John Bolton, AEI, endorses Mitt Romney in a matter of fact presentation of why the US has stumbled badly with the Obama administration's unusual clumsiness. Speak to John Bolton routinely, and over the last years we have catalogued the arrogance and indifference of POTUS foreign policy, from the Mideast delusions of making peace with the gangsters of Hamas to the passivity in the face of Tehran and Pyongyang aggression. John Bolton is a leading candidate for StateSec in a Romney administration, and his endorsement has much weight in the posh CFR theme park (below). Also, the Bolton measure is a direction for the GOP that will provide a sharp contrast with the Obama administration the next ten months. The just revealed episode of the IRGC harassing the USS New Orleans at the Hormuz Strait (January 6) and the same game against a Coast Guard cutter east of Kuwait City (Jan 6) point to a building Gulf crisis. John Bolton doubts that POTUS Obama has the talent, boldness or desire to solve the rogue threats. Bolton mentions that the Bin Laden op was the result of ten years of search and destroy, and that Obama was at the end of a long chain of decisions. Tehran requires statecraft, not generic electioneering to a timid, downcast citizenry.
Tehran and Pyongyang aggression? Odd, I seem to have missed the news stories about the countries that Iran and North Korea have invaded lately. Perhaps they were crowded out by the ones describing our various military attacks on the Middle East and Central Asia. Stranger things have certainly happened, such as the rise of John Bolton to a position higher than that of assistant manager at a Chuck E. Cheese's.
The just revealed episode of the IRGC harassing the USS New Orleans at the Hormuz Strait (January 6) and the same game against a Coast Guard cutter east of Kuwait City (Jan 6) point to a building Gulf crisis.
Why, from the way that Tehran's acting you'd almost think that that part of the world is called the Persian Gulf!
"The just revealed episode of the IRGC harassing the USS New Orleans at the Hormuz Strait (January 6) and the same game against a Coast Guard cutter east of Kuwait City (Jan 6) point to a building Gulf crisis."
Wasn't a Japanese tanker also attacked by Iran and kept hidden by the MSM?
Well, well. John Bolton has finally chosen a candidate. I would've liked to have seen Mr. Bolton run -- and win, as I believe foreign events will control the future.
I know the argument that people vote their pocket books, but Obama's damage to our military and our standing in the world will far outlast the damage he's done to our economy.
Obama cronies have already changed the subject of the debate away from the economy and to class warfare. Expect to hear from the Lefty MSM a lot about: Employment numbers going up; economic statistics on the rise; Wall Street booming. The Federal gov't will hire; The FOMC will do QE3; Statistical 'facts' will be manipulated; Housing will 'miraculously' recover (with the help of a new Federal program).
JB: "If you don't like the way Iran behaves now ... how do you think they'll behave once they get nuclear weapons?" After three years Obama is still under the delusion he can "chit-chat" Iran out of its nuclear weapons program.
I believe Bolton is brilliant. I'm just having trouble buying into the belief 'Romney can win'. I still think it's just as likely 'Romney can be destroyed' by Obama and his wonderful lying machine.
KS: You go an agitprop bridge too far from history by remarking that Tehran and Pyongyang are non aggressive toward their populations, their neighbors and their regions. Your disdain of John Bolton is useful, traditional, ceremonial jaw-jaw, more a caricature of the Left than a critical analysis of the Neo-Cons. What about the IRGC condemning a US Marine vet to death or threatening to close Hormuz or smuggling thousands of IEDs into Iran and Afghanistan to kill ISAF and US forces is in question? North Korea is a rogue that routinely practices mass murder and uses famine as a weapon of crowd control. North Korea's nukes are off the shelf sold parts to Tehran. And so forth. Interested to hear of your reading of the decades since 1936 to understand your thinking about the US role in stopping mass murder in Europe, Asia, Africa, LAtin America.
Not that anyone asked for my opinion, but I'd have to weigh in somewhere between John Batchelor and KS on this one, probably closer to JB. Iran and North Korea are both quite aggressive. Whether they actually pose a threat to us is debatable, but experts tell us that Iran at least could easily sink one of our warships. Both very aggressive countries, and KS' point about it being called the Persian Gulf actually disproves its own point, I think .... the rulers of Iran are not Persians. The Persians are oppressed by the same rogue regime that now threatens the U.S. Also, what about the takeover of the embassy in 1979? Etc.
Where I would disagree with both JBs is how best the threat should be handled. The U.S. doesn't have any legitimate reason to have warships there in the first place.
In general I like John Bolton. I don't see him as presidential, but I like him as a JB show regular.
