Foreign Policy

J.E.B.(!) Bush’s rearticulated Bush Doctrine fail

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So J.E.B.(!) Bush gave a foreign policy speech at the the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library last night and blamed Iraq on President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — because he can’t bring himself to blame his idiot brother “W” for the biggest U.S. foreign policy fuck-up in the past century.

J.E.B.(!) is rearticulating “W’s” Bush Doctrine:

jeb-and-george-bush-11. Preemptive war for political ends is  justified (ignore international law which requires a threat of imminent attack and responding out of self-defense).

2. Imposing democracy through permanent military occupation works (ignore cultural, religious and historical reasons why the Shia-Sunni divide in Muslim countries makes a democratic form of government antithetical to their religious and cultural beliefs, and social structures and norms).

3. When (1) and (2) above prove to be entirely delusional and it all goes to hell, blame everyone else for your failures — especially Democrats (Remember: it’s never your fault!)

I’ll add a codicil to this revised Bush Doctrine: Hope that ill-informed American voters with short memories will not remember what a total fuck-up you were, and put you back into power so that you can do it all again. (This is what J.E.B.(!) is desperately hoping).

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Military Brass in U.S. and Israel who support P5+1 world powers nuclear agreement with Iran

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Iran-nuclear-deal-1024x576I have previously posted about the intelligence agencies officials, ambassadors and nuclear scientists who have all come out in support of the P5+1 world powers nuclear agreement with Iran.  Today the Washington Post reports about the U.S. military brass who support the agreement (and I include the Israeli military brass who support the agreement below). Dozens of retired generals, admirals back Iran nuclear deal:

Three dozen retired generals and admirals released an open letter Tuesday supporting the Iran nuclear deal and urging Congress to do the same.

Calling the agreement “the most effective means currently available to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons,” the letter said that gaining international support for military action against Iran, should that ever become necessary, “would only be possible if we have first given the diplomatic path a chance.”

Read the open letter by retired general and admirals

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J.E.B.(!) Bush and ‘The Surge Fallacy’ of the Bush Doctrine

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J.E.B(!) Bush is going to give a foreign policy speech tonight calling for a return to the “Bush Doctrine.” Jeb Bush wants to bring back the Bush Doctrine:

If you were thinking that Bush might be the grown-up in this field — or offer something much different from the approach that was so disastrous for his brother — well, think again. It’s looking a lot like the return of the Bush Doctrine, just with a different Bush.

jeb-and-george-bush-1Well what would you expect when J.E.B.(!) says his idiot brother George W. Bush is a top foreign policy adviser, and at least 19 of the Neocon war mongers who gave us the unnecessary and illegal war in Iraq are foreign policy advisers to his campaign. Jeb Bush’s foreign policy team is eerily familiar, in one Venn Diagram.

J.E.B.(!) Bush, just like Sen. John “Surge” McCain, will argue the Neocon mythology that the war was “won” by the surge, and that it all went to hell after President Obama withdrew American troops and ended our permanent occupation of Iraq.

This mythology is complete bullshit, as Peter Beinhart explains in a must-read article at The Atlantic. The Surge Fallacy:

Over the past decade, the foreign-policy debate in Washington has turned upside down. As George W. Bush’s administration drew to an end, the brand of ambitious, expensive, Manichaean, militaristic foreign policy commonly dubbed “neoconservative” seemed on the verge of collapse.

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World’s most knowledgeable experts in nuclear weapons and arms control back P5+1 world powers nuclear agreement with Iran

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The New York Times reported over the weekend that 29 U.S. Scientists Praise Iran Nuclear Deal in Letter to Obama:

Iran-nuclear-deal-1024x576Twenty-nine of the nation’s top scientists — including Nobel laureates, veteran makers of nuclear arms and former White House science advisers — wrote to President Obama on Saturday to praise the Iran deal, calling it innovative and stringent.

The letter, from some of the world’s most knowledgeable experts in the fields of nuclear weapons and arms control, arrives as Mr. Obama is lobbying Congress, the American public and the nation’s allies to support the agreement.

The two-page letter may give the White House arguments a boost after the blow Mr. Obama suffered on Thursday when Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, a Democrat and among the most influential Jewish voices in Congress, announced he would oppose the deal, which calls for Iran to curb its nuclear program and allow inspections in return for an end to international oil and financial sanctions.

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President Obama on Iran Deal: ‘The choice we face is ultimately between diplomacy or some form of war’

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Invoking the memory of President John F. Kennedy, who in June of 1963 used his commencement address at American University to call on the Soviet Union to work with the United States to achieve a nuclear test ban treaty, President Kennedy’s “A Strategy of Peace” Speech, President Obama today returned to American University to give a speech in support of the P5+1 world powers nuclear agreement with Iran. Remarks by the President on the Iran Nuclear Deal:

KennedyAUFifty-two years ago, President Kennedy, at the height of the Cold War, addressed this same university on the subject of peace.  The Berlin Wall had just been built.  The Soviet Union had tested the most powerful weapons ever developed.  China was on the verge of acquiring a nuclear bomb.  Less than 20 years after the end of World War II, the prospect of nuclear war was all too real.  With all of the threats that we face today, it’s hard to appreciate how much more dangerous the world was at that time.

In light of these mounting threats, a number of strategists here in the United States argued that we had to take military action against the Soviets, to hasten what they saw as inevitable confrontation.  But the young President offered a different vision.  Strength, in his view, included powerful armed forces and a willingness to stand up for our values around the world.  But he rejected the prevailing attitude among some foreign policy circles that equated security with a perpetual war footing.  Instead, he promised strong, principled American leadership on behalf of what he called a “practical” and “attainable peace” — a peace “based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions — on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements.” 

Such wisdom would help guide our ship of state through some of the most perilous moments in human history.  With Kennedy at the helm, the Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved peacefully.  Under Democratic and Republican Presidents, new agreements were forged — a Non-Proliferation Treaty that prohibited nations from acquiring nuclear weapons, while allowing them to access peaceful nuclear energy; the SALT and START Treaties which bound the United States and Soviet Union to cooperation on arms control.  Not every conflict was averted, but the world avoided nuclear catastrophe, and we created the time and the space to win the Cold War without firing a shot at the Soviets.

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