United States - Pakistan Relations: The Pretense of Ignorance

After reading a considerable amount on the subject, I can barely muster the outrage that the public face of both governments are showing.  


Is the United States saying that it didn't know?  After the numerous visits by politicians and military leaders to urge Pakistan to do more and the well known history of that government with extremists, it is difficult to believe that the US did not have some idea that the Pakistanis, or some elements within, were double dealing.  


At this moment, the US government is sounding considerably like the wronged mistress who complains loudly that "he said he was going to leave his wife and marry me." Ridiculous and, if true, unbelievably naive.  


I don't buy it.  The US knew that something was up or would not have been playing the same game.  


Obviously, the public outrage is for cover.  For Pakistan, for the US government to it's constituents who, if they are to believe the government, would be equally naive.  We have not traded billions of dollars to get one terrorist, nor to buy Pakistan's weak assistance.  We have used billions of dollars to get inside the largest state sponsor of terror, make contacts and discover exactly how far within and without the Pakistani government this endeavor goes.  


Who has been supplying the millions of dollars to buy fighters and weapons?  This isn't all drug money or from Saudi Arabia.  Has no one wondered where all of the Russian and Chinese AK-47's and RPGs are coming from?  The explosives to make IEDs?  As much as Pakistan may or may not be officially directing some aspect of the Afghanistan Insurgency/Terrorist network, there is much money and duplicity running around the globe.


Ignorance is bliss, they say, but it is hard to believe this pretense of ignorance.  What is more important is the message that is being sent that, strangely enough sounds like Bush's "you're either with us or against us".  A short term strategy that will shake the pillars of Pakistan, shake some people and information loose, but will not have them collapse.  Instead, the US will get a new bargain for the next billions spent or Pakistan will discover that the US knows just a little bit more about their internal workings.  


If there is one thing that Pakistani politicians and military leaders understand, it is survival.  They have many examples of what happens inside Pakistan to those who can no longer pay the headsman to put off their turn at the block.  


On that, there can be no pretense of ignorance.

Update: Seven al Qaeda have "surrendered" to Saudi authorities after bin Laden's death while others flee to Yemen.  The Saudis say that the men are with their families and their cases are being considered.


Pretense of ignorance.

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President Obama, United States Foreign Policy, Current Events: In Search of Princpled Policy

This article was titled:

How the Arab Spring remade Obama’s foreign policy

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/02/110502fa_fact_lizza#ixzz1KlF3J6U9

It should have been titled "How World Events Make You Spin on Your Head and Do Incomprehensible and Contradictory Things When You Lack Defining Principles".

This spring, Obama officials often expressed impatience with questions about theory or about the elusive quest for an Obama doctrine. One senior Administration official reminded me what the former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan said when asked what was likely to set the course of his government: “Events, dear boy, events.”

Obama has emphasized bureaucratic efficiency over ideology, and approached foreign policy as if it were case law, deciding his response to every threat or crisis on its own merits. “When you start applying blanket policies on the complexities of the current world situation, you’re going to get yourself into trouble,” he said in a recent interview with NBC News.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/02/110502fa_fact_lizza#ixzz1KoOrpZ7A

The appropriate response to that is when you do not have a set of principles to guide your policies, you are going to get yourself into trouble.  Principles do not make "blanket policies".  Principles are the foundation on which good policy is made.  "Events" may require policy reviews, but principles, not ideologies, invariably lead to the right policies. 

Read the entire article.  It is a tour de force of what happens to an administration and, thus, the United States, when policy is based on being determined "to break free of the old ideologies and categories" (ie, hope and change) instead of principles. President Obama, thus, the United States, is being pushed and swayed by the various events, being forced to react to every event instead of doing what he believes he is doing, threading a course for stability and strength.  Those who know history and complimentary foreign policy know that when you are forced to react to every changing event you are the weak link and "you’re going to get yourself into trouble".

Right policies are founded on good principles.  What are the principles that have historically led to "right policy" in the United States?

Read More >>

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Egypt and Democracy: Future Relations with United States

Egypt in the Middle of Arab Cold War:

Domestic and foreign policy are related in another way. As Egypt’s leaders struggle to deliver on economic and political reform, the temptation to grandstand on foreign policy only grows. International relations scholars call this the “diversionary theory of international conflict”—the notion that foreign conflict is initiated to divert attention from mounting problems at home. Young democracies, newly confident and eager to distance themselves from their predecessors, are particularly susceptible.

