"There’s an increasing trend in both parties to just wash our hands, not just the Middle East, but the whole world. [...] We have tried for years to get out of the Middle East, and we have found ourselves incapable of doing it. It’s hard for me to look at the region right now. It’s imploding. I think it absolutely can get worse, and it w…
"There’s an increasing trend in both parties to just wash our hands, not just the Middle East, but the whole world. [...] We have tried for years to get out of the Middle East, and we have found ourselves incapable of doing it. It’s hard for me to look at the region right now. It’s imploding. I think it absolutely can get worse, and it will get worse if we walk away from it. That’s just a fact of life that we have to live with."
The dichotomy set-up here is a false one, and betrays a misunderstanding of the nuance that "realist" positions can hold.
The excuse will always be, for a certain type of foreign policy thinker, that if the US doesn't take an active and unipolar role in governing the international sphere, not only will the US suffer but the planet as well. So we just have to keep doing what we're doing, and maybe even MORE, and everything will turn out correctly in the end. The problem is that we lack the moral fortitude to make the sacrifices necessary to do so. And so on.
I disagree with this. You don't have to be an "isolationist" (is anybody actually this?) to question the PRUDENCE with which US foreign policy has been pursued since WWII, especially after the fall of the USSR. Are we not over-extended in our commitments at this point? How did we get here? Why are such commitments simply unquestionable? Why can't they be renegotiated? And all of this especially when these very commitments are (1) dubiously founded and (2) creating more problems than they solve.
Example: We have strategic interests in the Middle East because of oil access. Ok, what's the solution to this? Constantly interfere in the Middle East? Or genuinely seek a sufficient "energy independence," even if it ends up hurting us somewhat materially in the short-term? But in long-term, consider all the benefits, politically and economically, but also morally, culturally, and environmentally. And then maybe we can take a more objective role in the Middle East, once we are less codependently bound with it.
Example: The State of Israel is our "ally" (in what, I don't know, but fine). Ok, but do we have to enable Israel's intransigence by subsidizing its security directly and indirectly as if we have some messianic mission to be its perpetual protector from everyone else in the world who understands that their behavior is ALSO part of the problem of the instability of that region through its own abuses? In turn, does everyone else in the world resent our one-sided support for Israel, impacting their trust in us and disposing them to work against us? I suppose it's just because they're evil antisemites... sort of like DEI critics are all just fragile whites.
Tell me that these scenarios and others like them are not direct contributors to the constantly escalating realignment of the globe against US interests. I maintain that you are thinking too simplistically about these matters. But if it helps you to sleep at night to write off various people as "the evil ones who just need to be defeated" while ignoring the decades of cumulative imprudent foreign policy choices that have gotten us to this point, that's your business. God forbid other nations have their own national interests to pursue: if you're not with (i.e. under) the US, you're not respecting the "rules-based international order."
Whatever "increasing trend" the interviewee is seeing in both Parties, he should make sure that said trend is not simply people realizing we can't keep doing business as usual. Perhaps the American people are finally admitting that for decades their country has been marshalled in pursuit of the global hegemonic dreams of our elite classes while they've been bought-off by being fed with the bread-and-circus of our unrealistic and unsustainable material lifestyle? Maybe the elite classes are realizing that this dream isn't possible any longer, and they either change course or risk falling from power?
Reality will set in eventually. Something's got to give, and as the US is sapped of its material and moral strength internally and externally, there are only two choices: (1) renegotiate things to give ourselves a softer landing, or (2) have everything crumble in our hands because we refuse to let go of the status quo. The fatalism evidenced in this interview is in keeping with option (2). (1) seems much more reasonable to me, and apparently to a growing number of Americans.
I quote you: "The State of Israel is our "ally" (in what, I don't know, but fine)"
It seems to me that in order to work for the salvation of Mankind, one would need Friends. Not everyone WANTS the salvation of Mankind; in fact, some people, even whole GROUPS of them, want what could be construed to be the opposite -- the destruction of Mankind, or at least a portion of it, which could really be seen as the whole, couldn't it?
Hamas, and an integral part of the Islamic world, wants Israel, and Jews, DEAD. I would put to you that the US and Israel are "allies" in preventing the sworn mission of Hamas & Friends, and in trying to 'negotiate'.
You say "something's got to give." Well, something HAS given, and has been giving way for decades, if not millenia. "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away," yes? The readiness is all.
