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The Spectacle Blog
At present, our nation’s attention is firmly and fairly squared on the high-wire political brinksmanship taking place on Capitol Hill, as President Obama and congressional leadership attempt to outflank one another in efforts to finesse the debt ceiling before tomorrow’s deadline.
There’s no question that the future of America’s AAA credit rating is the single biggest story in world. Frantic, behind-the-scenes lobbying to get a deal done makes for captivating political theater.
However, what can be lost amidst the hysterical atmospherics currently charged by the debt-ceiling debate and the general economic doldrums facing our country is a critical calculation of world events that can forecast U.S. foreign policy. The end of America’s presence in Iraq, Iranian ascendance in our absence and continuing security investments in Afghanistan and Libya are bound to define our interest in an unsure and unstable Near East.
But even now, as Congress inches towards armistice in the bloody debt battle — from which no winners have emerged — the world beyond the Beltway keeps spinning. Buried in today’s headlines, violence has dramatically escalated as Syrian protestors vow to test the mettle of security forces across the country. After the Arab Spring, questions linger as to “what next?” Meanwhile, in the failed state of Somalia, Islamic militants have massed to launch a widespread offensive against their famine-stricken countrymen, on this first day of Ramadan. Dark clouds continue to hang over Yemen, while Iran shells Kurdish fighters within Iraq’s sovereign borders. Perhaps most alarming, Israeli and Lebanese soldiers exchanged fire across the militarized border that separates the two states. Five years after their last go-round, Israel and Hizbullah are frantically preparing for another war.
It would be a gross understatement to say that it’s a difficult and dangerous world out there. The events we gloss over or misinterpret may come back to haunt us. Ultimately, solid analysis of world affairs must consider relevant institutions, political cultures and public policies as they are reflected through the dynamic prism of a broad base of sources, emanating from different societies. As the colossus of international relations, Francis Fukuyama, famously observed, you cannot understand any given culture — including your own — unless you can grasp what makes it distinct from all others. Ideally (and in particular for readers of the Spectator’s excellent blog) that’s where I come in. It will be my goal to examine events, attitudes and international conditions that may have escaped our attention, and endeavor projection of things to come. As always, when reading the proverbial tea-leaves, I will do so with America’s strength of moral clarity at heart.
It’s good to be on board and I’ll look forward to the discussion to come
View all comments (14) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Reid Smith
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/08/01/by-way-of-brief-introduction
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Clint| 8.1.11 @ 5:35PM
Want Some Gum ?
Tina B| 8.1.11 @ 6:51PM
Every so often, Clint, you are really a funny guy.
C Bowen| 8.1.11 @ 5:59PM
Mr. Smith;
Please let us know if you thought Iraq was a threat to the United States who possessed so called "WMDs". Then let us know if you think Saddam really had WMDs.
From there if we can begin to figure out if you are Ruling Class or not based on whether you are a serious student of threat analysis or not.
Skippy| 8.1.11 @ 7:59PM
I dunno about Mr. Smith, but I thought Iraq was a threat since 1991, and still was in 2003.
Did Saddam have WMD's?
Who cares?
If he did, they likely went to the neighbors for safe keeping.
If he didn't, his bluff cost him his life and his country.
Either way, the biggest, ugliest SOB in the region is dead, his nation a fledgling democracy, and all their neighbors are nervous.
That's exactly what I had in mind in 1991.
Thank you, George W. Bush!
C Bowen| 8.1.11 @ 8:07PM
At least you are honest.
Replacing former Cold War ally, Saddam, was worth multiple trillions in US dollars, but you were in the "who cares if Saddam had WMDs" crowd. I salute honesty even if it makes my stomach turn to read such raw utilitarian insights that makes fun of the people and soldiers who died who believed they were fighting a real threat.
By all accounts, Chalabi was an Iranian agent who fed the Intel services frankly obvious lies that were picked up buy the Ruling Class media stream and promoted by the Bush Administration, in order to topple Saddam and make Iran the top player in the region. Neoconned indeed.
Bob Grant| 8.1.11 @ 9:05PM
Explain why neocons would want an even bigger threat to the region in Iran.
This should be good.
C Bowen| 8.2.11 @ 7:02AM
Thousands of pages have been written on the subject, but at the time, Richard Perle was lobbying for Turkey and there was some thought that perhaps Israel was looking to work with Turkey, Kurdistan and Iran-- Abrams and Ledeen, both indicted and un-indicted co-conspirators in Iran-Contra, were working with various Iranian ex-pats (and still are)--we still see many neocons and Ruling Class Republicans promote the terrorist Marxist organization, MEK and various other potential armies against Iran.
