Global Paradigms

And it's not the moustache.... Very interesting "realist" critique by diplomatic historian Walter LaFeber (thanks to C.F.) of The Flawed Rice Doctrine of ‘Transformational Diplomacy’ and American Global Policy . Here are some highlights: In her January 18, 2006 speech at Georgetown University, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attracted attention by arguing that U.S. foreign policy would henceforth be shaped by a “transformational diplomacy . . . rooted in partnership, not paternalism.” Her address was taken by some observers to mean that the neoconservative policy assumptions which have condemned the United States to the tragedy in Iraq and elsewhere were being replaced by a realist perspective taking American policy back to the more constructive days of the partnerships George Marshall and Dean Acheson (whom she singled out for praise in her question-and-answer session), formed with Western Europe and Japan. These partnerships aimed to institutionalize both the rebuil...

Matt Barganier desconstructs Andrew Sullivan's mea sorta culpa on Iraq in Time magazine (Sullivan seen above in a thoughtful pose on Bill Maher's "Real Time"). There have been many of those in recent weeks (including by WFB and Fukuyama ). In an commentary published last year, Oops! I helped start a War which was about one of the earlier apologizing-war-aplogists, I pointed out to the contrast between the way the losers who operate in the market (including financial analysts) are punished and the reality in which the losers in the political game (including foreign policy analysts) rarely get punished: Imagine: for a few years you were investing the money you had saved for your daughter's college education in one of those moderately conservative plans that provided some increase in the value of the investment without exposing it to major risks. But then your financial planner – let's call him Ken P. – got in touch with you and came up with a really great ide...

Thanks to Matt Barganier for emailing to me more interesting stuff about BHL , the West's best dressed Public Intellectual. Doug Irleand quotes in the article two French journalists who describe BHL the following: A philosopher who’s never taught the subject in any university, a journalist who creates a cocktail mingling the true, the possible, and the totally false, a patch-work filmmaker, a writer without a real literary oeuvre, he is the icon of a media-driven society in which simple appearance weighs more than the substance of things. BHL is thus first and foremost a great communicator, the PR man of the only product he really knows how to sell: himself. According to Ireland: BHL changes his political allegiances like one of his shirts. A courtier of Francois Mitterrand, BHL supported his presidency by helping create SOS Racism, ostensibly a civil rights group for young Franco-Arabs and blacks. Une Imposture Francaise, however, reveals that the group was only a media-driven vot...

Appearing on a Pledge Week special on PBS (1965) Apearing on a Pledge Week Special on PBS (1975) Appearing on a Pledge Week special on PBS (1980) Appearing on a Pledge Week special on PBS(1995) Apearing on a Pledge Week Special on PBS (2015)

Martha Kessler, a retired CIA analyst published a review of my book in the new issue of Middle East Policy Journal. Sorry, no url available; so I justed pasted it here. MIDDLE EAST POLICY, VOL. XIII, NO. 1, SPRING 2006 © 2006, The Authors Journal Compilation © 2006, Middle East Policy Council BOOK REVIEWS Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East, by Leon Hadar. New York:Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. 180 pages. $24.95, hardcover. Martha Kessler, analyst, Central Intelligence Agency (ret.) Leon Hadar’s stated purpose for this book is to stimulate a long-overdue debate in this country over U.S. policy in the Middle East. He does not spend too much time second guessing past decisions with “what if” analysis, but when he does, his command of the history of U.S. engagement in the Middle East is impressive and used adroitly throughout his criticism. What he does throughout the book is to deconstruct the underlying assumptions and inaccurate understandings upon which U.S. policies have been ba...

Best Picture Should Win: Crash. Will Win: Crash. WON! (It's a movie that I didn't expect: original and provocative treament of race-relations; great acting and directing). Best Actor Should Win: Joaquin Phoenix (Walk the Line). Will Win: Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote). WON (I must admit that the subject didn't interest me and I'm not a fan of the music, but I thought that Phoenix did an excellent job). Best Actress Should Win: Judi Dench (Mrs. Henderson Presents). Will Win: Felicity Huffman (Transamerica). (Judi Dench is one of the best living movie actresses, and I just think that the lady deserves it; although Reese Whiterspoon WON in Walk the Line is also fantastic; and I really hated Transamerica. I mean, just compare it to Mrs. Henderson. What's happening to Western civilization?) Best Supporting Actor Should win: Matt Dillon. Will win: Matt Dillon. (Matt Dillon in the role of the LA policeman make you feel that you are dealing with a real and complex human ...