P.S. Snark does not enlighten your otherwise earnest, half-right and sophistically-reasoned message. But thank you for your passion.
"There’s an increasing trend in both parties to just wash our hands, not just the Middle East, but the whole world. [...] We have tried for years to get out of the Middle East, and we have found ourselves incapable of doing it. It’s hard for me to look at the region right now. It’s imploding. I think it absolutely can get worse, and it will get worse if we walk away from it. That’s just a fact of life that we have to live with."
The dichotomy set-up here is a false one, and betrays a misunderstanding of the nuance that "realist" positions can hold.
The excuse will always be, for a certain type of foreign policy thinker, that if the US doesn't take an active and unipolar role in governing the international sphere, not only will the US suffer but the planet as well. So we just have to keep doing what we're doing, and maybe even MORE, and everything will turn out correctly in the end. The problem is that we lack the moral fortitude to make the sacrifices necessary to do so. And so on.
I disagree with this. You don't have to be an "isolationist" (is anybody actually this?) to question the PRUDENCE with which US foreign policy has been pursued since WWII, especially after the fall of the USSR. Are we not over-extended in our commitments at this point? How did we get here? Why are such commitments simply unquestionable? Why can't they be renegotiated? And all of this especially when these very commitments are (1) dubiously founded and (2) creating more problems than they solve.
Example: We have strategic interests in the Middle East because of oil access. Ok, what's the solution to this? Constantly interfere in the Middle East? Or genuinely seek a sufficient "energy independence," even if it ends up hurting us somewhat materially in the short-term? But in long-term, consider all the benefits, politically and economically, but also morally, culturally, and environmentally. And then maybe we can take a more objective role in the Middle East, once we are less codependently bound with it.
Example: The State of Israel is our "ally" (in what, I don't know, but fine). Ok, but do we have to enable Israel's intransigence by subsidizing its security directly and indirectly as if we have some messianic mission to be its perpetual protector from everyone else in the world who understands that their behavior is ALSO part of the problem of the instability of that region through its own abuses? In turn, does everyone else in the world resent our one-sided support for Israel, impacting their trust in us and disposing them to work against us? I suppose it's just because they're evil antisemites... sort of like DEI critics are all just fragile whites.
Tell me that these scenarios and others like them are not direct contributors to the constantly escalating realignment of the globe against US interests. I maintain that you are thinking too simplistically about these matters. But if it helps you to sleep at night to write off various people as "the evil ones who just need to be defeated" while ignoring the decades of cumulative imprudent foreign policy choices that have gotten us to this point, that's your business. God forbid other nations have their own national interests to pursue: if you're not with (i.e. under) the US, you're not respecting the "rules-based international order."
Whatever "increasing trend" the interviewee is seeing in both Parties, he should make sure that said trend is not simply people realizing we can't keep doing business as usual. Perhaps the American people are finally admitting that for decades their country has been marshalled in pursuit of the global hegemonic dreams of our elite classes while they've been bought-off by being fed with the bread-and-circus of our unrealistic and unsustainable material lifestyle? Maybe the elite classes are realizing that this dream isn't possible any longer, and they either change course or risk falling from power?
Reality will set in eventually. Something's got to give, and as the US is sapped of its material and moral strength internally and externally, there are only two choices: (1) renegotiate things to give ourselves a softer landing, or (2) have everything crumble in our hands because we refuse to let go of the status quo. The fatalism evidenced in this interview is in keeping with option (2). (1) seems much more reasonable to me, and apparently to a growing number of Americans.
Father Bri,
I quote you: "The State of Israel is our "ally" (in what, I don't know, but fine)"
It seems to me that in order to work for the salvation of Mankind, one would need Friends. Not everyone WANTS the salvation of Mankind; in fact, some people, even whole GROUPS of them, want what could be construed to be the opposite -- the destruction of Mankind, or at least a portion of it, which could really be seen as the whole, couldn't it?
Hamas, and an integral part of the Islamic world, wants Israel, and Jews, DEAD. I would put to you that the US and Israel are "allies" in preventing the sworn mission of Hamas & Friends, and in trying to 'negotiate'.
You say "something's got to give." Well, something HAS given, and has been giving way for decades, if not millenia. "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away," yes? The readiness is all.
P.S. Snark does not enlighten your otherwise earnest, half-right and sophistically-reasoned message. But thank you for your passion.