Inveterate Interventionism Is Bad Foreign Policy

It must be difficult to do an analysis of a policy issue when your ideology ties both hands behind your back, to say nothing of your brain.

Bret Stephens’s, “Iraq Tips Towards the Abyss,” in The Wall Street Journal, October 22, 2013, Opinion, is one such case. Mr. Stephens meticulously records the carnage in Iraq for the past two months, and clearly notes the absence of the international community’s concern. But then, he substitutes ideology, i.e. inveterate interventionism, for reason.

One of the great failing of the Bush Administration, and specifically its National Security Advisor and later Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and later still the Obama Administration and its Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, was that they did not recognize the divisions within Iraq. And, therefore, did not have an intelligent plan of what to do in Iraq after Saddam Hussein was removed.

The inability to fashion a sensible accord between Iraq’s three sectarian groups, resulted in immediate and ongoing violence. The more sensible strategy for Iraq would have been to partition the country into three entities: Kurdish (Mosul); Sunni (Baghdad); and Shi’a (Basra).

First, there is no compelling historic justification for modern day Iraq. The 1919 Paris Peace Conference and subsequent San Remo Conference in April 1920 laid the groundwork for an Iraqi nation. Prior to 1919, modern day Iraq did not exist. There was no Iraqi nationalism and no Iraqi identity. There was what the British called “Mesopotamia” - referring to the Ottoman Empire’s provinces of Mosul, Baghdad and Basra.

Second, it is understood that the reconfiguration of Iraq will cause consternation to some. However, the entire Middle East has skin in the game, and none more so than Turkey and Iran. A Kurdistan nation will not be the death of Turkey. It will however be a stable force in an unstable region. An accommodation to the Kurds would work toward balancing and even mitigating Iran’s position in Iraq, especially under Nouri al–Maliki, the Shi’a Prime Minister

Third, Mr. Stephens’s view that Mr. al-Maliki is a stabilizing force in Iraq is just wrong. Recall Mr. al Maliki’s first acts when American forces left Iraq. He attempted to arrest the Sunni leadership for trumped up capital charges. Mr. al-Maliki is an Iranian Shi’a puppet. Reducing Shi’a dominance to southern Iraq will correspondingly reduce Iran’s influence in the region.

Fourth, al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) is not the dominating force portrayed in Mr. Stephen’s piece. Iraq’s Sunni and former Baathists are more than happy to let al Qaeda suicide bombers blow up Shi’a and themselves. When sectarian violence turns to civil war, it will be Sunni Baathists that exert control and govern in central Iraq, not al Qaeda.

Iraq is an artificial State. To believe that Kurds, Sunni, and Shi’a can live peacefully together contradicts realty. Just as Bosnia became a failed state when Muslims, Serbs, and Croatians were provided with the means to choose the conditions under which they wished to live, which you will recall resulted in War (1992 – 1995).

A solution to Iraqi violence is to construct a new compact. That new compact will be the partition of Iraq into three distinct States. 

The failure in Iraq was not military defeat, but diplomatic malpractice.

It's Simple Logic: Obama Supports Terrorism

The Muslim Brotherhood is an Islamic terrorist organization.

Barack Hussein Obama supports the Muslim Brotherhood.

Therefore, Barack Hussein Obama supports Islamic terrorism.

Q.E.D.

Patrick Cordell

It has been on one other occasion that another voice could be heard or read on this blog. However, when something extraordinarily important is said by another, it must be released.

Patrick Cordell is an English writer and political commentator, whose website http://www.patcondell.net/, should be required viewing for anyone whom wants to understand the incredible intolerance of Islam.

Seymour Hersh: Please Be Careful

Published Eurasia Review

September 30, 2013

Seymour Hersh is not a right wing, tea party, gun toting, peckerwood!

Seymour Myron Hersh is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and author. Mr. Hersh, it would seem is "outing" the most incompetent, naive, amateurish president in American history, for the liar he is, in his new -- yet to be published -- book. And while he is at it, Hersh unmasks the American Mainstream Media for their cowardliness, treachery, and the pathological stupidity by which they now conduct themselves. Quoting Mr. Hersh:

 "The republic's in trouble, we lie about everything, lying has become the staple." 

Mr. Hersh is going to expose the killing of Osama bin Laden. According to Mr. Hersh, everything we have been told is a lie. This is important, and yet you won’t hear or read about it on the nightly news or local media outlets. Lisa O’Carroll of The Guardian reported:

“The Obama administration lies systematically, he (Mr. Hersh) claims, yet none of the leviathans of American media, the TV networks or big print titles, challenge him.”

