In fact, the Middle East is a volatile brew of Shiites and Sunnis; Arabs and Persians and Turks and Kurds; oil-rich sheikdoms, dirt-poor Bedouins, and a rising urban middle-class. An informed foreign policy is needed, one that takes into account these differences and exploits them, encouraging the growth of moderates and isolating the extremists. Unfortunately, neither President Bush's simplistic approach nor Tom Pauken's, holds much promise of success.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Priest beheaded in Iraq
In a comment to a news story reporting yet another religion-motivated killing in Iraq, the Dallas Blog's Tom Pauken rightly says that we have to avoid pursuing a policy which has the effect of radicalizing more Muslims and making the situation worse. Mr Pauken rightly recognizes the failure of President Bush's foreign policy. President Bush has simplified the war as a war against evildoers, lumping together as diverse enemies as Saddam Hussein, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong-Il and driving everyone in the world who isn't 100% behind America into their camp. Unfortunately, Mr Pauken himself has simplified the war as a religious war, Christianity against Islam with Western secularists aiding and abetting the enemy. Both President Bush's policy and Mr Pauken's result in radicalizing more Muslims and making the situation worse.
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2 comments:
You correctly point out that Tom Pauken dangerously reduces fighting terrorists to a religous war. But, Pauken's analysis is irrelevant.
The real problem is that Pauken actively supports and votes for Bush, Republican Senators, and a Republican Representative who are responsible for the debacle in Iraq.
Until Pauken is willing to hold Bush and his buddies accountable with his vote, his money, and his electoral advocacy, Pauken's objections to Bush policy are meaningless.
Mr Pauken is not the problem in Iraq. At root, neither is George W Bush, for that matter, although his policies have exacerbated the violence that has plagued that region for centuries.
Who one votes for and who one endorses is a complex calculation involving dozens of variables: Iraq, terrorism, religion, the economy, the environment, civil rights, etc. That Mr Pauken chooses to remain a Republican while he opposes the current Republican administration's foreign policy in Iraq is neither meaningless nor dishonorable. "Love it or leave it" is as unproductive a strategy regarding party politics as it is regarding national patriotism.
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