Interesting that he is asked how he thinks Romney's foreign policy would compare to that of Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, and Newt Gingrich, but not Ron Paul's, even though the first three put together didn't get as many votes in New Hampshire as Ron Paul did. Bias? I don't know if it's liberal bias, conservative bias, or just ignorance bias, but it's clearly bias.
Don't hand me any crap about Ron Paul not being electible unless you plan to defend Gingrich or the Ricks as being electible by contrast.
"Whether [Iran and North Korea] actually pose a threat to us is debatable ..."
No, it's not. We are under treaty to protect South Korea and Japan -- which is why they don't have nuclear weapons -- yet. North Korea poses a legitimate threat to the South and, therefore to us.
"The U.S. doesn't have any legitimate reason to have warships there in the first place."
Iran poses a threat to the shipping of oil. Therefore it's a real threat to our economy and the world economy. There have been warships in the Persian Gulf since WW2 -- not a good idea to take them out now -- as it would seem we are bowing to pressure.
"... the rulers of Iran are not Persians."
Please explain that one and don't leave out the mullahs.
"Don't hand me any crap about Ron Paul not being electible..."
Paul is no more electable than Ross Perot. All he can do is be a third party spoiler. No one in his or her right mind -- which is why he attracts the young -- would vote for him with his delusional foreign policy. Obama's no-policy foreign policy makes Paul look good.
GREAT PHOTO OF PARK AVENUE
You gotta love Manhattan.
"Obama's no-policy foreign policy makes Paul look good."
Should read: Paul's foreign policy makes Obama's no-policy foreign policy look good.
Anyone who wonders why the U.S. is widely hated throughout the world would find the answer in your post.
Oooh, ooh. Touchy, touchy. I don't think you know why the US is hated around the world anymore than you know anything else.
Again, why are the mullahs not Persian?
No one who thinks seriously about foreign policy will care whether the US is hated or not.
If you can get by with a horse or a bicycle, I guess we could withdraw assets from the Arabian Gulf. Not enough people want to use our own natural resources, so we gotta keep the stuff flowing through there.
I am sure the treehuggers will go nuts when the first oil tanker is sunk by the 'ranians. Big slick.
vsk
If you can get by with a horse or a bicycle, I guess we could withdraw assets from the Arabian Gulf. Not enough people want to use our own natural resources, so we gotta keep the stuff flowing through there.
I am sure the treehuggers will go nuts when the first oil tanker is sunk by the 'ranians. Big slick.
vsk
IMO it's a mistake to speak of Iranian and NKorean aggression as if it's a static state of affairs, because it's not. If every day they seek to take an inch, it doesn't look like much, but come back a year from now and they've take a mile. Put a few more people in the camp every day, pretty soon you've disappeared a million or 2.
In re: the Persian Gulf oil slick, not only will the enviro-nuts lose their minds, they'll blame all us greedy people who drive to work every day for needing the oil. They'll even blame those of us who ride trains into town which use that fantastic go-juice called electricity, which (dirty little secret) is created by burning oil, burning natgas, and splitting the atom (great googly-moogly!).
I imagine I am also to blame when I put too much non-soy-based lubricant on my bike chain so it doesn't seize up, not to mention the headset and hubs. (Been reading too much Bike Snob).
The rubber compunds in the tyres (saw the Iron Lady this weekend) can't come from earth friendly sources either.
Curious to know what and how our fearless Host (if ever he has a free moment) rides . . .
Mountain off road? Hybrid on Croton Trail? Road bike on flats or nasty hills? Raleigh Sports 3 Speed in town complete with hounds tooth jacket?
With European downgrades like these, who needs upgrades (Dow up triple digits) ??
vsk
I imagine I am also to blame when I put too much non-soy-based lubricant on my bike chain so it doesn't seize up, not to mention the headset and hubs. (Been reading too much Bike Snob).
The rubber compunds in the tyres (saw the Iron Lady this weekend) can't come from earth friendly sources either.
Curious to know what and how our fearless Host (if ever he has a free moment) rides . . .
Mountain off road? Hybrid on Croton Trail? Road bike on flats or nasty hills? Raleigh Sports 3 Speed in town complete with hounds tooth jacket?
With European downgrades like these, who needs upgrades (Dow up triple digits) ??
vsk
"I am sure the treehuggers will go nuts when the first oil tanker is sunk by the 'ranians. Big slick."
For them it will be the old definition of ambivalence: watching your mother-in-law drive off a cliff in your new Mercedes. They'll be elated by the loss of the oil; they'll be rabid over the environmental consequences. However, I've noticed they don't get so excited about foreign ecological disasters as they do about domestic ones.
