{"id":38620,"date":"2013-11-26T12:08:22","date_gmt":"2013-11-26T17:08:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=38620"},"modified":"2013-11-26T12:59:05","modified_gmt":"2013-11-26T17:59:05","slug":"that-shift-from-military-might-to-diplomacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=38620","title":{"rendered":"That shift from military might to diplomacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Times<\/a> hails Obama’s apparent shift away from the use of military might to the “art” of diplomacy;<\/p>\n

At one level, the flurry of diplomatic activity reflects the definitive end of the post-Sept. 11 world, dominated by two major wars and a battle against Islamic terrorism that drew the United States into Afghanistan and still keeps its Predator drones flying over Pakistan and Yemen.<\/p>\n

But it also reflects a broader scaling-back of the use of American muscle, not least in the Middle East, as well as a willingness to deal with foreign governments as they are rather than to push for new leaders that better embody American values. \u201cRegime change,\u201d in Iran or even Syria, is out; cutting deals with former adversaries is in.<\/p>\n

For Mr. Obama, the shift to diplomacy fulfills a campaign pledge from 2008 that he would stretch out a hand to America\u2019s enemies and speak to any foreign leader without preconditions. But it will also subject him to considerable political risks, as the protests about the Iran deal from Capitol Hill and allies in the Middle East attest.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re testing diplomacy; we\u2019re not resorting immediately to military conflict,\u201d Mr. Obama said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, the problem with this whole thing is that, in order to rely on diplomacy, Obama needs to negotiate from a position of strength, especially in that Bronze Age shithole in the middle east. Bush wasn’t “resorting immediately to military conflict” in Iraq. His “rush to war” took over a year after all of the sanctions, inspections, diplomacy failed and, in the end, Hussein didn’t really believe that we would invade Iraq. Twice. Bush’s father gave Hussein almost daily chances to un-ass Kuwait, but because of Vietnam and Beirut, Hussein didn’t think we’d have the cojones<\/em>. And after Mogadishu, he thought the same of the Younger Bush.<\/p>\n

Iran poked their finger in the West’s collective eye throughout the Iraq War and there were no consequences. They’ve continued in Syria and throughout the Middle East, not to mention continued their nuclear program while the West wrings it’s hands, and we’ve done nothing. Now we’re rewarding them for their bad behavior and we celebrate that we’re civilized. The guy who a few weeks ago planned on bombing Syria with no real evidence is suddenly civilized when it’s Iran – dangerous-ass Iran who is closer to nuclear weapons than the world cares to admit. The country that proliferates more terror to every corner of the world than any other country on the planet. The country most responsible for Assad remaining on the throne in Syria. <\/p>\n

The only reason that Iran is at the negotiating table is because THEY think they’re negotiating from a position of strength, they think they hold all the cards, because we’re running away from Afghanistan as our sole strategy. We’re downsizing our military at a mind-numbing speed. We’re forgetting any lessons that we learned in the last decade of war. The things that worked are tossed aside as bad, because of who did them, rather than examined as to why they worked.<\/p>\n

But, at least we lift our pinky finger while we’re sipping our tea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New York Times hails Obama’s apparent shift away from the use of military might to … That shift from military might to diplomacy<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barack-obama","category-terror-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38620\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}