The tide of war is not receding, it’s advancing:
…we face a global war waged by a well-established alliance of Iranian and Syrian Islamists, Russian and Chinese crony plutocrats, and Latin American radical leftists who share a love of totalitarian control of their own people and a hatred of America. We have failed to design a strategy to win this war, and indeed it often seems as if our leaders share the world view of our enemies. Obama thought he could make deals with all of them, apparently believing this would come about when they realized he shared their conviction that most of the world’s problems are America’s fault. Indeed, when push comes to shove in their own countries, his instinctive response, as Fouad Ajami recently wrote regarding Syria, is to favor the success of the anti-American tyrants.
Also, why Western elites don’t understand the world, and why their foreign policies fail.
In my experience, there are basically two schools of thought that are held by most Americans with respect to foreigners and relations of the U.S. and other nations.
The first school holds that we are superior to all other people and that they can never be as smart, well dressed or as educated as we are. They just can’t ever achieve what we have. And because of this, we need to throw millions of dollars at them so we feel better about ourselves.
The second school sees the U.S. as an Evil Empire that keeps all other people down so that they can never be as smart, well dressed or as educated as we are. If they could just get a half a chance with the U.S. off their backs they could achieve what we have overnight. And because of our Imperialistic past, we need to throw millions of dollars at them so we feel better about ourselves.
Either way, we’ll keep right on giving away money that we don’t really have, so those foreigners will start liking us. Yeah, that’s the ticket, if we just keep paying them, they’ll start liking us. Uh huh, and monkeys might fly outta my……..
We have failed to design a strategy to win this war, and indeed it often seems as if our leaders share the world view of our enemies.
And it ain’t just Obama, either. See Codevilla’s “Ruling Class” vs. “Country Class”.
Europe is afflicted with the same problem. Their leaders are importing Third World Muslims as fast as they can.
Does anyone doubt that Obama’s “Even as our troops continue to fight in Afghanistan, the tide of war is receding” will take its place in history alongside Chamberlain’s “Peace for our time”?
Fasten your seatbelts.
The Western elite believe all “democracies” can eventually be brought to heel. They see the Muslim theocrats as fellow travelers, close kin to their secular PC theocratic selves. In contrast, the Right views both groups with similar disdain and is therefore wary of each.
I think it’s worth thinking about how the “engineering” approach is different from real engineering. For example, nobody signs off on nation-building or Obamacare. There’s no responsibility for what happens. While someone can be in serious trouble (go to jail, pay fines, never do engineering again, etc), if a building falls down due to poor design or construction.
It’s more like being able to construct dangerous buildings that no one needs at a whim.
For the sake of argument I will agree with the thesis that it’s a global war. The problem with that thesis is that our enemies are the political and physical equivalent of fleas. How do you get rid of fleas.?
You don’t get rid of fleas by occupying the host of the fleas. You don’t cure fleas by killing the host of the fleas. You don’t cure fleas by moralizing to the host. In fact there is very little you can do about fleas except bathe, keep flea hosts out of your house and apply pesticide to your house regularly.