Quote Originally Posted by Dayuhan View Post
The "right" is an abstraction, and infinitely arguable. The capacity is more important and easier to assess. It's all very well to talk about fixing other governments, pressuring them to govern better, forcing them to "listen to their populace", etc, but this assumes that they have the capacity to do what we want, and that we have the capacity to make them do what we want them to do. If one or both of these capacities is absent, we will not be able to translate that talk into effective action. I suspect that you consistently overestimate both capacities.
Dayuhan, Bob,
With all my respect for both of you, the point is not do the US have the capacity to make them do what we want but rather do the US have the capacity to understand what they want to be done for them.
As in so many partnership like this there is the expressed need: what the demander believe he can reasonably ask for. AND what the demander really wants but believe he cannot ask because he also has an analyse and understanding of what his partner is ready to provide so he adapts his demands (what is called the unexpressed need).
All the difficulty is to accurately identify what is the unexpressed need. A difficult exercise because that need is purposely hidden because it can, sometimes, be in contradiction with the partner (the US) objectives.
And then evaluate how the expressed need will allow the US to reach its objective in responding to it and not aggrave the situation by not responding to the unexpressed need.