How Is That Middle East Policy Working Out?
BBC notes Musharraf defends emergency rule by saying “terror,” “disaster,” “enemies,” “suicide” without bringing up the reality that the annoying Supreme Court had read the Pakistani constitution and was about to officially state the obvious: Musharraf’s election win was totally bogus.
Barnett R. Rubin of Informed Comment Global Affairs is in Pakistan and has been blogging about the situation.
Meanwhile, to the West of Pakistan, Warren P. Strobel of McClatchy Newspapers writes an article telling us: Former envoy: U.S. driving Turkey, Iran together
WASHINGTON – The retired general who served as President Bush’s special envoy to deal with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) said the United States has failed to keep its promises to Turkey to confront the Kurdish terrorist group, and Turkey may feel that it has no choice but to attack the PKK’s sanctuary in northern Iraq.
…In his first extended comments since his departure, [Retired Air Force General Joseph] Ralston told McClatchy Newspapers that the United States is unwittingly “driving, strategically, the Turks and the Iranians together” because both nations share concerns about violent Kurdish separatist groups.
“The U.S. government should make good on the commitments they have made to the Turks,” Ralston said.
Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it – everyone is supposed to do what the Hedgemony wants because the Shrubbery is the decider and decides how everyone should act. The Hedgemony is not supposed to do anything, just because they said they would, after all treaties and international agreements are for liberals and wimps.
It’s amazing how these people are accidentally making Iran the most influential and stable nation in region by blundering about and being obnoxious. The influence of Russia is well beyond anything the Soviet Union ever managed.
The isolationist may get their wish of the US no longer part of the UN, but I wonder if they wanted to get thrown out, rather than withdrawing.
2 comments
Some of the latest news coming out of Pakistan indicates that some 1,500 lawyers and others in opposition to Musharraf are being arrested. Looks a lot like a military dictatorship to me and on our nickel no less. You could actually say Bush’s leadership in foreign policy is breathtaking.
You mean as in “why worry about Pakistan, it’s only the home base of Osama, al Qaeda, the Taliban, has nuclear weapons, a fourth of the country is under the control of warlords, it has its own fundamentalists, and its government isn’t legitimate”, so what’s the problem?
If these people knew any less about threat assessment they wouldn’t be able to leave their beds in the morning.