True CD. I think major spills go on in Nigeria all the time.
Maybe it's more lucrative for the population to pursue phone and e-mail scams.
vsk
"I've noticed [environmentalists] don't get so excited about foreign ecological disasters"
I'm afraid many of the Leftys want to destroy the US more than they want to save anything.
Here's why you should care whether the U.S. looks good:
The average voter wants the U.S. to look good. Many people who voted for Obama in 2008 did so in large measure because they thought he would restore us in good standing to places like Europe and to a lesser extent the Middle East. Forget about whether this was a realistic expectation or not. He talked a good game about restoring our long-standing ties and people bought into it. I know the average voter isn't too bright - some of them spend half their lives voting for the wrong party and when they finally do switch, still don't really know what the hell they're talking about, and should get back to reading the Positions Available classifieds - but I digress.
Now, if people realize that all of Obama's mealy-mouthing and kowtowing hasn't helped, they may be more willing to vote for someone who will take a harder foreign policy stance. To paraphrase Edison, Obama has now successfully ruled out mealy-mouth diplomacy as a way to get the U.S. back in good standing as a country the rest of the world looks up to.
If I may say so, Corlyss, this "macho" kind of "Who cares what anyone thinks about us" attitude is protesting too much. I care what the world thinks about us, and I can admit it, precisely because, in some sense, I actually care less about it than you do.
You go an agitprop bridge too far from history by remarking that Tehran and Pyongyang are non aggressive toward their populations
As you will see if you re-read my brief comment, I made no such remark. How governments other than my own treat their people is of little interest to me.
But if I were concerned with such matters, I might reasonably conclude that life expectancy serves as a fairly good indicator of how well a given population is doing. In fact, it only takes a few keystrokes for me to learn that the average life expectancy in our next military target, Iran, is a quite respectable 75.5 years. That indicates that the people there experience a level of nutrition, sanitation, and health care comparable to our own.
Surprisingly, Libya under the late Colonel also did well, coming in at 74.5 years, although something tells me that the average there is about to drop markedly, as it has in post-invasion Iraq, where life expectancy fell from 68 years in 2000 to 66 years in 2009. But I digress.
their neighbors and their regions
You artfully wrote of “aggression,” a term that can be interpreted in many ways, whereas I spoke of invasions.
It hardly comes as a news flash that a great many countries, this one included, employ various methods of aggression, from beaming pornography into enemy areas (I am not making this up) to intimidation to spying to assassination to commando raids to outright invasion, with the latter of course being the most clear-cut and extreme type of aggression.
This brings me around to the question that I posed earlier: How many countries have Tehran and Pyongyang invaded lately? If by “lately” you mean anytime in the last fifty-nine years, then the answer is zero.
Come to think of it, if the Lincoln idolaters among us wish to be consistent, then they must regard North Korea’s 1950 attack upon the South as an internal squabble rather than as a war between separate nations.
Your disdain of John Bolton is useful, traditional, ceremonial jaw-jaw, more a caricature of the Left than a critical analysis of the Neo-Cons.
John Bolton has long advocated that NATO admit Ukraine and Georgia as members. Had he gotten his way, in 2008 we would have found ourselves in a shooting war with nuclear-armed Russia for the sake of an unimportant country ruled by a trigger-happy fool, with potential consequences that run the gamut from international chaos to the cessation of terrestrial photosynthesis. “Disdain” does not even begin to describe my attitude toward Bolton.
What about the IRGC condemning a US Marine vet to death or threatening to close Hormuz or smuggling thousands of IEDs into Iran and Afghanistan to kill ISAF and US forces is in question? North Korea is a rogue that routinely practices mass murder and uses famine as a weapon of crowd control. North Korea's nukes are off the shelf sold parts to Tehran. And so forth.
You mention a US citizen convicted of spying on Iran and I mention the rash of explosions and assassinations there. You point to the weapons given to Iraqi and Afghan guerrillas to use against American soldiers and I point to American-made Stinger missiles given to Afghans so that they could bring down Soviet aircraft, not to mention the poison gas that we supplied to Saddam during the Iran-Iraq War. “And so forth” is right. I know the dialectic, Mr. Batchelor; it is wearisome and unproductive.
Interested to hear of your reading of the decades since 1936 to understand your thinking about the US role in stopping mass murder in Europe, Asia, Africa, LAtin America.
Mr. Batchelor, the most charitable word that comes to mind to describe America’s international record since the Spanish-American War is “mixed.” We are not angels, any more than the Iranians and North Koreans are devils.