But as much as Egypt wishes to chart a new course on foreign policy, it is still bound by old constraints. Egypt remains vulnerable during a difficult phase of transition. It can afford to irritate its Western allies—but within limits. The U.S. and the European Union, as Egypt’s most important donors, will play a critical role in supporting the country’s economic and political revitalization. One obvious red line is the peace treaty with Israel. 

How can Egypt be both independent, serve the region and remain an ally with the US?  The writer suggests Qatar as the model:

Somehow, for instance, Qatar has figured out a way to both host the world’s largest pre-positioning U.S. military base and hold joint training exercises with Iranian frontier guards. And somehow, it’s worked—pushing the tiny gas-rich emirate into the ranks of the region’s most influential nations.

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United States Foreign Policy: On Libya, Liberty and the Flight From Leadership

In a response to a post and commentary at Castle Argghhh! on the current efforts in Libya. 

Part of post in question:

It no longer matters how we got here. We intervened, and that changed everything.

By attacking armored columns with the “No Fly Zone” aircraft, we ensured the survival of the poorly-equipped-and-untrained rebellion in Libya against the much-better-armed-and-trained loyalist forces. That’s the world we live in, and those are the conditions we must deal with.

Whether or not the US, and to a lesser extent NATO, could have gotten the same in terms of strategic interests by doing nothing, by buying off or threatening Kaddafi, whether this was of a high enough order of national interest to do when balanced against the risks/means available/stratcomm incoherence is no longer the question. It has become “What do we do with the new conditions?

 To which John only added:

My closing thoughts - I'll reiterate one of my philosophical problems with US military power (stated from the perspective of a practitioner of same) - the danger of making it too easy to kill people, means you are too likely to kill people. If it isn't worth dying for, it isn't worth killing for. The point is not that I object to making war less lethal to the people we put in harm's way, or even more lethal to the target of our war making, it's that making it safer for us to kill has made us more likely to kill. Our doctrinal and policy analysis and frankly, fundamental ethics on the issue aren't anywhere near as advanced and refined as our technical ability.

 My response follows:

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United States Foreign Policy: Increasingly Out of Step

Michael Ledeen points out the ongoing battles for freedom and democracy in various countries in the Middle East:  

You can barely see it in the popular press, but the global insurrection is going great guns, despite the fecklessness of the so-called Western world.  And it’s going great guns in our enemies’ countries, not just in those of our (at least erstwhile) friends.

In Syria, for example, the anti-Assad demonstrations are getting bigger and are explicitly calling for regime change.  In Iran, there are ongoing strikes, violent anti-regime demonstrations in the oil regions in the west, adjoining Iraq (think Basra), and continued sabotage of the country’s gas pipelines.

He goes on to list out the many ways that people inside these countries are resisting.  Then there is this gem:

So what does our government do, when faced with a splendid opportunity to advance the cause of freedom, strike a blow at the world’s leading supporter of terrorism, and perhaps even convince waverers around the world that American support is worth something after all?
We tell the Syrian opposition to take a hike, that’s what.  As Eli Lake tells us,

The Obama administration has turned down a plea from Syria’s democratic opposition to step up diplomatic pressure on President Bashar Assad, who has violently repressed peaceful anti-government protests

Please read that again and notice that the Obama administration turned down a plea for DIPLOMATIC pressure on poor Assad.

There is a serious problem with our foreign policy.  It is completely out of step with current events and, for some reason, refuses to acknowledge that all of the aspirations of the United States for the spread of freedom and democracy are continuing to be met.  There is an ideological war being fought.  Not just outside the borders of the United States or within Islam, but within the State Department and various other departments and institutions responsible for advising and designing US foreign policy.  

Read More >>

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American Foreign Policy: Kaplan Right and Wrong on Morality in Foreign Policy

Robert Kaplan wrote a recent article in the Wall Street Journal that hit some right notes on Foreign Policy, but also broke loose a few stinkers.  The Middle East Crisis Just Begun.