I'd go back to the study of whomever forged the Nigerian Uranium documents (Iranian expat intelligence, friends of Ledeen, look for a meeting in Italy) and attempted to subvert US intelligence gathering.
You must have wondered why that case was allowed to just go cold, haven't you?
Also, read Clean Break, and consider that maybe Chalabi really did pull off a masterful double/triple agent routine.
albert constantine jr| 8.1.11 @ 6:51PM
U of D poli sci, huh? He may have been an ultra liberal in the classic sense, but I did enjoy the late Professor James Soles in his day, and 4 semesters of Constitutional/ Civil Liberties law with Professor Magee did lay a foundation for the appreciation of how case law can be used to support or confound the founders' intent with regard to the Constitution (though I must confess that then Department chair Marian Palley taught one of the most worthless classes I was subjected to-"The Politics of Poverty". Though I had happily voted for Reagan once before that class, if my tent in Korea had a Xerox, I would have mailed to her a copy of my overseas ballot checked for the Gipper in 1984 just to piss her off).
NWBill| 8.1.11 @ 7:05PM
Good to have you here in the Spectator box, Mr. Smith. In a world that's more and more dangerous, but also more and more interconnected, a perspective like yours will be much needed.
We have a President now who has pretty much punted on foreign affairs during his term; what America needs in its' President is someone who can lead and vision both here at home and abroad - without complaining that he doesn't get enough sleep, or that his wife won't let him eat what he wants.
I'm reminded of a line from a movie: "We have serious problems, and we need serious people."
Where are the serious people we need right now, today? Are they in the White House? Congress? Are they special interests? Lobbyists? Bureaucrats? Maybe some of them are. What we need to do as citizens is - figure out what the real problems are, decide who's serious enough to tackle them ... and put them where they need to be in order to do what's needed. And for those who aren't serious, or in the right place - well, we need to do more November 2010 work; we need to get them out, and replace them with serious people. Because, we have serious problems ... and we need serious people.
Hope and change both sounds and feels good - but they don't take up lines in a policy statement, or the rule of law.
phil| 8.1.11 @ 11:52PM
I am thankful for the people who follow these issues and comment about them, the amspec blog is a source of perspective that is indispensable for someone that only has an hour or two a day to understand the meaning of the complex world we live in. Thank you American Spectator.
Tina B| 8.2.11 @ 9:20AM
Thanks, Phil, for so eloquently stating what I've been thinking for the past year and a half.
rendite| 8.2.11 @ 7:54AM
Mr. Smith, welcome.
When you write on these "pages," please cut right to the chase. Use specifics. Talk facts. Please tell it like it is.
What do you know of Turkey and its bordering states?
Turkey's rumblings and distinct, deliberate moves back to radical/fervent Islam are massive steps in the wrong direction.
This bodes ill for Europe, for the region south of Turkey, and for us.
What is going on there? What could US, Israeli, and European diplomacy do to slow or even reverse the negative trend?
Isn't it absurd to call Turkey a friend or ally nation? They never have been. Sure, we were glad to have them as a buffer to the old USSR and happy when they scrapped with the USSR of old and Russia today. But they've never been reliable, have they?
Why all the blindness when people refer to them as a democracy?
Additionally: Help us (help me) with understanding why our nation is now inundated with Chinese from mainland (communist) China. They have literally overrun our schools of higher learning at the grad and PhD levels. They are now employed here in record numbers -- certainly all along the eastern seaboard. And yet they'll be returning to China? Most have no intention (no verbally stated intentions) of wishing to stay here long term and become US citizens? They are obtaining US drivers licenses in record numbers....
In a recent Atlantic coast beach/resort area I visited, Chinese undergraduates had scarfed up all the summer jobs that US teens and college kids ought to have.
Greater Washington D.C. alone has several tens of thousands.
And I'm not sure (I'm rather certain they aren't) they are all here with benevolent purposes in mind.
What gives? How stupid can we be? It is not just the lost academic seats, the lost jobs. It is the stupidity of having one's enemy right here "collecting intel, data, socio-economic info" daily. They are walking, talking, texting, emailing "collectors" right in our midst, and we don't even blink.
Tina B| 8.2.11 @ 9:22AM
And have you tried to buy anything lately that WASN'T made in China? We are swiming as hard as we vcan, right over the waterfall and to our doom.
Smirking Weasel| 8.2.11 @ 11:27AM
'Security investments in Afghanistan and Libya'-
spoken like a true neo-con chickenhawk scum.
Invest your life and assets by renouncing your American citizenship and becoming a citizen of one of those two irrelevant hell holes and personally expending effort on its behalf. Or, stfu.