Mr. Hersh would be well advised to take care. In Africa, they throw people out of airplanes. In America, they get into fatal car accidents. 

This reminds me of David Halberstam's book, War In A Time Of Peace, published in 2001.  His book was one of the first attempts to speak the truth about American foreign policy in the Clinton era. Needless to say, it was not a flattering picture. 

Clinton's foreign policy was a farce, much like Obama’s today. The Clintons completely got it wrong: by changing the Somalia mission from feeding starving Somalis to nation building; by not intervening in Rwanda, the worst genocide since the Holocaust; by not taking a leading role to stop the Bosnia War; by conducting a virtual war in Kosovo, predicated on lies; and by supporting a buffoon, Boris Yeltsin, who politically and economically humiliated Russia.

The liberal establishment hated the book. David Halberstram was shunned by the left who had previously lionized him for his book on Vietnam (The Best and The Brightest). David Halberstram was killed in a "car accident" in Menlo Park, California, on April 23, 2007. Indeed, was it an accident?

Remember, the Clintons like to tell us that Hillary was co-President for those eight years of Bill’s administration. Hence, any criticism of the Clinton administration’s conduct of foreign policy also falls on Hillary Clinton. How often do you think the mainstream media is going to remind the American people of these events in the 2016 election?

Thinking about the Clinton Administration, here’s a short story. One of the most wonderful occasions of my life was to see my oldest daughter graduate from Georgetown University, School of Foreign Service (1997). But it was also one of the worst. I was forced to listen to the Clinton’s Russian expert, the naïve and foolish Strobe Talbot, the man most responsible for bring Vladimir Putin to power, give the Commencement Address. Who says liberals condemn torture? 

Be careful out there Mr. Hersh.

Lawrence S. Schneiderman is an International Consultant and Dr. of Public Policy, Vanderbilt University. The views expressed are the author’s own.

Unbelievable: Boehner Supports Syria Strike

Unbelievable!

John Boehner, the Republican Leader of the United States House of Representatives supports Obama's military intervention in Syria. The world views Obama as a naive and weak amateur, yet perma-tan John comes to his rescue! 

It’s the old canard. Trump up some false catastrophe -- then lie, obfuscate, intimidate, and malign. All the while a complicit mainstream media reports and editorializes the validity of your scam. But, you would not expect the Republican Party leadership to participate in this lie.

US foreign policy today is a farce, conducted as a comedy of errors: Obama, the reluctant warrior, morphing into George W. Bush, and seeking approval for a coalition of the willing, only to find his followers not there. 

Unbelievable!!

Never mind that the world, except for France, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, The Muslim Brotherhood, and al Qaeda, is opposed to intervention in Syria's civil war.

Never mind that it is yet to be proven that Assad ordered the chemical attack.

Never mind that this could be another ploy by Islamic rebels to get the US involved.

Never mind that the US has no national interest in Syria.

Never mind that the Syrian civil war does not threaten our national security, but invention would threaten the security of our allies in the region.

Never mind that Syria has neither threatened the US nor attacked our embassies and consulates.

Never mind that Obama and the RINOs want to militarily support the people who a year ago attacked United States sovereignty, e.g., Benghazi, Egypt under the Muslim Brotherhood, and Yemen.

Never mind that Obama has not demonstrated in 5 years as President, and in his life for that matter, any ability to lead a country in military action, much less war.

Never mind that every military undertaking conducted by the Obama Administration has failed such as the surge in Afghanistan, Libya, and Benghazi.

Never mind that that most of the world believes the word of a former Russian KGB agent over that of the President and Secretary of State of the United States of America.

And, never mind that his diplomatic blunders have caused world leaders to recoil at his presence. 

In consideration of all of the above, instead of exercising leadership, and giving voice to 80% of the American public who believe the US should not get involved militarily in Syria, the Republican leadership of the House, and the unremitting interventionists John McCain and Lindsay Graham in the Senate, provide the most divisive and corrupt President in American history cover.

Unbelievable!!!

Lawrence S. Schneiderman is an International Consultant and Dr. of Public Policy, Vanderbilt University. The views expressed are the author’s own.

Freedom: The Egyptian Civil War

What is going on in Egypt is not difficult to understand. It is literally a fight for freedom: freedom of the individual to exercise their rights as human beings.

The greatest danger to western civilization is not the Egyptian military, but the diplomatic institutions of the United States and the European Union. In the past couple of years, Mr. Obama, Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Kerry, Messrs. Barroso and van Rumpuy and Lady Ashton, have backed the loser in every transitional election, and supported the overthrow of every regime with ties to the West or providing a stable force in an unstable region.