The good:

Our most important national-security resource is the time that our top policy makers can devote to a problem, so it is crucial to avoid distractions. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the fragility of Pakistan, Iran's rush to nuclear power, a possible Israeli military response—these are all major challenges that have not gone away. This is to say nothing of rising Chinese naval power and Beijing's ongoing attempt to Finlandize much of East Asia.

To his he adds:

We should not kid ourselves. In foreign policy, all moral questions are really questions of power.

This is reasonably true.  He goes on to list out or recent interventions in the Balkans, etc and why Libya intervention doesn't hurt the US and giving up leadership in that role leaves us free to concentrate on our other problems.  He does not list out any activities prior to the 90's as if Fukuyama was correct and it was, indeed, the end of history when the USSR fell.  However, it is part of our foreign policy history that, during this time, the US made most of it's decisions on who to support under the aegis of "bad and worse".  Worse, during the Cold War, was always Communism.  Therefore, the US made it it's business to support anyone who was not Communist, despite the fact that many regimes were definitely oppressive and autocratic. 

What the US understood at the time was "help yourself, before you can help others".  The US had to survive as the strongest free nation, however it could, or it would be unable to support or defend any other free nations, much less the United States.  It did support freedom and democracy where it could, but, when it came down to a choice between populations where Soviet influence was strong or attempting to enter and a ruling dictator that could be influenced by the West, the US would choose the dictator. 

The 90's, as Kaplan points out, was about maintaining the "status quo".  That the US does better where the world is stable, even if half of it is controlled by tin pot dictators.  Investment capital, imports and exports flow, keeping the US economy and GDP rising at a steady pace.  This was important, per Kaplan, because the USSR did not represent the last enemy of the United States.  Hence his discourse on Iran, China and the ever growling Bear of Russia. 

However, this is where Kaplan begins to advocate for the "status quo" as the best hope for the United States to remain on top and not dragged down into every event that represents some form of democracy.  He points out that democracy (democrateyya) in Pakistan would be a crazy idea, as if anyone was advocating that the land of the Taliban and their various fellow travelers, replete with nuclear weapons, was a candidate for real freedom and democracy. 

No one has been calling for democracy, inside or out of Pakistan for Pakistan.  Not even the revolutionaries in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia or the burgeoning event in Syria.  Even these democracy minded people don't believe that democracy is what Pakistan would get should military rule disintegrate.  That is a red herring and Mr. Kaplan is wise enough to know that.  Yemen is the great unknown.  The US knows that Saleh was basically a career criminal keeping all the other career criminals and jihadists down on the farm.  That does not mean that there are not some forces inside of Yemen who are not criminals and jihadists. 

There has been a long standing low key civil war with inter-tribal conflict as a highlight.  Democracy, whatever its form, is likely to be short lived.  That is if it can remain a single state at all.  The likelihood of Yemen becoming "Balkanized", breaking up into small states with hostiles in the north and south going into internecine civil war, is all but inevitable.  Interesting that Kaplan suggests that the US "stay the course" and not intervene on anyone's behalf.  As if the US was interested in doing so. 

His point worth repeating here is: 

We should not kid ourselves. In foreign policy, all moral questions are really questions of power.

If Yemen goes awry, it would become a hostile neighbor to the Saudi's south and a point of serious problems for trade routes as well as oil distribution in the region.  The problem here is that the US actually has few options.  It can't really support Saleh in the degree that he would require to stay in power and there are no powerful  alternatives that we would like to see in place such as any liberal force in the body politic. 

This isn't a question of morality v. power or morality v. status quo.  This is an issue of reality that the US is going to have to come to grips with, regardless of the outcome.  The same must be said of Saudi Arabia.  This is an example of Mr. Kaplan's argument, but hardly states the case for an over all US foreign policy.

The problem is Mr. Kaplan's main point.  That the US should, in fact, maintain whatever status quo exists in the Middle East in the face of the Iranian problem and the growing Chinese and Russian problems.   He misses several key factors.

Starting with the revolutions, with or without the US, these initiatives were going forward.  The US did not start them nor have a hand in them directly.  Indirectly, constant interaction with the US and other western nations is bound to have an effect on how people see their own situations and, to paraphrase the president, formulate their own aspirations.  Directly, the deposition of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the struggling, though still existent democracy there, put the idea into the people of the region's minds that dictators were not really the all powerful, indestructible, all controlling entities over any people unless the people allowed them to be.