At your service are the experienced teams of... Clinton&Clinton.... and Dole&Dole We all are aware that businesses operate today in a very complex and unstable global economic environment where the process of globalization collide quite frequnetly with the forces of nationalism. American political and business elites are celebrating the opening of markets and the free flow of capital worldwide but out there in the dark corners of the American Heartland where people just don't get it, they still seem to reside in a pre-globalization era where -- can you imagine that? -- a sense of national identity and security overrides commitments to the principles the free market. So say you head an Arab company that would like to take over several U.S. container terminals. Well... you've got a problem in the form of populist anger in Middle America where folks assume that if would be easier for terrorists to iniltrate Arab-controlled ports. And they could start putting pressure on th...

It's 2040 and we are in Seattle, the capital of the Islamic Republic and the second half of the Super Bowl is beginning in Khomeini Stadium. The Warlords are playing against the Bedouins, the cheerleaders are men, and the Super Bowl blimp is drifting above the stadium. Emblazoned on the airship is the flag of the Islamic States of America, identical of the banner of the old regime, except for the gold crescent replacing the stars. If you step outside the stadium you can see the Space Needle lying crumpled, a result of a terrorist attack by agents of the Bible Belt states in the South which has become a Christian refuge, while the Grand Caliph Mosque stands beside the new Capitol. Alcohol has been outlawed although you can still enjoy Jihad Cola. Veiled women hurry through the streets, where Black Robes religious laws enforce religious laws while little girls play with Barbie's with a burka. New York, Washington, DC, and Mecca have been destroyed by nuclear terrorist acts that w...

WFB and unhappy friends The founder of the National Review and author of horrible fiction has concluded that One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed He discusses the Bush Administration's "postulates" in Iraq, "postualte" being according to the dictionary, "something assumed without proof as being self-evident or generally accepted, especially when used as a basis for an argument." A problem for American policymakers — for President Bush, ultimately — is to cope with the postulates and decide how to proceed. One of these postulates, from the beginning, was that the Iraqi people, whatever their tribal differences, would suspend internal divisions in order to get on with life in a political structure that guaranteed them religious freedom. The accompanying postulate was that the invading American army would succeed in training Iraqi soldiers and policymkers to cope with insurgents bent on violence. This last did not happen. An...

Guardian All at sea in the Middle East's perfect storm Simon Tisdall Friday February 24, 2006 Business Times - 16 Feb 2006 A perfect geo-political storm taking shape The ingredients are Iraq, Iran, Hamas and cartoons deemed blasphemous by Muslims By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT From Peter Galbraith, "The Mess" The New York Review of Books, March 9, 2006 Today, Moqtada al-Sadr controls one of the largest factions within the victorious United Iraq Alliance (UIA), the coalition of Shiite religious parties that won the December 2005 national elections. Nor is he the only member of the Alliance likely to side with Iran if war comes. SCIRI—the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq—is Iraq's largest political party. It was founded in Tehran in 1982, and its name gives an accurate idea of its politics. The Iranians also created, trained, and apparently still fund SCIRI's military wing, the Badr Corps, which has over 12,000 troops. Iraq's interior ...

It's great to find that David Brooks ("Kicking Arabs in their Teeth)" and Justin Raimondo ("Hating Arabs") are almost in total agreement when it comes to the Dubai/Ports controversy. Is "Dubai a hotbed of radical Islamist agitation?" asks Raimondo, who notes that "Dubai is the one city in the Middle East that is the most like America in that it is a symbol – the symbol – of the Arab world's entry into modernity." "Nor is Dubai a bastion of Taliban radicalism," stresses Broooks, who describes it as "modernizing, globalizing place." Wow... Is this a sign of major realignment of American politics? Just kidding... But while I mostly agree with the main point that the two are making on the issue, that the Dubai ports deal does not pose a direct threat to U.S. national security, I'm also intrigued by the somewhat hysterical reactions to the deal on Capitol Hill and the related Dubai-bashing. The conventional wisdom is...

Coalition: Vast Majority Of Iraqis Still Alive (from The Onion) This "news story" was published in The Onion pn June 23, 2005. But the way things are going in Iraq it sounds more and more like real news. Sad. But true. Coalition: Vast Majority Of Iraqis Still Alive June 23, 2004 | Issue 40•25 BAGHDAD—As the Coalition Provisional Authority prepares to hand power over to an Iraqi-led interim government on June 30, CPA administrator L. Paul Bremer publicly touted the success of Operation Iraqi Freedom. "As the Coalition's rule draws to a close, the numbers show that we have an awful lot to be proud of," Bremer said Tuesday. "As anyone who's taken a minute and actually looked at the figures can tell you, the vast majority of Iraqis are still alive—as many as 99 percent. While 10,000 or so Iraqi civilians have been killed, pretty much everyone is not dead." According to U.S. Department of Defense statistics, of the approximately 24 million Iraqis who ...