Whether or not what is happening in Egypt is a coup or civil war or both, is not important. The important question is what position is in the best interest of the United States of America and the Egyptian people. Mr. Obama, Mr. Kerry, and the unremitting interventionists John McCain and Lindsay Graham are looking for any excuse to get the United States involved in yet another Islamic civil war, on the wrong side.

Egypt is not Iran. It refuses to be ruled as a fundamentalist Islamic Caliphate under Sharia law.

There is only one way to defeat fanaticism. You must exterminate it. The Egyptian military understands this. Like any civil war, why won’t it be bloody and a fight to the end? There can be only one winner.

The time has come for the United States to take sides against an Islamic religion and culture, that tolerates no other religion and culture, and seeks world conquest to instill a seventh century culture at the end of a sword.

What is at stake -- is our very way of life, our freedom!

Capitulation: Obama And Russia – OpEd

Published Eurasia Review on 7 August 2013
By Lawrence S. Schneiderman 

“Russia’s Tiny Cold War” (Stratfor, August 6, 2013) is, as all of George Friedman’s work, a must read. Mr. Friedman succinctly posits:

Russia went through two phases in the Post-Cold War world. The first was the chaos that inevitably followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. The second phase was a reaction to the first.

The havoc of Yeltsin could not continue. Russia was sinking into extraordinary poverty, worse than the Soviet Union; there were regions that were seeking to break away from the Russian Federation; and it had little to no international standing.

The United States and NATO waged a war in Kosovo, completely indifferent to Russian opposition. Russia opposed the war both because Serbia was an ally and because one of the principles of Europe since World War II was that there would be no shifts in borders. This was regarded as sacred inasmuch as redrawing borders was one of the origins of the war. Russia's wishes were disregarded.

When Serbia did not collapse immediately under air attack and the war dragged out, the Russians were asked to negotiate its end. In return they were promised a significant role in managing post-war Kosovo. That didn't happen; the future of Kosovo became a matter for European and American decision-making.

Influence is not something given to a country. It has that influence because of its power, because the consequences of ignoring its wishes would have unacceptable consequences. By 1999, Russia had reached the low point of its influence.

It was logical that a man like Vladimir Putin would emerge. And, it was logical that Russia would reassert itself on the world stage, especially in the power vacuum created by the Obama Administration. From his first days in office, it was clear Mr. Obama meant to change America’s preeminence in world affairs. Examples are: going on tour to apologize to the World; relinquishing a European antimissile-system and get nothing in return; leading from behind in Libya; dismantling your country’s defense budget resulting in critical reductions in the nation’s defensive capability; and, obfuscating the severe damage done by the Wikileaks and the Snowden affair.

As Stanford Professor Josef Joffe recently opined in Monday’s The Wall Street Journal (August 5, 2013 A13, Col. 1-5), “Exploiting Obama’s Foreign Policy Retreat:”

“The world is being treated to a first in the history of great–power politics. Traditionally, the might of nations was hemmed in by others in an endless game of pressure and counter-pressure. Now, the reigning superpower is proposing to neutralize itself – no foes needed.”

It is the failures and cluelessness of American foreign policy under the Clinton, Bush, and Obama Administrations that have solidified the current situation. Two decades of incompetence has consequences. As Rev. Wright, Mr. Obama’s trusted mentor once proffered, “America’s chickens are coming home to roost.”

Mr. Friedman believes “there is no danger of a military confrontation (with Russia) now.”  However, the only creditable adversary to Russia in Eastern Europe isn’t there anymore.

In my view, there will be a military confrontation in the Balkans over Kosovo. And, this time Russia will not have to sit back and allow the West to dictate the terms of both the engagement and its aftermath. Furthermore, there is a strong likelihood that this may happen before Obama’s second term in office is over.

Mr. Putin and Russia understand Mr. Obama better than the American people. They know he is a phony, a poser, a weak sister, and lacks the Right Stuff. They know he has contempt and disdain for American Exceptionalism. They know the American people will not tolerate another war where their sons and daughters give their lives for nothing; and where the rules of engagement save enemy lives at the expense of American.

It is entirely possible the current rapprochement between Serbia and Kosovo, shepherded by the clueless Lady Ashton and the European Union elitists, is a ruse. Why would Serbia give up its raison d’état  (Kosovo) to be a doormat for a bankrupt Union that might crumble, and eventually dissolve, after the September election in Germany?