Not to drift off into any ideological meanderings, but the founders of the United States were correct when they pointed out that government comes from the people, even despotic forms, and that people will suffer them as the only form of government they know so long as those "evils" are sufferable.  It isn't a new strain of thought.  It is that vision writ large when we see any popular revolt, much less ones that are calling for real government by the people in the form of a democracy.

It means that the vaunted "status quo" is only the "status quo" so long as the people in any form of majority go along with it.   That means clearly that the US trying to hold on to the status quo does not make itself stronger, but puts itself in a weak position, unwilling and unable to contend with a rapidly changing world.  An idea that is woefully ironic considering that the idea of a free people with a free market and free ideas are better suited to responding rapidly to any changes within and without. 

Worse, it may be framing the US in the same position we framed the USSR all those decades ago.  A power set on maintaining tyrannies all over the world for the sole benefit of maintaining the United State's position at the top of the world.  A position that would not be so threatened if the United State's internal policies were not possibly more detrimental to the great "engine of democracy" than it's foreign policy.

Second, for some reason, beyond a brief mention of Al Qaida, Mr. Kaplan skips completely over the events of September 11, 2001.  As if to say that event was not a policy changing event or that we should not recognize that it is the Salafist Wahabi teachings of the Saudi Kingdom's pet religious projects internally and abroad that brought about that event.  Nor are we to imagine that as a real threat.  As if to brush off that event and the problem of our on going association with the Saudis as inconsequential to the greater problem's facing the US today.  The worst is that Mr. Kaplan does not even begin to imagine that these terrorist organizations are, in fact, proxies in many degrees of all of those other "larger" threats the US faces.

The rise of this theocratic ideology and it's spread through out the Middle East in conjunction with the Iranian version and the ongoing attempts to take down the control of the Pakistani military government to obtain access to it's arsenal makes it a threat equal to or more imperative than the other three threats.  That means that it is imperative for the United States to have a foreign policy that directly counters that ideology.  It cannot be war alone.  Neither does the support of authoritarian states crush the ideology.  It formed full and well beneath the umbrellas of these regimes, regardless of their attempts to crush it.

The single largest threat that the Salafist Wahabi strain of ideology identified to its existence was the spread of freedom and democracy.  It is the most powerful threat against any oppressive or authoritarian regime.  Every enemy of the United States and free nations around the world identifies it and knows it.  It is difficult to comprehend how Mr. Kaplan fails to do the same.

Third, Mr. Kaplan seems to have donned a pair of blinders to the truth of history.  Democracy and freedom have been on the rise for decades.  The number of states that have risen to throw off dictatorships and tyrannical states to become, in fact, functioning democracies, has increased, not decreased.  It is difficult to accept, under that premise alone, that the US should do anything (or nothing as he would have it) to maintain the status quo.  Particularly as it is the rise of these states that has provided markets for US products and allies along the way.  The challenge here would be for Mr. Kaplan to explain how that has been detrimental to the United States.

Fourth, in that same vein, it was the stated US policy during the Cold War that defense of democracy and freedom abroad meant the extended defensive line for the United States instead of a United States alone and under siege within it's own borders.  When it comes to the issue of Iran, Mr. Kaplan seems to insist that all of these impending democracies, such as Egypt, and any changes in countries bordering Saudi Arabia, makes all of those states weaker against Iranian influence and outright hegemony. 

The problem with that analysis is the assumption that a democratic Egypt, or instance, would not have it's own national interests to protect.  Interests that align more directly with the US and the West in general than with Iran's plan for the Middle East.  It also ignores the possibility of Egypt rising as it's own center of influence on the region, against Iranian attempts at influence.  Even as a democracy. 

No one in Egypt, in act, is calling on the Iranians to help them establish their democracy or invest in their country.  Not the MB, the socialists or the liberals.  They are not calling for the Chinese to come and help them.  Even if, as Mr. Kaplan supposes, these events play into China's hand by the US acting in these events  and giving the Chinese direct access, it is incorrect to believe that supporting freedom and democracy as opposed to maintaining dictatorships and authoritarian regimes makes the US weak. 

