The Israeli Option in Strategy

[slapout9]

I am British and not a fan of US foreign policy. I would fall into the group that believes the some within the administration are labouring under the impression that much of the anti-American feeling globally is just because ‘they’ don’t get what we are trying to do for them. I think we get it, we just don’t want it.

Tony Blair’s willingness to bend over backwards (or was that forwards?) to align the UK with US policy on a number of issues killed him with the electorate.

What is it that is so unpopular? The US is just trying to make the world safe for democracy and freedom, who could object to that. May be, but that is not what it looks like to the rest of us. A military that is so far in excess of anything any other country would view as necessary to protect itself would be a matter of concern in any age. Changes – mainly post 9/11 – have led more people in countries that would traditionally be neutral or friendly to question the basis for this closeness. The British particularly have had a traditional view that ‘Americans are just like us but with a few bad habits, they ice their beer and put it in whisky’ while the continentals have been the badies in our history books for generations and ‘don’t even speak English’. On closer examination the US is a radically different society; neither its flavour of democracy nor the platforms of either of its main political parties would be acceptable anywhere in Europe. The US’s position on a wide range of issues like the pre-emptive use of force, extraordinary renditions, Gitmo and torture have stunned the rest of us and left us with the view it is not safe to be anything other than a US passport holder, even if you never go anywhere near the USA.

Woe betide any state that is not on the US’s Christmas card list. A state like Iraq or Iran can be portrayed as so wicked they must be militarily rescued for democracy while Saudi Arabia can be a close ally and buy all kinds of high tech weaponry. The CIA has been instrumental in implementing – or trying to implement – regime change all over the world for decades but until recently this has not been openly declared policy and seems domestically to be viewed as perfectly acceptable behaviour, but I suspect it would be less acceptable if Iranian agents were trying to facilitate it in the US, certainly Bin Laden’s efforts were not well received.

I like Rawl’s application of the veil of ignorance as test of prima facia fairness and often apply when considering these kinds of questions. Put the boot on the other foot. Fast-forward 50 years China has used its GDP to out strip the US military, as the US did to the USSR. Your American grandchild is walking down the road in Paris, is bundled into a car, whisked off to a little jungle base in Laos for a bit of water-boarding, then to a converted bulk carrier detention centre anchored in international water off China. Several years later, after a lot of enhance interrogation, your grandchild is released. Never charged, tried or convicted. But hey, they were Chinese, what can you do.

Fair or was I a little harsh?

I think there is something to this . When I read that we are the world's only super power so we get to tell everybody what to do that is just a little bit provovative. I guess I missed the World Election that put is in charge.