Kosovo is the sweet spot to create uncertainty in Eastern Europe and destabilize the region. The United States under Obama will cave in to any overt hostilities. If you can’t rescue your own people from a terrorist attack in a lawless terrorist state (Libya); then should anyone believe that you would come to the rescue of foreigners?

Indeed, is there a better place to start a war?

Lawrence S. Schneiderman is an International Consultant and Dr. of Public Policy, Vanderbilt University. The views expressed are the author’s own

The NFL or Obama Care: You Can’t Have Both

Roger Goodell, Commissioner

National Football League (NFL) 

Dear Commissioner Goodell:

If it’s true that the National Football League (NFL) will promote Obama Care through Public Service Announcements (PSAs); then be assured I will say goodbye to the NFL.

Like many Americans, the NFL is my pastime. I’m 68 years old, and can recall Green Bay Packer games on the radio, Ray Scott on television in the 50’s -60’s, Vince Lombardi, Packers v. Lions on Thanksgiving Day, more recently the magic of Brett Favre, and most importantly sitting next to my father watching the games. During all that time, what I don’t recall is the NFL promoting a political agenda. If you go down that road you will lose me, and I believe many other Americans just like me.

Sport, and particularly our national pastime, must always be above politics. Monday through Saturday our Nation may be divided, but on Sunday that is put aside, whether Democrat or Republican, conservative or liberal, libertarian or socialist, we are all fans. That’s the purpose of sport, that’s the beauty of sport, and that’s the integrity of sport.

Do you really want to further divide our Nation? Do you really want to kill the golden goose?  Do you not understand America?

Well do you?

Syria: Just Wag The Dog

Published Eurasia Review on 16 June 2013
By Lawrence S. Schneiderman

LBJ had Vietnam, Clinton had Kosovo, and now Obama has Syria. Those good anti-war liberal Democrats and unremitting interventionist Republicans are at it again. These wars of obfuscation are predicated on lies. The Gulf of Tonkin, Kosovo genocide, and Syrian chemical weapons, are all fictitious ruses for partir en guerre.

You want to know why the United States is in decline? It is because our Government is corrupt. Our once great country is awash with the least of us for whom a free lunch and cell phone elects the worst among us, and the guilt-ridden who believe the sins of their fathers can be rectified through political largesse. Unfortunately, there is no free lunch. And as a result, we the people are now paying the ultimate price for this foolishness. And you outside of the United States don’t think for a minute you are not affected.

Abraham Lincoln wrote:

"Our safety, our liberty, depends upon preserving the Constitution of the United States as our fathers made it inviolate. The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts; not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution."   

And, Theodore Roosevelt wrote:

"It is the duty of all citizens, irrespective of party, to denounce, and, so far as may be, to punish crimes against the public on the part of politicians or officials."   

Indeed, today a corrupt and scandalous government is putting America and the world in jeopardy to cover up its own failings.  It was Monica who got us into Kosovo. This time it is guns to Mexican drug cartels; Benghazi / a cover up of Islamic terrorism; IRS targeting political free speech; Justice Department spying on Journalists; NSA spying on all Americans; and IRS Commissioners, Hillary Clinton (Secretary of State), James Clapper (Director of National Intelligence), and Eric Holder (Attorney General), all lying under oath to Congress; that is responsible for getting us into a civil war in Syria.

Now as the Obama Administration feels the heat rising from an America in tatters, and dropping polls, it starts a war.  And, as has been the case during this Presidency, suddenly the mainstream media is chirping about Syria and what he wants to babble about.

As if on cue, Obama made headlines worldwide on Thursday by claiming that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons against the rebels "multiple times;” and that the United States was prepared to assist the rebels with more than just fancy camouflage outfits. Never mind that multiple international organizations have disputed this claim. And that in fact, some have found that it was the rebels who first used chemical weapons.

This practice is nothing new. It’s the old canard. Trump up some false catastrophe -- then lie, obfuscate, intimidate, and malign. All the while a complicit mainstream media reports and editorializes the validity of your scam.  

For the Obama Administration and its media sycophants, Syria presents a golden opportunity to change the subject. There are no coincidences.  There is no road to perdition this administration will not go down. The timing of this announcement is not an accident.

Just wag the dog!

Lawrence S. Schneiderman is an International Consultant and Dr. of Public Policy, Vanderbilt University. The views expressed are the author’s own.

Monday is Memorial Day

Published Eurasia Review on 27 May, 2013
By Lawrence S. Schneiderman

Monday, May 27, 2013, is Memorial Day in the United States. Memorial Day is dedicated to the men and women of the United States Armed Forces who gave their lives in service to their country.

General George S. Patton understood well the meaning of Memorial Day:

It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died.