The point here is that, if these democracy movements are tethered to the natural inclination of people to be free and have a voice in their government instead of bought and sold dictatorships, it pushes the boundaries of freedom out.  Those types of democracies are by nature western leaning.  By fiat, it reduces the boundaries that the Chinese, Russian's and Iranians can ever hope to become a direct or controlling influence because in real democracies, the people are not interested in living in or supporting the types of authoritarian, theological or oligarchic regimes these nations represent.

Mr. Kaplan's main point, that foreign policy is about power and not morality is only partially true.  When morality supports the position of power, ie the spread of freedom and democracy makes free nations stronger, then it seems entirely immoral and detrimental, even to a utilitarian foreign policy supported by Mr. Kaplan, to accept the stats quo as the United States' best interest in foreign policy.

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United States Foreign Policy: Freedom is the Guarantor of Peace and Prosperity

Matthew Levitt from the Counter Terrorism Blog writes at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy on dealing with the rise of Islamist political parties or governments in post revolutionary Middle East:

As the administration considers the differences between global jihadist terrorist groups and politically inclined Islamist groups, it would do well to reread British prime minister David Cameron's recent speech in Munich. Cameron cautioned that while Islam is not the problem, Islamist extremist ideology is. And as one moves along the spectrum of Islamist ideology, one will encounter both violent and nonviolent extremists. Both, Cameron stressed, are cause for concern.(...)

As Cameron goes on to say, many who enter into the violent extremist groups started out in non-violent extremist groups and eventually traversed the divide to active warfare and terrorism. Levitt goes on:

"If our policy can't distinguish between al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood," stated the same anonymous official cited by the Post, "we won't be able to adapt to this change" presented by the Jasmine revolutions. In fact, to adapt to these changes and be on the right side of history, what the administration really needs to do is consider what the appropriate threshold should be for partnering with the United States and participation in the democratic system.

Levitt goes on to finish by outlining what some of these "threshold" line items might look like including personal rights, women's rights, honoring international borders and treaties, etc. These are admirable goals. It may not be the right way or only way to establish economic or defense ties, but it should always be part of our "conversation" and we should always be on the look out for ways to support groups, organizations or political parties whether materially or morally. We should always be ready to speak to our allies or potential allies on those points and consider to what extent we would be willing to invest in the nation.

In short, the defense and proliferation of political, personal and economic freedom should be one of the main pillars of our foreign policy. Not only because it is "the right side of history" as the spread of freedom and democratic revolutions have continuously gone forward in the last thirty years, but because the proliferation of freedom is the most viable and long term policy for our own defense and economic prosperity as well as meshes with our own ideology and moral position as these first free nation and the leader of free nations.

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Christopher Hitchens: Obama Administration Response "Morally Neutered"

Is Obama Secretly Swiss?

The Obama administration also behaves as if the weight of the United States in world affairs is approximately the same as that of Switzerland. We await developments. We urge caution, even restraint. We hope for the formation of an international consensus. And, just as there is something despicable about the way in which Swiss bankers change horses, so there is something contemptible about the way in which Washington has been affecting—and perhaps helping to bring about—American impotence.

This isn't even within the realm of "speak quietly, but carry a big stick". This is more like "close my eyes and hide in the corner and maybe the big, scary monster won't notice me".

Evidently a little sensitive to the related charges of being a) taken yet again completely by surprise, b) apparently without a policy of its own, and c) morally neuter, the Obama administration contrived to come up with an argument that maximized every form of feebleness

.

The United States, with or without allies, has unchallengeable power in the air and on the adjacent waters. It can produce great air lifts and sea lifts of humanitarian and medical aid, which will soon be needed anyway along the Egyptian and Tunisian borders, and which would purchase undreamed-of goodwill.

I said this same thing over at Blackfive yesterday. If all we support is people's "self-determination" (instead of freedom and democracy), then at least let us support it with whatever we've got. We might not need carriers as we have all sorts of other assets in the area (Incirlik). If we are going to have the "Peace Corps" leading our country, maybe they could at least do some of the things that the Peace Corps does on a regular basis.

As I said there, in agreement with Mr. Hitchens, it's time to hold the hand out.

