*U.S. Foreign Policy Is a Shambles---and will continue to be until they
drop the failed interventionist policy.*
On Tuesday, January 7, 2014 6:56:04 PM UTC-6, MJ wrote:
>
>
> January 7, 2014
>
> *U.S. Foreign Policy Is a Shambles *by Sheldon Richman
>
> With al-Qaeda affiliates wreaking havoc in Iraq, Senators John McCain and
> Lindsey Graham seem to lament that no U.S. troops are on the scene to get
> in on the action.
>
> “The Administration must recognize the failure of its policies in the
> Middle East and change course,” McCain and Graham said.
>
> Change course? Do they want to send troops back to Iraq, so they can do
> more dying and killing?
>
> McCain and Graham, who never saw an opportunity for U.S. military
> intervention they didn’t like, continue to operate under the absurd
> illusion that American politicians and bureaucrats can micromanage
> something as complex as a foreign society. Their hubris knows no bounds,
> but, then, they never pay the price for their foolishness. Who pays? The
> Americans they cheer off to war, but even more so, the people in foreign
> lands who are on the receiving end of American intervention.
>
> How do those scoundrels in Washington sleep?
>
> If you haven’t noticed, American foreign policy is a shambles. Iraq and
> Afghanistan are engulfed in violence, and their corrupt, authoritarian
> governments are objects of suspicion and hatred. The suggestion that U.S.
> forces could make things better only shows how out of touch people in
> Washington can be.
>
> Anyone who was thinking clearly in 2001–2003 knew it would come to this.
> Afghanistan has a history of driving out invaders. Only someone blinded by
> the allure of empire could fool himself into thinking the U.S. government
> could arrange affairs such that they wouldn’t unravel the moment U.S.
> personnel prepared to leave the country.
>
> The 2003 Iraq invasion raised even more questions about the ability of
> policymakers to engage in clear thinking. Under Saddam Hussein, the
> minority Sunni Muslims ruled the Shi’ite majority, many of whom were
> sympathetic to Shi’ite Iran, America’s supposed bête noir. Take out Saddam,
> and Iran’s friends would rule. Indeed, the man who became Iraq’s prime
> minister, Nouri al-Maliki, was handpicked by Iranian authorities.
> (Ironically, the Shi’ite leader that the Bush administration chose to
> fight, Muqtada al-Sadr, was the most nationalist of Iraqi Shi’ites and
> least sympathetic to Iran.)
>
> With Shi’ites in control, Iraqi Sunnis resisted. And then came the
> al-Qaeda fighters, who saw a chance to kill both Shi’ites and Americans.
> Hence the continued violence in Iraq, even though U.S. forces left at the
> end of 2011 -- despite the Obama administration’s best effort to keep some
> there.
>
> Iraq and Afghanistan are not the only places where U.S. foreign policy is
> in disarray. Take Egypt. The Obama administration -- including Secretary of
> State Hillary Clinton -- stuck with hated military dictator and ally Hosni
> Mubarak until the bitter end and even then tried to have his
> second-in-command and torturer in chief, Omar Suleiman, take over when
> Mubarak was finished. That didn’t work, of course, and a fledgling
> democracy (whatever its imperfections) began to sprout wings.
>
> The Obama administration praised Egyptian democratic aspirations, but when
> the military deposed President Muhammad Morsi last year, the administration
> sided with the coup makers although it could not use the word *coup*,
> for that would require stopping the annual $1.5 billion payment to the
> Egyptian military. The U.S. government has no desire to end that
> appropriation, because it keeps Egypt in the American camp and blunts its
> support for the Palestinians, who are under occupation by U.S. partner
> Israel. With Egypt’s military government cracking down on the civil
> liberties of the members of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, U.S. policy looks
> more monstrous every day.
>
> Speaking of Israel, Secretary of State John Kerry seems to be going all
> out for a peace agreement between the government of Benjamin Netanyahu and
> the Palestinians, but Kerry’s effort has a fatal flaw at its core.
> Netanyahu & Co. don’t want the Palestinians to have a viable, autonomous
> state free of Israeli domination. We know this because the prime minister
> keeps announcing plans for more illegal Jewish-only residences on
> Palestinian land acquired through war. Kerry won’t condemn this flagrant
> undermining of “peace” talks because he, like so many American politicians,
> is beholden to Israel’s powerful American lobby.
>
> Then there’s Libya and Syria -- but you get the idea. U.S. foreign
> intervention aggravates conflicts and puts America on the side of
> oppressors. No wonder it’s falling to pieces.
>
> http://fff.org/explore-freedom/article/u-s-foreign-policy-is-a-shambles/
>
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