordered up all the war the most bloodthirsty imperialist-militarist could ever have desired. He could have declared a state of emergency – not just a bit of legally finessed wiretapping and a handful of extraordinary detentions. He could have come to the country, asserted that the threat required us to force our will on a series of nations, and demanded a national mobilization. My sense – from all the flags on windshields and the chit-chat among some of the same people who a few years later would be joing the “lied/died” protests – is that if he had decided on 9/12 or maybe amidst the Anthrax scare that we needed to nuke the Afghan caves and deliver Roman-style yield-or-die ultimata to Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Saudia Arabia, Syria, Pakistan, et al, it might have been a very popular move. I suspect, by the way, that President Al Gore would have gone, if not that far, very heavy, both domestically and overseas – it’s in his personality – and could well have had better luck preserving a bipartisan and transnational imperialist consensus.

Back in the real world, the closer you look at things, the harder it is to see how they could have turned out any other way in the sense that US willingness to maintain its influence post-USSR, especially given the stances of our allies, was bound to flag sooner or later. It’s also axiomatic that we wouldn’t know what we know now if we hadn’t done what we did in 2003: We were bound to defend the old order as we understood it, only to discover it and our limitations. In my diagnosis Barack Obama is a an opportunistic infection, and however problematic more a symptom than the disease.

I realize Pyongyang wanted to show its ability to throw a payload many thousands of miles. Whether the test had a satellite or a dummy warhead riding the tip of the rocket did not matter.

But it did matter that the rocket did not carry that payload to the designed distance. The second stage landed well short of the predetermined fall zone in the Pacific and the third stage, with the payload, did not go the distance, in this case reach orbit. So what do you have?

Before the test NK had an ICBM which one had to assume was capable of reaching the west coast of the US. This test, they proved that, at least at this point, they don’t.

They also proved with exclamation points how serious they are about wanting the ability to threaten us (and how indispensable missile defense is to us), and they demonstrated that on this matter they are even willing to alienate their allies, China and Russia.

Now nswer this question:

With this failure on the record are the North Koreans or we better off?

Unfortunately, such tough thinking is anathema to the wimpy, pacifist MSM, whose only focus is the death of each individual soldier. The death of a nation through de facto pacifism is too big a concept for their pay grade. As for Obama: first the US, then the world. Meanwhile, he doesn’t care what Iran or North Korea do or don’t do — just how it spins for him. And there’s always Bush to blame.

“Unlikely to be a pretty sight” is an understatement.

So, the sum total of our response seems to be Obama giving a speech in Europe about his hope for the end of nuclear weapons.

Imagine for a minute you’re an ally of the US that isn’t in Western Europe and you see this, say a Japan or Israel, and what kind of message this sends to them. This is where the first cracks will appear most likely, rather than in an attack on US soil.

For 60+ years, our impact on the world has been to keep the relative peace by discouraging regional adventurism while protecting key economic chokepoints and helping to foster economic growth and incremental political advances both directly and indirectly. Obamaism is so far developing as an experimental test whether that unique American contribution still matters. If it turns out that a dynamic, expanding US economy and a forward-leaning foreign policy backed by credible but rarely tested threat of force aren’t really very important to the world’s stability, our own safety, and maintenance of some reasonable semblance of our accustomed standard of living, then I suppose it will be a useful, not to mention world-historical lesson.

Maybe we and the world will get along fine with the US as an EU nation in all but name. If not, then we may find ourselves scrambling to put our neo-imperial Humpty-Dumpty back together again, or turning to even more desperate measures. It’s unlikely to be a pretty sight.

#24: Maybe. But I saw people arguing, very early on in the Iraq occupation, that the way to make things easier there was to keep going, into Iran and Syria–at the very least to threaten them credibly. After all, without their help, the insurgency would have been bereft of outside bases and support (except for with Saudi Arabia–but if we had shown we were serious about Iran and Syria, the Saudis would have been suitably cowed, I think). So, was that just unrealistic militarily? Politically? If the former, I come back to my previous question–why not bulk up the military, and work on innovative approaches that might require fewer men? (Are we so incapable of improvising when things don’t go according to plan?) If the latter, wherein, exactly, lay the “impossibility”? And, again, if it was “impossible” then, when would it be possible?