Update: Don't bomb Egypt (we have no idea who we'd be helping)

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American Foreign Policy and Jacksonian America: Common Sense

The Tea Party and American Foreign Policy

This is actually an excellent read if you can get past the "blah-blah-blah" about the good and bad of "populist" "Jacksonian America's" common sense over the last two centuries, that might have some paranoid delusion about people with credentials (elitists) acting like they know better than the common man. All the while he writes as if he is talking about some "other" or examining a bug under a microscope. I'm sure it's not intended.

In response and agreement with some aspects: Part I Common Sense

If I had been allowed to interject into the (seven page) discourse I might have said something of the nature that people who can write the word "Jacksonianism" (and know what it means), but lack the "common sense" to "come in out of the rain" (or at least put a rain coat on) are more dangerous than a pig farmer with a sixth grade education that knows when the tree branches are blowing around, it's time to climb into the root cellar. There's a little Jacksonian common sense homily for ya'.

On a more serious note (admittedly busting on Msr Mead a little more), the idea that "Jacksonians" are "unsophisticated" in their view of the Revolution, its causes or the effect of populist ideas, is rather unsophisticated. We Jacksonians are "simple folk" so we basically distill things down to their simple concepts. Democracy good, despots bad. "No taxation without representation". That does not mean we aren't familiar with the economic issues, or the reasons the founding fathers contemplated the revolution beyond those two concepts. It just means we don't require a seven page tour de force to get across our ideas, but, if Mr. Mead insists....

One of the things that is troublesome is that Mr. Mead goes on for almost two pages about how Jacksonian "populism" gets as many things wrong as it does right. As if even the most intellectual thinker of each of those periods or the least educated relying on his "common sense" would have or should have come by some great "wisdom" preventing each of these "missteps" (only obviously viewable from an historical perspective), like Zeus being struck on the head with a hammer and having Athena (wisdom) born full grown.

No, Jacksonian America realizes that "common sense" is come by through "lessons learned". Usually through making mistakes and having to correct them, sometimes at a horrendous price. It makes a crooked path, but we at least get there eventually through that great market place of ideas called democracy (representative republic for the sticklers). Unlike various other misbegotten social, economic and political systems that have come and gone or still exist in the muck of their own making.

That, as stated in the Declaration, men are created equal, with a spark of divinity in each, but are not gods nor infallible. We have seen what the so-called "anointed" can do. These are the "lessons learned" at a horrendous price. We understand implicitly that allowing a man to claim to be anointed by some higher power (whether it is the Creator, Karl Marx or the Dean of Harvard) with a divine mission, is a foot on the threshold of despotism and tyranny. Despotism and tyranny that has an ugly way of spreading its bloody hand around.

It is why the existence and pernicious demagoguery of such men as Ahmedinijad, Chavez and Ghadaffi stepping foot on our soil to pound self-righteously on the podium of the United Nations irks us so much. We would prefer to invite them to depart the hard way (boot in ass, out the door and down the steps) as we would any reprehensible, drunken guest who had soiled our grandmother's lace doilies and threw our grandfather's ashes into the trash so he could puke in the urn. However, "common sense" and a good dose of manners these jack legs never learned, or believe is not required by their self-anointed divinity, prevents us from doing so.

At this time.

Instead, we open the door and wave them on their way, but they keep coming back and our patience is growing thin.

That brings us to the point of Mr. Mead's long discourse, written mainly to those politicians and think tankers floating around in the rarefied environs of Washington DC. Pay attention to Jacksonian America when planning foreign policy (if you plan to get elected or re-elected as is the case with the current administration). We aren't going away. We never have and we never will. We only get tired of leading the way once in awhile and allow some isolationist and realpolitik tendencies to take point. That never lasts long.

Largely because some other jack leg always comes long and sticks a finger in our eye. We have a tendency to demand a response. Throwing the glove down when somebody crosses the line. Much like Mr. Jackson when his political opponents moved from attacking him to attacking his wife.

After much historical review (interesting in developing the idea of Jacksonian politics), Mr. Mead finally arrives at his point:

AFTER THE END OF HISTORY

After the Soviet Union disobligingly collapsed in 1991, the United States endeavored to maintain and extend its efforts to build a liberal world order. On the one hand, these projects no longer faced the opposition of a single determined enemy; on the other hand, American leaders had to find domestic support for complex, risky, and expensive foreign initiatives without invoking the Soviet threat.

