Well, it has taken, what … two weeks? Two weeks for Bolton to blow up not only the Iran deal but the nascent detente with North Korea as well. Quite an accomplishment, but then he is the same John Bolton that helped lie us into Iraq and provoke an earlier standoff with Iran and North Korea, back in his Bush 43 days. And while I hate to give the man too much credit for being relevant, Kim Jong Un did call him out by name in that communique, citing Bolton’s comments about disarming North Korea along the same lines as what the U.S. did with Libya. Now, I have to think Bolton knew what effect his words would have. I doubt that he would have believed the North Koreans would think that a positive comparison. (Clearly, they did not).
Bolton appears to have leveraged the fact that our credibility is shot in order to foment this crisis. The world doesn’t need reminding that in Libya, we talked Qaddafi out of his nuclear arsenal, then supported an uprising against him that ended with this murder. They don’t need reminding that both Iraq and Afghanistan, non nuclear states, were both invaded by us and are still under the partial control of our military. So, they know that we are liable to attack if you don’t have nuclear weapons … or if the U.S. manages to talk you into relinquishing your arsenal. What lessons would you draw from this kind of behavior?
Not that Bolton alone has brought us to this point. Trump’s big mouth, apparently, played some role. Kim Jong Un, it appears, watches American television (or has people do that for him) and was able to hear Trump bragging about his initiative regarding Korea, boasting that no other president had done what he had done, soaking in the calls for a Nobel prize. But this Trumpian noise is not rooted in any ideology aside from Trump’s own cult of personality. Bolton, on the other hand, has an ideological foundation, not as a neocon, but more as an old-style imperial interventionist who disdains international institutions as irrelevant and values overwhelming American power over all else. He represents a deeply rooted mindset in our foreign and military policy establishment, and people like Bolton can use Trump to further their ends. They may have to pick their fights a little carefully, but that shouldn’t be a problem for an old hand like Mr. Mustache.
Hey, people – we knew it was going to be bad. And it’s likely to get worse before it gets better. Just push for peace … that’s all we can do.
60 Dead in Gaza. What a disgusting spectacle this week has been – Trump’s spawn celebrating the new American embassy in Jerusalem while IDF snipers pick off protesters at the Gaza border with deadly precision. More on this later. Again … worse before it gets better.
luv u,
jp
It’s been said that the Libya intervention is Iraq done the Obama way. Today kind of underlines that notion a bit. We didn’t get all arrogant about it or act unilaterally. We pushed through a UN resolution – something Bush couldn’t have had and probably wouldn’t have wanted, since his administration was actively trying to sideline the UN. Obama is a true imperial internationalist, and the product of that is the kinds of interventions you see in Kosovo and Libya and the kinds of coups you see in Honduras, as opposed to his predecessor’s far more blustering approach to wars and proxy overthrows. Sure, neither is a fly on Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, or even Reagan when it comes to mass killing. But Obama acts to sustain the empire, not destroy it. Bush apparently couldn’t care less about it.
Clearly no reactor is designed to withstand 9.0 earthquakes and colossal, history-making tsunamis – this one least of all, which at last look appeared from above like an ashtray at the end of an all-night poker game. One can only guess at what the long-term effects of this disaster will be. As one commentator recently put it, we all (those here since 1986, at least) have a piece of Chernobyl in us. Likely we will soon have some Fukushima Daiichi alongside it. (The knowledge that structurally similar plants are operating all over the U.S. is particularly sobering, as well.)
Of course, as we know, elections have consequences. If you give a drunk a gun, don’t be surprised when s/he shoots you in the ass. (Lesson leftover from the Bush administration.) But the warning goes both ways. If you shoot someone in the ass, don’t be surprised if s/he kicks yours a little later on.
I’ve heard many helpful suggestions about what we can do to help the Libyan rebels – everything from cat calls to military invasion. That last one worries me a bit. Frankly, I think the best thing western countries can do is just not buy oil from the regime, freeze assets, etc. We’ve floated him in much the same way that we support and have supported other despots in the region and elsewhere in the world, from Saddam Hussein in the 1980s to Hosni Mubarak three weeks ago. As always, it’s all about the money. What else would put him two seats down from Obama at an international conference? (Expect to see THAT picture during the 2012 campaign.)