“Having misunderstood the Iraq War, U.S. Republicans are taking a dangerously hawkish turn on foreign policy.”
In The Atlantic Peter Beinart debunks the surge myth and its contribution to one of the long-standing problems with our foreign policy: “The problem with the legend of the surge is that it reproduces the very hubris that led America into Iraq in the first place.”
Read the entire article here: Republicans Don’t Understand the Lessons of the Iraq War – The Atlantic 
“Conservative hostility to this agreement is nothing new. G.O.P. hardliners denounced Nixon and Reagan’s diplomatic achievements too.”
In trying to understand the Republican rage against the Iran Deal I found this article very helpful. I don’t agree with it, but knowing this history helps to make sense of their hostility to all diplomacy. But I think this is only part of the story. Their hostility is so extreme I think there is something else going on to intensify their ideological stance: an irrational opposition to anything Obama does.
Source: Why Republicans Reject the Iran Deal — and All Diplomacy – The New York Times
“The “pacification” that counterinsurgency advocates claim is precisely what did not happen; rather anger intensified and desire for revenge grew. Such activities are not only self-defeating but also are self-propagating: strikes breed revenge which justify further strikes. War becomes unending.”
“As I pointed out in the previous essay, Americans have carried out hundreds of military actions in other countries over the course of our history and in just the last 25 years have engaged in an average of six a year.[15] To Americans, such statistics mean something different from what they mean to others. Leave aside such issues as legality, nationalism and purpose and consider only war itself. The last time Americans personally suffered its reality – the destruction, the hunger, the draining fear – was the Civil War in the 1860s. So when we read that we were complicit in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan in the deaths of hundreds of thousands, uncounted injured and the “stunting” of a whole generation of children, they are just statistics. We cannot emotionally relate to them. Many other peoples, of course, do relate to them. For some, the memories are fresh, intimate and painful.”
“Since they assumed and hoped that we would live in a republic where the opinion of citizens has some ability to control government decision making,[92] they believed, that to have a chance to combine liberty and responsibility, citizens needed to be educated. Enhancing the intellectual quality of our citizenry thus became essential in securing of “\’The Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.’”
History News Network | Toward a National Strategy to Cope With a New World: Part 2.
Yesterday was the first day of classes at ASU and I spent most of that day trying to explain to my students why studying history is important. Most of them are freshmen and are taking the course as a requirement, so I’m not sure how successful I was. But I’ll keep trying.
I know what you’re thinking. What does this have to do with “Drift and Disorder in World Affairs”?
Polk identifies other important factors that contribute to the drift and disorder of the world, but I find this one particularly compelling. We cannot change what kind of leaders we get if we don’t first change ourselves. We all need to take our responsibilities as citizens of the U.S. and the world more seriously.
Please read Polk’s thought-provoking piece: History News Network | Coping with the Sense of Drift and Disorder in World Affairs, Part 1.
Walter G. Moss proposes that “[a]ny effective U.S. foreign policy must not just vilify leaders, whether Saddam Hussein or Putin, but recognize and try to understand why so many foreign citizens think differently than we do.” I half agree with him. We too often fail to take into account the views of other peoples in formulating our foreign policy. If our foreign policy is to be effective we must understand how others view the world and their place in it. However, I disagree with Moss’s contention that we should not “demonize” the leaders that they admire. Well, maybe we shouldn’t demonize them, but we should call them out for their outrageous behavior.
I would still recommend reading Moss’s article. He makes some good points concerning the history of our foreign policy. History News Network | We Need to Come to Terms with the Russian People’s Support Today of both Stalin and Putin.
Our political discourse is dominated by hyperbolic discourse that simplifies the world in an emotionally appealing way. Therein lies its power. It is emotionally gratifying and makes us feel like we’re in the know when we’re not. We would like the world to be black and white, but it isn’t. Unfortunately, theses false and/or deceptive narratives harden into “facts” as they are perpetuated via the media, the blogosphere, and social media. This rhetoric has poisoned our political discourse and has hampered our efforts to deal with our problems.
Some of the most despicable rhetoric has been reserved for President Obama. Once the rhetoric has established the general feeling that Obama is “incompetent” and “weak” (or “tyrannical” depending on the context) all further charges against him then “ring true” (no fact checking needed!). One of the recent charges against Obama accuses him of “cutting and running” from Iraq, leading directly to the creation of ISIS. With extensive knowledge of the situation, Brian Glyn Williams takes on this claim and concludes that “Maliki’s anti-Sunni policies directly led to the rise of ISIS. He, along with Paul Bremer, is the man most responsible for creating ISIS.” But he doesn’t let Obama off the hook completely.
Here’s an excerpt from the essay: “The Iraqi military, which consisted of 385,000 men in the army and 285,000 in the Ministry of Defense, was a much respected institution in Iraq and its disbandment shocked Iraqi society. The tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers who had taken their weapons home instead of fighting the American invasion felt betrayed when they were fired. This created a recruitment pool of armed, organized and disaffected soldiers. In one fell swoop these Iraqi soldiers lost their careers, their paychecks, their pensions and their source of pride. General Daniel Bolger would claim that de-Baathification ‘guaranteed Sunni outrage.’[6]”
Read Williams’ entire argument here:
History News Network | Did the Bush Invasion of Iraq “Create” ISIS?
This is interesting!
Kissinger memo 1972
History News Network | The American Military Uncontained.
History Chick in AZ 