There is some history of our back and forth in the 90's over military intervention, liberal, Wilsonian agenda, etc, our isolationist leanings coming to the fore, before reality smacks us in the face:

September 11, 2001, changed this. The high level of perceived threat after the attacks put U.S. foreign policy back to the position it had enjoyed in 1947-48: convinced that an external threat was immediate and real, the public was ready to support enormous expenditures of treasure and blood to counter it. Jacksonians cared about foreign policy again, and the George W. Bush administration had an opportunity to repeat the accomplishment of the Truman administration by using public concern about a genuine security threat to energize public support for a far-reaching program of building a liberal world order.

BUT...as many out here in the Jacksonian ether world had wondered for nearly seven years:

Historians will be discussing for years to come why the Bush administration missed this opportunity.

Yes. He failed to mobilize the masses, to organize a clear message, method and institutions that would bring the best of America forward and allow all sectors to participate. He did respond to our Jacksonian demand for immediate response. Mr. Mead suggests that this might have been another failure in good foreign policy making because it did not allow us to work with our "key partners" at home (I assume he means the congressional opposition to whoever is in the presidency, State Dept., CIA, various NGOs and businesses with international connections) and abroad (EU, various crackpot regimes) and go the long, slow road, completely forgetting the entire point of his paper which is that Jacksonian Americans have that "red line" we don't like to have crossed.

Come at us face to face and fist to fist, we want to kick the enemy's behind. Come at us side ways and we want to stomp a new mud hole (sand pit) in your ass. Further, we don't like to stop until we win. That's what irritated Jacksonian America about Vietnam. We weren't in it to win. When Jacksonians realized that, they let the Kumbaya crowd take control and drag us out. Not that we were happy about it, but screw pouring blood and treasure down the rice paddy for a "draw".

Those men and women in uniforms aren't high priced mercenaries from some other country doing our bidding for filthy lucre. They are the sons and daughters of "Jacksonian America" and we will damn your political ass to hell if you sell their lives cheap.

It isn't about the "winning", like the Super Bowl where we all celebrate in the end zone. It is about the most precious treasure we possess: the blood of our sons and daughters. Once that "spark of the divine" is spilled in a conflict, on some foreign soil, the value of that "win" increases exponentially by one hundred for every milliliter. If you are a politician and you do not place the same value on it that we do, well, see above comment about damning your ass to hell.

In any case, by January 2009, the United States was engaged in two wars and a variety of counterterrorism activities around the world but lacked anything like a domestic consensus on even the broadest outlines of foreign policy.

Now comes the next key point:

The Obama administration came into office believing that the Bush administration had been too Jacksonian and that its resulting policy choices were chaotic, incoherent, and self-defeating. Uncritically pro-Israel, unilateralist, indifferent to the requirements of international law, (blah-blah-blah redacted) ...the Bush administration was, the incoming Democrats believed, a textbook case of Jacksonianism run wild. Recognizing the enduring power of Jacksonians in U.S. politics but convinced that their ideas were wrong-headed and outdated, the Obama administration decided that it would make what it believed were the minimum necessary concessions to Jacksonian sentiments while committing itself to a set of policies intended to build a world order on a largely Wilsonian basis. Rather than embracing the "global war on terror" as an overarching strategic umbrella under which it could position a range of aid, trade, and institution-building initiatives, it has repositioned the terrorism threat as one among many threats the United States faces and has separated its world-order-building activities from its vigorous work to combat terrorism.

Sorry I excerpted so much, but it is really an infinitesimal amount considering the paper is seven pages long. What is important here is that Obama was elected because, after the long bloody effort in Iraq that we insisted we "win", after nearly five thousand dead and tens of thousands wounded, the Jacksonian center rightly asked if this was all we had in the repertoire. It isn't, but neither is tying our wagons to hopes and dreams without a good plan to point the engine of Jacksonian America in the right direction. Leadership that came to power through the same sort of populism Mr. Mead goes on and on about (yet, fails to mention in this regard).