Steve Sailer, who is one of the most original conservative thinkers and is also a film critic (I love his reviews) and a contributor (together with your humble servant)to the American Conservative , has a interesting post on "something nonboring about Francis Fukuyama" on his blog: I'm not saying that Fukuyama is always wrong. What I am saying is that Fukuyama's first idea about anything is always wrong, but, unlike his pals, he often comes up with a better answer 5 or 10 or 15 years later. Granted, that isn't a particularly scintillating track record, but compared to the true believer neocons who never learn from anything, he's Edmund Burke predicting the whole course of the French Revolution in 1790. Sailer is also intrigued by the fact that Fukuyama is the "only minority intellectual in America who does not write heavily about race" and even "goes out of his way to ignore race even when it's obviously relevant." Hence in his book ...

Read my article Democracy and its Discontents in the new issue of the American Conservative. Here are a few paragrpahs: Democracy & Its Discontents Voting doesn’t produce peace—much less desirable outcomes—in societies that lack the foundations of a liberal order. by Leon Hadar As the Nazis were about to capture power in the aftermath of the last democratic parliamentary elections in Germany in March 1933, there was no indication that the German Communist Party was mounting any concerted response, reflecting the belief among its leaders that the new Nazi-dominated government was the “dying gasp of moribund capitalism” and that Hitler’s government would create the conditions for a “revolutionary upturn” and accelerate the momentum toward a proletarian revolution. The expectation that the Nazis would help ignite a Communist revolution made sense at that time, if one was a Marxist believing in a doctrine that assumed that realities were predetermined by political and economic forces—...

On Stop The Spirit Of Zossen there is a entertaining post on the two leading characters in the drama that has caught our imagination, starring that unforegettable love triangle, Bill Kristol ("The Party's Over"), Francis Fukuyama ("The Man who Got Away") and Christopher Hitchens ("Just in Time"). You'll cry and you'll laugh as the three pundits interface in power lunches, green rooms (which aren't as dangerous as that Green Zone in Baghdad), AEI, CFR, and NED. The most Hegelian moment: When Frank confronts Kristol Jr.: "I won't invade Iran, you BilLenin)" and Hitch explodes: "You're an Islamofascist, Frank!" Dr. Strauss on Frank: Fukuyama seeks to be the Bukharin of the Neocons — the moderate one, believing that time will make inevitable the process of unfolding Freedom via materliasm. Modernity is what everyone wants, and democracy is its offshoot. He claims his moderation is different from the militarist revol...

Francis Fukuyama: When we was necons Arthur Koestler: When we was commies Robert Kagan the Leninist Lazar Kaganovich the Stalinist By now you all know that Francis ("The End of History") Fukuyama has filed for divroce from the Kristol/Podhoretz clans. In quite a number of speeches, articles (for example) and newsbites he has made it clear to all the interested parties (including potential employers like Presidents Hillary Clinton and John McCain) that he ain't a neocon, well, not a neocon like Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan, and that he now considers himself now to be what? A "reformed neocon?" A "neo-neocon?" A "neocon-Lite?" In his latest "I'm-not-a-neocon" manifesto in the New York Times, "After Neoconservatism" FF describes himself as a proponent of "realistic Wilsonianism." And in the essay (thankfully not as long as "The End of History) he does quite a lot of brilliant dialectial thinking in expla...

Apropos my previous post ("War of the Worlds") you may have noticed that the German map that is based on Samuel Huntington's forecast about the coming Clash of Civilizations placed America's close ally in the Middle East (and a military partner of Israel), Turkey, in the future Islamic Alliance (painted in purple) that will be opposed to the U.S.-led Western Bloc (in blue). And that is probably a safe prediction based on the way the Turkish Zeitgeist looks and sounds these days -- very anti-American, very anti-Western and a bit anti-Jewish (you notice that I avoid using the term "anti-Semitic" here). Indeed, according to the New York Times the most popular movie in Turkey today is a local production "Valley of the Wolf: Iraq" that seemed to have been directed by Osama Bin Ladin. According to the Times: The crowd cheered, clapped and whistled as the Turkish agent plunged the knife into the chest of the enemy commander. "Valley of the Wolves — ...