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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (48594)	10/1/2002 4:53:17 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

Thus, one of the great quandries of American foreign policy in the ME I think it's gone beyond that. It's all about peace. The great quandary of American foreign policy, not only in the Middle East, but most of the world, is how to preserve the Pax Americana. I bet I was the first one to use that expression on this thread, and I may have been the first to argue that the US was an empire. This evolved from a series of exchanges between me and Jay Chen a year ago. Jay was the first person I remember using the expression, but I understood it immediately. I argued that the US should withdraw from the world, and let everybody solve their own problems. Jay argued that it was our duty to preserve world peace, that only we could do it, and it was in the best interests of everybody, including ourselves, if we did. I can't remember whether it was Nadine first, or me first, who argued that Dubya was formulating a new foreign policy that would transcend our former meddling ways where we propped up dictators to maintain stabiltiy, and strive to replace it with one that tried to promote democracy. Whoever thought of it first, Nadine expressed it better. How do you promote peace by waging war? It's back to the old dilemma. If we appease Saddam now to have peace in our time, will we suffer a worst war in the future? I am afraid of Saddam bringing the war here via his terrorists. It doesn't need to be Al Qaeda, there are a lot of non-religious terrorists who have perfectly secular reasons to attack the US. Pollack doesn't seem to fear this but he does fear that Saddam would attempt to monopolize power in the Middle East. Whatever. He's not satisfied with what he's got, and he will use force to get more. More power, more revenge, whatever it is, he's not going to stop unless we stop him. Someone said (who?) we're like Gary Cooper in High Noon. It's our job. It's nobody else's. The policeman of the world. Dang it.