The war is no longer called a war. It isn't even on the top three agenda items. It is shoved into the back with nary a mention of its causes or dangers to our national security. Even as tens of thousands of our men and women toil amongst the dirt and rocks, destroying nodes of the "enemy" that are not even referred to as "the enemy". Shedding their blood in a war that the administration is now signaling as "un-winnable" and soon to be abandoned. Here we repeat: precious treasure, sold cheap, damn you to hell.

the development of foreign policy strategies that can satisfy Jacksonian requirements at home while also working effectively in the international arena is likely to be the greatest single challenge facing U.S. administrations for some time to come.

Actually, it isn't that hard. First, we're not that fond of Wilsonian tendencies. There are plenty of Jacksonians out here who passed eighth grade history (that might be eleventh grade in today's educational morass) and know what happened to the League of Nations and why. We are fairly convinced that is the fate of the United Nations (see above re: Ghaddafi, Chavez and Ahmedinijad, add to it giving murderous, scumbags like Ghaddafi the UN Chair on Human Rights who is right now massacring the people of Libya so he can continue his FORTY YEAR RULE!). Jacksonians are content to let the rancid bag of bureaucratic bilge swilling go on as long as it is in a secondary (even tertiary) role. A part of the whole plan, not the primary arena for developing and guiding the foreign policy of the United States. A part of the plan that is expendable if necessary.

Why? Because, as stated twice already, it is half full of despots and half-baked bloody tyrants. The other half seems to be made up of people with "rational actor bias" that some how assumes that somewhere in the insanity of these regimes is a rational person that can be brought to a reasonable agreement of some sort. Over time. Lots of time. Because we all possess that "spark of divinity".

That goes against every ounce of common sense Jacksonian America possesses. Being given a mind to reason with does not a reasonable man make.

You cannot reason a man out of a position he has not been reasoned into. - George Orwell

Second, we need leadership with a clear vision and a set of unswerving principles from which important decisions and policy are made. We are not speaking of faith and the belief of good and evil alone nor rationality for the sake of reasoning that goes on and on without actually making a rational decision. We are speaking of the basic principles on which this nation was founded: freedom.

It is not Communism, Socialism or Islamism that lifts a slave out of the dust and puts him on the path to self-realization and prosperity. It is freedom. It is not some ubiquitous "self-determination". Self-determination without basic principles of equality and freedom for all, the protection of the minority against the majority or any basic concept of human rights leads to those "horrendous costs" Jacksonian America is all too familiar with.

This leader cannot dismiss Jacksonian America nor succumb to it's populist blandishments completely. Instead, he needs a plan to harness the drive, point it in the right direction based on the guiding principle, the must cornerstone of our foreign policy and let off the reins. Lead or get out of the way. Not use it to get to power then dismiss it out of hand. Ratings will plummet uncontrollably.

Find people who will understand these principles and help establish the mechanisms to push them forward and align our institutions to this basic policy from NSA, CIA, State Department and, yes, even the military along with revitalizing some form of "Peace Corps" who can act as informal ambassadors among the many potential GOs and NGOs to foreign nations. A leader who understands that the great engine of democracy, a thriving economy and the businesses that drive it, are not the enemy, but a positive force in the development of liberalizing economies, spreading freedom and securing the long term safety of our nation.

Liberalized economies build wealth and create a growing middle class. A growing middle class that eventually demands it's political voice to be heard, to choose it's government and be represented in the circle of once "anointed" elites. An impetuous to break their chains and gain greatest gift given to man: freedom.

Above all, we need a leading principle, the cornerstone of our Foreign Policy: the Defense of Liberty. Freedom Forward. Call it what you will, but get the principle right.

This is not militant Jacksonian America demanding we march to the sands of Tripoli with pitch forks at the ready or take a jack hammer to the Black Stone in Mecca (though we've thought about it). We do know that war is not the answer to everything. Remember how we feel about our most precious asset, the blood of our sons and daughters. Forty years against the giant and ravenous Bear that has yet to go into everlasting hibernation. We are ready, willing and able to expend great amounts of sweat and energy for a good fight.

There is nothing so stirring as the fight for liberty.

An idea that both we and Mr. Mead can agree on. Why, it is Common Sense.

Summary only...