Rather we should thank God that such men lived.

President Barack Hussein Obama has another understanding of Memorial Day. Mr. Obama, Commander-in-Chief, doesn’t believe the freedoms that Americans enjoy today are worth fighting (for).  

On Thursday, May 23, 2013, at the National Defense University, Mr. Obama said:

This war (the War on Terrorism), like all wars, must end. That’s what history advises. That’s what our democracy demands.

While that may be Mr. Obama’s reading of history, in the classrooms I attended, he would have failed the course.

A war ends when you either win it or lose it. Not when you pronounce its end. Furthermore, when you withdraw without having vanquished your enemy – be assured you have lost that war, and your enemy lives to fight another day.

Mr. Obama may capitulate to Islamic terrorism, but I don’t believe the American people will. A Commander-in-Chief willing to knuckle under, raise the white flag, or throw in the towel, is “absent without official leave” (AWOL). Such a Commander-in-Chief is not fit for command, and should be relieved. 

And parenthetically, a mass media that will not report the important events of the day, is itself AWOL, and no longer deserves our attention or respect. They are no better than any dictatorial Orwellian lackey, e.g. Pravda. As one astute pundit recently opined, the “pathological stupidity of Western news services,” is reason for profound concern.

Monday is Memorial Day.

If, said Churchill, a mad dog makes a dash for my trousers I shoot him down before he can bite.

Monday is Memorial Day.

It was another wise Englishman who said:

For all we have and are,

For all our children's fate,

Stand up and take the war,

The Hun (Jihadist) is at the gate!

Monday is Memorial Day.

Lawrence S. Schneiderman is an International Consultant and Dr. of Public Policy, Vanderbilt University. The views expressed are the author’s own.

 

Cyprus: Russia’s Bloodless Victory Over Europe

Published by Eurasia Review 25 March 2013

By Lawrence S. Schneiderman

The Western "powers that be," manipulate the financial markets to disguise their failures. They are destroying Western economies, the middle class, and the wealth of nations, to perpetuate a sham. Their political strategies vis-à-vis the Euro and America’s debt crisis are embarrassments to Western thought. 

Cyprus is the canary in the mineshaft. It’s a warning not simply to failed economic and political deliberation and banking mismanagement, but to unbridled conceited vainglory.

The Russian Bear is back – thanks to the moronic, egotistical, self-obsessed, thoughtless, greedy elites in Brussels and Washington. Their latest Cypriot scheme to placate Reich Chancellor Merkel and her reelection is nonsensical and shameful. Cyprus is a drop in the bucket in terms of the Euro Zone’s banking crisis. The size of its illiquidity is not even real money in today’s ecomony. So why create this crisis.

Let me tell you how it is. Frau Merkel is just playing the same game she has since the Euro scam began to unravel. ‘Germany and the German taxpayer will not bailout the irresponsible countries of Southern Europe (to buy German goods) unless they agree to severe measures of austerity and self-deprivation – blah, blah, blah. We must have guarantees! We want it in writing!’

In the end, Frau Merkel agrees to one form of bailout or the other. It's all about the bankers, money managers, and Frau Merkel’s reelection. The rest is window dressing -- pour la galerie.

But this time, the élites may have screwed the pooch.

This will not end well for Europe and America. On June 28, 1914, in Sarajevo, the capital of the Austrian – Hungarian  province of Bosnia, a spark was fired in the proverbial mineshaft that led to the destruction of a large part of Europe. On March 15, 2013, in the day’s last hours, European finance ministers “fired” their conditions for bailing-out Cyprus’s banking system. A levy imposed on all depositors, i.e. savers, rich or poor. As of the moment, the European élites, with open lines to Washington, are meeting in Brussels to fix the damage they have done and avert catastrophe.

But, as my astute seven-year-old grandson once said after giving me a particularly difficult task – good luck with that. And, I say to Europe’s élites, lacta alea est.

What is equally important here, is Russia is immediately jumping on an opportunity, aka the Cyprus banking fiasco. Russia understands, and correctly, Europe’s and America’s failures to deal honestly with their financial crises,  results in an inability to commit resources to its national defense, which in turn weakens the West. Concomitantly, they view Mr. Obama, the guardian of Western civilization, as a weakling. Russia understands that with Mr. Obama, politics trumps everything – including fiscal solvency, national defense, and security.

Indeed, for Russia and China, it’s all too easy. Who needs missiles when you have the European and American political class? 

Author: Lawrence S. Schneiderman is an International Consultant and Dr. of Public Policy, Vanderbilt University. The views expressed are his own.