Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Palin Has Best Foreign Policy Advice of the Week


In a speech Saturday, former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin called for hands off in radical Islamic countries "until we have someone who knows what they're doing".
“For instance, militarily, where is our commander-in-chief? We’re talking now more new interventions? I say until we know what we’re doing, until we have a commander-in-chief who knows what he’s doing, well in these radical Islamic countries that aren’t even respecting basic human rights — where both sides are slaughtering each other as they scream over an arbitrary red line, ‘Allahu Akbar.’ I say until we have someone who knows what they’re doing, I say let Allah sort it out.”
Well, yes, Allah will undoubtedly do a better sorting job in Syria than the Obama administration given how well other Obama Middle East interventions have turned out.

After the "no fly zone" intervention, Libya is still a mess.  And, of course, last year Libya was the site of the first killing of an American ambassador since 1979.

Egypt remains a mess after President Obama's call for Mubarak's departure.  And the Obama administration is supporting the Muslim Brotherhood which is killing indigenous Christian populations who were there before their land was colonized by invading Islamic armies centuries ago.

Then there's the "good" war in Afghanistan.  Even with a surge, the war there has not gone well.  The country is no more stable now than when President Obama decided to give the war there a prominent place in his foreign policy strategy.

In Iraq, the U.S. has neither presence, respect nor much influence despite its long war effort there.
To many Iraqis, the United States’ influence is greatly diminished. “American policy is very weak,” observed Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff to Massoud Barzani, the president of the semiautonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq. “It is not clear to us how they have defined their interests in Iraq,” Mr. Hussein said. “They are picking events and reacting on the basis of events. That is the policy.”
With goose eggs coming up for the Obama administration in Middle East conflicts, Palin's advice seems both balanced and wise. 

H/T Ian Lazaran

6 comments:

OregonGuy said...

The Obama Doctrine:

Meet you on the first tee.
.

T. D. said...

Heh. Which is another indication of why wise action in Syria is a stretch for the current administration.

FYI, I just found a Daily Astorian circulation number at

http://www.mondotimes.com/1/world/us/37/2035/5076

MAX Redline said...

I notice that when his helicopter landed on the golf course at the Ireland resort, the first thing he did after disembarking was take a pretend golf swing.

T. D. said...

You can do that when you're "cool" and the news media fawns. However, the upside is the more time on the links the less time to do more damage in the White House.

OregonGuy said...

You sent me a link. Daily A subs?

Can you forward that to me?

kcys@gowebway.com

Thanks.

OG

T. D. said...

Just sent it, OG. Here's the text:

Daily Astorian


The Daily Astorian is a daily newspaper in Astoria, Oregon, USA covering local news, sports, business, jobs, and community events.

The newspaper is published five days a week, Monday through Friday.

The Astorian was founded on July 1, 1873 as the Tri-Weekly Astorian. The Tri-Weekly Astorian evolved into The Morning Astorian May 1, 1876. It was Astoria's first daily newspaper. Faced with low profits, production was scaled back to weekly status on June 19, 1876. The newspaper would change hands several times until 1930, when it merged with the Astoria Evening Budget, a separate newspaper founded in 1893 by Oscar W. Dunbar and John Gratke. The Daily Astorian has been under the leadership of the Aldrich-Forrester family since the 1930s. In 1968, Michael Forrester became editor; three years later he was named editor-publisher. In 1973, when the Astorian-Budget Publishing Company merged with the East Oregonian Publishing Company, Michael Forrester became editor of the East Oregonian in Pendleton and his father, J.W. Forrester, who had been at Pendleton, was appointed editor of The Daily Astorian. In 1988, J.W. Forrester retired and his son, Steve Forrester, assumed the post.

Circulation: 7,166 copies

This newspaper is owned by East Oregonian Publishing Co..