The foreign policy establishment told us that the Arab Spring was the dawn of a glorious new era of democracy in that part of the world. The establishment was dead wrong.Look, sometimes even the best minds in foreign policy/Middle Eastern studies have no consensus what's going on. Besides, what are you going to do if the Foreign Office no longer understands foreign affairs?
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Quote of the Day: Spengler on Egypt and the Arab Spring
The whole thing is worth a read, but here's the quote of the day:
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The frustrating thing is that Bush's foresight with his Freedom Agenda and Operation Iraqi Freedom had positioned the US deliberately to make a difference in what was the subsequent Arab Spring. But Obama deliberately weakened US regional policy to 'lead from behind' and then incompetently fumbled away our regional foothold in strategically influential Iraq. When Obama's regional policy is criticized, however, his retort sums to 'Well, you don't want another Bush fiasco in Iraq do you?' as though it's axiomatic that Bush's regional policy was fundamentally wrong. MSM pundits mostly agree with that defense. They don't consider the idea that Bush logically applied the necessary means to achieve liberal policy ends, while Obama has kept the liberal (stated) ends but set them up for real-world failure by handicapping the means.
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