Better we strive hard to change ourselves, than to demand that everyone else change to suit our out of date expectations.
OK, a few "Hows"
1. Declare and end to the war on terrorism. Running around the world declaring that we are a nation at war makes us sound like Chicken Little.
2. Officially announce that the State Department is once again lead (now that the war is over) for foreign policy and direct two things of them:
a. Change your name from State Department to something along the lines of "Foreign Office", that better recognizes that not every organization we must work with is a "State."
b. Conduct a top down review of all foreign policies and relationships shaped over the course of the Cold War and following period; and assess for relevance. Come back in 8 weeks with initial misison analysis for how to conduct foreign polciy in the current globalized world, highlighting any place where a "Cold Warism" was either retained or rejected and explain why.
(1) Specifically address an alternative position on Taiwan and Iran that are more relevant to the modern security concerns of our nation and that are apt to allow the devopment of healthier relationships with two of the most important nations (China and Iran) in the emerging world order.
(2) Also specficially address any nation considered an "Ally" or receiveing U.S foreign aid that is also listed as a major human rights violater and is possessed of a populace that is a major provider of AQ foreign fighters / terrorists. Include a plan that cuts aid to each of those countries by 50% per year until such time as they open negotiations with their own populaces to identify and address concerns; as well as to create mechanisms, logical and acceptable to them, to provide a reasonable and certain procedure for the populace to affect changes of governance short of insurgency.
3. I would immediately put all surge of forces to Afghanistan on hold and publically congratulate Mr. Karzai on his announcements about holding a Loya Jirga to address the legitimacy issues that his govenrment has; and then privately tell him we are packing up and gone by the end of the year unless he has a true, wide open, Loya Jirga with all Afghan stake holders appropriately represented. Then publicly offer our assurances of safetey of those who attend, and commit to working with whatever government emerges from this uniquely Afghan vehichle of government legitmacy.
Oh, and as to this:
"A lot of those 'populaces' you frequently are in fact merely segments of a populace with axes to grind and / or agendas that point in other directions. A few of those axes are reflexively anti-American (British) simply because we're big, arrogant and clumsy. All those failings are due to our governmental system and real change means changing that system. "
That could be a direct lift from the transcripts of British Parliment back in 1775...I suspect that is where you either first heard or used the line!
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks