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

To: dumbmoney who wrote (148758)	10/22/2004 8:41:46 PM
From: Michael Watkins	Respond to of 281500

Absolutely - while Reagan always believed in dealing from a position of strength, in later years he became more accommodating, to the objection of the hardline wing. Perhaps he got tired of taking advice from the Central American-obsessed CIA Director Casey, not to mention other hard line hawks Perle, Kirkpatrick, and others. Years later, Gorbachev told Maggie Thatcher that the push for change originated from within the Soviet Union itself: The first impulses for reform were in the Soviet Union itself, in our society which could no longer tolerate the lack of freedom.... In the eyes of the people, especially the educated, the totalitarian system had run its course morally and politically. People were waiting for reform. Russia was pregnant. So the moment was mature to give possibility to the people. And we could only do it from above because initiative from below would have meant an explosion of discontent. This was the decisive factor, not SDI. "Neocon" hardliners also forget to credit men like Václav Havel in Czechoslovakia (excellent beer), and Walensa in Poland: these were men leading endogenous movements and their sense of timing undoubtedly played a huge role in how events transpired. Sure we need the times in context with the external pressures, including those sponsored by the US, but to me it seems only common sense that, and I think this is very important in the current context -- lasting change has to come from the people themselves. It can not be driven from the outside. This is, in my opinion, a big lesson which the current administration has completely failed to appreciate. You can't force feed western democracy on a culture which, left to its own design, would not emulate ours. At least not in this decade. This failure of the administration is not a "stumble", as some fervent Bush admininistration supporters would like to believe -- its an enormous blunder with long-reaching implications. There is no magic fix that "Bush II" can apply like a bandaid in a second term. Its time to hand over the reigns, and the problems, to a different crew and give them the mandate and support to work through the process of first halting more damage, and then on to reversing the colossal mistakes made.