Bush’s plan to go after the rest of the Axis of Evil got indefinitely postponed, when the war in Iraq proved to be much harder, and much longer, than he had originally anticipated. (The original war plan, since declassified under the Freedom of Information Act, called for all but 5,000 U.S. troops to be out of Iraq by December 2006!)

NK can afford a little artificial embarrassment over their having failed to reach their stated goal. Meanwhile, their military scientists are gathering data as to what American targets their missile could reach.

the test was a failure if the intent actually was to put a satellite in orbit. If the objective was to test a potential ICBM, not such conclusion can be drawn. Now put down the Kool-Aid and tell us which you really think it was.

But fear not. Obama is responding forcefully in three separate ways, each certain to be effective. First, he sharply criticized North Korea in a well-attended speech. Second, his administration is moving forcefully to secure that most terrifying of responses – a UN Security Council Resolution! Third, he’s going to shame them into total submission by adopting a policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament – either with Russian agreement or all by ourselves by simply letting our arsenal deteriorate away.

What have we to fear with so dynamic and decisive leadership and such probative policies!

The problem is that the MSM and much of the moneyed class don’t have a patriotic bone in their spineless and cowardly bodies. They’ll just cluck, and acquiesce in diminished defense spending and defeat/insult after defeat/insult.

Sadly, only an attack on our own shores will bring about popular anger. But even then, Obama and the D’s will refuse to devote military resources to the problem, and will refuse to attack. Instead, we’ll get a “man-made calamity [remember, we can't use the words "Islamic Terrorism"] stimulus bill,” that will get our “first responders” [another bogus pacifist name, apt only in reflecting the passive, defensive, wimp posture of those who use it] lots of equipment, and training. Oh and don’t forget the “grief counseling.”

Until these traitors are removed from office by impeachment (fat chance of that, since the majorities of the House and Senate should themselves be impeached) or by elections, we will continue to lose the war against our enemies.

Now they have a fizzled missile test to put next to their fizzled A bomb test. As a reward they have everyone, including their friends, pi$$ed off.

And what should top it off for us are Obama’s terrific statements in Prague today or yesterday, in justification of our missile defense program and against any toleration of nuclear proliferation.

What did Bush/Cheney do in eight long years to solve these problems…

Which “just appeared out of nowhere the day” Bush “took office”? That’s how the left seemed to feel about terrorism, intractable problems in and around the Gulf and Central Asia, North Korean and Iranian nuclear ambitions, Arab-Israeli conflict, etc., etc.

All these threats just appeared out of nowhere the day Obama took office.

What did Bush/Cheney do in eight long years to solve these problems?

Nothing, they are still unresolved!

You right wingers need a better line of attack.

The State Dept. couldn’t even wait until the UN passed some kind of resolution condemming North Korea before issuing a call to restart(re-set?) talks with North Korea, handing North Korea just the kind of sign of submission their launch was intended to elicit.

There are hardly any, repeat any conservatives on the national political scene. We’re losing our country not with a bang but with a whimper of apathy.

Eli Lake and Richard Sale wrote “Egypt’s military relationship with Nortj Korea goes back to the early 70s when Pyongyan sent an air battalion to Egypt as a sign of solidarity in its war with Israel.”

Eli Lake and Richard Sale wrote in the June 22, 2001 issue of MIDDLE EAST TIMES

fuster42
fuster Says:

April 5th, 2009 at 11:46 AM
40- Thank you for the announcement. In lieu of presents, please send donations to AIPAC’s going away party. All proceeds are to aid them in their efforts to convince the world that dead children only matter if their mothers belonged to the right tribe.

During a Democrat presidential primary debate, a hypothetical scenario was posed to then candidates Clinton and Obama: If there was a terrorist attack on the homeland, what action would you take as president?

Hillary: I would find the perpetrators.

Obama: I would deploy the first responders.

This defensive, reactive response when combined with pie-in-the-sky idealism “make the world nuclear free” puts American in grieve danger.